This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.theguardian.com/world/iran-blog/2015/jun/25/iranians-speak-out-landmark-nuclear-deal
The article has changed 3 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
| Version 0 | Version 1 |
|---|---|
| Beyond the polls and Twittersphere: what Iranians really think of the nuclear talks | Beyond the polls and Twittersphere: what Iranians really think of the nuclear talks |
| (about 11 hours later) | |
| Related: The logistics of the Tehran taxi commute | Related: The logistics of the Tehran taxi commute |
| Related: Offices in houses and the best tea breaks – welcome to working life in Tehran | Related: Offices in houses and the best tea breaks – welcome to working life in Tehran |
| When I first started at the company, my new co-workers warned me about delving too heavily into politics with others. Most were afraid there might be an informant lurking in the office. “Careful – don’t say that in front of just anyone,” they’d say. Living in Tehran, I’m no stranger to talk of bugged rooms, “keywords” that alert spooky software to tap your phone, and government agents disguised as hipsters. | When I first started at the company, my new co-workers warned me about delving too heavily into politics with others. Most were afraid there might be an informant lurking in the office. “Careful – don’t say that in front of just anyone,” they’d say. Living in Tehran, I’m no stranger to talk of bugged rooms, “keywords” that alert spooky software to tap your phone, and government agents disguised as hipsters. |
| I’ve decided, however, that much of this is the same exaggerated nonsense that must have hovered over the Shah’s secret police in the 1970s. | I’ve decided, however, that much of this is the same exaggerated nonsense that must have hovered over the Shah’s secret police in the 1970s. |
| So I unabashedly spark conversations on the nuclear negotiations in the office. | So I unabashedly spark conversations on the nuclear negotiations in the office. |
| But when I extract myself from the Twittersphere and ignore my politically savvy journalist friends, I notice few at my workplace are engaging with the nuclear negotiations as passionately as I’m being told they are. Or as passionately as I am. | But when I extract myself from the Twittersphere and ignore my politically savvy journalist friends, I notice few at my workplace are engaging with the nuclear negotiations as passionately as I’m being told they are. Or as passionately as I am. |
| Because when Iran’s nuclear negotiators struck a “framework” agreement in early April (the Joint Plan of Action – JPOA), I was ecstatic. Our office? Not so much. | Because when Iran’s nuclear negotiators struck a “framework” agreement in early April (the Joint Plan of Action – JPOA), I was ecstatic. Our office? Not so much. |
| Hamed says I’m naïve if I think anything’s going to change. | |
| Gita tries for small talk with a “you think so?” and then delivers her finishing blow with a lukewarm “I sure hope so”. Mohsen just lays it on: “the mood hasn’t changed.” | Gita tries for small talk with a “you think so?” and then delivers her finishing blow with a lukewarm “I sure hope so”. Mohsen just lays it on: “the mood hasn’t changed.” |
| In the office where I spend most of my days, the nuke talks don’t always arouse heated discussion. I can’t blame my co-workers for not being fired up. Iran’s reformers have been shot down so frequently over the past few decades that JPOAs, comprehensive JPOAs and “framework accords” seem like noise set against a backdrop of immense un- and underemployment, inflation that outpaces pay raises, and social restrictions that have no place in 2015 (let’s avoid the hijab for a second: physically playing musical instruments on state TV is still against the rules). That mood will remain unchanged, Mohsen says, until Iranians see the proof in the proverbial pudding. | In the office where I spend most of my days, the nuke talks don’t always arouse heated discussion. I can’t blame my co-workers for not being fired up. Iran’s reformers have been shot down so frequently over the past few decades that JPOAs, comprehensive JPOAs and “framework accords” seem like noise set against a backdrop of immense un- and underemployment, inflation that outpaces pay raises, and social restrictions that have no place in 2015 (let’s avoid the hijab for a second: physically playing musical instruments on state TV is still against the rules). That mood will remain unchanged, Mohsen says, until Iranians see the proof in the proverbial pudding. |
| Related: Iranians optimistic about end to isolation, says new poll | Related: Iranians optimistic about end to isolation, says new poll |
| “People don’t believe it’s going to happen – it’s like they’re waiting for the talks to end in disaster,” says Hesam, whose smartphone is clearly more grabbing than the prospect of having sanctions lifted. I probe him for more: what about the street celebrations on Vali Asr street after the framework deal – the pictures, the tweets? He looks up as if to swat a fly. “People were happier on the first day after the agreement. But over time, they started to doubt it again.” | “People don’t believe it’s going to happen – it’s like they’re waiting for the talks to end in disaster,” says Hesam, whose smartphone is clearly more grabbing than the prospect of having sanctions lifted. I probe him for more: what about the street celebrations on Vali Asr street after the framework deal – the pictures, the tweets? He looks up as if to swat a fly. “People were happier on the first day after the agreement. But over time, they started to doubt it again.” |
