Cab confessionals: Iranians respond to Egypt

10 Feb 11 | Iran, Middle East and North Africa

In a New York Times op-ed last week, These Revolutions Are Not All Twitter, Andrew Woods raises the significance of  “a phenomenon called pluralistic ignorance — situations in which people keep their true preferences private because they believe their peers do not or will not share their beliefs”.

Public taxis in Iran are communal, men and women are crammed together for short pre-designated shared rides, and cabs have always been a hub for the latest views and news.  A few months ago, I heard rumours of plain clothes “observers” using Tehran’s taxis to monitor conversations so it was great to see from the following account of a journey that this great oral tradition is alive and well. Here passengers openly voice their opinions on the latest developments in Egypt:

I’ve translated an extract from the original:

The car’s a Pride [Korean Hyundai model that replaced the familiar orange Hillman Hunter on Tehran’s streets] and all four passengers are women. I’m pleased because even if we’d had to squash into a Samand at least the one next to you is a woman and won’t eagerly cram herself next to you.

The radio is on so loud that the driver doesn’t hear us when we enquire about the fare. The woman next to me taps him on the shoulder and asks him to turn it down.

I say: “You’re all young. Radio’s for old men.”

The woman in front turns back to look at me angrily. The driver says nothing and I lower my head in silence like a good girl. I put on my handsfree set and turn up the music. The gong of the news hour goes and he turns the volume up.

We don’t have an antenna for the TV at home and it’s been a few days since I’ve heard the news and Iran’s stance on events in Tunisia and Egypt. I press the pause button and listen.

The presenter is introducing a woman chanting “Allah Akbar” on the streets of Egypt. She’s saying: “Two of my children were killed in the struggle against oppression, another of my children is taking part in the demonstrations with me. We will fight with our last drop of blood in the road to Islam…”

The driver starts cursing saying: “These bastards think we’re stupid. They would love it if Egypt became another ’57 [Iranian revolution of 1979] so they can bring about another revolution and the gentlemen [referring to Mullahs] can take the power seat.”

The woman observing strict hijab sitting in  front looks the driver up and down and says: “Why, how old are you my son? You don’t remember those days and don’t know what took place and what happened. It was these same religious kids who brought about our revolution and if the BBC and the like would let us be, we’d be living our lives. None of you remember. You’re misjudging.”

The woman next to me who is older than the woman in front says: “Lady, tell me,  not [indicating me and the driver] these youngsters who don’t remember anything. But you and I, we know, we’re just burying our head in the snow. Was it really like this? I was a teacher at Firouzkouh and my father’s house was in Tehran. That last month we never went to work. With the other teachers we’d make a picnic bite to eat and go straight to the demonstrations. Our head, God bless him, paid our salaries all the same. We were rabid. A few mojaheddin and militants screaming about our oil money and yelling about foreign interference, and we a bunch of uneducateds, how could we have known that they would do this to us.”

The grinning driver who until now had stayed silent, says: “Come on, our family’s full of martyrs…my uncle was martyred in the war, my father is a veteran…he works with cars now. He drives heavy goods vehicles. He was contaminated in the war and can’t wear shoes now, he has to wear slippers. He was right there at the demonstrations in the revolution and he’s full of regret now. He says ‘not that the Shah was good’ as this lady says, if he’d been good people wouldn’t have come out on the streets in protest, but he says ‘if we’d known it would end up like this, we wouldn’t have made a revolution.’”

The woman next to me is so angry her hands are shaking as she pays the driver, she turns to the woman in the front seat saying: “My dear lady, things haven’t been bad for you Hezbollah types, it’s the ordinary people who’ve suffered. We’re ruined.”

I feel it’s time I joined the debate. I say: “No, let’s be fair. They’ve done exactly what the Pahlavis did to the people, but not making a comparison, they weren’t bloodthirsty. But now, yes, people are much worse off.”

