In the thick of it

Mona Ghadiri ’11 in Iran
Photo courtesy of Ghadiri For most Americans, elections are peaceful events. Mona Ghadiri ’11 saw something completely different over the summer in the thick of the political upheaval in Tehran, Iran, during the country’s disputed presidential election.

Ghadiri’s father immigrated to the United States in 1977, two years before the 1979 revolution that brought the Islamic Republic to power. Most of her paternal family still lives in the country. Ghadiri grew up with a strong sense of the culture and holds dual citizenship. She has traveled to Iran eight times.

Thanks to her dual citizenship, Ghadiri cast a ballot for reformist candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi in the recent election. According to the state, Mousavi lost to incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Even before the post-election riots, Ghadiri says she noticed increased fervor surrounding this election. “Mousavi kind of had an Obama effect on the younger people and got everybody really, really energized,” she says. “[Before the election] … you’re seeing all these people all together, screaming, holding hands, chanting, and it’s just totally different from how things normally are in Iran. It was really exciting to see that.”

When we met recently for an interview, she was still wearing a green-cloth wristband, Mousavi’s campaign color. Even though Ghadiri was a strong supporter of Mousavi, she missed most of the protests. “My parents wouldn’t let me get out of the house,” she says. “‘… At the time I was like ‘I want to be a part of history! Let me go!’”

In spite of her parents’ worries, Ghadiri managed to sneak out once to see the protests in Vanak Square, a major plaza near her family’s home. “We told my parents we were going to a bookstore and actually ended up wandering around the main square,” Ghadiri says. “You’ve got the Ahmadinejads on one side screaming at the Mousavis on the other side.

“Once it [got] dark, that’s when the more rioting kinds of things were happening,” she says. “ … [People would] go out on the rooftops and shout ‘Allahu Akbar’ which means ‘God is Great,’ which is something leftover from the 1979 revolution. And I did sneak out and yell it, and my dad got so mad. But it’s like clockwork, every night at 10 o’clock, you hear people … shout ‘God is Great.’”

Ghadiri’s family left Tehran as the protests became more violent. The day after the killing of protestor Neda Agha-Soltan — a murder famously captured and uploaded to YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76W-0GVjNEc&skipcontrinter=1— Ghadiri and her family left for a small quiet town in northern Iran, where they spent two weeks waiting out the violence.

New technologies such as Twitter and text messaging played an important role for protestors. Ghadiri also relied upon technology, both to receive non–state censored news and also to stay in touch with friends and family at home. While the government blocked many websites such as Facebook and her blog in the days after the election, Ghadiri used GrinnellPlans to update her friends on her safety, since it was one of the few websites that would load. She still managed to write a blog to provide a firsthand account of the events as they happened, as well, through the use of proxy sites.

Though she is back at Grinnell and focused on her studies, Ghadiri has not left the experience and its political importance behind. She recently took part in a panel sponsored by the Rosenfield Program about the aftermath of the Iranian election. Though frustrated, Ghadiri still holds the same interest for the country, and hopes to travel there again and possibly return to teach English after she graduates.

— Pat Caldwell ’09