| And it’s not just at the office: we’re less than a week away from what could be a historic agreement, but it sure doesn’t feel like it in my slice of Tehran. That doesn’t mean people don’t support the deal. Everyone I know would like nothing more than to see the sanctions removed. They just aren’t excited - or optimistic - about it. | |
| Sometimes, I fantasise about the nuke deal. I see Iran on the cusp of what could be a transformation – an end to nearly four decades of exasperating sanctions that have prevented its full and unhindered reintegration into the international community. It’s big. It could bring massive foreign investment, job creation, and cleaner air. It could pry the economy from entrenched establishment types that have abused the country’s relative isolation for their own gain. It could mean McDonald’s, Starbucks and maybe somewhere down the line, Shakira and Radiohead. | Sometimes, I fantasise about the nuke deal. I see Iran on the cusp of what could be a transformation – an end to nearly four decades of exasperating sanctions that have prevented its full and unhindered reintegration into the international community. It’s big. It could bring massive foreign investment, job creation, and cleaner air. It could pry the economy from entrenched establishment types that have abused the country’s relative isolation for their own gain. It could mean McDonald’s, Starbucks and maybe somewhere down the line, Shakira and Radiohead. |
| Then reality smacks me square in the face and I’m back at the office. I remember dropping by my co-worker’s room a while back to follow up with a project we were both assigned to. I noticed he was gone, so I checked a few other rooms to find still more unattended desks. When this happens, I usually head to the cafeteria, which contains one of two televisions hooked up to state TV. Sure enough, the second-floor staff had huddled around the lunch table, gripped by the last few minutes of a soccer match on Channel 3. | Then reality smacks me square in the face and I’m back at the office. I remember dropping by my co-worker’s room a while back to follow up with a project we were both assigned to. I noticed he was gone, so I checked a few other rooms to find still more unattended desks. When this happens, I usually head to the cafeteria, which contains one of two televisions hooked up to state TV. Sure enough, the second-floor staff had huddled around the lunch table, gripped by the last few minutes of a soccer match on Channel 3. |
| There’s nothing unnatural about this. It was just a bizarre contrast to the complete lack of interest in the run up to the JPOA last November, when Iran and the United States – sworn enemies for 36 years – took the first concrete step toward détente. No one rushed to the cafeteria to see if the negotiations had succeeded, even though IRINN was on, broadcasting live updates. At the time, in fact, most were busy furiously debating an upcoming faceoff between Esteghlal and Persepolis. If there has ever been passion in our office, it was then. | There’s nothing unnatural about this. It was just a bizarre contrast to the complete lack of interest in the run up to the JPOA last November, when Iran and the United States – sworn enemies for 36 years – took the first concrete step toward détente. No one rushed to the cafeteria to see if the negotiations had succeeded, even though IRINN was on, broadcasting live updates. At the time, in fact, most were busy furiously debating an upcoming faceoff between Esteghlal and Persepolis. If there has ever been passion in our office, it was then. |
| Related: Did the Supreme Leader just torpedo the nuclear talks? | Related: Did the Supreme Leader just torpedo the nuclear talks? |
| (Admittedly, Ali, who used to sit across from me, would occasionally ask for the latest on the nuke deal, setting off a conversation between me, him, and the guy who sat in the corner. Once he stopped me in the stairwell, saying he was worried about the supreme leader lambasting the US at a critical juncture in the talks. I responded by asking him to picture the utter regime meltdown that would ensue if the supreme leader had instead extended an olive branch to America. Our conversation thus ended). | (Admittedly, Ali, who used to sit across from me, would occasionally ask for the latest on the nuke deal, setting off a conversation between me, him, and the guy who sat in the corner. Once he stopped me in the stairwell, saying he was worried about the supreme leader lambasting the US at a critical juncture in the talks. I responded by asking him to picture the utter regime meltdown that would ensue if the supreme leader had instead extended an olive branch to America. Our conversation thus ended). |
| Determined to find someone beaming with as much enthusiasm as I am in the aftermath of the framework accord, I head upstairs to the third floor. Here I find Asghar, who isn’t beaming but is content with the faint scent of hope that has wafted through Iran. “Just the fact that there’s hope – like when [President Hassan] Rouhani was elected – is enough.” Iran has to change gradually, he says, because sudden changes – like a revolution – could end up in a full-blown civil war “between the not-so-religious and the religious”. | Determined to find someone beaming with as much enthusiasm as I am in the aftermath of the framework accord, I head upstairs to the third floor. Here I find Asghar, who isn’t beaming but is content with the faint scent of hope that has wafted through Iran. “Just the fact that there’s hope – like when [President Hassan] Rouhani was elected – is enough.” Iran has to change gradually, he says, because sudden changes – like a revolution – could end up in a full-blown civil war “between the not-so-religious and the religious”. |
