Rising Spirit of Reform in Iran

The annual government-sponsored rally has taken place at the site of the former U.S. Embassy in Tehran to commemorate the 20th anniversary of its seizure by radical students, an event with the same symbolic relevance to Iran’s Islamic revolution as the Bastille’s fall two centuries earlier was to the French revolution. Sixty-six Americans became prisoners of Iran, and 52 of them remained in captivity 444 days.

But this year’s anniversary prompted another kind of rally as well. At Tehran University about 1,000 students, shouting such slogans as “Freedom of expression forever!” and carrying banners calling for dialogue with the West, defied the clerical regime and made clear their support for reform. Among the leaders of the reform effort are a number of now middle-aged former students who participated in the embassy’s seizure.

The 1997 election that gave Mohammad Khatami the presidency sharply exposed the deep divisions in Iranian society. With explosive post-revolution population growth, most Iranians today have no memory of life under the late shah. Many--younger people and women especially--have come increasingly to resent the cramped and repressive atmosphere of the theocratic state. They are the basis of Khatami’s constituency. But his endorsement of more liberal policies at home and a “dialogue between civilizations” abroad remains opposed by those who insist that Iran must continue to be ruled on strict clerical lines.

In noting the embassy seizure this week, Iran’s supreme leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, again denounced as “traitors” and “simpletons” those who want to explore better relations with the United States. “Struggling against arrogance is part of the essence of our revolution, and today the manifestation of arrogance is the American government,” he declaimed. Most Iranians are probably weary of that tiresome refrain. But Iran’s theocratic rulers seem determined not to abandon it.