Leaflet in solidarity with the Iranian students (picture by gdlombardia)

Gariwo asked Amir Seradji, who represents the young Iranian opponents in Italy, to comment upon the outcome of the Presidential elections. What is the meaning of the image of the young people who celebrate in the streets? Will Rohani find an agreement with the West concerning nuclearn weapons and Syria? What do Iranian youths hope for the future of Iran? 

Soon after election, Rohani said his victory is “the victory of moderation against extremism”. Do you agree?

Yes, I do, of course. Rohani is a moderate. 

We have seen the youths take to the street again, to celebrate. Are they the ones of the Green Wave? Is there more freedom now? 

There is not more freedom. The youths are not expecting a miracle from politics. They celebrate the fact that Ahmadinejad’s mentality will not rule anymore in the next 4 years. This time their votes have been counted, differently from what happened in 2009. But they are said because many young people of the Green Wave, like Neda, are not there anymore. Mousavi and Karroubi who had led the opposition are still under arrest. Young people didn’t chant “Rohani”, but demanded to free these leaders. On the square there was a picture of Neda. Yet the leaders of the Green Wave have not been admitted to the elections. But fortunately the election outcome did not even reward candidates such as Jalili, who was a copycat of Ahmadinejad. 

The two main issues with the Western world are Syria and nuclear weapons. Do you think that there can be a diplomatic solution or there is a war risk?
 About Syria, the situation is absurd. We don’t blame only Assad. The use of certain methods belongs to both sides. There is no angel to defend. We as Green Movement prefer that everybody leaves weapons on the ground and sits around a table. But part of the Western discourse on the nuclear programme is sheer propaganda, mostly on the American side. But in 1989 the son of Reza Pahlevi, Mohammed had a relationship with America in which we couldn’t find our independence. Now the situation is different. We have a dictator. We are against the dictatorship, against sanctions, and for a solution internal to the Iranian people. It was precisely Rohani to negotiate with the West and he is a moderate, the transcription of the meeting say that he smiled to the Wester representatives, but in the end all decisions are made by the Supreme Guide.

It seems as if sanctions had prostrated the Iranian economy, but also that this has led to the people’s decision to end with the Ahmadinejad era … 

We are against sanctions. Sanctions mean that a family finds the price of milk changed three times a day. Sanctions are unacceptable. The Green Movement, on this respect, holds an opinion which is not that different from the other movements’ in Iran. When these sanctions become stronger, a government finds it difficult to pursue any of its projects, be it nuclear or of any other kind, and then it is the people who pay. Maybe teachers.


However, differently from historical cases such as Mussolini’s, where the people had reacted to sanctions by closely uniting in the defense of the dictator, in Iran sanctions succeeded in making the people abandon Ahmadinenjad, who had been the cause thereof. 




The problem is not Ahmadinejad. The problem was that in Iran there are no political parties, even the most basic forms of dissent are really weak. When there is no social life, reformist or avant-garde politicians are in jail or silenced, civil society doesn’t hear the voice of the opposition – certainly now it has been said that we must sit around a table with America and work out things, specifically about the nuclear programme… but reformists have no possibility to let themselves be heard, there are few newspapers and if they go too far beyond the line the day after 200 journalists are fired or may be jailed. 

Is it possible to use the social networks in Iran?

Now we are happy about this, that on these elections for instance we have been able to talk with our friends in Iran. Someone said: “Well, maybe I won’t go to vote, Karroubi and the others are in jail, they cannot leave their homes”. They were all undecided. We talked, we discussed between us, we started finding a common point. We celebrated, both in Tehran and in Milan. We had fun and we showed also pictures and pieces of footage. Eventually we can feel a “wind of change”.