Ahmadinejad's mostly poor urban supporters are more inchoate. Their bond to the president is emotional more than intellectual.
"He's very brave," says one female supporter of the president, who declines to give her name. "He stood up to the West on our nuclear program and he stood up to the fat cats here."
"What did you get out of that?" I ask.
"What do you mean?"
"How did you benefit from his bravery?"
She pauses.
"He made us feel proud," she says.
Iran is a young country, in more ways than one. Not only are the demographics heavily weighted toward those under 30, but the culture gives special consideration to youths, who are valued and spoken about with almost as much reverence as the elderly. "What about the young people? I feel sorry for them. What will become of them?" You hear that a lot from Iranians.
In Ahmadinejad's attempts to stifle the joyous spirit of youth and restore the austerity and piety of the early years after the revolution, he may have sown the seeds of his own downfall.
He has angered an entire generation of apolitical young Iranians more inclined to party than organize, more interested in pursuing ambitious careers and remodeling their noses than campaigning on the streets. The "sissy boys" and girls from uptown who like to dance to cheap Persian pop music and drink homemade booze late into the night are out on the streets rallying against him.
"He's beat us down so much," says Adeleh, a black-haired 30-year-old Tehran dentist and Mousavi supporter who describes how she was detained one day a few months ago by the dreaded Guidance Patrol, the morality police, who hauled her to jail for wearing an outfit not deemed Islamic enough.
"Look at me!" she says, pointing to her elegant black coat and head scarf. "Do I look improper? When I told them I was a dentist, they were almost worse toward me, as if it was a crime to be a professional woman."
Along Vali Asr Street, a young woman wearing battery-powered green devil's horns hangs out a car window. She holds her hands up in a victory salute as a group of motorcyclists holding Ahmadinejad posters courses past through the clogged traffic. She and the young men scowl disapprovingly at each other, but say nothing.
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daragahi@latimes.com
