Zendegi

Still, he’d come within sight of the core of the protest, where placards and banners were thicker on the ground. The original slogan – New Election Now! – had been replaced by a single word: Referendum! That might have sounded tame to outsiders, or just plain cryptic, but no Iranian would be in any doubt as to what it meant. The 1979 referendum had approved the present constitution; to call for a new referendum was to call for a change in the whole system of government.

Martin’s phone emitted a forlorn beep. He took it from his pocket, expecting to find that the battery was flat, but the message on the screen read NO SIGNAL.

He held it up to Behrouz. ‘What about yours?’

Behrouz checked. ‘Same thing. It looks like they’ve shut down the phones.’

Martin felt a chill in the pit of his stomach. Blocking internet access had made it harder for the protesters to organise, but text messages and phone trees were better than nothing. Now the movement had lost all communications, just when it needed to be able to respond to events as rapidly as possible.

There was a squawk of feedback from a public address system, then a voice reached them, so distorted by the dodgy amplifier and overlaid with echoes from the surrounding buildings that Martin couldn’t even make out his usual one word in three. Behrouz did his best to give a running translation, staying close to Martin and keeping his voice low to avoid annoying the people beside them, who were straining to hear the original.

The protest organiser welcomed the crowd and commended them for their courage, bringing an answering roar of approval: ‘Balé!’

‘And because we are brave, we will be peaceful!’

‘Balé!’

‘And because we are peaceful, the people will listen!’

‘Balé!’

‘And because they listen, they will join us!’

‘Balé!’ The last cheer was deafening, and Martin felt an intoxicating wave of optimism sweep through the crowd. A rush and a push and the land is ours? The regime still had tens of millions of supporters, and loyal militias ready to deal with dissent just as brutally as they had the last time. But while part of his mind clung to those dismal facts, the sound of some hundred thousand people shouting in unison made him feel that anything was possible.

All of this was just a warm-up act; the unnamed organiser announced that a distinguished speaker would now address the gathering. Before the introduction was complete, Martin could hear applause breaking out closer to the podium.

‘We welcome Mr Dariush Ansari, founder of Hezb-e-Haalaa!’

As Martin scanned the crowd he spotted a handful of people whose greeting looked distinctly lukewarm, though there were not as many as he would have expected. Ansari’s conciliatory foreign policy did not endear him to everyone who was simply weary of the regime, but he was the first politician to address one of these rallies, so perhaps people would give him credit for that. Thirty student leaders and more than two hundred demonstrators were already in prison; seven people had died in clashes with the militias. What he was doing carried no small risk.

‘In the name of God, the compassionate, the merciful,’ Ansari began; the familiar words of the bismillah needed no translation. ‘I am honoured by the invitation to speak here today, at this peaceful gathering of my fellow Iranians. I was in Shiraz last week – not to speak, only to listen – and I can tell you that whatever you read in certain newspapers, the people there were peaceful too. The shop-keepers whose windows were broken should send their accounts to the Ministry of the Interior.’

That attracted some wry laughter from the crowd and even a few embarrassed smiles from the police, who had already formed a protective human chain in front of a long row of nearly identical establishments specialising in men’s shoes. Martin wasn’t sure that anyone would feel better to be reminded that they too could expect to be blamed for the vandalism of provocateurs; then again, maybe a bit of pre-emptive truth-telling would ease their frustration in the face of that inevitable libel.

Ansari continued in this unassuming fashion. He was no fire-brand, but nor did he drone on interminably; Martin’s attention had wandered for only a few seconds before Ansari had come to the point.

‘If my brother is behaving in a way that troubles me, I might speak to a mullah and ask his advice. If I’m contemplating a business deal and my conscience can’t decide if it’s fair to everyone, perhaps a mullah can assist me. After all, it’s his job to have studied the Qur’an and the Hadith, to have thought deeply about many complex moral questions, to have refined his ideas by disputation with his colleagues.