Saturday; October 8^th 2022:

Zionist in Tehran literally means someone who is the cruelest.

“They’re all zionists boy, worse than Zionism. Look at them; they’re tall.” An old man got close to me and whispered with malice.

I mocked him.

“Be very careful.” he answered: “cause we need you — all the young — healthy and well.”

I experienced this conversation when I just got out of the subway in Vali-Asr Crossroad Station. But before that we should review something.

It’s not been a while yet that you keep feeling the city just turned inside out; every day you see the number of girls and women, who put down the hijab in the street, walking or driving, either way, has increased.

This really gave the city a new spirit; if you had had sensitive tentacles, you would be able to read the urban atmosphere— a happy and free theme, surprisingly inclusive.

I just stepped in the street. I wanted to go, on my foot, among the protestors to solely watch out what is really going on between them and the anti-riot police— we call them battalion the special.

Sometimes, one should be there to just see what is really going on to then narrate it for others who weren’t there. This is basically the fundamental act of a civic, and I want to do so for its own sake.

Tehran’s streets are calm today until you are going to get close to a main road.

Near where I’m living that main path is Shari’ati Street. So I was going towards Shariati

I hadn’t yet reached the crossroad of Shariati Street that I was feeling that my nose, my breathing act, has lost its ease suddenly, and also my eyes are growing moist. It was tear gas.

Someone who was standing at the corner of the street said: “They were attacked by the battalion; some chanting children hiding in that kebabi restaurant; after that, the restaurant manager pulled down the shutter. Now they are waiting for those kids.”

He was an auto mechanic, and continued with a sharp voice: “Should we trust to these kids? Shouldn’t we. I don’t know.”

Obviously, he needed to go to the dentist. His skin looked like it needed to be taken care of. Things or services that had been denied him in forty-four years before.

“You should find out what life you want to taste for the rest of your life.” I said: “a shitty version of Soviet Union, or something which has commonwealth with common sense of the republic.”

“I choose Chinese development combined with the Thailand ease of living around.” He said.

“So, get to the street and find your peers and speak up about a Chinese model of communism that is yours. These days are for this sort of job.” I said.

Likewise, I wanted to talk about more stuff in terms of government models but all of a sudden a crew of police officers, with bludgeon and baton, raided among the people, who were just some passive spectators including me myself at some corner.

I ran away immediately but when I got farther I turned back and saw a lady without hijab furiously screaming and cussing in front of the policemen.

“Are you a police? Tell me, do you take care of people? No no you don’t… You just run the command blindly.” She was screaming

They turned to be a little bit ashamed trying to scatter the crowd yet, however, she continued with crescendo voice: “If they tell you kill, you will kill! You are not a policeman then… petty man, petty man…”

Finally, several of them convinced the woman to leave the scene. When the woman got further, she stopped and turned back and shouted in a too loud and earsplitting voice: “Death to the mullaaaaaaaah!”

All of them pretended not to have heard a voice, a motto.

*

I wouldn’t want to stay in my precinct. I wanted to get to the central parts of the city. So, I went to the Qolhak subway station, decided upon arriving the Enghelab (Revolution) Street.

On the Tehran’s underground urban train, some pro-Islamic Republic Hezbollahi guy and I started discussing the movement. Needless to say, they do not want to give up the centers and institutions of power, but they are trying to change the face of the regime to a figure interested in dialogue.

“Ok ok, but what is it going on? What is your next step?” he asked me.

I answered that there is no an order of the day; it’s just a reaction to four decades of crackdown and suppression.

He suited up in a brown suit with ugly onyx ring and other typical stuff of the Pro-Shi’a Children. He said: “So, this is a clear weakness of the movement. You guys should know that after the Islamic Republic, what sort of government you need to establish.”

I would know that to someplace he was trying to usher the conversation to. The same frequent argument that first convinces you to reveal yourself and say which opposition group you are a sympathizer of; then you’d see them discussing one by one that the Islamic Republic is better than all of them, just like upper-handed cult not the most complicated and smart political apparatus throughout history.

Short speech; these irrelevant discussions show that they still haven’t figured out what exactly is going on.

