Friday Prayers

My plan had been to just watch Rafsanjani’s Friday sermon on TV at home, but by 12:30 or so it became clear that the State TV stations (unusually—most Friday’s you have to flip through 20 channels to avoid the Friday sermon) weren’t broadcasting it, so I decided to head for Tehran University to see for myself. There were police vans in all the main squares I passed on my way over (Fatemi and Felestin), and they’d closed off the big streets around the main campus, either with official police barriers or just buses they’d commandeered and parked lengthwise across the streets. I passed a group of people—who I guessed by the variety in their clothing styles were strangers—listening to Rafsanjani’s sermon from a beat-up white Paykan sedan with surprisingly good speakers turned way up. On Keshavarz street, just off of Valiasr street, there were lots of people sitting in the shaded grassy divider between lanes listening to the speech broadcast from a pickup truck mounted with speakers. There were a few policemen, some with plexiglass shields and helmets but none in the heavy black body armor. I didn’t see anyone wearing green until I got close to the university campus.

As I reached an area where speakers on poles like streetlamps were broadcasting the speech, the streets were suddenly completely clogged with people. On the sidewalks lots of people had set out little prayer rugs or were sitting on newspapers; some seemed to be having picnics. I don’t know if I can say anything intelligent about the demographics of the people present except that they seemed to be from all ages and social classes. Now I saw a lot of bright green ribbons tied around wrists and fingers, green hijab liners, Mousavi posters, etc. and flashing V for Victory with their fingers.

As I got close to the campus gates the foot traffic slowed to a crawl, with people stopping every few seconds as chants broke out when Rafsanjani said something particularly interesting—I was only listening intermittently and even then couldn’t understand much. Mostly God is Great with an occasional Death to Russia or more rarely Death to China (this surprised me—I guess it was in response to those countries’ support for the regime and early congratulations of Ahmedinejad after the election) or Free the political prisoners. There was another common chant I couldn’t quite make out—at first I thought it was “Dorugh bar Hashemi” (Lie[s] unto Hashemi [Rafsanjani]—which doesn’t particularly make sense grammatically or otherwise) but not I think it was “Ghorur bar Hashemi” (Pride unto Hashemi—but Ghorur usually means pride in a negative sense, ie haughtiness/arrogance, so I’m not at all sure this was what they were chanting). Another I couldn’t quite make out sounded like “Allah, Hossein (ie Imam Hossein), Mir Hossein (ie Mousavi).”

I didn’t see any uniformed police at all but there were a lot of plain-clothed men standing looking around suspiciously, some with walkie-talkies held behind their backs. I wanted to talk to people but opening my mouth and demonstrating my foreign accent would I think have drawn undue attention.

It was almost all Mousavi supporters in the crowd, with one tight knot of counter-protesters waving Iranian flags and pictures of Ahmedinejad and Khamenei at the intersection of Taleghani and Vasal-e Shirazi. They were in a shouting/chanting match with the greenies around them, but I didn’t see any physical violence. Later, as I approached one of the gates of the university, where Ahmedinejad- and Mousavi-supporters seemed to be mixed in together with little problem, I saw two instances where pairs young guys started to shout and push but they were split up before their scuffles turned into anything. There were still chants going through the crowd, but they were being quickly hissed quiet by people who wanted to listen (I read now in the news that Rafsanjani at some point told people to stop chanting).

I wasn’t wearing my watch so I can’t say exactly when things occurred. After the sermon ended, people started filing towards Valiasr square, and I was pulled along on the current. I can’t saw at all how many people there were—I didn’t even close to make it all the way around the circumference of campus and even if I had it would have been impossible to estimate—all I can say is that there were a lot. A lot. It took at least 20 minutes to make it, packed body to body, maybe a hundred meters down the road to where there was at least breathing room. Good Samaritans splashed water from bottles onto the crowd or wet keffiyahs and scarves and then swung them around overheard for a sprinkler effect.

