- 20 January 2010
- 3 Comments
- Events in Iran, Iran Election 2009
A Day of Green Silence
20 January 2010 Posted By NIAC
The power of texting as a means of organizing the opposition was displayed during a popular sports show called Navad (Ninety) last week in Iran. Though the show mainly deals with analyzing and covering the Premier League and following the Iranian National soccer team, it has recently become very political.
As NBC rearranges talk shows due to economic reasons, IRIB has moved around the time slot for Navad because of political reasons. Adel Ferdosipour, a graduate from Sharif University, is the show’s host and has been critical to Navad’s rise in popularity. Though the government would probably prefer to cancel the show, they would run the risk of galvanizing the opposition, so they have moved the show back from its original time of 8:00pm to 11:00 pm.
Despite the move, viewers are still eagerly tuning in. Just last week, Ferdosipour asked his viewers to text their answer to the question, “What’s the reason for the Iranian national team’s latest losses?”
- The players
- The staff & coaches
- The departure of the Golden Players
The Golden Players means the old school players who led the team to the World Cup back in 2006. But more importantly it refers to players such as Ali Karimi and Mehdi Mahdavikia and two others who were kicked off the team and forced to retire after wearing green wrist bands in protest of the June Presidential elections.
The show was inundated with texts choosing #3 as they continued to received texts into the wee hours of the morning. The response echoes sentiments after Iran’s failure to qualify for the World Cup where many saw the team’s failure as a reflection of the Ahmadinejad –led government.
To keep up the momentum of the text-organizing, the latest Green Movement has called for a Sokoot-e-Sabz, a day of Green Silence, from 7 am to 8 pm. Though I initially asked myself, “what use is it to be quiet for 12 hours? Wouldn’t that be the opposite of civil disobedience?” But the opposition is using this lull in the protests to keep in touch with their base. It’s also an attack on media and cell phone companies who have been colluding with the government to monitor communications among the opposition.
As one young protesters told me, “It’s a small sacrifice and I hope my friends will notice and ask me ‘Hey, why was your phone off?’ and I’ll tell them, ‘Oh you didn’t hear, it was the Green Silence!’”
3 Responses to “A Day of Green Silence”
“The Golden Players means the old school players who led the team to the World Cup back in 2006. But more importantly it refers to players such as Ali Karimi and Mehdi Mahdavikia and two others who were kicked off the team and forced to retire after wearing green wrist bands in protest of the June Presidential elections.”
This information is incorrect. Javad Nekounam and Masoud Shojaei both wore wrist bands also and are still a part of the team.
Also, two years ago the show broadcast at 11:00 and not at 8:00, so maybe it was moved to 8 in the past year, but certainly a couple years ago it aired at 11:00 in the first place.
Be green.
That’s easy, I vote #3 also. Not only would I like to see these football players play again (in their prime, of course), but I’m also inferring- the way the poll is set up- that I’d like a return to the level of play of 2006.
Football in the Middle East is funny. Everything can be going great in the country, but if the football team is crummy, no one is happy. And if things are not going well in the country, but the football team is doing great, a lot of folks are happy!
I’m really skeptical of the “Green Silence”. It produces no tangible results, and in a way is counterproductive by self-restricting one’s own communication. But hey, if you’re completely ineffectual at producing labor strikes or even effective boycotts, I guess ineffective symbolism is your only recourse at this stage of the game.
I know that I, personally, would be a lot less disturbed about my fellow Iranians getting raped and killed for peaceful protests if the Iranian football team was doing better.
Man, if they made it to the world cup and beat the US team again, I’d consider leaving the personal freedoms I enjoy in America, to live in a country whose backwards Islamic laws make it the leading executioner of child offenders. I wouldn’t have to worry about a fellow Iranian woman ever becoming president. I’d be comforted by the fact that the country I live in only started to realize that stoning a woman to death is maybe a little backwards in 2002 and only recently started revising the laws to not allow it. Oh what a dream…
What I definitely would not do is stay in the country with all this freedom, and talk about how Iran really isn’t that bad. But then again, I don’t think anyone would do that.
Go Team Melli!