Soccer Win, Not Protests, Captures Iran’s Attention
If Iranian state television had hoped to capture viewers with its half-hour broadcast of citizens chanting, “Death to America” in cities all over the Islamic Republic on Friday, it was out of luck. Instead, tens of thousands of Iranians poured into the streets of the country to celebrate their national soccer team’s 2-1 victory over Iraq.
“Bringing national happiness, that’s part of winning,” said Hassan Ghaffari, director of international relations for the Iranian soccer federation. Politics play no part, he added of the sport that virtually every child here learns to play before entering elementary school.
But to the largely young crowd milling around the northern area of Tehran, the capital, late Friday, the celebration provided more than an opportunity to salute a team that is as little as a game away from qualifying for the 2002 World Cup. It was their chance to thumb their noses at a government that bans women from soccer games, forbids men and women from mingling and rejects loud music.
Along one tony boulevard, two teenage girls in a white sedan flaunted their uncovered heads as they whizzed past rows of overwhelmed policemen struggling to keep traffic moving and people on sidewalks.
Nearby, a 21-year-old woman without the requisite roopoosh, the overcoat mandated by law for women, stood in the middle of the road and handed roses to occupants of passing cars. A 14-year-old boy sprinted up and down the sidewalk, spraying canned foam on everything and everyone. And a gantlet of young men chanted, “Iran, Iran” at the stream of cars and motorcycles crawling by.
“There isn’t anything else for young people to do,” said Ahmed Yusefian, 60, who had come out with his 16-year-old daughter, Nazanene, to watch. “That’s why they are out here celebrating so hard.”
Terse authorities struggling to maintain order, however, had no patience for unbridled venting. They clashed repeatedly with revelers, including a woman whose head scarf fell off as she tussled with half a dozen officers. “I hope that America drops bombs on your heads one day,” she hissed at one policeman before being herded into a doorway by friends.
Most opted for a more soothing approach with police, shouting a phrase that revolutionaries used to calm the former shah’s soldiers before his overthrow 22 years ago: “Brothers, we love you.”
Post-victory street festivities are common here, participants said. But many said Friday’s celebration provided them with a badly needed respite from the U.S. military campaign in neighboring Afghanistan.
That wasn’t the case, however, for Ali Reza Khoshruh. Draped in an Iranian flag, he lamented missing the state-sponsored demonstration hours earlier against the Western strikes.
“I would have gone to the demonstration this afternoon, but my parents were busy,” said the young man, who needed a ride to get there.
The protest, which took place in cities nationwide following noon prayers, drew thousands of conservative, religious Iranians in Tehran alone. Starting out from Tehran University, demonstrators marched for about an hour, chanting, “Death to America” and “Death to England,” among other slogans. Just as they had done during their prayers, the protesters segregated themselves by sex, with throngs of bearded men marching in front of black-chador-draped women.
“How can America answer to its future generations?” demanded one demonstrator, Hassan Ghafori Fard, a candidate in the country’s recent presidential election.
“People who see [Muslim] brothers and sisters being killed don’t sit calmly,” he said. “They will get agitated, and such actions will bring more unrest to America.”
Another protester agreed. She was the sister of the pilot killed along with 289 other people when the U.S. Navy ship Vincennes mistakenly shot down an Iranian airliner in 1988.
Sormeh Jazayeri, who said she can’t forgive the United States for what happened, added, “Now the American people feel what we feel, and how it is to lose a brother.”
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Nelson is a Times staff writer; Sadeghi, a special correspondent.
