While there’re thousands of articles and Photos shared around the net, just few have put their opinions on fair basis, most of them often using half truths and inducing in minds certain vocabulary.
In Iran’s colorful political arena, The green color got more attention from the western Media, maybe because they liked the candidate behind it more than the others and they assumed he’ll realize wishes of their governments for the better.
OR from a more optimistic point of view, during pre and post election events, Media was so attracted to Green color of Mousavi campaign, since in Tehran the capital it was more visible into eyes than a common Iran’s flag as a sign of Ahmadinejad’s campaign.
While multicultural Iran is not just Tehran, nor those active in the streets were all the population.
Iranian society with its complicated structure, can not be shown as a black and white documentary.
As Mohammad Salemy -an artist and curator of the former DADABASE Gallery- has points it out very well, quoting Ervand Abrahamian, a scholar of Iran’s contemporary history, based on George Rud’s observation that perhaps no historical phenomenon has been so thoroughly neglected by historians as the crowd:
“Unlike the reformist crowd that has quickly emerged through the recent presidential campaign of Mir Hossein Moussavi, the pro Ahmadinejad crowd has a long thirty years history in the making. A once official crowd in service of the
state. Ahmadinejad crowd has been made mostly of those who returned to the street, and the ballot box, after a decade, to launch their own reform against corruption and to renew their support for the regional resistance against the USA and Israel. This invisible crowd, particularly those not working for the security services and government agencies, was asked by the state to stay home throughout the riots to prevent the situation from turning into a civil war.”
The matter is you look at the story from different sides, not just how other people look at it. Now after the election has taken over, Mohammad Javad Jahangir, a Tehran based Iranian artist with background in Islamic studies from the seminary who has worked with Iranian artists Abbas Kiarostami on several projects and with featured works By BBC, Reuters and other international news organizations, decided to share photos of the other side of Iranian society, the invisible part.
The Invisible Crowd photo exhibition is about those who were present during election campaigns and at the ballot boxes, participating some certain demonstrations and the famous Friday prayer, but they’ve not got enough attention from the western media. His “virtual” photo exhibition on Dadabase.ca site borrows its name from a sign that has inspired the work:
“During one of the early pro Ahmadinejad rallies before the vote, Mohammad Javad Jahangir, who was present at the scene, noticed a sign in the crowd that poked fun at the lack of the global media coverage of large pro Ahmadinejad demonstrations. The sign depicted a television containing a still-frame of an empty city street with the CNN logo at the bottom. Underneath the television set read the words ‘We are the invisible crowd for the western media.’” Salemy says.
P.S: Has been cros-posted on Mideast Youth
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