*Originally published by BBC Persian, to read the original, please click here.
Following the protests that are taking place in Iran after the killing of Mahsa Amini by the forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the attention of the people and the media has been drawn to the role, and strong presence of the 2000s generation and the courage and invincibility of this generation is greatly admired.
From the way they fight to the tone of their slogans, one can notice a significant difference between this generation and previous ones. To describe this generation, the term “aughts” or Y2K generation is generally used, which in my opinion, is not entirely accurate, largely because the common characteristics of this generation are also evident among those born in the 1990s. Perhaps, it is better to use the word Generation Z to describe this generation, which is a well-known concept worldwide, and the people of this generation are known for similar characteristics in European and American countries.
This generation, which is angrier compared to the previous generations, and its critical language is more radical, is far less obedient towards authority (family, school, university, and now the Islamic Republic).
Many analyses have been written about the causes of these differences, and generally, even though they follow different approaches to the investigation than the real approaches of this generation.
In my opinion, the contrasts between the mental values of this generation and the world they live in are one of the main causes of their anger and rebellion.
This generation, which has had access to the Internet and free textual, audio, and visual content of the free world since childhood, has a mental image of a world and a standard of life in its mind which does not have the slightest compatibility with the Iranian context in which they actually live. When their non-Iranian friends post videos of the Pride Parade on Tik Tok, the Y2K girls in Iran have to iron their school hijabs for the next day, and when they see “Fridays for the Future” stories on Instagram, they have to endure the sound of Muharram mourners in their street.
The great contradiction between their personal values and the values of their surrounding society makes this anger much bigger, and since they have been raised with these values since childhood, they cannot easily let go of them. However, the previous generations, for example, found out after a certain age that, basically, there is another kind of life, and it is possible to live like that.
In other words, they were aware of oppression, but they were more or less used to it, because the same value system prevailed in their family. In addition, the ability to stand up against the ruling system seemed unattainable for the previous generations because the oppression started primarily within the family.
For example, the clichéd sentence “We didn’t dare to stretch our legs in front of our parents” tells the complex situation of the power structure and oppression in Iranian families. When the youth does not have the possibility to express their most obvious human aspects in front of the family, which should be the safest possible environment for them, it will, of course, be more difficult to express their wishes in front of the institutions of power. The previous generations had experienced a different type of oppression both in family and in society (for example, the dark period of the 1980s), which gave them a different idea of how to deal with oppression.
But the generation born in the 2000s, which saw the summer of 2009 and the Green Movement when they were 8 years old, the 2017 protest when they were 16, and the 2019 massacre when they were 18 years old, know their abilities against the Islamic Republic and knows that they can fight against the establishment of power.
In other words, this generation has the experiences of the previous generations in front of them and learns from them, and walks on the path that the previous generations made smoother. On the other hand, during the dark period of the 1980s and the terrible experiences of war and mass executions, even at home, there was no courage to criticize the government. But the new generation, which has heard slogans of death to the dictator in the streets since childhood, has become aware of the ugliness of power politics and realizes that it can deny the legitimacy of the existing government and rise against it.
Another thing that can be pointed out is the ability of this generation to bring their non-Iranian peers from all over the world into their movement.
This generation, a significant percentage of whom speaks English and, thanks to social media, is aware of the cultural sensitivities of Western intellectual currents, can effectively use their global awareness to convince the mainstream leftist currents in the west, which have held conservative positions on Iranian issues for years, and bring them together, highlighting the progressive aspects of this movement. The awareness of Western sensitivities can be an effective element in creating the right narrative regarding Iran’s issues abroad.
Another noteworthy point about this generation is their media literacy and ability to separate useful data from non-useful noise. These days, when the amount of news and information published on social media is strangely high, this ability can disrupt the plan of the Government’s cyber criminals to spread fake news and create noise.
I have rarely seen the Y2K generation, for example, get involved in the so-called WhatsApp yellow news. The generation born in the information age needs the ability to deal with it for daily tasks and naturally has sharper teeth to distinguish true from false data.
The abilities and courage of this generation can mark a new page in the history of global civil movements, according to the experience and teachings they have received from previous generations. The legacy that has reached this generation during the years of civil struggle and disobedience is the result of the efforts and sacrifices of all generations. Given the unity between Iranians of all generations and groups, we can imagine a bright future for the country.