No one says anything. We’re stuck in traffic. The radio is on playing news analysis on Egypt. Once again the driver has turned the volume up. I’m sweating and wind the window down for some air. The wind hits my forehead, it gives me a good feeling. Today is 12 Bahman [the day Khomeini returned to Iran]. The noise and fumes and traffic give no indication of the people’s jubilation 31 years before. I think to myself that other than myself and the driver, there are three people in this taxi who have breathed the atmosphere of pre-revolution Iran. An atmosphere that in this taxi is depicted in two conflicting ways; one defends, the other condemns.

The radio says: “People are tired of un-Islamicness. People are calling for a situation where everyone has the right to speak, not just Mubarak and his family.”

The voices of this argument goes round in my head: “The bombs are all the work of Iran…They want everywhere to become Islamic until they destroy Islam…Tunisia’s different to us, we musn’t compare…Mubarak is like the Shah…It’s the day of the Imam’s coming…The people are happy…Shut up you docile woman…They dragged us to filth…The day of the Imam’s arrival…12 Bahman…Imam…Mobarak…Tunisia.”

I open the window further. The smell of lead and fumes fills the air. The traffic policeman wears a filter mask covering his mouth and conducts the traffic with boards. Schools are closed on Thursday. The Tunisian dog had honour…It was their right to be killed…We haven’t sacrificed martyrs for Mir-Hossein Moussavi to come and take the veils off our women…Come on, that’s enough…Don’t you Neda, Neda me…

I turn up the volume of my handsfree set to drown everything out:

Sattar sings…

“My face red from slapping…”


Yemen: Pro and anti-government protesters face off

04 Feb 11 | Middle East and North Africa, News and features

Iona CraigIn Sana’a the opposition was outfoxed by President Saleh — but protests in provincial cities show the public’s anger has not abated. Iona Craig reports

As Cairo’s Tahrir Square and surrounding area spiraled into chaos,the central square of the same name (Liberation) in Yemen’s capital, Sana’a, was inhabited by pro-Saleh supporters in oversized tents.

Despite two opposing demonstrations taking place in the capital — pro- and anti-government — the feared violence on Yemen’s “day of rage” failed to materialise on Thursday, at least in Sana’a.

To the east of the country, in the coastal city of Mukkalla, the main city of Hadramaut province, at least one person was reportedly shot when government security forces opened fire on demonstrators. Other major protests took place in Taiz, Ibb and the southern city of Aden, where 22 people were arrested, according to local press.

Unfortunately there is no western media coverage of the provincial cities and as far as the world’s press was concerned, Yemen’s “day of rage” rather fizzled out. Tahrir Square in Sana’a couldn’t have offered a scene of greater contrast to that of Cairo’s. In Yemen’s capital, the day turned into a massive chewing session of the mildly narcotic leaf, qat, by pro-government supporters as they settled in to large wedding-style tents.

President Ali Abdullah Saleh has been extremely clever in his management of events here. After 32 years in power, he has become something of an expert at keeping his job.

Since the knock-on effect of Tunisia’s uprising began to be felt and protests in Yemen mounted, the president has announced a string of welfare reforms to appease the people and on the eve of Thursday’s protests, he declared that he would not stand for re-election at the end of his term in 2013. He made the same declaration in 2005 before standing as president in 2006. Saleh also reached out to opposition parties on Wednesday by conceding on a four-member electoral committee, stating that it would now include two opposition members. The coalition of opposition parties, the JMP, has so far boycotted the election process, due in April.

The president’s PR machine has been so slick that his supporters were ready and waiting to cheer him on — and call on him not to stand down in 2013 — before he had even made the announcement in an emergency parliament meeting on Wednesday. The takeover of the capital’s main square meant that planned anti-government demonstrators were forced to switch location at the last minute to Sana’a University.

Despite a distinct build up in security — soldiers occupied every major junction and street corner in the capital on Thursday — the two sets of demonstrations passed off peacefully without ever meeting. In the rest of the country where the international press does not tread, events were less passive.

On Friday in Sana’a there were no spontaneous follow-ups to yesterday’s demonstrations, organised by the opposition. Yemenis are so far reluctant to pick up the baton from the Egyptians. What’s happening in the rest of Yemen is less clear and may be more crucial than events in the capital.

Iona Craig is a freelance journalist and editor at the Yemen Times, Sana’a.