Before the Arab Spring, there were the Tehran protests after the elections in 2009. Before Mohamed Bouazizi and Hamza Ali al-Khateeb, there was Neda Agha-Soltan. After battle wounds forced Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh to leave the country and pro-democracy protests ousted dictators in Tunisia and Egypt, casual observers can be forgiven for assuming that every uprising has a democratic trajectory. But the protests following a sham election in Iran had a different ending. The Iranian establishment crushed each new wave of protests with an astonishing brutality. In Egypt the police progressed from batons to tear gas and briefly to goons with pistols. Iranian security services' initial response was to shoot civilians indiscriminately. Reformist tumult in Iran was eventually extinguished.
Earlier this year I saw an excellent documentary about the 2009 protests called The Green Wave. The film maker use of animation and video footage push the sense of panic and horror described in the the personal narratives of the protests. The movie also interviews with some prominent Iranian candidates, reform activists, and politicians. The Green Wave is an incredible look inside such an important country that is too often characterized by its bombastic leadership.
Here are some Q & A's with the director:
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