Essay: The flight from Tehran

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A GlobalPost correspondent reflects on why Iran will never be the same.

Published: June 26, 2009 12:35 ET
Updated: June 29, 2009 18:42 ET

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Journalists found themselves in a special state of limbo. When I discovered that the accreditation for foreign journalists had been rescinded, no one made himself available to me to explain what, precisely, that meant. I was left to sort out my concerns on my own. Could I report from my room based on what other people told me? What if I had filed something before the accreditation was revoked but it was to be published after? Could I join the rallies strictly as a participant, rather than as a journalist? Were my phone calls and email correspondence being monitored?

Paranoia set in. I began having trouble distinguishing real risks from irrational fears. I noticed an intelligence agent taking my photo on the street and I stayed up one night thinking about where that photo might end up. I arranged to leave the country as soon as I could and kept my fingers crossed.

I didn’t experience any problems at the airport. But, sitting in the plane, I couldn’t help but feel anxious for the fate of the brave people whom I had witnessed defending their rights and dignity. I don’t think the movement they joined stands much of a chance of swaying the regime to reconsider the election, something the Supreme Leader has made clear he does not want to do. The protesters’ efforts are too disjointed and the imbalance of power too overwhelmingly in favor of the government.

But, while the protests suffered from a lack of organization, the very spontaneity of the movement may eventually prove to be its saving grace. Everyone involved in the protests found their way onto the streets day after day out of a personal decision of conscience. The commitment they have forged to the prospect of change is deep and unlikely to break anytime soon. The combination of condescension and disdain with which their government has treated them is likely to only strengthen their resolve.

And so this season’s fear will harden into next season’s indignation. By the time I left the country, the nightly, excited cries of Allahu Akbar — God is great — were already taking a harder, coarser edge. No one will be surprised the next time there is violence on Iran’s streets, and it is easy to imagine the masses will have benefited from this year’s hard-won experience. Ultimately, people will look back at this moment in Iran’s history and see that it was the government that showed more fear than the people.

(GlobalPost contributor Cameron Abadi covered the Iranian elections and the protests that came in the aftermath of its contested results. Despite a crackdown on the media and the threat of arrest, Abadi stayed in Tehran until yesterday, quietly and carefully documenting what he saw unfolding there. This dispatch was based on those observations from Tehran and was published from Berlin, where he is based.)

More on Iran:

Protester vs. protester in Iran

Revolution, Tiananmen, or something else?

Young, Iranian and ready for change

Comments:

2 Comments.

Posted by david wayne osedach on June 27, 2009 08:59 ET

The Iranian people are in the process of breaking away from blindly following their allotoyahs and supreme leaders. They are embracing the 21st century and they will be part of it.

Posted by enclaved on June 30, 2009 17:44 ET

Unfortunately, the Iranian people will be stuck with their Theocracy until it breaks from the top down. The government has proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that, in the name of god, they will use whatever force it takes to defend their theocracy. Neither public nor world opinion has any effect on them. Iran is very much like North Korea, except that it's people have access to the outside world. But, even that will not help the people when they can and will be crushed for any protest by the "hand of god", and god's followers which number in the fanatical millions (all armed) in Iran.

The theocratic leaders control everything, even to who is allowed to run for public office. They are the divine force through which god speaks. If one is against them, then one is against god. The Iranian people who want change, are therefore godless and traitors against god; and, will be lambs to the slaughter.