Having been through the last revolution first hand, I have to honestly say that with the rather “ho hum” passing of July 9th, I'm kind of not that excited about having another violent revolution in Iran. I am sort of more interested in seeing what would happen if — for a change — we could try a calm, orderly (but firm), mutually accepted, transfer of power from the old (and corrupt) to the young (and idealistic). I think it may be quite possible given Iran's emerging demographic.
But, we've got to do this in our own special Irooni way!
Sure we can resort to standard Western tactics that may have worked for them, like start at the universities and get the students to do our dirty work for us like the Hippie generation in the 60's. Or we can have the trade unions go on strike like in England in the 80's. Or we can even adopt extreme tactics like the Palestinians and Israelis, (Ok, maybe Palestine and Israel are bad examples) to bring about changes in Iran.
But these may have worked for the West (OK, maybe not Palestine and Israel) but these are not our Irooni way of getting the job done.
We have a more effective social weapon that surprisingly has gone largely unused in all of this. That is the super weapon of “Aberoo-Rizi” (tarnishing one's good name). Iranians have a big sensitivity to their Aberoo. Mothers from an early age will instill this in their children and we've all learned early on not to mess with it. Especially at the “Miveh-Foroosh” (fruit-store) or “Baghali” (general store)! Later this gets even more serious during adolescence and teenage years as boys and girls interact and your own Aberoo starts to grow inside you (among other things!). In many like a cancer, in some like The Force (Star Wars). Either way Aberoo is a big deal to us Iranians.
If you think about it, it's Aberoo that made Reza Shah angry at the Ghajar's after our humiliating loss to the Russians. It's Aberoo that made Mossadegh (a Ghajar funny enough) angry at the Pahlavis. It's Aberoo that made the Pahlavis angry at Mossadegh. It's Aberoo that made Khomeini angry at the Pahlavis. It's Aberoo that made the Iranian national team play so well against the US in 1998. Today It's Aberoo that makes Reza Pahlavi want to clear his family name. And it's Aberoo that makes the last remaining Ghajars left in the world call themselves “Prince” and “Princess” FarmanFarmaian etc. in the socialite circuits of London, Paris, New York and Oh! Allright, LA.
The student group led riots expected this July 9th fizzled pitifully, as predicted by the various authorities including the CIA. Clearly things aren't bad enough to cause a violent uprising like the many who live abroad impatiently would want. Plus I don't even know how someone would go about starting a violent revolution these days anyway? I'm sure it's probably really difficult to do. So why bother? I'm guessing it would probably go something like this:
