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  • The View from Tehran Avenue

    The View from Tehran Avenue

    THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC 25 YEARS ON

    Le Monde diplomatique
    February 2004

    By Wendy Kristianasen

    Iranians might be going to the polls to cast their votes in
    parliamentary elections on February 20. But how many of Tehran's young
    voters will take part? The feeling in the city is one of alienation.
    Disenchantment with the political system is complete.

    Noushin is 22 and a journalist with a cool culture e-magazine, Tehran
    Avenue; she was 16 when Mohammad Khatami became president on 22 May
    1997, swept into office by 20m of the 30m votes cast by an electorate
    of 33m. His dovvom-e khordad reform movement was premised on civil
    society, rule of law and freedom of expression. During his campaign he
    had spoken of the particular need to meet the aspirations of youth and
    women. The reformists' victory was repeated in the municipal and
    parliamentary elections of 1999 and 2000, and in Khatami's re-election
    in June 2001with more than 77% of the votes.

    But for Tehran's youth nothing really changed. Noushin says: "This
    regime has been able to play on people's vulnerabilities like
    religion, fear of God, superstition. In my parents' day some people
    liked the idea of going back to tradition, but most felt they'd got
    more than they'd bargained for. Growing up, we saw our parents'
    reactions to all this and became even more confused than they were
    about what's right and wrong. People began to reject politics as a big
    lie.

    "And what was new in 1997 got boring because nothing changed. I grew
    up with some interest in politics. But everyone younger than me is
    completely uninterested and blames the Islamic Republic. We've all
    become diplomats: you play by the rules to get things done."

    Before the 1990s only a tiny minority, those who were able to study
    abroad, had any contact with the West. Then came satellite dishes and
    the internet. The West gushed in, filling the young with new
    impressions. Noushin says: "America is a symbol of freedom. Everyone
    wants to go and live there, or just to go there and have fun. It's a
    mixture of people from different backgrounds and its ruling system
    isn't imposed on you. And people are more accepting there than they
    are in Europe, where we feel like strangers." The Iranian regime's
    views on the United States have made it even more an object of desire.

    What about daily life? On the street the coffee shop is the most
    important venue where boys and girls can meet openly outside the home,
    in groups or couples. "That's only in Tehran," says Behrang
    gloomily. He failed to get into Tehran University and is pursuing his
    veterinary studies in Tabriz (1). Tehran's revolutionary
    law-enforcers, such as the basiji, have lightened up over the past two
    years. Boys who want to be cool wear their hair long; girls push the
    Islamic dress code to the limit: a scarf, a tunic (manteau) over
    trousers. The approach is everything - chadors may be black, but black
    is also the preferred colour for girls who like to wear their tunics
    short and tight. Near the centre of town, in Motahari Avenue, I
    spotted one in highestt of high heeled bright orange shoes, orange
    handbag, minimal orange scarf and the tightest, shortest manteau,
    barely covering her bottom. With bright orange lips to match. A
    defiant statement of self.

    Four boys were playing guitars in Laleh park that sunny winter
    Friday. Close by, a girl was gliding, exquisitely, on roller blades:
    Karina, 22, Armenian, had studied accountancy at a technical college
    and now had an office job. She wore a short, tight manteau and a
    brilliant blue scarf, so skimpy that her bright red curls tumbled from
    under it nearly to her waist. What about the basiji? "It's OK in the
    park; there's just the park police. Outside the park Muslim girls get
    away with much skimpier clothes than we do. Life's boring here:
    nothing to do, nowhere to go. I don't like the cinema: it's full of
    films about real life, and I have enough of that already."

    Nearby young people sat in groups round tables, the girls together,
    facing the boys. Elsewhere boys and girls were quietly holding hands
    on park benches. The real fun in Tehran is at the disco parties in
    homes, in non-traditional households sometimes with alcohol.
    Noushin's eyes light up as she describes these: "They're unique:
    they're made up of strong social groups of people you really care
    about; there's an intimacy about them." And they are safe, protected
    from outside intrusion.

