Dnevnik iz Teherana

Dopisnik "Ekonomista", 6. jul 2007.

I WAS at a friend’s birthday party last night and the room was filled with wealthy young north Tehranis. The girls sparkled in skimpy cocktail dresses and the boys swaggered in designer shirts and gelled hair. Bootleg booze flowed and couples danced to Turkish pop. Perhaps it is because this image of Iran is so hard to reconcile with the beards, turbans, and clenched fists of its revolutionary government that Western journalists love it so much.

One of the first stories written by every hack to arrive in Iran is about the coquettishly figure-hugging coats and loose headscarves worn by uptown girls to thwart Islamic regulations on public attire. We revel in the salacious details of their nose-jobs, dating habits, drug use, après-ski parties and weblogs.

“Why can’t people in the West see what Iran is really like?” said a young girl in extravagant make up and a vestigial vest top. “We’re the future.”

It is easy to see in these party-goers a rejection of the sterner side of the Iranian regime, embodied in the austere patrician face of Ayatollah Khomeini glowering from murals across Tehran. Reporters look at the statistics (around two-thirds of Iranians are under 30) and think the rebellious kids represent a younger, more open Iran seeking to throw off the strictures of its present leadership in a riot of fashion and fun.