The Guardian has an article by a reporter who has covered Iran for ten years, living there from 2005-2007. She has some interesting examples of how Ahmadinejad used to be popular but has since lost his luster as he dragged the country even deeper down. This popular movement may not be successful today but Iran has deep problems that will eventually be hard to overcome by the current regime. This movement has been building for years.
Even before the advent of Ahmadinejad, Iran suffered from one of the world's most sizeable brain drains. Each year, the country's brightest and most talented young people left to work in the west, energising and enriching the technology, medical, and aeronautical sectors of other nations. They left because young people in Iran cannot find jobs suitable to their educations, and most believe that Iran reserves prosperity for the scions of ayatollahs. Even young people without the qualifications desired by immigration officials consider Iran a land barren of opportunity, and have preferred to struggle in the west.
This trend began long before Ahmadinejad's presidency, and it has served to tear apart Iranian families for three decades. If the tremendous diversity of the faces seen protesting in Iran this week underscores anything, it is that people's grievances have deep roots in Iran, and that their anger has been spurred, but not conceived, by this electoral outrage. Today, Iranians are registering their discontent with the system of Islamic government as a whole. They do not necessarily want to overthrow their regime, but to express the depths of their frustration with its inadequacy.
Of all the images I've seen emerging from Iran this week, those of fiery women beating policemen and leading protests have moved me the most. Throughout the past decade, Iran's extraordinarily sophisticated and well-educated women have sought for peaceful change through the existing system. Accounting for 60% of university students, Iranian women emerge from university armed with career expectations and modern attitudes toward their role in family and society. They have patiently petitioned the state to grant them more equitable rights before the law. But at each opportunity, they have been treated with contempt. Their vibrant presence in these protests is signalling to the government that they will not tolerate its discrimination and disdain any longer.
