Dutch-Iranians feel powerless yet united

Iranians in the Netherlands call, email or twitter with their families, but they are careful. Often they only make small talk for fear of repercussions.

The day after Iran's supreme leader ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned that the protests had to stop, Shervin Nekuee called his 84-year-old father in Tehran. During his Friday prayer sermon, Khamenei told the Iranians to accept president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's election victory. Anyone who still wanted to demonstrate did so at his own risk.

"A licence to kill," is what Nekuee, an Iranian sociologist who fled to the Netherlands in the mid-1980s to escape military service, calls it. He warned his dad, a retired lawyer not to leave the house on Saturday. His father replied: "I'm going to put on my best suit and I'm going outside. We can't leave the kids to fend for themselves this time. They will be targeted. Tell it to the world!"

No joy

At least ten people were killed on Saturday. It was a black day for Iran and the Iranian diaspora, says Nekuee. "You're sitting behind your computer and you just feel powerless." The revolutionary mood in Iran is difficult to put in words, he says. "There is no joy, but the only way is forward. Otherwise there is no hope for Iran."

An estimated 30,000 Iranians live in the Netherlands. They tend to be well-educated, and a number of them are taking an active part in the Dutch public debate. They are individualistic, often have a Western lifestyle and they are politically divided. There are monarchists, radical mujahedeen, former communists, secular intellectuals, integrated middle-class people and a few hundred students.

But the events of the past ten days have united the Dutch-Iranians, says Sahand Sahebdivani, a 29-year old producer at radiozamaneh.com, a Dutch-funded internet radio station directed at the youth in Iran. "The political situation has brought us together. The similarities now outweigh the differences, especially among the young. We have only one message: the current leadership has to go."

Hoda Farhanghi (25) has lived in the Netherlands since she was eight, and is now a student in London. "I didn't know I had it in me, but I suddenly feel more Iranian than ever. I always considered myself to be Dutch period." But Farbod Saatsaz (19), who just graduated high school in Amsterdam, thinks the political commitment of the young Dutch-Iranians is only skin-deep. "They have never seen misery. When they do visit Iran it is mostly to attend family celebrations."

Not representative

The diaspora, sociologist Nekuee warns, is not representative of Iran. "Eighty percent here is against the Islamic Republic and it is therefore not a reflection of Iranian society." The first group of immigrants, who fled the country shortly after the 1979 Islamic revolution, is much more radical than the younger generation. The older ones simply want to do away with the Islamic regime, violently if necessary. The younger generation is more pragmatic: they favour a more modern Islam and more personal freedom. Nekuee: "But the violence of the regime could quickly radicalise them."

Most Dutch-Iranians believe that voter fraud was committed in the presidential election, but they also admit that president Ahmadinejad still enjoys wide support in the rural areas. But 70 percent of the population lives in the cities and is under 30, says Nekuee, so there is large support for the opposition.

Iranians in the Netherlands call, email or twitter with their families, but they are careful. A lot of time they only make small talk for fear of repercussions.

"I try to find out what's going on when I call, but I usually get only indirect answers," says Nehrzad Zardoshtian (36). He is studying pharmaceutics in Groningen and represents the Iranian cultural foundation Payam. His family lives in Ahwaz, a small town in the south of Iran. It is quiet but tense there. A number of small, controlled demonstrations have taken place.

Zardoshtian thinks there is no way back for Iran - "A bridge has been crossed" - but he is very worried. "It's going too fast. Iranians are not afraid. Many people in the countryside have guns at home. It could easily end in a bloodbath."

Prudence

The regime, as usual, is accusing foreign countries of meddling in domestic Iranian affairs. Massoud Djabani (54), who fled Iran after his three brothers were executed in 1982, warns that foreign interference can only help Ahmadinejad. "He has succeeded in making people believe that other countries, the US especially, are the enemies of Iran." That's why many Iranians are happy that president Barack Obama has chosen the prudent route.

"Just imagine if Bush had still been in the White House," says political scientist Peyman Jafari (33). "Military force is out of the question." Now that the regime is cracking down on the demonstrators, the opposition need to come up with other ways of protest." For instance, supporters of opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi have taken to screaming "Allahu Akhbar!" (God is great) from their windows at night. "A smart move because the regime says the demonstrations are directed against Islam," according to Jafari.

Iranians have no illusions about Mousavi himself. Nekuee calls the former prime minister a "post-Islamist". "People can change," he admits. "Look at Gorbachev: he changed the system from within too." But the real power struggle is now within the religious-political elite itself. If the conservatives win, Iran will be more lost than ever, Jafari fears.

Kamran (40), Jalal (40) and Majid (46), two pharmacists and an architect who wish to remain anonymous, are having a drink after a not so well attended meeting of Iranians in Amsterdam. Jalal was in Tehran shortly before the elections. "The atmosphere was very relaxed. Everybody was wearing green. I thought: Mousavi is going to win." He is pessimistic about the outcome.

Kamran says it is a political turning point no matter what happens. "To see these ayatollahs trash each other on television is unique. Rafsanjani or Khamenei, to me they're all the same. Now they will eliminate each other, and Iran will become even more of a dictatorship." But next time, he fears, people will bring their guns.

"It's the end of a beautiful week," says Majid, the architect. "The Iranian people felt alive again for the first time in a long time."