The mass of people, seemingly without any organization, was gradually turning into a march of Valiasr Square, with chants of “Mousavi (clap clap clap) Mousavi (clap clap clap)” and “Death to the dictator” and (most interestingly) “Where are you Khomeini? Mir Hossein loves you.” Counter-protesters stood to the side, heckling or just glaring, while greenies walked down the middle of the street. On the loudspeaker was now some polemic (recording?) yelling Death to America! Death to Israel! Death to England! And the counter-protesters repeated after him while the greenies once again chanted Death to Russia. A lot of the protesters and counter-protesters, especially younger women, seemed to be having a lot of fun and grinned at one another while flashing symbols and teasing each other; some of the female counter-protesters—by the way the counter-protesters looked as expected more conservative and hairy but were very mixed in terms of gender, though they seemed to stand in clusters of men- or women-only as opposed to the greenies—were doing a finger symbol of V for Victory upside down (which I think means curveball). There were some police, but they were letting people pass unmolested (though I didn’t see any expressing sympathy with the greenies).

The presence of the pro-Ahmedinejad/Khamenei demonstrators as we walked along was actually quite comforting, because it suggested that the police wouldn’t be going after everyone indiscriminately, only the actual Mousavi supporters. I joined their ranks when I had a chance, as groups of them were also walking along the sidewalk beside the greenies. When we got to the Felestin Square there were big metal dividers, like temporary walls that I didn’t remember seeing earlier, set up channeling people in two different directions. The bulk of the greenies took the left/north fork, and most of the counter-protesters and I went straight ahead/east. Ahead to Valiasr street, where the crowd had thinned to almost nothing, and life seemed to be going on as normal, I turned left to cross paths once again with the protesters, stopping for melon juice on the way. Valiasr Square was a shock. I arrived just as marchers were approaching—luckily they were still a hundred meters or so down Keshavarz as I walked, along with numerous other pedestrians who seemed uninvolved and surprised, past a mix of regular and riot police and plain-clothed vigilante-typed armed with a variety of clubs. One younger guy with a scraggly beard I passed had a length of thick metal cable that he was bending into a U, as if testing its durability before going into battle. There were hundreds of them. They ignored those like me who didn’t appear to be part of the march, and I walked to the opposite (east) side of the square. There were old-school military-looking trucks with grated windows and buses waiting with police on board.

It was right as I got to the opposite side of the square that chaos and screaming broke out from where the greenies were entering the square. There were a series of loud pops, which I guessed was tear gas being fired. I stood, along with other gawkers, near some police (?) wearing US-style grayish desert camo uniforms trying to see what was going on. Some of the vigilantes seemed to be rushing in. There was a big scaffolding (I think they’re renovating the fountain or statue or whatever in the middle of the square) blocking our view but it seemed to grow quiet for a minute, and then suddenly more screaming and a bunch of young people sprinting in my direction. I started walking down the street in the opposite direction, looking over my shoulder. The stampede stopped abruptly and now people were walking again but looking back as well. The police in desert camo were letting them pass. There was a commotion and a hysterical women was holding a girl maybe 8 years old in her arms, apparently she’d been hurt. I continued walking, keeping ahead of the bulk of the crowd, in the direction of Haft-e Tir Square. I didn’t hear any more bangs, and people seemed to be regaining courage, again flashing V’s and chanting God is Great.

After a motorcycle raced by honking with the hysterical woman and her daughter on board, I stopped to stand beside a bus stop where some men seemed to be innocently waiting for a bus, where I figured I could watch in safety as the group passed. A bus passed, honking and slowly working its way through the crowd, but it was crewed by policeman and full of people who had I guess been arrested at Valiasr square. They exchanged smiles and V’s with pedestrians. There was a cry of “Let’s return!” and those who had run ahead rejoined the group (still large but a fraction now of the number who had attended the Friday sermon) before continuing on towards Haft-e Tir. Immediately behind the marchers were tight-packed cars and buses, which seemed to be continuing their daily routine despite the disruption.

A large group seemed to have stopped at the intersection of Karimkhan and Sepahbod-e Gharni (?), where I saw the next bout of violence. This time it was Basijis (?) on motorcyles who came up from behind. They, and the motorcycle police/militiamen I saw later, seemed to move in squadrons of about 20 bikes, which 2 to each bike and the man behind usually wearing a green camo vest and wielding a weapon or (in the case of the plain-clothed police who seemed to be directing the operation) a walkie-talkie. The weapons were a mix of standard-issue plastic nightsticks, crude wooden clubs with holes drilled through the bottom for a loop of string to wrap around the wrist, or a number of custom designs. One guy I saw on motor-cycles back held a long black truncheon around which he’d coiled a thick chain like a corkscrew and then wrapped in black electrical tape.

