Word: protestant
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Given that many Iranian politicians and citizens have criticized the state-run media for a lack of fair and balanced coverage, the fact that most domestic news outlets reported at all on the opposition protests was striking. Instead of denying the existence of an opposition in Iran, pro-government news organizations now use the more savvy method of spin - questioning the motives, members and supporters of the "Green Movement." (Read about "Death to America" Day and how Iran trained its young to protest...
What do students do on Students' Day? Not too long ago, I posed this question to the principal of a boys' high school in Tehran. Do you take your students to the "Nest of Spies," as the former embassy is commonly referred to in Iran, to rally and protest? The principal, a man with impeccable revolutionary credentials, did not hesitate in his reply. "Why would we? What would be the use in that?" Instead, he said his staff would take their students to a private garden as a way to build camaraderie and spirit, a kind of Islamic field trip...
...most Iranians, state-sponsored gatherings and anniversaries were distractions or annoyances under normal circumstances. Now, however, they have been given a surprising new impetus: no longer just opportunities to join state-sponsored protest but now to protest against the state...
Denied the right to march in the streets, the opposition movement has taken advantage of days when the state allows, even encourages, large gatherings. The phenomenon of "protest by piggybacking" began just after the disputed June 12 elections, with an opposition rally timed to coincide with the yearly commemoration of the assassination of an important revolutionary leader in June 1981. Several weeks later in September, an even larger crowd dressed in green and numbering in the tens of thousands effectively hijacked the annual Jerusalem Day rallies held across the country. Shouts of "Death to Israel" were replaced by a chorus...
...even be argued that the years of state indoctrination in "protest" commemoration simply taught the young how to become revolutionary. Where there is injustice, children are told, "protest." It is not by accident that the opposition chants are from the original 1979 Revolution. The holidays, practices, slogans, and iconography that constitute the Islamic Republic of Iran appear to have provided today's green-clad protesters with an arsenal to use against a state that they increasingly see as repeating the mistakes of the regime overthrown three decades...