Free_Iran_Now

Young people becoming politically engaged In Iran

60 per cent of the population is less than 25 years old. These young people were born after the revolution and have known no reality but that of the Islamic Republic, which has been in place since 1979 when the fundamentalist revolution led by Ayatollah Khomeini overthrew the pro-western monarchy of the Shah. Thus for Ali, as for all young Iranian bloggers, blogging is about conveying their thoughts to the world by any means. Omid Memarian, a young journalist, nicely summaries their intentions in the heading of his web page: "I want to deal with democracy and civil society, especially as regards young Iranians today, but also talk about everyday events and my personal experiences". But politics is far from being the only point of conversation for young Iranians. Azadeh, a cinema and photography enthusiast, uses his blog to comment on films and his favourite directors, only rarely mentioning the West. Another blogger, Yasser, is worried. "My weblog is becoming too political, and I don't like that. I want to talk about cinema, films, books, music."Even if political commitment is not always the reason behind the creation of blogs, most drift that way very quickly. Roozeh, for example, who had been writing a personal blog for two years, decided to abandon it to create a new one, devoted entirely to politics and called "On the road to democracy".