Honestly, to make a long story short, the people’s motivation, those who set foot in the protest turf— and there is already more than three weeks— is not for neither the reformation, nor the opposition, nor governing the country Hezbollahi or secular style; they are getting into the streets cussing you and expressing their abhorrence because of all the things you pro-Islamic Republic minority have done since 1979 with these pseudo-magnanimous hypocrite deeds and words, disrespecting Iranian people’s keen sense of reason.

There are at least 200 million tweets with the “because of” theme with MahsaAmini hashtag that have documented the history of Iranians’ broken heart during this time, expressing the abhorrence and to announce exonerating from tyranny and disrespecting the people, especially women.

We get to the street just to do this: disrespecting vs disrespecting.

No opposition can force these people to take a step with any form of street-rally call to action. We do not trust no one and the movement leader— once and for good listen to that— is the people’s broken hearts.

*

The first thing I did as soon as I got out of the Vali-asr crossroad metro station was to jump into the water tranchee, and take a shelter in it.

A group of Basiji motorcyclists shot randomly at the pedestrians on the sidewalk traversing along the Vali-asr Street. But some people were indifferent. I was surprised! When I came out of the water tranchee, two people who were standing a little distant from me told me that not to be afraid, their guns were empty and only made noise.

The sound it made was really scary, especially when you didn’t know the gun is empty, been targeting you very seriously.

Along Enghelab Street, at least today, it goes without saying that anyone who plays the role of an ordinary passerby is a protester. At least in the case of women, who were walking without hijab.

This issue does not even need to be speculated, but everyone tried to pretend that they did not come to protest. Because the three groups of forces had a decisive and uncompromising presence all over the streets and alleys:

• Batallion the Special;
• Ordinary Police Officers;
• Plainclothesmen.

The first group was almost passive. They were lying on the grass beside the sidewalk, drinking tea or filling out their requisite forms with a blue pen. The second group went to numerous bookstores on the street and asked them to close as soon as possible— Enghelab St. is home to Tehran University and many bookstores.

But the third group; they were neither passive nor engaged in doing anything other than identifying the people. One by one without an exception.

This was the general state of the Tehran today, however, a little further, the space became inflamed.

Suddenly someone shouted: “Come back come back…, is shooting.” At the Aburihan crossroad with Enghelab, all of a sudden, one of the plainclothes agents attacked the crowd with a shotgun, who were going from the opposite direction, from west to east. So all of us started running in the opposite direction.

Plastic and Carbon Bullets and pellets fell under our feet or touched our backs annoyingly. Then, in the most absurd way possible, after the shooting stopped, everything seemed to return to normal; again, we pretended nothing happened and just came here for a walk—some people refused to continue however. The tear gas and the scary atmosphere made several college girls cry.

I went on, smoking to reduce the effect of the tear gas, which was becoming unbearable second-by-second.

A crew of battalion the special was passing by me. Without those cockroach-like clothes, we’d be the same. They joked with me telling that “what are you doing here, agent provocateur”, and then we winked at one another.

Another scene that I would like to tell about this children was that the women without headscarves kept talking to them. The guys also allowed the conversation. The ladies were clearly telling the Special Battalion to join the people. But they said that we are not allowed to do an oddity like that, and if we had, maybe our choice would be different from yours.

The dark side of popular uprisings is we always think that everyone must have necessarily a belief that matches ours, so that we should regard them as just insiders.

A little further, the secret agents had identified one of the street leaders and tried to force her into a van car. This was happening on the other side of the street and I could only hear a bunch of shitty noises and screams.

Around the Enghelab square, a girl and a boy suddenly jumped on the dome at the center of the roundabout and started kissing each other. Plainclothesmen raid towards them from all sides, but they managed to run away.

After all, I had seen everything there was to see, I thought. On the way back, I took a picture of an elderly lady who came for a walk with her granddaughter without hijab.

The old woman was happy and said do you want my photo? I said yes. But if there is no problem, I will take it from behind. The old woman said: “Why behind? Take it off my face!” Her granddaughter explained that it was for security reasons. After that I took my photo, the old woman shouted: “woman life freedom.”

Then, I turned my head to continue on my way back home, but two plainclothesmen immediately arrested me.

The first one asked immediately:”Who are you taking the footage for?” he twisted my wrist a little.

The other man asked: “For Masih Alinejad or for Manoto TV?”

“To be honest with you, didn’t screw both of which, gentlemen.” I answered.

