Two weeks ago, Leila Mashati’s Facebook page resembled many on the popular social networking web site. It listed her favorite musicians of the moment and mundane details like what she ate for breakfast. But on June 12, after Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was elected to another term in what many deemed an overtly-fraudulent process, the 39-year-old’s Facebook account took on a whole new meaning.
Mashati, who requested that her name be changed to protect her extended family in Iran, is not alone in her concern for her ancestral homeland. In the post-election, she has adopted an activist’s stance from her home in Kew Gardens – 6,000 miles from the scene of what many reports have described as peaceful demonstrations turned ugly by state-sponsored crackdowns. Some are calling the protests a movement towards change, others an uprising that needs to be squashed.
Ahmadinejad, long an opponent of the West, was reportedly supported in the recent election by 63 percent of the Iranian electorate, having received nearly twice the number of votes as his most formidable challenger, former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Moussavi. The numbers just did not add up, according to many, especially when it became evident that Moussavi failed to win the vote of his hometown, where he enjoys vast popularity.
As foreign media was banned from reporting at the ensuing rallies – which called for an annulment of the “rigged” election results – the job of disseminating the news fell largely on the Internet savvy, who, like Mashati, took to posting gory footage of protest beatings and details of massive demonstrations on web sites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.
“I think every one of those kids should get a journalism degree after this is all over,” said Mashati, a film producer who also assists with her mother’s Floral Park business. “They’ve been doing this with bullets flying,” and then risk their safety to upload their accounts to the Internet, which is highly censored by the Iranian government, she said.
Mashati estimates she has posted more than 100 Iran-related links and videos on Facebook since the beginning of the unrest – ranging from clips of candlelight vigils to “guerilla-style” survival tips for extinguishing street fires and covertly uploading explosive content to the web.
The Internet, Mashati maintained, has enabled her to connect to Iran and relate to its people in a way not possible through CNN or Fox.
“I feel the struggle of those people, and I feel the movement,” she said. “It’s reaching beyond Tehran [Iran’s capital]. It’s reaching into Queens.”
While some Iranian expatriates declined to comment for this article, others echoed Mashati in saying that despite the great distance between them and Iran, the emotional ties to their homeland have become even stronger over the past few weeks.
The owner of a popular Persian restaurant in Queens said the topic of conversation at his eatery has changed since the election, with many in the local Iranian community hoping to oust the current government.
“If I tell you every day or every hour we talk about it, it’s not a lie,” said the man, who requested anonymity because of fear that openly expressing his left-leaning viewpoints could alienate customers who side with Ahmadinejad and his staunch supporter, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Dr. Michael Afshari, a Bayside gynecologist, candidly discussed the situation in Iran and said he had voted in the June 12 election at a mosque on Queens Boulevard. While he would not divulge whom he voted for, Afshari said he believes Moussavi is not much different of a politician than Ahmadinejad, and that people have gravitated to an opportunity, not to the candidate himself.
Afshari condemned what he considered to be violence at the hands of the protesters.
“You cannot go on the street and [set] fire [to] the buildings and loot the place because you don’t like the outcome of the election,” he said.
Similarly, Dr. Reza Hedayati, the head of the Iranian American Society of New York – and the chief of radiology at a Long Island hospital – is troubled by the violence, which he says reminds him of the Islamic Revolution of 1979, when Iran’s monarchy was overthrown.
“I’m a physician. I’m trying every day to save 95- or 100-year-old people in life and imagine, an 18-year-old dies on the streets – I cannot believe it,” Hedayati said, adding that his views do not reflect those of the non-political organization he runs.
For her part, Mashati continues to upload to Facebook and attend local rallies in support of freedoms in Iran. She refers to the “activist bloodline” she shares with her mother and notes how her grandmother, in Iran, has become emboldened by the heroics of people openly protesting in the streets.
“My feeling is that Moussavi is just one road, just a little piece of a part towards a better Iran,” she said.
“I just love Iran. I love going back there,” she went on, recalling the fruit, the mountains, the water and the land that, she says, “speaks to me.” But at the same time, Mashati admitted, “I’m also a total New Yorker.”
