Just another side of Iran many outsiders do not know about:
Iranian youth — curious, wired and desperate for normality — are forcing change that horrifies their rulers
Tehran’s trendy Mohsen gallery is a magnet for the city’s youth, a place where they can let down their guard
It’s a warm spring morning in Tehran and I’m in the leafy grounds of the Shahid Beheshti University looking for Iran’s future entrepreneurs. Every year, young men and women from all over the country congregate at the ideas fair here to promote their discoveries. Across a hall of exhibition stands, I spot a young man in light jeans and a blue-and-green shirt fiddling with his laptop, computer boards and paintings hanging crookedly on the wall behind him. Mehrdad Naji has made his way to the fair from the city of Isfahan, where he’s been working on a little invention: an electronic circuit-board tester for factories. “Testers usually give one set of data; this one is more advanced, it gives the details of the problem,” he says, and shows me a video of how his creation works. I’m no expert on electronic circuit-board testers, and I’d be surprised if this were a huge breakthrough. But as I speak to Mehrdad through a translator, I find this reserved 24-year-old’s pride and ambition inspiring.
The child of a middle-class Isfahan family whose parents never finished high school, Mehrdad is completing a masters degree in electrical engineering and is “self-employed” at the same time. “My goal is to be an employer, and I’m learning how to turn from self-employed to entrepreneur.” He shows me the book he’s reading. It’s by the American motivational speaker on entrepreneurship Robert Kiyosaki, translated into Farsi. “I want no borders between countries. Borders hinder progress.” Mehrdad’s current life is very different from his dream. He lives in the Islamic Republic, which has been a pariah state for much of its existence since the 1979 revolution, consumed by radicalism and in conflict with the west. Mention progress in relation to Iran, and the image that comes up is probably of scientists working on a secret nuclear bomb.
But that’s why Mehrdad closely follows the news and “loves” Mohammad Javad Zarif, the country’s foreign minister, who has been negotiating with the US and other powers on a way out of Iran’s nuclear dispute. If everything goes to plan — and that’s still a big if — a
nuclear deal will be reached guaranteeing that Iran’s nuclear programme remains peaceful, and Iranians will have a chance to emerge slowly from their imposed loneliness. I ask Mehrdad about what ties him to the Islamic Republic. He says he stopped praying about 10 years ago and lost faith that the goals of the 1979 Islamic revolution could be achieved. “They were good for 1979 — slogans like oil for free, free housing, equality. But for some ideals, we lost quality of life. Iran has become isolated, Iranians aren’t known in the world. We’re not a reference for progress. The US is. Europe is.”
Being Normal
Mehrdad is part of the new generation of Iranians, the real Islamic Republic that is far less Islamic than its rulers want and ambitious in a different way — not through making mischief or muscle flexing, but through higher education, ideas and its people’s hunger to be citizens of the world. Curious, wired, and desperate for normality, Iran’s youth — under-40s make up 60 per cent of the 80 million-strong population — have been taking the country in a direction that horrifies its rulers. The pace of change among them has been so fast and dramatic, particularly over the past decade, that Iran’s sociologists say they are still trying to understand them and Islamic leaders regularly blame the west for corrupting them. In a recent statement, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader and highest authority, hinted at his frustration. “They [the youth] are intellectually exposed to dangerous threats — the ways of corrupting them are many, there are communications media that can . . . spread a wrong thought or comment. Today the country is not involved in the military war but it is involved in political, economic and security wars — and, above all, the cultural wars.”
Mehrdad Naji is an inventor and is studying for a masters in electrical engineering
‘Iran has become isolated. We’re not a reference for progress. The US is. Europe is’
The social shifts are apparent on the streets and come across in every conversation. The boys and girls of the Islamic Republic watch western television and Iranian expatriate channels beamed from Los Angeles, Washington and London. They spend their lives on social media — Viber is the latest craze, and a forum for jokes about their leaders. According to the ministry of communications’ April figures, 20 million Iranians have smartphones. Society is increasingly urbanised (the urban population is now more than 71 per cent, up from 48.7 per cent in 1979). In schools, universities and government institutions, women still cover their hair with the customary black hijab. But elsewhere, many girls barely pay it lip service, and it now comes in all colours and patterns. Some don’t even bother tying it around the neck. The manteaux — the jackets that are supposed to conceal their bodies — are tighter and the hems are rising up. Young Iranians admire the US, which they see as an ideal state of freedom and prosperity, however much their rulers bombard them with anti-American slogans.
