On ‘Death to the Dictator!’
By Maggie Barron
Death to the Dictator!
by Afsaneh Moqadam
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Iran. June 12th. An election has been stolen. The Iranian people take to the streets to protests with a fierceness unseen since the Revolution. "Death to the Dictator!," written under a pseudonym to protect the author's identity, follows the story of Mohsen Abbaspour, a young man who --from his political awakening to eventual imprisonment and torture -- experiences the thrilling freedom and the harrowing brutality of the summer of 2009.
Before the election, voters did not have much of a choice between candidates. There was Ahmadinejad, a man "standing on his own froth," with a vise grip over the country's economy, oil reserves, and military-security complex. The "reformers," Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karrubi, were not exactly outsiders. In a country where men of the revolution are men of the establishment, both reform candidates had ties to the government. And neither 
raised his voice or otherwise objected during the cultural "slash-and-burn" of the previous decades.
Yet they did offer some change. Men and women who for years had been too cynical to participate in elections began to show up at the polls. People like Mohsen's father were "disconcerted by the rebirth of ideals" yet ready to be a part of that rebirth. The readiness lasted only a moment. Soon after voting, Mohsen's father felt like a fool, confirmed in the knowledge he'd possessed all along: the vote is fixed.
The days that follow, as Iranians of all ages take to the streets, are the happiest of Mohsen's life, "now, for the first time, not being forced to take orders, not having to listen to idiots, not being patronized, not being humiliated." The author seizes on the fascinating contradictions and ambivalence of that time. Protestors want to be on the international stage, but are suspicious of other countries conspiring against them. The new technology - Facebook, Twitter, and cell phones - help them organize, but it also quickens the pace at which events unfold, and, allowed the government to eavesdrop (with the help of Nokia Siemens, Iran's main cell phone network). Despite the fact that the Western press dubs this the "Twitter revolution," many protestors leave their phones at home for fear that the police will use them to their own advantage.
In the days after the election, the people still look to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, to pull the country back from the brink. The book paints a compelling picture of a man who, despite his religious status, is -- remains, above all else -- a politician. Focused on his own survival, he wouldnt have been able to oust Ahmadinejad even if he wanted to. After several days of protests, his speech provides little opportunity for reconciliation. With a sick logic, Khamenei claims that giving in to the protestors' "illegal demands" for a recount or a runoff will be "the beginning of a kind of dictatorship.
"Death to the Dictator!" breathlessly describes the view on the ground. The exclamation point in the title hints at many more exclamation points to come, and the dialogue tends towards the stilted -- or perhaps it's poorly translated (unless people do in fact yell "Malodorous swine!" in the heat of a police confrontation). This is not a book that provides a detailed account of how the protests were organized (most descriptions are in the passive voice - decisions "were made" and a route "is chosen" with little explanation of how or why those decisions came to be.) Nor does the book deliver investigative journalism, since as the author acknowledges, what happened out of the public view is still not known.
Yet I learned more from this little book than from any news articles, and, I bet, more than I will learn from the retrospective pieces likley to crop up in papers and on-line in commeration of the one-year anniversary of the events. "Death" is particularly illuminating with respect to the unique mindset of the Iranian people, and "the national tendency to interpret everything other than the way it appears."
It is heartening to find that lessons of the Velvet Revolution and the lessons of non-violence are alive in Iran, despite the imprisonments, show trials, and public confessions that have taken place in the past year. The country is described as a great limb that had fallen asleep under the weight of autocracy. When that weight is lifted ever so briefly, "the blood begins to rush."
At the same time, the author provides little hope for the prospect of gradual reform or reconciliation. Instead, the Islamic Republic has now entered "the last and perhaps dirtiest phase of its life." Things are likely to get worse before they get better.
"They won't say they are sorry for the past," writes the author. "Iranians don't really go in for apologies."
Maggie Barron is a former Brennan Center staffer.
