Iran Essay Contest (1st Place): The Green Movement --- Why It Has Lost...And How It Can Win
Thursday, June 30, 2011 at 8:06
On a breezy morning, we three headed down to a main square at Tehran to join the anti-regime protests on the occasion of the regime’s victory anniversary on February 11, 2010. Seems paradoxical?
There were millions of people gathering there: a bizarre, heterogeneous mixture of two large groups of people, supporters and protestors, walking next to each other, each one having a nervous look at the face of the other. A spark was needed to ignite the whole crowd. Some comrades, whom we saw by accident, had the same feeling: being lost and lonely. Like former protests, we hoped that somewhere, someplace, some people may have sorted out some sort of protests. We wandered for hours to find them. But nothing did really happen that day.
That day, the confused, wandering population of protesters was abused by the government as "their supporters". Was this the glorious achievement vowed by Iranian opposition activists, some even claiming the toppling of the ruling regime?
It was then that a series of vital questions needed to be answered.