On June 15, five of my relatives -- the oldest 65, the youngest 22 -- spent four hours traveling across Tehran's sprawling metropolis to reach a demonstration against the country's election result. They first crammed into a creaky Iranian-made car, rode part of the way in a dilapidated bus and walked the final three miles. They strode quietly north along with an estimated 2 million others, hopeful that their show of peaceful force would convince the government to annul the election. The next day, the authorities began viciously attacking demonstrators. They dispatched plainclothes henchmen with pistols in their pockets to shoot randomly at civilians. Dissent, Iranians learned, could cost them their lives.
Immediately after the election, such protests evoked the grand marches of the 1979 Islamic revolution. But the scale of the dissent soon diminished. Clearly, the state's vicious tactics were partly to blame. But Iranians were not simply terrorized into staying at home. Rather, there was no leader inspiring them to take to the streets -- and put their lives at risk. The friends and relatives I have spoken to remain outraged over the fraudulent election. But they also remain perplexed by the opposition leaders. Many hailed from the regime's old-guard elite, and it was unclear how much they would be willing to challenge the Islamic system.
No one had an answer to this central question: For whom, exactly, would ordinary Iranians be willing to put themselves in danger? What sort of leadership is required to make violence worth it?
In the weeks that followed the initial protests, restless Tehranis recognized that they were outmaneuvered on the streets and sought to redirect their anger through civil disobedience. People looked to Mir Hossein Mousavi for guidance. He claimed he was the election's rightful winner, and a majority of Iranians, including his rival candidates, seemed to agree. He emerged as an accidental opposition leader, and many watched his transformation with eagerness. Nearly everyone I knew in Iran voted in the election. They believed that Mousavi stood every chance to win. My friends and family had seen how Ahmadinejad's tenure gutted quality of life for Iranians, young and old, poor and middle class alike.
But Mousavi did not win. And although many people I spoke with admired his defiance in the election's immediate aftermath, some faulted him as the government crackdown intensified. With militiamen chasing people into their homes and ordinary citizens being detained, people expected continual motivation and guidance from the opposition. "People need to be backed up strongly. They are afraid when they see no one is behind them," one friend explained. "They needed a voice to tell them, 'Go, we are with you.' But there was no such voice."
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