Red White and Green:

Vancouver’s Diasporic Iranian Youth, Politics,

and New Media

Research Paper Prepared for the Geography

Dept. Seminar on Immigration Research

Mehdi Alaei Tafti

 ABSTRACT

This study’s primary objective is to shed some light on the transnational character of the Iranian diasporic
youth, and its various forms of social articulation, and with respect to the ‘rooted and transcendent qualities
of mobility’. Particular attention is paid to emerging use of technology and/or media, and their help in
shaping the aforesaid social forms. Questions revolve around both the maintenance of ties with Iran, and the
implications of such ties for each participant. Participants are Iranians between 19-30 years old, living in the
Greater Vancouver Region in British Columbia, which age group represents about half of the total Iranian
population. The study includes two components: extensive questionnaires and personal interviews with a
select number of participants. In all twenty-eight surveys (allowing for statistically significant results to be
gleaned) and seventeen interviews have been conducted. These two components allow both for statistical
and contextual analyses of participant responses. A précis of the political situation in Iran is provided to get
a better understanding of the notion of citizenship vis-à-vis Iran, and the limits imposed on the media.

Who is it that is addressing you? Since it is not an author, a narrator, or a deus ex machina, it is an
I that is both part of the spectacle, and part of the audience. An I that, a bit like you, undergoes its
own incessant, violent reinscription, within the arithmetical machinery. An I that, functioning as a
pure passageway for operations of substitution, is not some singular and irreplaceable existence,
some subject or light, but only rather moves between life and death, between reality and fiction.
An I that is a mere function or phantom. –– Jacques Derrida, Dissemination, 1972; reproduced
in ‘Derrida’ Documentary
Research Design, Method, and Analytical Strategy

This study looks at Iranian diasporic youth in the Greater Vancouver Region to learn
more about the transnational movement to support democracy in Iran. Special attention is
paid to emerging uses of technology, with a focus on social networking media, in aiming
to find out the effect of these sites on political activism. Initially a précis of the history of
Iranian nationalist struggle for democracy is provided in order to better understand the
complicated recent challenges. The cohort chosen for study is an age group representing
about half of the overall population in Iran, who are between 19-30 years old. Extensive
questionnaires were designed to probe as to the maintenance of online and offline ties
with Iran, and as to the implications of such ties for each participant. Since some
participants were recruited based on a rapport built through online networking, there is
likely a bias against other media, a bias which may even affect the snowball sampling
employed subsequently. Seventeen semi-structured interviews were conducted and also
recorded with the consent of participants. It should be noted that a significant number of
those surveyed self-identified as (student) activists to different extents. There is a general
wariness of state spies creeping in on activism (both online and offline), which I had to
allay in my search for participants. Inasmuch as this strategy may have led to the
recruitment of a more vociferous set of youth, I’m open to the charge of misrepresenting
the cohort as a whole. I trust that this may be offset by their knowledgeableness about
many pressing social issues, as the qualitative analysis may illustrate. I employ quotes as
snapshots that capture sediments of emotional attachment, with respect to issues such as
online social media, Iranian politics, and diasporic identification. These are used to draw
a moving picture of recent developments based on the views of interviewees, but are also
used to draw some conclusions as to future directions for research.

Statistical Analysis of Study Participants

In all, 28 questionnaires were completed, 14 by males and 14 by females. Of these, three

