The Great Debate UK
Iranian election: Shock from afar
– Leili Sreberny-Mohammadi is a British-Iranian based in London, and sometimes Tehran. The opinions expressed are her own. –
The past ten days have been among the strangest in my life. I returned from Iran three weeks ago, just when the election campaigns were heating up, cars covered with candidate posters trawling across Tehran’s highways.
The cars full of boys would no longer stop to ask for your number, instead asking if one would be voting and, if so, for whom? A week later I went excitedly and proudly to the Iranian Embassy in London to cast my vote, the first time I had voted in an Iranian election and the first time I had cared so much about an Iranian election.
Accompanied by a friend also just back from Iran, who spoke of Tehran streets filled with “green” people greeting each other with “eshgh ” (ilove) and showing the V for victory or peace sign as they passed each other.
Iranian elections: voting from afar
– Leili Sreberny-Mohammadi is a British-Iranian based in London, and sometimes Tehran. The opinions expressed are her own. –
The images of a human chain along the 12 kilometres of Tehran’s main artery, Vali-Asr, has given me a gut-wrenching urge to book a flight to Tehran, to take part in what seems to be a historical moment, or what is at least being constructed as such.
from The Great Debate:
Iran election opens door to U.S. talks
-- Paul Taylor is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own --
A wind of change is blowing through Iran, where hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad faces an increasingly tough battle for re-election on Friday.
Whether or not Ahmadinejad fends off reformist Mirhossein Moussavi and two other candidates after a turbulent campaign, Iran is likely to be more open to talks with the United States on a possible "grand bargain" to end 30 years of hostility. Tehran will not give up its nuclear program, whoever wins. But it may be persuaded to stop short of testing or making a bomb.
