How do the political ideologies of Irans youth differ from their parents?
It’s a generation that has been hardened by living under the revolutionary regime, undergoing eight years of war against Iraq, intense factional politics, revolutionary committees, the morals police and all kinds of restrictions and frustrations at universities and schools. They’re a tough generation and they’ve learned to stand up and look out for themselves. They’ve also been exposed to a continuous stream of propaganda. But the dress style of the students, the Western music they listen to, the pirated videos they watch, the blue jeans they wear and the desire of young men and women to spend time together despite the authorities show how ineffective the propaganda has been. The surprising development of the past three years has been the embrace by the younger generation, the intelligentsia and the middle class of the idea of a civil society with individual rights and the rule of law. Is the notion of a democratically influenced civil society possible under fundamental Islamic rule? T