On a trip to Tehran this month, I met dozens of young people who grew up in Iran and want to be like everyone else around the world — to have a secure job, control over their own destiny and the freedom to dream. There was Hamid, the bazaar trader of accessories who wants to save enough money to “buy” his way out of military service so he can have a passport and follow his favourite singer on tour. On a street corner one early morning, I came across two young men from Lorestan, the western province, who sleep in the parks and wait for construction jobs so they can pay for books and continue their psychology courses at an open university. At a coffee shop, a 22-year-old told me he wants to be a football player and play for AC Milan.
Young Iranians outside a coffee shop near Tehran University
“It’s difficult to explain some aspects of what’s going on with youth, because it’s a new phenomenon in Iran. The youth are different from 10 years ago,” says Hamid-Reza Jalaipour, a professor of sociology at Tehran University. “There is a big diversity: there is religious youth, there is ideological youth, modern youth and postmodern youth who live as if they were in California. Money is important to them, much more than 20 years ago. Individualism is high. They don’t live according to what their parents want; they do what they want. Even the women make decisions on their own.”
Jalaipour relates an event that startled sociologists and confounded Iran’s ruling elite. “Six months ago, a popular Iranian singer died and 100,000 young people gathered at his funeral. But they didn’t follow traditional custom, where men and women have to be segregated. They came together, boys and girls, and held hands.” There hadn’t been such a large gathering since the mass 2009 street protests that ended in bloodshed; nor was there ever such a big public display of anti-traditional culture. For Jalaipour, the funeral suggested a “silent movement” among youth which was defined by a style of life rather than politics, and whose ramifications will not be felt immediately but perhaps in a decade. “The hardliners [in the regime] were very confused.”
Girl power
Iran’s young women have been a driving force of social change. Empowered by education, which is arguably the most important achievement of the Islamic revolution, they have slowly wrested freedoms from their leaders. The number of university-educated women used to lag far behind that of men but it has caught up, leaping from 4.7 per cent in 1997 to 18.4 per cent in 2012. More educated women are delaying marriage and those who do tie the knot are opting increasingly for divorce. Much to the consternation of the Islamic government, the rate of divorce has been steadily rising, up more than 5 per cent in the past Iranian year that ended in March. The marriage rate, meanwhile, fell 6.5 per cent. The combination of education and economic hardship is also leading to smaller families. Women want fewer children, with average family size slipping to 3.4 now from 4 in 2007. It’s even lower, at 3.2, in the capital Tehran.
Afra, a 30-year-old civil engineering graduate, was one of those who cast her vote. I meet her with a group of her friends on Revolution Street, around the corner from Tehran University. Afra lost her job at a development company when international sanctions made it difficult for companies to finance projects. She now works for a research company. Life is “mind-boggling”, she tells me. “Look at the internet — there’s a ban on Twitter and Facebook and we have to use proxy software to access them. But while we feel the ban, the highest-ranking officials have access to them,” she explains, referring to both the president and the supreme leader who are hyperactive on social media. “There’s a kind of deal, a policy, by which they [the regime] know everything is happening in the country but everything is done secretly. It’s not normal.” Frustration, however, is not a reason for apathy, she says. “Rouhani’s election was a step forward and it was a victory for the youth who forced the regime to accept him as president.”
I ask Afra and her friends how they envision Iran changing. Step-by-step reform, they say, not upheaval. One revolution for Iran, they tell me, is enough. “The Islamic revolution made us less developed and we’re afraid another one will take us even further backwards,” says Hamid, a 25-year-old finishing graduate studies in engineering. “Look at the Arab revolutions,” he continues, referring to Syria, Egypt, Libya.
Mahnaz Mohammadi, documentary film-maker
‘We know revolution takes you nowhere. Only reform takes us forward’
Iranians young and old are also under no illusion about the heavy price of defying the regime: 100 demonstrators were killed in the 2009 unrest and thousands were imprisoned. Mahnaz Mohammadi, a 39-year-old documentary film-maker who took part in the protests and did a stint in jail last year on charges of conspiring against the state, says her friends, even those still behind bars, believe in reforming the Islamic Republic. “In 2009, we gained a voice. Before that, most people outside thought the Iranian people and the government were the same. Now everyone differentiates and that’s important for our dignity. But we’re not looking for revolution — we know revolution takes you nowhere. Only reform takes us forward.” Remember, she tells me, most Iranians’ priority is economic wellbeing. Political freedom is the concern of a minority.
