Death to the Dictator!: Witnessing Iran's Election and the Crippling of the Islamic Republic
Afsaneh Moqadam
Bodley Head, 2010
Paperback £10.99
Last June the world watched, transfixed, as thousands of demonstrators took to the streets across Iran in opposition to the contested election results. Between the mixed reports of international sensationalism and local state censorship it was near impossible for the outsider to distinguish what was really happening on the ground. Afsaneh Moqadam’s book Death to the Dictator! allows the reader a peak behind the headlines into the foray of mass protests in Tehran, engaging in both the disillusionment but also inspiring resilience of Iran’s reformist movement.
The Green Revolution, as the movement became known was characterised by its non-violence and the disproportionate reaction of Ahmadinejad’s henchmen: the Revolutionary Guard and the despised paramilitary Basijis. The story is based on real events, witnessed by the author, a demonstrator himself, and expressed through the eyes of the protagonist Mohsen Abbaspour. That both the author’s name and the names of the characters are pseudonyms attests to the fear instilled in a population living under a military dictatorship.
The scene opens on the emaciated, broken body of Mohsen, lying at the roadside, abused so horrifically he can barely move or speak. It gradually emerges that Mohsen, a keen supporter of the reformist candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi, and active participant in the post-election demonstrations, was imprisoned and subjected to unspeakable torture by the incumbent’s militia. Mohsen has been continually raped and brutally beaten, his wounds are not only physical but psychological. He feels utterly humiliated, having caved in under torture and given away the names of his fellow protestors.
The mood is decidedly defeatist at the book’s conclusion as Mohsen is preparing to move abroad, when earlier in the story he “vows never to leave this country.” His mistreatment in prison leads him to abandon his hopes and dreams. The cruel irony is that, like the reformist leaders in the elections, Mohsen “had been defeated by Ahmadinejad.”
Despite the dark subject matter the story still manages to have an intimate, amateurish appeal with its anecdotal style and humorous cultural insights. In typical Iranian spirit the author makes light of some of the hardships Iranians face in everyday life. The stigma of holding an Iranian passport is described as eliciting “the same reaction as a warm, dead bird” when it lands on the desk of an immigration official. Mohsen’s character is portrayed as very ordinary. He is representative of many Iranians: still living at home with his parents, searching for a job and a prospective wife. The author deliberately creates his character as an embodiment of the Iranian people with their reasonable demands for democracy and a life without fear and harassment.
The marching crowds filling our TV screens last summer were ordinary people just like Mohsen. Moqadam makes clear that this was not a movement led by a few disillusioned students or activist nut jobs. The Green Revolution encompassed Iranians from all strata of society, “young and old, students and wasters, housewives, addicts, clerks…” the list goes on. The scale and popularity of the demonstrations had a striking resemblance to the Iranian Revolution of 1979.
Moqadam draws parallels between the 1979 Revolution and the demonstrations that took place thirty years later. There are clear differences: unlike the earlier generation, those who took to the streets last June didn’t want a revolution, they wanted constitutional reform. This generation of demonstrators are better educated than their predecessors; they used brains not brawn in the fight for change. The author explores the irony and significance of the call “Allahu Akbar!” (God is Great). Originally chanted from the rooftops during the Islamic Revolution in 1979, it was again shouted in defiance of the contested election results in 2009: “No longer is it a call for religion. It has become a call for truth.”
Moqadam discredits Khamenei, Iran’s spiritual leader who has ultimate authority under Iran's constitution. Reverence of Khamenei is almost innate to Iranians, but following his reaction to the elections the author describes the Islamic Republic and its religious leaders as having taken on a “militarised, neo-fascist guise.” It is interesting to note that even the reformists wanted to believe in Khamenei, in his impartiality concerning the disputed election results. In the days following the election the people looked to Khamenei for answers, the reformists hoped he would call for a recount. Their hopes went unfulfilled; Moqadam asserts that Khamenei is nothing more than Ahmadinejad’s puppet. Mohsen, who initially had faith in Khamenei loses all respect for him. Khamenei is described as being “framed by a flimsy arch with prayers inscribed on it,” a deliberate snub by the author at Iran’s religious authority.
The Green Revolution is also popularly known as the “Twitter Revolution.” It was a movement that effectively used the portals in cyberspace to communicate and further its cause. Twitter and other online networking sites were used by demonstrators to communicate in secret to organise meetings and protests away from eagle-eyed state censorship. Mohsen is constantly trying to outsmart the state’s internet filter to access Facebook, BBC Persian and the Voice of America. The internet is where he finds freedom away from his oppressed reality. Boxed into his apartment, he sits glued to the screen to find out what is taking place on his very doorstep. The internet proved to be an invaluable tool in linking Iranians both to each other and the outside world. Without the internet Iranians’ astonishing mobilisation would have been kept firmly behind the Islamic Republic’s closed doors.
The sad truth is, that after the media frenzy died down, the world forgot about Iran’s brave protestors, whilst people like Mohsen continue to be abused under the military dictatorship everyday. Death to the Dictator! is a moving testimony to those who participated in Iran’s Green Revolution, a story that, despite the regime’s best efforts to conceal it, has now reached a Western audience through the pen of one of its victims. Moqadam’s book is necessary in giving a voice to those who strive for human rights and democracy under Iran’s despotic leadership. The reader cannot but wonder what the fates of the characters may be, real people, who continue to suffer long after the final chapter was written.
