| Revolution's Children |
16 June 2003
|
Iran Students Protest Mullahs' Rule
It isn't quite Tiananmen Square yet, but the students in Iran are making noises that are upsetting to the old fogeys in charge of the world's largest theocracy. It seems the kids don't want the old men to privatize the universities. Exiles are broadcasting disruptive messages from abroad, and naturally, the US is being blamed by many for the unrest.
The Shah fell form power a quarter century ago, and Iran has been run by religious reactionaries for a generation. The revolution is all the under-30 crowd in Iran have ever known, and the fact that it has not produced heaven on earth, or even a society making progress, is painfully apparent to them. They lack memories of a different Iran, and cannot see what would be so bad about trying something different.
Change, of course, scares the hell out of religious rulers. Not only is it a challenge to the established earthly order, but it is also a challenge to the divine will. So the extremist bunch have been resisting the reformist President Khamenei (only in Iran could a jackbooted thug like this pass for reformist) to the point where the kids see him as an empty turban.
This is not to say that the youth of Iran will lead a secular revolution to save Persia from the mullahs; they won't. However, much of the country is young, unemployed and poor. Religion will not prove much of a comfort as this generation grows older while the same old problems persist. It will start to look like the old Soviet Union, slowly fading into irrelevance. Unless the mullahs wise up -- something preachers are terrible at doing.