When I first arrived in Iran in 2003, I met several young men who had been part of the 1999 student movement for reform in Iran. That movement was violently crushed by the government and some of its leaders were killed, others beaten, many arrested, and a few left to rot in prison. “We learned that no one cared about us except our mothers,” one of the young men told me. “None of us will ever get involved in politics again.”

In the week before Iran’s presidential election I spoke with that same man, now in his mid-thirties, working in a good job with a wife and a child. When I called, he was in the middle of Freedom square in Tehran where “millions” had gathered wearing green and in support of the Mousavi campaign. “Tori,” he said, “can you believe what we have done? I am surrounded by millions of people right now. We are changing Iran.” This same man who swore to me that he was finished with politics, was volunteering with Mir-Hossein Mousavi’s campaign. He was doing this not because he was particularly fond of Mousavi, but because he believed, like millions of others in Iran, that his presidency would allow for a bit more personal freedom, would reduce tensions with the West, and would ease economic turmoil.

In the week before the election, the streets of cities all over Iran were filled with people. “It was amazing. You know how Tehran is so divided by class? Well everyone was talking to each other. We were all sharing our stories, our disappointments,” a 29-year old photographer told me.

A 27-year old teacher elaborated, “People were talking to each other about the economy and the bad international situation, not about the candidates themselves. This gave me a good feeling. It was great. People from the south of Tehran came to Vali Asr crossing and expressed their own problems. ‘My family and I don’t have our own apartment or enough space to live in, but our government is giving money for houses in Gaza and Palestine and not to us.’”

“The night of the election was like a carnival,” an Iranian artist told me. “You know in Iran when we vote it is not private. Everybody can see what everybody else is writing. No one tries to hide it. In line we were joking with one another, asking each other who we were voting for? Everyone was voting for Mousavi. I was shocked. I did not expect this. I went to the South of Tehran to vote just to see if they were voting for Mousavi too.”

Skeptical Iran & the Hope for Democracy
During my stay in Tehran from 2003-2007, I met so many people who were simply exhausted by politics and day-to-day life. Jobs were hard to find, prices kept going up, state television presented them with a twisted view of world events while ignoring tensions within Iran. Still, most had found a way to balance the public and private divide and were resigned to taking small steps toward a more democratic future. Many were convinced that focusing on social issues such as education, the welfare of street children, and treatment for drug abuse could eventually lead to a more democratic and just society. Most Iranians were willing to balance the tension between the demands of the Islamic regime and their desire for more private and public freedoms.

“This regime has brought about our enlightenment. We no longer believe that Islam can solve our problems or that there is some magical solution waiting for us. The regime, with all of its corruption and mismanagement, has lifted the veil from our eyes,” a middle-aged businessman told me during a meeting at his office.
Nearly thirty years of revolutionary governance had left most Iranians skeptical and resigned. Everywhere there was a sense of the inevitable fall of the regime, not through action, but through its own excesses and the liberalization of its youth. The announcement of election results in the early morning on June 13th was a step too far for people in Iran. A 52 year-old teacher said, “When they announced that Ahmadinejad was the winner, I couldn’t stand up. My legs were shaking…I just didn’t know what to think.” There was a sense of disbelief and despair. “When we got into cabs, the drivers said, ‘Two days ago everyone was happy, now everyone is crying.’”

On the Monday after the presidential elections, after two days of attacks on students in their dormitories, people all over Iran took to the streets. The mayor of Tehran estimated that there were three million people in Tehran’s streets. That morning, I was chatting with a friend online. “Are your going out?” I typed. “Tori,” my friend typed back, “everyone I know is going out.”

When my friend typed that comment, I did not know that millions would be willing to go out on the streets. After living in Iran for four years, I knew what they risked by doing so. They could be arrested, beaten, risk their careers, or worse. When millions of people took this risk and left the safety of their homes with their children, parents, cousins, wives, aunts, uncles, and neighbors, I knew that something fundamental had changed in Iran.

“You know what amazes me?” a young scientist who was involved in the 1999 student movement commented. “It amazes me how grown up we’ve become. People are not in the streets chanting political slogans. We are chanting rhymes from children’s books. We are not wishing for utopia; we are simply demanding to live like human beings and to get the same opportunities as other people all over the world. We have really grown up.”