Students Demonstrating Against the President: in Iran

Tehran University kicked off the academic year with a something different this year.

About a hundred students demonstrated against the president Monday, October 8. That's hardly noteworthy, except for this detail: it was President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran who they called 'dictator.'

What's even more remarkable is that the students seem to still be alive.

Maybe it isn't so surprising: I've never thought Ahmadinejad was particularly stupid or foolish: and this isn't the time to emulate Burma/Myanmar's direct approach to opposing opinions. Not if Ahmadinejad wants to maintain an image of innocent victim of western oppression, at least.

The non-Ahmadinejad fans chanted "death to the dictator" (in Persian, I assume) while the Iranian president talked about how good science is, and how risky Western-style democracy is.

More conventionally loyal Iranian students chanted "thank you president," while the police stayed safely on the other side of the university gates.

I don't think this is the start of an Iranian "sixties," with student radicals taking over the colleges and universities. For starters, Iran seems to be much too well run for that sort of thing to happen. Besides that, pro-government student groups have more support, and the reform newspapers that haven't been shut down are being discretely muted in their criticism of official Iranian policies.

What's going on in Iran?

I think it's fair to say that not everyone is satisfied with how the ayatollahs are running the place. Which is something to remember, when thinking about what can, and should, be done about the very real danger of Islamic fanatics building nuclear weapons with Iran's "peaceful" nuclear program.

Related posts, on Individuals and the War on Terror.