In Tehran, a new take on 1979

TEHRAN, Iran — Children’s painting booths placed at orderly intervals along the parade route on Revolution Avenue in Tehran perfectly captured the chasm between the events of 1979 and their 30th anniversary this week.

"The revolution was an explosion of light," declared hundreds of signs around the capital, and tens of thousands of Iranians duly marched to celebrate the "10 days of dawn" in which the Islamic republic was born.

But the weeklong public bash marks an occasion that about 60 percent of Iran’s citizens are too young to remember.

Most Iranians were not subjected to the crippling economic policies instituted by the Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, nor the fury of an enraged populace that united to overthrow, in the name of Islam, a secular regime they saw as corrupt.

Nor did they see poor Iranian policemen from the countryside ordered to shoot their equally poor compatriots who were rioting in Tehran. And as the revolution took hold, they wouldn’t see the bloody excesses as the Ayatollah Khomeini and his mullahs hung those perceived as not loyal to the theocratic cause.

Despite the vividly gory posters of the blood of revolutionary Muslim martyrs prominently displayed in Tehran, Esfahan, Shiraz, and elsewhere in the country, the majority of Iranians  never saw of drop of revolutionary blood.

And so it is left to the hardline government and its religious overlords, the mullahs of the Supreme Council, to encourage the younger generation to learn their official version of history well.

Accordingly, hundreds of children eagerly corralled themselves into booths along Revolution Avenue this week to paint patriotic portraits guided by teams of anniversary celebration organizers.

The men and women operating the booths provided children with easels, paper, and paint, and then prowled about, offering more paint and lashings of encouragement.

One female organizer, wearing the all-enveloping black cloak, or chador, with a green sash emblazoned with revolutionary slogans and a tulip, which symbolizes the revolution, shepherded scores of children knotted in a messy line towards the painting booth.

The youngest child I saw, about 6 years old, earnestly drew a tree with what looked like dead stick figures lying in the street. The eldest, about 9 or 10, drew a marshmallow-fluffy Khomeini, the revolutionary Supreme Leader, waving victoriously to an equally fluffy crowd.

One child proudly wrote "the Shah left," under a stick figure. Another child drew a bearded stick figure sitting on top of a plane, which was presumably Khomeini returning triumphantly from exile in France to depose the Shah. Other children, standing before empty canvases waiting for inspiration to strike, were given enthusiastic prods from their parents.

The recent conflict in Gaza was a disproportionately common subject of the paintings by civilians that lined the streets of the protest route, underscoring that Wednesday’s march was as much a political demonstration as the celebration of a theocracy.

Hundreds of paintings hung from wires on the north and south sides of Revolution Avenue. Their subjects ranged from poetic panegyrics to Khomeini or condemnation of the Shah to sketches of bleeding Palestinians and a star of David engulfed in flames.

Amid a carnival atmosphere, smiling families wandered the blocked-off streets, trampling American and Israeli flags as they held balloons, munched candy and inspected the revolutionary "art." Fathers slung babies over their shoulders while adoring mothers carefully placed an Iranian flag as big as the baby’s body in its hand.

Strikingly, the colorful headscarves commonly worn by women in Tehran — in keeping with proper hijab, or Islamically correct attire, mandatory for all females aged nine or more — were almost totally absent. In their place, women wore chadors, the traditional all-enveloping black cloaks. The streets of Tehran were swathed in the black of the chadors and the red, white, and green Iranian flags.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s notably conciliatory speech — piped through hundreds of loudspeakers that lined the protest route — competed to be heard over the chants of "death to America!" and "death to Israel!" Barak Obama has promised to speak with Iran if it would only unclench its fist. Ahmadinejad noted that he would engage with America if its new president ushers in real change.

This year, Iranians will have the opportunity to reflect on the past as well the present, when they head to the polls in a few months for the presidential elections. The incumbent,  Ahmadinejad, will face the reformist and former president Mohammad Khatami and possibly other yet-undeclared candidates. The Iranian presidential elections on June 12 will be a test of whose voices will be heard amongst the crowd: the shrill voices of antagonism or the milder voices of dialogue.