Despite the rupture between Iran’s youth and the regime, there are links with society that the political elite has been adept at exploiting, whether through a vast patronage network, the religious institutions that cater to the poor or the largely state-owned economy. One of the main gripes you hear in Tehran is that jobs require connections — and the closer you or your family are to the top echelons of the regime, the more likely you will land a good job after university. Narges Barahoui, the activist and researcher from Baluchistan, says that “invisible links” are not to be underestimated. “People demand jobs from the government. They prefer them to private sector jobs because they’re safer, more prestigious and with higher salaries. There are also cultural links, especially in the provinces, where Iranians are more religious and have better relations with the state. And every time a new government comes in, they hire new people, and that creates new links.”
Rebels with a lost cause
Ali Jaafar-Abadi is a 36-year-old cleric who picks religious books that young Iranians can browse or buy at a bookstore-café known as a
Basij hangout. The Basij are the youth militia established by the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic. Fiercely loyal to the current supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, they are an arm of the elite Revolutionary Guard, charged at times with policing morals, used at other times for repression, and often responsible for social work such as running camps where young people help distribute food to poverty-stricken neighbourhoods. The regime says there are about 10 million volunteers and has set a target of 20 million. Iranians say many of the Basij are not hardcore believers but hope to reap benefits such as jobs in linking themselves to a powerful force in the political system.
Young Iranians walk past a mural of a martyr from the Basij youth militia
I ask Jaafar-Abadi why young people devoted to the ideals of the revolution are a minority in today’s Iran, their interest in religion and religious governments faded. Like other conservatives I meet, he has a ready answer. “The shape and form of the connection to religion has changed. Before it was face to face, now it’s more online,” he tells me. “Iranians are fundamentally religious but on the surface, especially in Tehran, you think people are distanced from religion.”
In the girls’ section of the bookstore I sit with Zahra Karimi, a 22-year-old art student. She’s a model of Islamic dress: black chador and a black scarf firmly tied under her chin. She likes to spend time here because it’s segregated and smoke-free. Her goal in life, she says, is to “help the Islamic revolution continue”. What about a job, a family? “That’s part of it but not the higher purpose.” She’s “100 per cent concerned” that Iranian youth have lost interest in religion and blames satellite channels and social media as well as clothes designers.
In the boys’ section, I meet 22-year-old Mohammed and 25-year-old Sadjad, both medical students at Tehran University, and active Basijis. Friendly and even giggly at times, they tell me that being a Basiji is about believing in an idea and “supporting the leader and the country”.
Iran has never been a particularly religious country, compared to its neighbours. Since the revolution, Iranians’ relationship with religion has been mixed up with their political views of the regime. The strict diktat of conservative clerics has essentially turned the youth against religion. Many say they are believers but not practising.
I ask several of those I meet whether they follow a
marjah, which means a “source of emulation”. (In the Shia Muslim faith, people follow a high-ranking cleric — an ayatollah or grand ayatollah — as spiritual leader. He guides them, when required, on social, legal and sometimes even political matters.) Some of the young people were perplexed by the question, as if they’d never heard of a marjah; others said their parents followed a source of emulation but for them the only reference is the Koran.
Clerics turned the youth against religion. Many believe but don’t practise
Clerics and officials, meanwhile, tell me of a curious recent trend: the most popular marjah these days is Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the most senior Iraqi Shia cleric, who is of Iranian origin. He believes in the quietist approach that separates religion and state, as opposed to
velayat e-faqih, the clerical system of government enshrined in the Iranian constitution and installed by the late Khomeini, leader of the Islamic revolution. Indeed, many young Iranians are not opposed to clerics per se (Khatami, the hugely popular former president, is a mid-ranking cleric) as much as to the system of government that gives unelected mullahs complete and unaccountable power over society and government. In fact, clerics have given themselves a bad name because they have involved themselves in politics, corruption and repression. As Tayebeh, the young mother from Chalus says: “Religion has become a tool in some people’s hands. If you want to hide bad deeds you need religion to do it . . . You hide behind religion.”
I meet up with a former senior official who I have known for a long time to ask him about the social changes in Iran’s youth culture and what they mean for the country.
The way to look at Iran today, he tells me, is to understand that it has become a “post-revolutionary” society. “On the surface, you still see the colour of revolution but, beneath that, society has been changed. People benefit from the dignity and independence the revolution brought but they abandoned extremism and the fever of the revolution and merged with the world. They’re swimming in the direction of the river,” he explains. That direction is normality.
“Normality hasn’t been practised in Iran,” says the official. “The new generation understand they need to have a normal life.”
Roula Khalaf is the FT’s foreign editor
Additional reporting by Monavar Khalaj
Photographs: Kaveh Kazemi; Getty
Iran’s ‘Generation Normal’ - FT.com
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