Last Friday's astonishing display of resistance to the regime in Tehran can be difficult to absorb. But it seems to me that this reader is right:
Looking back, we should put this crowd in context. Imagine living in Iran and either seeing with your own eyes that people are brutally beaten, taken away by riot police or plain clothes Basij forces and some are shot and killed. Then people hear of others who died in custody. Some were injured and have horrific stories of rape and torture while in detention. Many are still in jail. Then the show trials appear on TV. Above it all you have the supreme leader leading the Friday prayers a week before and once more threatening the protesters and saying Quds day (Jerusalem day) is only to protest against the existence of Israel and no one should mark this occasion in any other fashion.
And then on Wednesday, you have the Revolutionary Guard issue a bizarre statement threatening people. (In the past, a statement like this would have come from the intelligence ministry. The warning: "chanting unrelated slogans and carrying symbols with misleading colors [green]" will have serious consequences.
Despite all of that this many people took to the streets in green and chanted NOT GAZA, NOT LEBANON, MY LIFE IS DEVOTED TO IRAN. DICTATOR, THIS IS THE LAST WARNING! THE NATION IS READY TO RISE UP AGAINST YOU and WHERE IS YOUR 63%? .....
The political impact of this brave move is abundantly clear: The propaganda behind the coup d'etat has not worked. The Iranian people have figured out that together they have the power; and there is only so much that Khamenei and Ahamdi Nejad can do. As of Friday, Iran's green movement is much more confident than it was the day before and is learning how to organize and use every opportunity to remind the leaders of how they feel about them and the world of what happened on June 12th.
Fear is the key to control. And Iranians are not afraid any more.