[This is exactly what real friends of democracy in the Middle East have been watching for for almost four years. It's been in clear development all that time. It most likely could have been accelerated during that period through the use of soft power encouragement it never got. And it will likely be killed by an US invasion unless (knock on wood) it can complete itself before that time. A similar movement was crushed in 1999 with the leaders denounced as traitors. It will be next to impossible to resist that attack again if the Americans are invading next door and making public pronouncements about how they're going to invade Iraq next. I personally feel Khatami finally made the momentous decision to resign (which everyone has been waiting for) in summer, but has held off precisely because he was afraid, starting in August, of an immiment invasion. And now he's decided he's got to make his throw in the window of opportunity before February.]
[Here's hoping. Axis of evil, indeed. When it comes to electing the executive and legislature, Iran's got a ten times more active democracy than we do. Now if they can only conquer the judiciary -- and they can -- that supposedly impossible dream of a modern islamic state with a separation between church and state (and not held up by the army) will exist, and will have come into existence through a legitimate and sustainable and indigenous process. Here's hoping it's as influential as the first Iranian revolution was 20 years ago.]
[For the students at least, it looks like the test comes on Monday.]
Financial Times; Nov 15, 2002
BACK PAGE - FIRST SECTION: Tehran on guard for looming clash between town and gown
By Guy Dinmore
Directing traffic is not usually the duty of Tehran's top police officer, but then these are far from normal times in the Iranian capital. Each day this week, Commander Morteza Talayi has been on the scene to ensure that student protest rallies remain on campus and do not spill on to the streets.
Outside the university gates, ranks of police hold back hordes of fanatical thugs spoiling for a fight to defend their vision of a fundamentalist Islamic regime. Commander Talayi's job is to keep the two sides apart and avoid a repeat of the events of 1999.
One July night back then, security forces backed by hardline Islamist militiamen stormed a university dormitory rally, brutally beat many students, killed one person and sparked a week of the worst unrest in the capital since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
"Nothing is happening. Just making sure the traffic flows smoothly," says the Commander, waving on cars outside Modarres University.
Inside the campus, about 2,000 students have just finished an emotional rally in support of their history lecturer, Hashem Aghajari, who was sentenced to death last week for criticising Islamic fundamentalism and authoritarian clerical rule.
How long Tehran's police force, deployed in their hundreds, can maintain their own discipline, as well as keep the students and Islamist militia apart, is a question haunting Iran's clerical establishment, well aware that many ordinary Tehranis are waiting to join the university movement. "I know I won't be able to keep my two sons away if the students come out," said one middle-aged mother, who herself took to the streets in the 1979 revolution.
So far, the students have heeded pleas by Mohammad Khatami, the reformist president, and his coalition of parties to keep rallies peaceful and confined to the campuses.
Few expect the judiciary to carry out the hanging of Mr Aghajari, as the sentence has even been condemned by leading conservatives. Nonetheless, the rallies have revived a flagging university movement cowed into passivity and apathy by the intimidating events of 1999, the jailing of student leaders and the setbacks suffered by the president's reform drive.
The fate of Mr Aghajari, a 45-year-old, one-legged veteran of the Iran-Iraq war, has been crystallised in the students' rallying cry of "Freedom", echoed by equally strident calls for "Democracy".
Day by day, speakers at campus rallies across the country have become more brazen in their attacks on the conservative establishment and their demands for political reforms contained in two key pieces of legislation proposed by the president.
Even Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader whom usually no one dares to criticise in public, has not been spared, especially after he warned that he might resort to using the "force of the people" - widely taken to mean the security forces - if the crisis over the president's twin bill reaches deadlock.
"Even the leader, who appoints the judiciary, should be accountable," declared Musavi Khoieni, a radical parliamentarian, in front of more than 2,000 students at Amir Kabir University on Wednesday.
"If this trend continues, of a widening rift between the government and universities, the universities will say goodbye to the ruling state. Officials should be confident that after the universities, the people will also say goodbye," the young MP said to applause.
Several student speakers made the point, again to cheers, that if the supreme leader was serious about the "force of the people", he should agree to demands for a national referendum on political reform.
On the fringes, however, many students remain sceptical, defending their non-participation by arguing that such rallies are pointless.
Abdullah Momeni, a member of the central council of the Office to Foster Unity (OFU), the main student union seeking to co-ordinate the protests, admits there has been "serious passivity" in the universities.
The union's new strategy, he says, is to distance itself from the political parties around the president, as they have proved unable to defend freedoms within the existing structure. "We are drawing a line between us and the reformists," he explains.
The test will come on Monday. The union expects the authorities to reject its application for a public rally in the streets of Tehran that day, so student leaders are drawing up plans for a closure of all universities in the country. A boycott of all classes would be part of a wider campaign of "civil disobedience".
Previous student leaders, such as Ali Afshari from Amir Kabir, who have challenged the conservative establishment in this way are now languishing in prison.
No one is sure if the OFU can harness what is recognised as a widespread feeling of discontent. All of Tehran is waiting to find out.