    Maryam, 14, still a schoolgirl, loves coffee shops, pizzerias, burger
    bars and disco parties. She and her friends have a vocabulary of their
    own (2): cool is plus, trendy is titanic, classy is ba-class,
    14-year-old girls are fenchul (finches), the police are cactus,
    intelligence agents kaftar (pigeons) and so on. She especially loves
    Arian, the first Iranian pop group and a commercial success story -
    they have sold more than half a million copies of their two albums, on
    CD and video. This sunny Persian pop music has a big novelty - girl
    singers: three of them, in cream hijabs, breaking all the old rules of
    segregation and opening a new space for the dreams of Iranian girls.

    This commercial music is looked down upon by the supercool folk who
    run TehranAvenue, who organise underground music competitions and
    bring together experimental bands - pop, rock, fusion - that have
    seldom performed in public. The organisers of these events know that
    the authorities keep them closely in their sights but since they are
    far from mainstream, they are not too worried: the more alternative
    the group and the smaller the audience, the less they need
    worry. TehranAvenue's website (in Persian, and in English for the
    benefit of expat second gener ation Iranians) (3) has good graphics
    and often irreverent reviews of what's on in Tehran: movies, plays,
    exhibitions, events. It also carries articles: one featured a team of
    Tehran women footballers, who wear black hijabs over a red strip; and
    another an article on sexual needs and Aids, plus an interview with
    the owner of a shop that had the novel idea of selling condoms, legal
    and available, through its website.

    Along with alcohol and drugs - hashish, marijuana, ecstasy, anything
    you want - there is sex. Noushin divides up Tehran's youth into
    generations: "The older ones - 23 up to 30-somethings - seem to value
    the sanctity of sex as something you do for love, long-term,
    serious. People under 23 live for the moment and hold nothing sacred,
    not even sex. It's just an event, something tem porary. And because
    all these kids have grown up together, virginity isn't so important
    any more."

    But for the mid-20s-up age group, once they form serious
    relationships, there are social problems. Shirin, 24, a successful
    photographer, explains: "You can go to the cinema and the coffee shop,
    but you can't go away on a trip with your boyfriend or take him home
    to your parents. So you have to get married." Iran has an easy system
    of temporary marriage, but this is frowned on. So she and her
    boyfriend married, though they can't afford a home, because "marriage
    is the licence to live in this country. Our identity still revolves
    around the family: it's not just our parents, it's our extended
    families."

    Shahrzad, 25, is from Shiraz but she works in Tehran in
    advertising. She has a different problem. She is one of the few
    unmarried girls to live on her own and have her own flat. "It's
    tough," she says. "My neighbours are always on the look-out for my
    comings and goings; they're like self-appointed relations."

    All this is confirmed by Dr Mohammad Sanati, a professor of psychiatry
    at Tehran University who runs 25 therapy groups of 12-15 people each,
    many of them young. He explains that less than half now care about
    politics, while only a fraction are very angry. One of the angry
    brigade, Yassin, was a member of the student union at university until
    he got expelled. He says: "Politics isn't seen as serious any more as
    it was when Khatami came to power: only 10% of students count
    themselves as radical these days."

    Dr Sanati believes that many of today's young are still religious. All
    the young agree that religion exists in every family, to different
    degrees, mainly as tradition. But in the same way that the young have
    rejected their parents' values system, many of those that opt for
    religion do so on their own entirely new terms. A young man might make
    a pilgrimage to Mashad wearing a gold chain around his neck, defying
    the rule that men only wear silver. There is interest in learning from
    other cultures and setting a private spiritual agenda - when and how
    to pray or fast.

    Though Tehran's young have abandoned trad itional values and Islamic
    politics, they may perhaps have retained God.

    NOTES

    (1) In 2003 the percentage of girls entering into university in Iran
    reached more than 62%.

    (2) Published in a paperback dictionary by Nashre Markaz, Tehran,
    2003.

    (3) www.tehranavenue.com

    Original text in English

    http://mondediplo.com/2004/02/03tehran
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