were born outside Iran and couldn’t provide answers to a subset of the questions, and
therefore can’t be considered for many categories of analysis. The remaining surveys
showed an average age of 24.96 years old, and on average had lived less than half (47.5%)
of their lives abroad. Out of these 25 people, 18 indicated having moved to Canada when
first leaving Iran, and one didn’t reply. Eight people had not returned to Iran since first
leaving, and more than half said they had immediate family members still residing in Iran.
While most (68%) had indicated that education had contributed to their family’s decision
to leave Iran, data suggests that on average, 62.6% of their years away from Iran were
spent studying. Only a minority (16%) had spent every year away in school, and 36%
indicated having had more than minimal interruptions while adapting to a new culture.
Most (84%) attested to keeping contact with relatives in Iran, while 73% said the same
thing about friends in Iran1. Here, emails were ranked the most useful means of keeping
in touch, followed closely by phone calls (See Chart A for details) 2. The majority (92%)
also said they kept up with their Iranian heritage (see Chart B). Prior to 2009, 40% had
voted in Iranian elections, and 24% voted in the 2009 presidential elections. When asked
to choose a level of “awareness of the political climate within Iran” prior, and then after
the 2009 elections, 44% showed having had some increase, and 32% characterized the
effect as profound. A ranking of some eighteen channels through which news about Iran
is received, digested, or disseminated, showed Youtube ranked first, followed by
Facebook and BBC (almost tied, with each being the first channel to go to for four
participants), followed by BBC Farsi (See Chart C for more). 80% were “aware of locally
organized events in solidarity with the Iranian victims of political instability and violence
in the aftermath of the 2009 Elections” and as many people attended some such events
(see Chart D). Interestingly 60% had heard “messages of support from Canadian
politicians in solidarity with Iranians” at the federal level, while less than a third had
heard from their municipal and provincial counterparts. Only 12% cited these as having
changed their view of said politicians. Not surprisingly, the events around these elections
were found to strengthen participant connections first within their diaspora here and then
to their community in Iran, while on average no change was noticeable as to the rest of
Canada. A set of questions were designed, the answers to which demonstrate the cohort’s
level of knowledge and understanding about political circumstances surrounding Iran
(See Chart E). Insofar as they checked one of the ‘Iranian/Persian/Canadian/Other’ boxes
when self-identifying their national character, 36% received a transnational ‘score’ of ‘1’
(see Chart F). About half clearly didn’t personally identify with their demographic
religious majority, while for almost all the rest it took on different personal meanings that
are harder to decode3. This finding is similar to others that looked at “that political
identity, as opposed to religious and/or ethnic identity, had been the key defining factor in
the way they initially related to Iran and positioned themselves outside Iran” (Ghorahsi
and Boersma, 2009, 672). Asked to designate their language proficiency, the answers
tabulated indicate that only 20% lacked bilingualism4, while 32% had some skill in a
language other than Farsi or English.5 The general picture that emerges from this survey
is one of a very educated cohort, connected to a plethora of information through a variety
of media channels, and in my impression, more diasporic than exilic.6

Background on Iranian Identities and Limits of the Media

Many historians date Iran’s modern struggle for gaining democracy –as distinct from
monarchy– back to the Constitutional Revolution of 1906-11, though one expert traces its
roots to more than two centuries ago, and finds it closely intertwined for an anticolonial
quest for nationhood (Dabashi, 2007). During the 1950s Prime Minister Mosaddegh
championed this quest by nationalizing Iranian oil, in order to negotiate reasonable profit-
sharing with the British company that controlled the Iranian oil industry, thus improving
the standard of living in Iran. Rather than restructure the scheme that paid a pittance of
their net profits to Iran, however, the British sought American help to depose Mosaddegh
and return the Shah (monarch) to power. This became the first time the CIA staged a
coup d’etat, as explored by Stephen Kinzer in his study of its “terrible and haunting
legacy”7. He chronicles the way the CIA bribed newspapers, mob men, community,
military, and religious leaders, to shift Iranian sentiments against the democratic
government, finally succeeding on August 19, 1953 to oust Mosaddegh, and devastate
parliamentary rule in favour of the Shah. (Kinzer, 2003)
In concluding his account, Kinzer adverts to insights from historians of the coup, excerpts
of which inform my research, and two of which I wish to recall here. Firstly, J. A. Bill
stresses that the American intervention “paved the way for the incubation of extremism,
both of the left and of the right. This extremism became unalterably anti-American”
(Kinzer, 2003, 212-213). Secondly, R. W. Cottam states that “In helping eliminate a
government that symbolized Iran’s search for national integrity and dignity, [the U.S.-
sponsored coup] helped deny the successor regime nationalist legitimacy” (Ibid). The
Shah’s obliteration of Iran’s Community Party and decimation of other leftist groups in
the coup’s aftermath, probably contributed to his ultimate downfall. Ironically this paved
the way for entrepreneurs (or bazaaris) to have increasing influence, as suggested in a
study of the link between socioeconomic development and democracy in Iran and the
Philippines (Parsa, 1995). The study’s author writes about Iran: “economic independence
of bazaaris from the state and the absence of threats from either labor or leftist
organizations reduced their reliance on the state and enabled them to mobilize against the
government” (Ibid, 814). The author emphasizes that “the structure of bazaars tends to
generate strong solidarity against external adversaries.” since, by virtue of their centrality
and concentration each of these markets constituted a “ready-made communication
network” (Ibid). Such network structures should be contrasted with recently emerging
online communication networks (and their offline counterparts), linking the peoples of
both inside and outside Iran.

