ABSTRACT
On November 4, 2009, thousands of young Iranians poured onto the streets of Tehran to protest the fraudulent election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June of the same year. As much as for what it commemorated, this day was important for what it demonstrated – namely that a social movement had become political. November 4, 2009, was the 30th anniversary of the hostage-taking in the US Embassy in Iran, often referred to as the Iranian Hostage Crisis. The 1979 taking of American hostages in Tehran sent a strong signal to all of Euro-America. Through their actions, members of the Iranian Revolution were saying that “This is a new Iran,” and that they would not be under the thumb of the United States or Western powers or the Shah, Iran’s monarch. Revolutionaries claimed the Shah was leading Iran down a path of decadence, “westoxication” (or gharbzadegi as it was called), that meant the country was straying from core ideals and values. During the Iranian Revolution, the Shah was overthrown and Iran underwent a regime change.
