A year after election, Iran's divisions have hardened

The New York Times

TEHRAN — A young woman who worked for years as a volunteer helping disabled people said she now saw her volunteerism as a “tool of resistance” because it highlights a failure of the state to provide adequate care.

The son of a prominent official told a friend he would no longer accept money from his father because he works for the state, which the son considers corrupt.

A medical school professor recently picked up a green marker to write notes on a white board for his students, and then with a smile chose another color, saying he might otherwise be arrested for using green, the color of the political opposition.

One year after Iran’s disputed presidential election, the familiar rhythms of life have returned. Through a widespread, sustained and at times brutal crackdown, the government has succeeded in suppressing a protest movement that roiled the nation for months after the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which the opposition said was fraudulent.

But the veneer of calm masks what many here call the “fire under the ash,” a low-grade burn of cynicism and distrust. The major demonstrations and protests are gone, but the hard feelings remain, coursing through the routine of daily life, emerging during a medical school class, in family relationships, at a volunteer clinic.

“Maybe on the surface it seems like everything is over, but everyone is keeping the fire under the ashes alive so that when they get the chance they can bring it out into the open again,” said a 30-year-old language instructor, who like most people interviewed in Iran for this article insisted on anonymity for fear of reprisal by the state.

Iran has changed since the political crisis of June 12, 2009.

In scores of interviews conducted over the past several months with Iranians from all strata of society, inside and outside the country, a clear picture emerged of a more politically aware public, with widened divisions between the middle class and the poor and — for the first time in the Islamic republic’s 30-year history — a determined core of dissenters who are opposed to the republic itself. The political grievances have merged with more pragmatic concerns, like high unemployment and double-digit inflation, adding to the discontent.

“I was on the bus the other day and there was a man you would not believe the kind of information he had, he started to talk about the foreign currency reserves of different countries and began to criticize the government,” said a 59-year-old who works for the government.

President Ahmadinejad and his patron, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, are stronger today than they were a year ago, political experts say, although their base of support has narrowed. They are relying heavily on force and intimidation, arrests, prison terms, censorship, even execution, to maintain authority. They have closed newspapers, banned political parties and effectively silenced all but the most like-minded. Thousands of their opponents have fled the country, fearing imprisonment. As a formal political organization, the reform movement is dead.

In post-election Iran, old guard leaders, men who worked beside the father of the revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, have been sidelined. The leaders of the so-called Green Movement — former presidential candidates Mir Hossein Moussavi, a former prime minister, and Mehdi Karroubi, a former speaker of parliament — have not dropped their demands for more political freedom.

But they have dropped their policy of direct confrontation with the state, saying it is not worth the sacrifice in blood and heavy prison terms, and canceled planned demonstrations on Saturday after failing to receive a permit.

The security services made clear in the days leading to the anniversary that anyone taking to the streets would be dealt with harshly. On Friday, people in Tehran reported receiving a threatening text message on their cellphones.

“Dear citizen, you have been tricked by the foreign media and you are working on their behalf,” the message read. “If you do this again, you will be dealt with according to Islamic law."

A day earlier, the police staged a major show of force, with black-clad militia members riding around on motorcycles and uniformed officers lining the streets and setting up road blocks.

The crisis accelerated and institutionalized, a transfer of power that began with the first election of President Ahmadinejad in 2005. The shift was from the old revolutionaries to a generation that came of age during the eight-year war between Iran and Iraq, hard-liners who deeply resented the relatively liberal reforms promoted by former President Mohammad Khatami. The post-election period has been defined by rolling back Mr. Khatami’s policies and arresting, jailing and demonizing his former aides and allies.

The vanguard of the new political elite is now the Revolutionary Guards Corps. This elite unit oversees Iran’s nuclear and missile programs and has extended its control over the economy and the machinery of state. It has improved its ability to control the street, to monitor electronic communications and keep tabs on university campuses, and its alumni head the state’s security organs. It has taken command of the citizen militia, known as the Basij, and opened what its leader call “6,000 resistance centers” in elementary schools around the country.

The president has himself made sure the message is clear.

“Groups, factions and parties are to be respected, but they have no right to interfere in the running of the country,” President Ahmadinejad said in a speech last month. “If someone is not with us in heart then his work will not be helpful.”

The warning has been heeded. There is little outspoken opposition.

“The people are more aware than before, but they stay quiet on fear of death,” said an 80-year-old woman as she sat in her kitchen frying up onions for a rice dish. “They have killed so many of the young and the well-intentioned. Even the shah did not kill like this. They rule the people at the tip of a spear, but the people don’t want them anymore.”

The fear is spread from the top down — and the bottom up.

In recent weeks, the leadership has waged a widespread public morals crackdown which in scope and tactics exceeds what has occurred in the past and was seen here as an effort to sow fear in advance of the June 12 anniversary.

The authorities have begun filming women they deem insufficiently covered to use as evidence in court. The police have begun issuing fines that some people say exceed $1,000 for beauty treatments deemed inappropriate, like heavily tanned skin. Provocatively dressed women are stationed on street corners, and men who stop to flirt are arrested.

“The opinion of the people with respect to their government was bad and now they are making it worse,” said a 25-year-old hairdresser.