They didn’t charge directly into the crowd, but drove around the edges yelling at people (I didn’t see anyone beaten with clubs at this point), as I stood with other observers in the shade of an overpass walkway whose stairs had been blocked off with a wooden pallet. I saw a grey beard in camo vest on the back of one motorcyle fire teargas into the crowd, making the popping bang I’d heard earlier, followed by a couple other bangs. I was far enough away to avoid the effects of the gas, just a little stinging in my nostrils.

After a couple minutes, a stream of protesters—all men—came over eyes red and watery and the bystanders who’d been gathered beside me on the sidewalk, watching but trying to appear uninvolved, tried to help them out by blowing smoke in their eyes, which I guess somehow is though to neutralize the tear gas. In an oddly intimate gesture, a smoker would take a long toke of his cigarette, then lean in close and purse his lips to gently blow smoke into the tear-gas afflicted’s eyes. As I crossed the intersection of Karimkhan and Sepahbod Gharni I saw that some people had set a little newspaper fire by the side of the road and were leaning over it trying to keep their eyes open. I wonder why/if the smoke remedy works.

The police and plain-clothed men who now lined the streets and were walking along catching up with the front of the marchers, still didn’t seem to be paying attention to those of us walking along the sidewalk without any green ribbons etc. One young woman carrying an Iranian flag (indicating she was a reactionary) was following along behind a rough column of policemen (maybe military—they were wearing army green and equipped with riot gear but I don’t think any guns) trying to keep up when her headscarf fell off in the wind. Men behind her in the street and along the sidewalk laughed exaggeratedly and jeered and she cinched her headscarf back over her head tightly and trotted to catch up with the police, refusing to look back.

As I approached Haft-e Tir Square, a group on motorcycles paused briefly, a portly middle-aged mustache man on the back of the lead bike holding up his weapon—it looked like a cattle prod or one of those thin collapsible batons—before pointing it in the direction of the crowd to indicate Charge! They rushed in and from maybe 40 meters away I could seen them start to hit people, with the immediate effect that a large group of pedestrians came running down the sidewalk back towards me and took temporary shelter around the corner of one of the side streets.

After waiting a minute, the chaos seemed to again have moved forward and I continued along the sidewalk. Motorcycle militias just kept passing in their squadrons—some as I described and others wearing heavy black body armor—I don’t know how went by in the direction of the bulk of the marchers, who were now I think at Haft-e Tir. Another column of police overtook me on the sidewalk, one jabbing me with his nightstick as I got out of the way to stand in the little space in front of a grated storefront with some other. The guy next to me was slower on the uptake and got whacked much hard before he made way for them. As the column passed—there were at least 50 of them—an young-looking officer/soldier suddenly stopped and started yelling at the young woman beside me, I think for bad hijab. The other soldiers, all young, joined in and stood for a moment threatening her and the old woman beside her (her mom?) as she adjusted her hijab in terror. After a minute they moved on and the mother called in protest something like We didn’t even do anything! A passing soldier mimicked her in a whiny voice: we didn’t even do anything, we didn’t even do anything.

After that I turned back and walked to Valiasr Square, then home. Numerous motorcycle squads passed, and one pickup truck with a half-dozen soldiers in the back, some of whom wore black ski masks (which must have been really unbearably hot). The square was still full of cops but the greenies had all long passed and the traffic was fairly normal. As I turned north on Valiasr street, more motorcycle squads passed, suggesting something was going on up north as well, maybe around Vanak. Two squads—one of camo-vested Basijis and the other of black body armored-riot police, passed each other in opposite directions. They waved and grinned and honked at each other in solidarity.

In the future I think I’ll avoid events that might turn into mass demonstrations. I was talking to a guy yesterday evening about the prospects of further protest and he didn’t even mention today’s sermon, but said the next big one would he thought be on 30 Tir/21 July (I bought a handy little pocket planner that lists dates according to both the Persian and Gregorian calendar, I’m committing myself to finally learning the former), when there’s some commemoration of the 1953 coup against Mossadegh.

I can hear people chanting God is Great from their rooftops as I write this.

A translation of Rafsanjani’s speech: http://enduringamerica.com/2009/07/17/transcript-rafsanjanis-sermon/

update: I just watched a rerun of Rafsanjani's speech on TV, so they are broadcasting it after all, maybe because he didn't say anything too radical (the call for free media and freeing political prisoners was the most aggressive thing, i think).