Time Magazine's Robin Wright has a great piece out this week on phase two of the Iranian revolution, which has been lighting slow-burning fuses for several weeks now since the regime leaders managed to stamp out the extremely popular street uprising following the presidential elections:
The second phase plays out in a boycott of goods advertised on state-controlled television. Just try buying a certain brand of dairy product, an Iranian human-rights activist told me, and the person behind you in line is likely to whisper, "Don't buy that. It's from an advertiser." It includes calls to switch on every electric appliance in the house just before the evening TV news to trip up Tehran's grid. It features quickie "blitz" street demonstrations, lasting just long enough to chant "Death to the dictator!" several times but short enough to evade security forces. It involves identifying paramilitary Basij vigilantes linked to the crackdown and putting marks in green — the opposition color — or pictures of protest victims in front of their homes. It is scribbled antiregime slogans on money. And it is defiant drivers honking horns, flashing headlights and waving V signs at security forces.
The tactics are unorganized, largely leaderless and only just beginning. They spread by e-mail, websites and word of mouth. But their variety and scope indicate that Iran's uprising is not a passing phenomenon like the student protests of 1999, which were quickly quashed. This time, Iranians are rising above their fears. Although embryonic, today's public resolve is reminiscent of civil disobedience in colonial India before independence or in the American Deep South in the 1960s. Mohandas Gandhi once mused that "even the most powerful cannot rule without the cooperation of the ruled." That quotation is now popular on Iranian websites.
While Wright delivers in the long form, The Huffington Post's Nico Pitney continues to excel with short-form, in-the-moment coverage of events in Iran.
Today, police confronted protesters and mourners alike at a graveside memorial commemorating the 40th day since the death of Neda Agha Soltan; Neda was shot by one of the regime's basiji street militias and quickly became a face of the revolt.
