But these days, Iranians are displaying a resurgent sense of defiance. They are being led by the country's youth (60 percent of the population is under 21), who are proving to be its harshest critics, and, most important, noted Teheran-based political analyst Siamak Namazi, they "have grown up with the language of the revolution and are adept at using that same language to counter conservative arguments."

Take this missive, for example, from Pouya Kamalian, a 17-year-old student who wrote an open letter to the conservatives published in Neshat on April 6: "Do you think my generation is a handful of brainless people who will believe anything you say without any reason?... Don't act in a way that people will resort to destruction again. Thirty years ago, if someone said the Shah would be overthrown, no one would believe him and he would be smacked in the mouth. Well, here are the mouths of me and my fellow youth."

Or this from a university students' association pamphlet in the southern city of Shiraz: "A society that has experienced freedom cannot be returned to a closed society by making use of physical threats, intimidation and punishment. If freedom is denied to such a society, the ideology will be turned into counterideology, and it will assume very dangerous forms."

Protesting against the existing government is a traditional rite of passage in Iranian universities, but the current crop of student activists is different. They are protesting against one faction of the government--the ruling conservatives--while wholeheartedly, earnestly, exultantly supporting another. To be sure, there are still a small number of young supporters of the revolution, many of whom have shown a willingness to back that support with violence. It should also be said that big-city youth are waging this struggle more than their rural counterparts, but with mass rural migrations to the cities in the past twenty years, the gulf--both material and intellectual--between city and village has diminished.

"Neshat is selling well in rural areas," Jalaipour said. "Our ideas are making it to the village."

• « Previous
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• Next »

• Get The Nation at home (and online!) for 75 cents a week!
• If you like this article, consider making a donation to The Nation.