TEHRAN — The young men and women enter Haft Tir Square tentatively. Their pace slows as they discreetly glance around. They spot the club-wielding uniformed security officials and plainclothes Basiji militiamen, scan the square for other would-be demonstrators.
A woman in a form-fitting mini-coat looks left, then right. There is safety in numbers, but there are few of her kind here for the scheduled gathering, so she quietly moves along, glancing at the shop windows. Maybe she'll circle back in a few minutes.
"The authorities have beaten people up, and killed some," says Hamad, a 26-year-old business student among those navigating the square, cautiously examining eyes and dress.
"Their legitimacy has been damaged," he says. "Now I wait. I do not know what will happen. But the atrocity and cheating will linger in the collective memory. And someday an eruption will occur."
The streets of Tehran are quiet once again. But the multitudes who protested the reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad haven't gone home and put their rage in a closet.
They are carefully weighing their options, balancing personal lives, economic well- being and political aspirations -- and trying to determine whether they have any real leadership.
Perhaps the anger will reignite on July 9, the 10th anniversary of a student uprising that prompted a campaign to crush reformist aspirations. Or the match may be lighted the next time authorities roll out the Guidance Patrol, which stops women on the streets for allowing too much hair to peep out from under their head scarves.
The government has shown that it's willing to pay a high price in blood and international isolation to maintain its hold on the direction of the country.
But what price are protesters and other citizens willing to pay? Are they ready to go underground, let dark roots overwhelm their blond highlights and shed petite mini-coats to hide tracts and underground newspapers beneath all-covering black chadors?
Are they willing to light a candle? Hurl a rock? Forward an e-mail or defiantly climb to their rooftops and chant "God is great!" every night at 10? Or are they willing to put in the time and effort, and perhaps risk their lives, to organize a movement, just as the followers of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini did in the 1960s?
