The Persian Abyss: The Iranian regime should be afraid

Three weeks after Iran's presidential election, it is becoming clear that the Islamic republic is going through a metamorphosis.

Although Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was pronounced the winner of the election by a landslide, very few people believe this result. Cities across Iran, especially Teheran, were the scenes of massive street demonstrations unheard of in the Middle East for the past 30 years.

Through these organized, creative, and peaceful demonstrations, Iranians demanded an independent investigation into the allegation of vote-rigging.

What convinced me, personally, that the election was, in fact, a fraud was the reaction of the government to the peaceful demand of the people.

In this photograph posted on the internet, protesters
clash with riot police at an anti-government protest in
Teheran, Iran on Saturday June 20, 2009.
PHOTO:AP

Unprecedented state-sponsored violence and terror was directed at Iranians. Anti-riot police, and the Revolutionary Guards violently attacked unarmed protesters, killing hundreds, injuring thousands and arresting unknown numbers. Hundreds of political activists, writers, intellectuals, actors, journalists, students and professors were rounded up.

In an act of ultimate cowardliness, the regime let loose its plain-clothes thugs, the Basijis. They invaded university dormitories all over Iran, beating, killing, and kidnapping students while breaking anything in site. They broke into people's homes, dragged them away and destroyed private property.

In short, the challenge to the election result was interpreted as a challenge to the regime itself.

While the government can crush protests, the movement that has started can no longer be stopped.

Iranian residents in Japan hold the placards during a rally
against the results of the presidential election in Iran
at a park in Tokyo, Japan, June 28, 2009.
PHOTO: AP

A whopping seventy percent of Iranians are under 30. The young are organized, educated, and informed. Whereas the older generation sought  justice, equality, freedom and independence through the realization of an Islamic utopia, today's youth are pressing for more tangible achievements.

They want to able to dress and socialize without harassment from the moral police . They want to have the opportunity to use their university education in the workplace. They want to be respected by the international community and not be labeled terrorists. They want to get a degree from the best universities in the West and go back to Iran to use their degrees for the advancement of their country. They want to have access to the latest technological gadgets without the paralyzing embargo. They want to focus on the Iranian problems: unemployment, poverty, corruption, drug addiction, sex trade ... and leave the problems of Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan to its own people to solve.

Iranians' demands have been shaping for years. No amount of repression and violence can suppress them. The street demonstrations have shown the Iranians who want change that they are not the minority. The life-changing experience of walking amongst millions with one voice and one goal has given the youth an audacity that should send shudders through the spine of the dictatorship.