Then They Came for Me_ A Family's Story of Love, Captivity, and Survival - Maziar Bahari [39]
I was amazed, as we began to march, by the silence of the demonstrators. There was no chanting, no angry words—just a peaceful ribbon of green flags, bandannas, wristbands, and scarves moving from Revolution Square toward Freedom Square with an air of quiet and calm. As we marched, the sea of green grew larger and stronger, and the security forces lining the street looked on with surprise at the mounting number of people. As usual, I had a video camera with me, an old Sony PD 100 I had not used for many years. I hesitated to take it out. I didn’t want it to be confiscated, and I certainly didn’t want to be arrested. As I watched the crowd of thousands filling Revolution and Freedom Avenues, though, I felt energized. Worriedly, I pulled the video camera from my bag and held it in the air, doing my best to get shots of the crowd. I spotted many familiar faces: colleagues, friends, and acquaintances who had come to the demonstration alone or with their families. In defiance of the government’s decree that journalists should not report on the demonstrations, there were also a fair number of Iranian and foreign journalists in the crowd. I also saw many of the young filmmakers with whom I had worked over the past few years.
Despite the growing numbers and the strength of the demonstration, the protestors tried to avoid any confrontation with the security forces. They smiled at the police officers and waved flowers at the police helicopters that hovered over the crowd. From the looks on the faces of some officers we passed along the way, it was obvious that many would have loved to join us.
Even with the sporadic violent clashes of the day before, many people still hoped for peace. Many protestors, especially the young men and women who had endured years of having their hair shorn by the Basij or who had been beaten for not appearing Islamic enough, would have loved to have thrown stones and taken over the Basij buildings. But they contained themselves. Many people believed that a compromise was still possible. They wanted the government to either re-count the votes or hold another election. The general feeling among people was that if the government listened to their voices, they would be willing to exonerate it for many of its injustices in the past and start anew.
The Basijis, on the other hand—normally so rash and confrontational—were clearly intimidated by the sheer size of the crowd. Whenever the protestors passed by the Basij compounds on Freedom Avenue, I spotted Basij members peering at the crowd through the curtains. Despite the demonstrators’ determination to keep the peace, you could feel the tension in the air.
Whenever the demonstrators passed by murals or posters of the supreme leader, they raised their green symbols or their fists to prove to him that they were a force to be reckoned with. A middle-aged man near me summarized it best when he told his young daughter, “If Khamenei had a brain in his skull, he would think about his own survival and listen to the people.”
When I filmed the march from an overpass on Freedom Avenue, I could see that the horizon had become green. All afternoon, I’d felt buoyed by the peaceful nature of the demonstration, but soon after I arrived in Freedom Square, I noticed smoke billowing into the sky a few blocks north. Then I heard the sound of gunfire. Having worked as a war reporter, I immediately wanted to run toward the shots. Hundreds of others had the same idea.
I filmed as I moved through the crowd, holding the camera above my head. Several youths were attacking a two-story building in a narrow street a block north of Freedom Square. It was a residential street, and the buildings that lined it all looked the same. When I got closer, I realized that they were attacking a Basij base.
Basijis in anti-riot gear fired tear gas at the crowd,