There is a lot of talk about 16 Azar protests.
16 of Azar (7th of December) Roozeh Daneshjoo or Student’s Day as it is faithfully called in the Islamic Republic of Iran. A day meant to commemorate the student protests against Richard Nixon’s visit on 6 December 1953 (16 Azar 1332). Nixon, then the US vice president, was visiting Tehran less than four months after a CIA coup that had overthrown Dr Mohammad Mossadegh and brought the Shah back to power. Not only did the Shah’s regime confront the students, but three were brutally killed.
Every year, the president visits the University of Tehran’s engineering faculty (and sometimes, other universities) to commemorate this day.
What many non-students may not know however, is that every year, even years before the election, 16 Azar is violent, loud and chaotic.
However, unlike 13 Aban in which state-sponsored demonstrators have hit the streets, 16 Azar has always (at least in recent years) been confined to universities.
This makes it easier and harder to tackle.
Easier because students were given a collective chance to cancel classes, hit the sidewalks, shout and scream and protest. They were given better opportunity to organize.
But of course, it worked both ways. Authorities could clamp down all the protesters, confined in one space.
When I was a student, the student planning was relatively non-existent. Students showed up for a chance to shout, laugh and poke fun at authorities. But there was no collective will to protest anything or anyone specific.
Well, post-Just 12th, that has changed. Ahmadinejad has given students a reason to fight, a motivation to protest, and a collective will to organize.
We will have to see what they do with that.
Will Ahmadinejad be showing up at universities?
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