One of the most famous poems/songs of the revolution was “rahbareh mahboobeh ma az safar ayad … deev cho biroon ravad, fereshteh darayad” meaning “our dear leader shall come [home] from his journey … this is when the monster shall leave and the angel will arrive”.

The generation who was born after the revolution, kids like me, grew up hearing this over and over and over again on their TV screens,  with images of Ayatollah Khomeini getting off the plane (like the one below, although he seems to have been flying the magic carpet instead), or with images of him surrounded by cartoonish flowers and fauna in the background. But really, technically speaking, how can he fall down from the clouds like that?!

But I never “got” it. It seems to me the monster … and the angel … never left the room to start with. They were right here all along. I am grateful to the green movement in Iran – and I hesitate to call them a coherent “movement”, but I shall here for the sake of simplicity – for the fact that it has thus far at least, produced no “angels” of this kind. Because with new angels come new demons, and we’ve been down that road far too many times.

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note: please keep your comments considerate. As I mentioned before, I go by the same guidelines as bloggers in Iran. I will be featuring “green” artwork in the next few days for 22 Bahman, the anniversary of the revolution, so today I thought I’d show you a glimpse of the artwork in state news agencies.