Talk about a generation gap
Forty years ago in the USA, there was a lot of talk about a "generation gap" as a social and political cleavage. Maybe there's one in Iran now. Is this a political cleavage we should pay attention to? Or is it just a few cases of youthful rebellion by prominent people?Iran’s Politics Open a Generational Chasm
It had been years since Narges Kalhor could talk about politics with her father, Mehdi, a senior adviser and spokesman for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran. He advocated greater restraints on social and political expression, while she favored more freedom. Still, they had always managed to get along.
But after Iran’s disputed presidential election in June and the protests that followed, the disagreement exploded into a breach. Last week — as her father accused her of being manipulated by the opponents of the government — Ms. Kalhor, now 25, applied for refugee status in Germany...
While Ms. Kalhor’s case has been widely publicized, she is hardly alone. Numerous children of prominent Iranians have become estranged from their powerful parents since the election, which the opposition says was rigged. Thousands more middle-class families have been divided by the generational chasm that opened over the summer...
Ms. Kalhor said... “My generation wants its most basic needs such as freedom of expression and personal freedoms,” she said. “We want to live, we do not want to face persecution for expressing our political opinion; as women, we don’t want to walk on the street with the constant horror that we could be intimidated for showing an inch of hair."
See also (for a different generation gap in Iran): Persepolis (the book) and Persepolis (the animated film).
What You Need to Know can be on your bookshelf
Labels: demographics, Iran, political culture, politics
posted by Ken Wedding @ 6:15 AM
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