A hardliner cleric, Ayatollah Khomeini, eventually posited himself as diametrically

opposed to the progressively weakened Shah. Khomeini seized on populist (nationalist)
sentiments to instigate the 1979 revolution and overthrow the Shah, and then made
himself its Supreme Leader. Meanwhile Saddam Hussein, president of neighboring Iraq,
was compelled to exploit the political instability, by waging a war with Iran that was
drawn out from 1980-1988, with mounting expenses (estimated at one trillion dollars)
and casualties on both sides. Of the more than one million dead, the majority were
Iranians, and of the martyrs most belonged to the underclass8. Demographically, Iran is
98% Muslim, and roughly the same percentage had initially voted for making Iran an
Islamic Republic. But soon some two million Iranians that included leftists, bazaaris,
monarchists, and others uncomfortable with Islamic rule, fled Iran. Many remaining
dissidents were purged, imprisoned, and even executed by the new regime.

“For would-be exiled activists, the major danger is to become frozen in opposition,
increasingly out of touch with the mood ‘back home’ and increasingly integrated into the
life of the host country.”, according to a survey of the Iranian diaspora published after the
Iran-Iraq war (Sreberny-Mohammadi and Mohammadi, 1987, 129). One contemporary
analysis of ‘narrow-casting’ in Los Angeles, i.e. broadcasting for diasporic communities,
found that “in the case of Iranians this has meant a shrill and doctrinaire anti-Islamist and
pro-royalist political stance” (Naficy, 1993, 32). Such fomentation, disdained since the
coup d’etat days, made Western-produced media the ‘antithetical’ for conservative
Iranian politics, and something to guard against9. Hence the Islamic Republic of Iran
Broadcasting – IRIB – remained the only national broadcaster, and the news agency
IRNA too remains government-controlled. Iranian filmmakers have had to find
allegiances with liberal elements of the Iranian government and subterfuge their projects
in order to slowly break taboos (Mir-Hosseini, 2001). Iranian cinema was kept austere in
adherence to Islamic jurisprudence – or feqh – which severely limited its progress, up
until the 1998 election of president Khatami, who favoured pluralism in the media. As a
likely result, a study of satellite TV in Iran, finds its popularity and even fetishization is
owed largely to its proscription, since “the presence of reception dishes means that
nonconformity is registered in the public space” (Barraclough, 2001, 44). Two remarks
by Khatami highlighted in this study are pertinent to note. The first was in addressing
university students just before his election where he said “digital, computer and satellite
borders are jokes” (Ibid, 42); and the second, soon after being elected, was that “we are
deceiving ourselves if we believe that we can hide the truth from the people in our
coverage of news and world affairs” (Ibid, 26). The former suggest the state’s failure
when staking its legitimacy on cultural censorship, and the latter shows the risk to state
media becoming a mere propaganda piece, and the limits to controlling the flow of
media.