| Across the table, Elnaz takes the counterpoint: the agreement only prolongs a status quo she utterly despises. “This just means that these people are only going to stay around longer - for another ten to 20 years now,” she says of her country’s political leaders. | Across the table, Elnaz takes the counterpoint: the agreement only prolongs a status quo she utterly despises. “This just means that these people are only going to stay around longer - for another ten to 20 years now,” she says of her country’s political leaders. |
| The lack of excitement still confounds me. Maybe I’m cuing into the wrong signs? You would assume an agreement that could fundamentally remake Iran’s relationship with the world would be glamorous enough to trigger something beyond prosaic elevator chitchat. | The lack of excitement still confounds me. Maybe I’m cuing into the wrong signs? You would assume an agreement that could fundamentally remake Iran’s relationship with the world would be glamorous enough to trigger something beyond prosaic elevator chitchat. |
| Then I think back to what the always-smiley Morteza had to say. Instead of looking at the formidable challenges ahead, he marvelled at the distance we had already travelled. | Then I think back to what the always-smiley Morteza had to say. Instead of looking at the formidable challenges ahead, he marvelled at the distance we had already travelled. |
| Related: Iran's state TV tries 'soft power' to win hearts and minds | Related: Iran's state TV tries 'soft power' to win hearts and minds |
| “I mean just the fact that our two presidents have spoken to each other is big,” he says of President Rouhani’s historic phone call with President Barack Obama in September 2013. “Could you imagine that just a short while ago they tried to avoid each other? Like, if one of them learned the other was walking somewhere, he would try to distance himself so they didn’t cross paths?” Morteza is telling the story of the Islamic republic’s first reformist president, Mohammad Khatami, and the rumoured lengths to which he went to avoid a “run-in” with Bill Clinton in the UN bathroom in 1997 (lest he inflame Iranian hardliners). | “I mean just the fact that our two presidents have spoken to each other is big,” he says of President Rouhani’s historic phone call with President Barack Obama in September 2013. “Could you imagine that just a short while ago they tried to avoid each other? Like, if one of them learned the other was walking somewhere, he would try to distance himself so they didn’t cross paths?” Morteza is telling the story of the Islamic republic’s first reformist president, Mohammad Khatami, and the rumoured lengths to which he went to avoid a “run-in” with Bill Clinton in the UN bathroom in 1997 (lest he inflame Iranian hardliners). |
| Maybe I should be paying attention to the little things, like Morteza. Maybe I need to temper my daydreams with a heavy dose of the little changes we’ve already lived through. Maybe – just maybe – my co-workers are more willing to acknowledge that the nuke deal won’t be the be-all end-all panacea than I am. Even for Mohsen, it’s the gradual changes that might make the wait worthwhile. | Maybe I should be paying attention to the little things, like Morteza. Maybe I need to temper my daydreams with a heavy dose of the little changes we’ve already lived through. Maybe – just maybe – my co-workers are more willing to acknowledge that the nuke deal won’t be the be-all end-all panacea than I am. Even for Mohsen, it’s the gradual changes that might make the wait worthwhile. |
| “Look, all I’m saying is that even if we regain our stature and honour in the international community - if the Iranian passport is a valid document again - that alone will make more of a difference to me than any improvement in our livelihoods,” he says. “So the next time somebody says ‘Iran’, people don’t just turn around and look the other way.” | “Look, all I’m saying is that even if we regain our stature and honour in the international community - if the Iranian passport is a valid document again - that alone will make more of a difference to me than any improvement in our livelihoods,” he says. “So the next time somebody says ‘Iran’, people don’t just turn around and look the other way.” |
| “I don’t think it will have much of an impact on our lives,” says Mahnaz of a potential nuke deal a day after I interviewed Mohsen in front of her. “I think most of the benefit will accrue to the higher echelons of society: I mean, that’s the way it’s always been. I don’t know how this is going to be any different. | “I don’t think it will have much of an impact on our lives,” says Mahnaz of a potential nuke deal a day after I interviewed Mohsen in front of her. “I think most of the benefit will accrue to the higher echelons of society: I mean, that’s the way it’s always been. I don’t know how this is going to be any different. |
| She continues: “Just like [Mohsen] said the other day - if our country’s reputation improves in the eyes of the international community, that alone would be wonderful.” | She continues: “Just like [Mohsen] said the other day - if our country’s reputation improves in the eyes of the international community, that alone would be wonderful.” |
| Names have been changed. | Names have been changed. |