A Thumping Heart

It's midnight in Tehran and I am listless as I look around me. This is the city whose thumping heart beats in every corner and alleyway, the city which devours traditions. The smell of the smog fills my nose as I watch the heavy crowds push and pull against one another, not realizing that they are, in essence, only pushing and pulling against themselves.

I had seen these streets not too long ago, but it was different then. I had seen crowds then too, but they had been marching. I remember the chants, the broken glass, the bite of tear gas, the alcohol swabs and garbage bin fires.

It may be midnight in Tehran, but I can still sense the fog. It is everywhere. I cannot predict what will happen 10 feet ahead of me.

I arrived back to Tehran Monday morning from Mashhad, one of the country's main religious centers and host to the shrine of the 8th Shiite Imam, Imam al-Reza. The city attracts millions upon millions of pilgrims annually, and Arabic speakers fill the streets around the shrine. Iranian shop owners, or bazaaris, easily switch back and forth between Persian and Arabic. Mashhad is a wonderful example of what a regionally cosmopolitan yet deeply religious city could look like. The city's diversity and mix of people of different backgrounds gave this blogger hope of what a future Middle East could one day become as well, where historical relationships between the region's diverse peoples could once again become fluid and prosperous.

Within the shrine itself, Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, a Friday prayer leader in Tehran and influential figure among the traditional political clergy, delivered a typical speech within the courtyard emphasizing the importance of Velayat-e Faqih, or Guardianship of the Jurispudent. A stark reminder that the Islamic Republic's religio-political legitimacy is far from depleted. This clerically inherited and innovative worldview which roots it's legitimacy in anti-hegemonic and conservative/religious discourse is still the most powerful political force to be reckoned within the Islamic Republic.

Of course, the innovation of this worldview is constrained by the fact it is in power. It is not as free to engage in revolutionary politics to the degree to which it would like, but it is still, nonetheless, quite successful in achieving many of it's mission statements: creation of an anti-hegemonic axis in the Middle East and the promotion of Islam both socially and politically within Iran.

The biggest legitimate challenge to this view comes not from the outside, but from within -- from the Islamic Left in an attempt to better achieve what they believe the Islamic Revolution was all about. However, the Reformists did not advocate regime change; instead, they wanted reform from within the framework of the Islamic Republic and never formally opposed the Supreme Leader, although some Reformist elements did eventually choose this route, they were never the majority and the Islamic Left of Khatami never denounced the Islamic Republic.

And so, despite the presence of a significant and very important opposition movement within Iran, there is extraordinary support for the fundamentals of the Islamic Republic at both a popular and elite level... it only takes one trip to Mashhad to figure that out.