sazegara and Political Apathy

The Iranian weblog community, with its younger, wealthier, and more educated demographics comparing to the average Iranians, is not much different with the whole society in its sense of apathy.

That's probably why out of some seventy thousands weblogs in Persian, a simple Google search only results in about 460 mentions of sazegara in Persian weblogs. (query: سازگارا blog)

Interestingly, much of the mentions are about Mr. sazegara's arrest last year and his conditions because of his hunger strike, rather than his idea of a referendum to change the constitution. However, neither are things very good for Mr. Saeed Hajjarian, the main opponent of Mr. sazegara and his allies' referendum project Another Google search (query:حجاریان OR حجاریان blog) only returns about 650 results about Mr. Hajjarian in Iranian blogs.

Whether you agree with what Google results hint at or not, no one can deny that the Persian blogosphere truly reflects the real apolitical atmosphere in the Iranian society. Politics, apparently, is not directly of interest for the majority of young Iranians these days.

However, I believe, there is still a great potential for re-emergence of some kind of collective political demand among the young Iranians.

While they have not shown much enthusiasm for pure political issues, matters of social and cultural nature have proven rather capable of attracting them to political activism in some case.

The blogger' wide spread anger, for example, at the National Geographic's use of the term "Arabian Gulf" instead of "Persian Gulf" caused the biggest re-action of the Iranian bloggers from various social and political leanings to this day.

Social freedoms and cultural sensitivity are what now drives Iranian youth -- at least those active on the internet -- and here is where both the Iranian regime and its opposition fail to understand.

Some other interesting Google queries:
* رجوی OR رجوی blog (106 results)
* پهلوی OR پهلوی blog (506 results)
* رفراندم OR رفراندوم blog (989 results)
* مصدق blog (537 results)
* خاتمي OR خاتمی blog (5,080 results)
* است blog (105,000)
* "خامنه*" blog (1,990)
* پسر blog (15,400)
* دختر blog (18,500)
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