‘I didn’t screw something or someone’ is a non-rectangular and too abstract slang expression means that one is bigger than an insignificancy like that. I picked up that when I was a soldier during my military service.

Meantime, a group of women without headscarves and some old men gathered around us and chanted: “Let him go, let him go.”

One of men turned to the people and said: “No, he cannot be arrested. He just needs to delete the video he recorded.”

“It’s ok.” I said.

The other lowered his voice and said to me very sympathetically, “Listen, son. This bullshit job does not help our country, right?”

“I know, but you know what? It is so simple… people want to be, want to live on their own volition.” I said.

“So, shut up and listen to me again. This nonsense doesn’t help our nation the same way.” He answered me smiling and nudging his head.

That one asked again “did you delete the video?” I said that it was not a video after all; it was just a simple photo of that lady.

Then I just some monkeyed around and said it’s done.

“Ok,” said the one shaking my hand: “Go, but I keep telling you what I told you.”

“It’s ok, I know. We are a unified nation.” I said and took a deep breath.

People gathered around me and asked me if I was fine or else… Honestly, I was not good. It was too scary. I thought that if they arrested me, I would not be able to work on the current projects that I am writing. This thought made me blame myself.

Especially when I was still suspicious of this uproar roots. I wouldn’t want these events to have anything to do with abroad, wouldn’t want to find traces of NIAC or MEK or Lévy’s puppets, or I don’t know, any baby-dandy gang ganging up on it behind the scene.

If I do that, at any time, the monster should wake up unfortunately, and I’ll have to do what I don’t want to go through, malheureusement.

All these tragedies are happening around because these irreducible people want to make their own choices. May not be a bunch of mama-boys get together in the Upper East Side or le chat noir, giving themselves a sense of political grooming by abusing the people’s free wills bouquet.

I wanted to make sure that everything was really happening by itself in the most genuine way possible; but every time, because of your very mal-attention-seeker being, there were signs telling me that it wasn’t that sort of thing. Fortunately this time these symptoms were related to things that were sent to me on Twitter and the Internet usually. Fake news heureusement.

Under the sun, here onto the street asphalt, everything is open to people; now, this city has become an open city.

On the way back I reached Shariati metro station. It was like one long season of the Divine Comedy. People had lit a fire at the bottom of the escalators to lessen the effect of the tear gas. Climbing the escalator was the hardest thing at that moment. The direction of the wind blows the tear gas in people’s faces.

Outside the station, people finally managed to swarm. They shouted: “Woman, life, liberty; man, homeland, development.” But this victory did not last even a minute. The police got the people away shooting into the air.

In the return of the crowd this time, a group of teenage girls with crying faces told the police that why can’t you be a little bit human and let us have our say? The police were really surprised by this naïve acting.

They were crying and asking the police to allow them to swarm again. The policemen were indifferent and did not answer the crying girls at all.

A little ahead, a police officer kicked me around: “Go go go. Hurry up.”

Towards the Sadr highway, a large group of motorcyclists with a Hezbollah flag or something similar were maneuvering through the street, while the rest of the place was almost filled with women without headscarves. The flag they were carrying was the tallest flag I have ever seen that has been used in street maneuvers.

No one dared to take out and show his mobile phone to take a photo or a short video of this bizarre urban concoction. I was also afraid of doing so that what happened would happen again.

The soldiers did not say anything to the women, nor were the women afraid of their presence. Only we Iranians understand what it means. As we hit the night darkness, the number of plainclothesmen got increased. The air was heavily smoky, the orange smoke that was caused by the light of the street lamp. I was just wandering off, tossing away cigarette butt after cigarette butt.

After a while people had created a traffic jam to block the soldiers’ maneuver path. They were honking non-stop. And this is the endpoint; when the chess game is stalemate.

I figured it in the following nights. When at the end of the day, the cars are relentlessly honking in unison on the two-story highway of Sadr. When in the streets of the lower neighborhoods of the city, everyone starts honking in unison. When you are among them in the traffic of Chamran highway, someplace nearby the Parkway Bridge, and they are all honking.

This means just a bare reality: 1979 without alternative.

2023, During the Winter:

I came back to this text in January 11^th. A lot had had happened during the time this text remained idle—been sent over to some editors but they would refuse to publish it: we don’t want you to come to harm, Danial! So I forget it until today.

