A journey from east to west Tehran in the morning rush-hour traps you in a long line of cars reduced to a tortuous crawl. Yesterday, a middle-aged beggar woman roamed the traffic trying in vain to sell dish-cloths. We moved for a few seconds but then ground to a halt again, just like Iran’s political paralysis. The driver of our shared taxi, in between grumbling about the traffic, lit up a cigarette and turned on the CD player. The words of the song could hardly have been more appropriate: “Once again I feel crying tonight”.
On the surface, things may look as if they are back to normal after the crushing of the biggest protests since the 1979 Islamic revolution. On the way to my office, I check out the headlines at a newspaper kiosk and yes, it’s business as usual: “The West miscalculated with unrest in Iran.”
Some of us still go up to our roofs and balconies at 10pm every night and for about 10 minutes shout: Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! (“God is great”.) It was the gesture that helped topple the Shah in 1979…