Suppression of student activism began in 1980 when, under the guise of the “cultural
revolution,” universities were closed for three years. A recent historical-structural study
found that students had carried on their culture of critical discourse within (or despite) the
new system, particularly through the Office for Consolidation of Unity set up throughout
their campuses (Mashayekhi, 2001, 283). This study notes that “[t]he embryonic forms of
change in student political discourse came to public attention around 1995-1996” (Ibid,
301). These changes were driven by the rapidly proliferating (independent) free press and
information technology in Iran on the one hand, and by a sense of disenfranchisement
and disenchantment with Islamic and socialist ideologies on the other. In part due to
American-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the reform movement was muffled by an
extremist conservatism that presented itself as the nation’s saviour against ‘Western’ and
‘Zionist’ threats. In response, Iranian student opposition grew stronger, despite persistent
government duress.

Diasporic student activists have long stressed that liberalism based on modern theories of
citizenship is incompatible with a jurisprudence which is more theocratic than democratic
(Davar-Ardakani, 2010). Most notably, the Guardian Council –half of whose dozen
members are directly selected by the Supreme Leader— is in charge of vetting candidates
in Iranian elections. In 2004, the Council disqualified some 2400 reformist presidential
candidates, and half of the 8200 parliamentary candidates, generally using disrespect for
Islam as an excuse (Shaghafi, 2004, 16-17). This led to protests and mass resignations
within parliament, and further disillusioned student bodies. With more than twenty four
million Iranians voting, the turnout at the 2004 presidential elections was relatively low,
but youth participation was remarkable, with some seven million first-time voters going
to the polls (Ibid, 19). Ultimately these controversial elections brought the hardliner
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the presidency. One journalist, reviewing the ‘failed’ attempts
at reform of 1997-2004, foresaw greater tensions ahead: “Although capturing the state
has been the central focus of recent elections, it is likely that the attempt by Tehran's new
strongmen to short-circuit the trend toward democracy will not last very long.” (Ibid, 22)
Only four candidates were approved by the Guardian Council for the 2009 elections: two
hardliners who included the incumbent Ahmadinejad, and two reformists including Mir
Hossein Mousavi, endorsed by Khatami. On Election Day, June 12, 2009, hundreds of
irregularities were reported to the Council, which eventually declared the incumbent the
winner with about 24.5 million votes, or 65% of total – a decision they maintained even
after a random recount of 10% of all ballots, as per orders from the Supreme Leader.
Within days a letter purportedly by the Interior Minister addressing the Supreme Leader
was leaked, which suggested another coup de force. It read that the incumbent had only
gotten 12% of the vote and Mousavi had actually won with some 19 million votes; but
that the incumbent would be kept in power as per the wishes of the Supreme Leader (L.A.
Times, 2009). Millions of Iranians poured onto its city streets in defiance of state armed
forces and voluntary militia to protest what Mousavi had called a “charade” (Fisk, 2009a,
2009b). Iranians, half of whom are now between 19-30 years of age, were instrumental in
bringing to international attention the massive arrests, bloodshed and torture that ensued
–some of which preceded the announcement of the ‘winner’ (IHRDC, 2010). Amongst a
number of scholarly doubts raised about the results, one election fraud expert found,
based on the minimal data made available, that “a crude calculation suggests that
Ahmadinejad’s vote is inflated by at least 3.5 million votes. Whether this is the only kind
of fraud perpetrated in the election is unknown.” (Mebane, 2010a); and, assuming the
aforesaid, that “without the ballot-box stuffing fraud the election outcome would have
been at least [contingent on] a runoff between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi.” (Mebane,
2010b).