I participated in several street uprisings like other Iranians; women and men, children and grownups, urban settlers and rustic dwellers, they went all the way for that way of life, that is, their choice as free humans.

Many killed, more than many arrested, some vanished, some critically injured, some mentally damaged, and the rest experiencing character shapeshifting however. If I want to say which category I myself belong to, I should admit the last one I’m categorized. So, fortunately until today I would be safe.

Character shape-shifters, in a whole sense, are being changed under three main adverbs: socially, psychologically, and metaphysically.

Socially in that, the shape-shifters realized that they need to revise their social relations. Giving up friendships with those, whose political opinions has hermetically bounded up their imagination in their comfort zone’s blub. This pushes the silent population to bring it off and do something useful, because they find out others would regard them as a hot potato.

Psychologically, people started to acknowledge they need support and affection of the other, maybe for the first time in Iran’s history. Again, this made a lot in the former changed discussed one paragraph above. Further, the tissue of our national depression, along with the reality of this non-functional economic apparatus, and the crowd’s bipolarity, trapped itself in dune of strife and confusion because we don’t know any more if how many Islamic Republic are there, and which one is the main Islamic regime? People don’t even know exactly how many shadows they are fighting at once? Who poisons school girls out of the blue?

Next time I came back, opening and working on this text was the snowy day, January 31^th. During this time, I was waiting for something to happen. Nothing especial. So we should consider shapeshifting of the individuals metaphysically.

Metaphysically, people changed in that they do pursue life disenchanting the banality of everyday life especially after the tragic incident of suicidal-heroic act of Mohammad Moradi in Lyon, France—even if it is a silent approaching by the crowd, people respect and follow suit his very message in different ways—apart from the fact that the social engineering agendas do not work anymore like the retrospect.

February 5^th; all above is about the crowd in a whole sense, but the trouble with Mahsa Amini uprising that leaded out to be idle after at least 4 months is that its leadership; women, by far were the leaders of this social movement.

The first group of the victims were a crew of adolescent girls—Nika, Hadith, Sarina, Asra, Hannaneh etc. etc.

But the leadership of this female-led movement, whether you like it or not, belonged to a class of women; I don’t believe that women who are living in disadvantaged parts and deprived areas of our country like the provinces of Baluchistan and Khuzestan have had a share in this leadership. Moreover, the main volonté of the uprising, believe or not, was for the right to the arbitrary hijab.

I’m not a journalist in the professional sense, I detest to be an amateur-fast thinker like that. I’m just someone who thinks and has always been that way. Hence, I should address what mainstream media don’t.

It is true that different political and social groups had become allies of this street rally out of their desires, and fueled the fire of this inundation; with the fulfillment of a class’s demand for optional hijab in the areas, where upper-middle class young women rose from, in a conventional way, an unwritten and temporary way, the street got into silence—only in the city of Zahedan some weekly objections under the leadership of Molavi Abdul-Hamid continue till now.

When I would be wandering in the city, driving district to district, seeing young women without hijab felt allegedly empowered with fashionable dresses and styles, in the well-to-do parts of the city, I was wondering… if Nika and Sarina were living in Shahrak-e Gharb or Niavaran street, they would be alive yet, hanging out with their friends and talking about their conquests—the illusion and narcissistic hyper-reality of Gen Z, or to put it better way, TikTok generation.

When the identity politics started to decline, gen Z narcissism already replaced itself with that.

Now more than ever, I understood the concept of man that Jean-Paul Sartre was talking about, the man, who has been sentenced to be free. Now more than ever, I came to understand how much this concept is wrongly defined. You are not free, in a society whose institutions do not work and the state apparatus is not that sort of doing-well every day function, but condemned to invent a new reality that you can carry on with to live a little bit more.

It changes you metaphysically, psychologically, and socially; it also brings unpredictable collective political, psychological and social consequences. But before that, it is necessary to go over the enigma of the time; I mean the narcissism of generation Z; beside, we should be realistic to the identity politics.

First day of the Persian New Year

After the circumstances returned to our usual abnormal situation in this country, the Islamic Republic released nearly 20,000 people or thereabout, who were arrested during the Mahsa-Amini civic movement—Islamic R’afat extended itself to them as well; all has been sentenced to be free!

Nothing heroic, nothing of a chivalrous spirit; I expect a thousand times more from someone this powerful; but the best news possible after those dark days.