Word: street
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...sure, the biggest street demonstrations since the overthrow of the shah in 1979 were a dramatic wake-up call to the conservative clergy who are Iran?s self-appointed supreme rulers, despite parliamentary and presidential elections that allow the population a limited outlet for their own views. The frustrations of a generation raised under the Islamic revolution poured out in unprecedented six days of confrontations with authority, in which students dared challenge the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameini. But the reformers? strong suit is not street battles; it?s elections. Next March, Iranians go to the polls to elect...
...other hand, Khatami and his supporters operate meticulously within the law and political system created in 1979, fearing the power of the conservative backlash that transgression would occasion. When the conservative authorities banned further street demonstrations, Khatami dutifully fell in line and condemned any attempt to break the law and create social upheaval. In fact, five days earlier, it was Khameini who had been forced to condemn some of his most ardent supporters, who had mounted a bloody raid on protesters at a Tehran University dormitory. Both sides, then, recognize the need to maintain a balance. And despite the disappointment...
...same time, however, the conservatives recognize the importance of transforming Iran?s image in the international community. In a sermon at Tehran University on Friday, former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani praised Iranians who had rallied behind the leadership during the street protests, but noted that the episode and had damaged Iran and called for stability. "[Instability] can be very damaging economically," he warned. "Foreign and domestic investment could decrease and Iran?s risk factor could rise." The very fact of a doyen of Iran?s Islamic revolution expressing concern over the country?s AAA rating signals a profound shift...
...politics (though remarkably, everyone now seems to remember him as headed that way). Just as well, perhaps ? we don?t much like our politicians these days, and private-sector John-John (our name for him) was his father brought nearer and friendlier, the affable scion on a SoHo street corner. And he certainly wasn?t ugly ? indeed, he was handsomer in person, handsomer than his father, handsomer than just about anybody else we liked to think we knew. But what if he hadn?t been? What if he had been less like Princess Diana, and more like Prince Charles...
...pundits looking back scramble to dismantle the "hunk" image ? John cared about the underprivileged, John cared about serious political issues, John was wise, and no lightweight ? note that those are not policy wonks tromping through lower Manhattan to leave notes and flowers on John and Carolyn?s North Moore Street doorstep. Overwhelmingly, they are the ones who bought the publications that plastered his face on the front page, again and again, and told the stories of John-John and Madonna, John-John and Daryl Hannah, John-John and his beautiful wife, Carolyn Bessette. "Because he was so handsome," says Orecklin...