Children of Jihad: A Young American's Travels Among the Youth of the Middle East by Jared Cohen Page A
Authors: Jared Cohen
Tags: Religión, General, Social Science, Travel, Sociology, Islam, Political Science, middle east, Islamic Studies, Political Process, jihad, youth, Middle East - Description and travel, Political activity, Political Advocacy, Children's Studies, Cohen; Jared - Travel - Middle East, Youth - Political Activity, Muslim Youth
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forum for fashionable displays. It reminded me of a late-night traffic jam on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. Within the traffic jam, of which we were now part, I found boys hanging out the windows of their cars, numerous girls not wearing their hejab, and even boys and girls dancing on the street and on the hoods of cars. It resembled a spontaneous block party.
Amid the horn honking and hip-hop music, young boys and girls engaged in paper exchanges across cars. Mariam and Nassim explained that the paper transfers I saw were the latest way for boys and girls to give their phone numbers. The girls insisted that I try my luck at this. Never shying away from a chance to live in the moment, I wrote my number on the back of a receipt, crumpled it up, and threw it at the car next to me. Much to my disappointment, the number hit the window and fell to the ground. It was a shame, too, because the girls in the car next to me were very attractive. Crumpled notes of paper are not the only method for number exchanges. In the same traffic jam, boys and girls used their mobile phones to send anonymous Bluetooth text messages to one another, electronically flirting and courting. I was amazed by how much young Iranians did on their mobile phones. Parties, meetings, gatherings, protests, are all organized anonymously by Bluetooth messaging. The cell phone is both a way out and a way in for Iranian youth as they seek to express themselves, while at the same time circumventing the state intelligence apparatus.
F ereshteh Street is not the only place in Tehran where younger Iranians, rambunctious in spirit, exercise their right to be youth. Jordan Street and Iran Zamin are two other youth hot spots. While each of these places has its own character—Jordan Street, for instance, is known for its drag racing—the general character and symbolic importance of these forums remains the same. This was the closest young Iranians could get to feeling normal, as if they were living in democratic societies where they didn’t have to worry about the morals police or the intelligence services. They feel free on these streets and despite the fact that the morals police are just a few blocks away waiting to confiscate cars and arrest young socialites, they forget about the society they are living in so long as the music blasts, the fashion is displayed, and the interactions are flirtatious. The wild evening streets of Tehran offer a democratic lifestyle that Iranian youth can only enjoy after dark.
T he parties, gatherings, and social indulgences that the Iranian youth showed me could themselves fill the pages of this book. They showed me a face of Iran that I hadn’t known existed and the shared social activity that we experienced was an instant force that unified us. If one focuses on the parties and the social resistance it is easy to see the Iranian people as a tremendous asset for change in the Islamic Republic. But even if this passive resistance is the dominant characteristic of Iranian society, it does not tell the full story. There are those who chant “Death to America” and there are those who believe in the ideology of the Islamic Republic. While youth supportive of the regime are few and far between, there is one issue that seems to unify almost all Iranian people: the validity of Iran’s nuclear aspirations.
CHAPTER 4
NUCLEAR PRIDE
IRAN, 2005
I was freezing. Using my sweatshirt as a blanket, I curled up in the back of the old, unheated Russian Skoda. When I’d made the hasty decision to drive from southern Iran back to Tehran, I hadn’t anticipated a huge blizzard causing the trip to take at least three times as long as I’d thought it would. The blizzard led to massive congestion on the roads, and I struggled not to breathe in the thick black smoke from the line of cars and trucks in front of me.
After what had to have been at least thirteen hours in traffic, my driver and I emerged from the
Amid the horn honking and hip-hop music, young boys and girls engaged in paper exchanges across cars. Mariam and Nassim explained that the paper transfers I saw were the latest way for boys and girls to give their phone numbers. The girls insisted that I try my luck at this. Never shying away from a chance to live in the moment, I wrote my number on the back of a receipt, crumpled it up, and threw it at the car next to me. Much to my disappointment, the number hit the window and fell to the ground. It was a shame, too, because the girls in the car next to me were very attractive. Crumpled notes of paper are not the only method for number exchanges. In the same traffic jam, boys and girls used their mobile phones to send anonymous Bluetooth text messages to one another, electronically flirting and courting. I was amazed by how much young Iranians did on their mobile phones. Parties, meetings, gatherings, protests, are all organized anonymously by Bluetooth messaging. The cell phone is both a way out and a way in for Iranian youth as they seek to express themselves, while at the same time circumventing the state intelligence apparatus.
F ereshteh Street is not the only place in Tehran where younger Iranians, rambunctious in spirit, exercise their right to be youth. Jordan Street and Iran Zamin are two other youth hot spots. While each of these places has its own character—Jordan Street, for instance, is known for its drag racing—the general character and symbolic importance of these forums remains the same. This was the closest young Iranians could get to feeling normal, as if they were living in democratic societies where they didn’t have to worry about the morals police or the intelligence services. They feel free on these streets and despite the fact that the morals police are just a few blocks away waiting to confiscate cars and arrest young socialites, they forget about the society they are living in so long as the music blasts, the fashion is displayed, and the interactions are flirtatious. The wild evening streets of Tehran offer a democratic lifestyle that Iranian youth can only enjoy after dark.
T he parties, gatherings, and social indulgences that the Iranian youth showed me could themselves fill the pages of this book. They showed me a face of Iran that I hadn’t known existed and the shared social activity that we experienced was an instant force that unified us. If one focuses on the parties and the social resistance it is easy to see the Iranian people as a tremendous asset for change in the Islamic Republic. But even if this passive resistance is the dominant characteristic of Iranian society, it does not tell the full story. There are those who chant “Death to America” and there are those who believe in the ideology of the Islamic Republic. While youth supportive of the regime are few and far between, there is one issue that seems to unify almost all Iranian people: the validity of Iran’s nuclear aspirations.
CHAPTER 4
NUCLEAR PRIDE
IRAN, 2005
I was freezing. Using my sweatshirt as a blanket, I curled up in the back of the old, unheated Russian Skoda. When I’d made the hasty decision to drive from southern Iran back to Tehran, I hadn’t anticipated a huge blizzard causing the trip to take at least three times as long as I’d thought it would. The blizzard led to massive congestion on the roads, and I struggled not to breathe in the thick black smoke from the line of cars and trucks in front of me.
After what had to have been at least thirteen hours in traffic, my driver and I emerged from the
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