Iranians and ‘the West’

According to a recent report, American budget for the ‘promotion of democracy in Iran’
had jumped from about 1.5 million dollars in 2004 to some 60 million in 2008, and
increased annual funds were requested from the Obama administration. President Obama
didn’t comply however, allocating about 25 million for the entire Middle East region
instead (VoA, 2009). Subsequent to Ahmadinejad’s presidency, the Islamic state too has
aggressively recruited its Iranian Cyber Army (ICA), with an estimated budget of $76
million and recently ranked in the top “five most powerful” of its kind (Frontline, 2010a).
November 4, 2009 marked thirty years after students had stormed the American embassy
and taken its staff hostage. But on this ‘anniversary’, instead of the ‘Death to America’
chants that had prevailed for so long, many protesters changed their tune to ‘Death to no
one’ (CNN, 2009). Similarly other ‘compromising’ slogans emerged, which were initially
supported by reformists in Iran, yet some of which have been criticized as inappropriate
since then (Frontline, 2010b). More recently, Iranian advisors in collaboration with
liberal Washington think tanks, are hoping to “embark on a clear policy to liberalize the
power of digital technology,” while opposing “tougher general sanctions and any moves
that would provoke harsher crackdowns by the regime on civil society.” (Frontline, 2010c)
So there seems to be a paradigm shift in the role of leadership in both Iran and the U.S.,
just as there is a shift in Iranians’ perceptions of people in the West, whether of Iranian
heritage or otherwise. Emerging internet media and their opacity/transparency appear to
play a crucial role in this new paradigm.
Online Publics and Iranian Diasporic Youth in Vancouver

Both in terms of voting patterns and activism in Iran, there seems to be significant
difference between large cities and smaller towns and villages, with socio-economic
conditions and education being the persistent determining factors. One Vancouver
resident, who frequently visits Iran, explained the way (conservative) pro-government
forces (can) use the rural conditions to commit election fraud:

They’ve kept people so low that, they go some places and tell, say, to a farmer ‘sir, we’ll give you two
years’ remuneration, come and vote!’ I mean, people are satisfied with this. Fundamentally the person
may not know what voting is, may be politically illiterate. [S]he may see the difference between
Ahmadinejad and Mir Hossein Mousavi in their physical appearance; may have no idea what
differences these two people have, but just because they’re told ‘we’ll give you two years’
remuneration’, they’ll go and vote for him. Or in some places, they’ve bought citizenship cards,
meaning they’ve given money, and the economic situation for some people is so bad, so low, that they
paid the equivalent of $80 Canadian. They’re given $80 and their ID card taken and vote given in their
place. (Male, self-employed, age 29, in diaspora more than nine years)

Another resident who had remained in Tehran10 a few days after the elections described a
unity of sentiments that stands in contrast from the rural picture:

In the days after the elections, even in driving – even in minor daily affairs – people became much
kinder… I was a student; in my own university, we had a strong feeling of solidarity. In class,
professors, students, everyone, maybe, previously if in taxies or whatnot, if discussions of politics and
opposition were secret, know we felt we’d all found common point. We became much closer together
after this event. It became clear that we’re all in opposition, but till now no one let it be known. In this
way somehow our nationalist pride became very apparent. People’s attachment increased significantly.
To use traffic as an example, if previously we got stuck behind another car and honked, I personally
tried not to honk the horn because I thought ‘this person is like me in opposition.’ I don’t know, it was
an intrinsic feeling. (Female, graduate student, age 27, in diaspora for about one year)

Taxis in Tehran are shared by several people, and as such have been noted as a
significant site of public discourse. They serve to break the dichotomous esoteric/exoteric
(‘baten/zaher’) barriers of the self that remain in Iranian culture, by permitting people to
share personal news to varying degrees (Graham and Khosravi, 2002, 224-5). This mode
of communication is distinct from the internet cafes that have been “mushrooming” in
Tehran since the turn of the century (Ibid, 226), insofar as it is less mediated yet
dispersed. However both these forms are generally prevalent in large urban centers, and
typically absent in rural settings. Days before the elections, the largely urban opposition
also began sporting green apparel, the color representing the reformist Mousavi’s
campaign. This trend was also observed by many diasporic Iranians around the world,
considered Green supporters. In recalling her experience with Green movement activists
in Vancouver on the day of the elections in Iran, one interviewee highlighted some of
their challenges:

On June 12 –there’s no Iranian embassy here and there was no place designated for our voting— we
decided to hold a symbolic election on June 11 in front of the Art Gallery on Robson Street… We put a
voting box there, [people] dropped in their ballots and we declared from the four candidates who had
the most votes. That’s because we couldn’t go to Seattle, or go to Ottawa; because we’d have to vote
there. And we signed a paper and demanded that the Iranian embassy designate a place for Iranians
 residing in Vancouver, so we can vote in future events. We held this mock elections and, well, those
who were Green supporters wore their green apparel, and pretty much, we knew that, well, those who
were our favoured candidates, who were also in the mind of people in Iran, got the most votes. The
next day when we found that [Ahmadinejad – who was not prominent in the mind of the majority of
Iranians on both sides of the border] has gotten the votes… (Female, student, age 29, in diaspora for
five years)

This very location, a hallmark of the Vancouver downtown core, hosted candlelight vigils
attended by thousands of Iranians dubbed ‘Silent Scream’11 for ten nights following the
elections, organized by students and advertised in newspapers and online. Vigils were
then held once a week, culminating in the human chain on July 25 which in collaboration
with United for Iran was observed in cities throughout the world. The latter, initiated by a
San Francisco Iranian, became a grassroots movement in over a hundred cities against the
political violence, and for civil rights in Iran. This diasporic unity was in solidarity with
the people of, and opposed to theocratic rule in, Iran; as the interviewee explained further:

The omnipresent discussion in Iran is that of religion and politics. The religious leaders now have said
that religion is not separate from politics, and have acted accordingly. These elections, I think, has
done two things: Firstly, it drew a line between ‘the government’ and ‘the people’. One group became
supporters of the new government [that of Mr. Ahmadinejad and those whose bread and butter are tied
to his rule]; one group became supporters of people. (Female, student, age 29, in diaspora five years)

She went on to elaborate how this is not just an exilic view, or one experienced within
Vancouver’s diaspora, but one apparent within Iran. Indeed most participants saw the
Green movement in Vancouver as an act of solidarity with protesters in Iran, who poured
onto its city streets in defiance of the government time and again. Citizen journalism in
Iran was crucial in providing up-to-the-minute feeds of the political crisis to the outside
world. Protesters equipped with mobile cameras were particularly hard to control, as they
shot amateur footage of the daily carnage, posted them on personal blogs12, and even sent
them out to mainstream media. Another student activist delved into detail as to the ardent
way in which Vancouver Greens relayed this information around the world, while
affirming that the organizational nature of their participation was “ad hoc”:

About sharing information: five-ten of us would get in a room when we knew something was going
down in Iran. We knew that, you know the government has said you can’t protest in such and such day
and we knew that people were coming out; they planned for it; so we knew something was going to
happen. For example the inauguration of Ahmadinejad, the day he was inaugurated, we knew that
protesters would come out and protest this because of the fraudulent way he was elected – selected –
and so we would sit down with ten laptops in one room, with a T1 [internet] connection. We’d have
maybe 15-20 different blogs and, you know different pages that we’d bookmarked each open, all
different sources; and we’d be constantly going through every single one on a per second basis,
refreshing, and refreshing, and refreshing, just to pull out news. To see what else is coming. We copied
those names, we paste names to our Facebooks or our Twitters, to our Youtube accounts, re-upload
these and share them with our social networks. And this would be viral: people in our social networks
would grab them and share them with other people, and there was always one person that would be in
charge of sending all of this information to the news institutions: feeding the CNNs, feedings the BBCs,
feeding the [VOA]s because they had way more capacity to share this information than ten of us, you
know, with 1000-2000 people in our networks. (Male, student, age 27, in diaspora for about 23 years)
The “names” largely referred to those arrested or killed, or other victims of violence. The
anonymity of victims was thus broken in an unprecedented manner. Given that foreign
news agencies were severely restricted in their reporting of these events, internet social
media provided a less structured platform for sharing news, and building a dialectical
rapport in part based on personal feelings about the news. As this interviewee highlighted,
the micro-blogging site Twitter was a pertinent tool in allowing for instant snippets of
news to be aired from the ground, via cellphones. The sinuous nature of this and other
social networking media made them superior to more traditional, circumvallated media in
Iran. Such a fresh form of expression was called Iran’s Twitter Revolution by many
analysts13, as noted by another interviewee. Also an activist, he went on to explicate the
cautious exercise of discerning the situation on the ground, while recalling the viral video
of the brutal shooting of Neda, (a woman who quickly became a Green folk hero,) on the
primarily representational, online public YouTube14:

The internet played a pivotal role, in terms of spreading the news, in terms of showing what’s
happening in Iran. I mean everybody in the world, those who wanted to see, saw, the death of someone
like Neda Agha Soltan. It happened in front of everyone’s eyes, like, we weren’t there, but we could
feel, we could put ourselves in that situation. But at the same time, I would say, because obviously
what we see, are short clips, they’re not representative of the situation in Iran. So we see a few clips,
we think, ‘OK, there’s a strong opposition movement in Iran’, and there is. But, the reality is that what
we see are selected portions, and they don’t represent the society. (Male, student, age 29, in diaspora
for about nine years)

My analysis here is based on a study of earlier websites which categorizes them as virtual
publics. Its author writes that “Internet-mediated publics are—in order from least to most
grounded in geographic place—representational; network; and vertical” (Parham, 2005,
350). In light of this, the aforesaid site Twitter can be seen as a hybrid between both a
representational and –insofar as one can follow specific Tweeters (who in turn can also
report on personal news) — a networking public. Facebook has elements of all three
categories, including the vertical domain, “whose participants are drawn together by
more than a simple or passing interest in discussing a topic of shared interest” (Ibid, 357).
It allows users to import news articles and links to analyses, while adding personal
comments, thus increasing the potential for the reinscription of writerly texts, as distinct
from readerly texts15. Video footage posted on sites like Youtube could be unpacked in a
similar fashion, thus inviting people within each reader’s network(s) to become scriptors
themselves16. However, since “the vertical public is characterized by formal leadership
and by a formal process for establishing membership”, including fees (Ibid), the sites in
our study –and most in use by Iranian diasporic youth, at least in Vancouver) — were not
vertical in nature. Activists mainly kept use of representational and networking online
publics, while recognizing the need to tread vigilantly (to varying degrees) — likely due
to the history of meddling in the media already alluded to. One interviewee described her
critical reflexivity17 vis-à-vis two of these sites in particular, while contrasting her view
with her insight on the limits to accessing information in Iran:

Well, the observation that we had, was that, definitely Facebook and Youtube changed the way media
was, starting from the post-election protests. Because, a lot of the times we heard that people in Iran, in
different locations, they themselves are not aware of, the kind of, the streets [] like the people who are
being killed, they’re not aware; because the media over there is being filtered. However we on this
 other side, we were seeing all these images; however we don’t know how much of it was real, how
much of it was actually from this time, or if it was from the past and it was being used again, because a
couple of times there were clips from the past that were being hijacked to get people excited,
basically… we don’t know. (Female, student, age 25, in diaspora for about fourteen years)

Despite persistent attempts by the Iranian Cyber Army (ICA) to filter or block access to
information (Frontline, 2010a), some people in Iran circumvented these efforts to access
these sites18. This holds true for activists here (perhaps even more so), including one who
similarly remarked “a lot of websites were filtered, and so [‘we’] definitely had to use
different programs, like Ultrasurf, tunnel programs, proxy servers and sites and links, and
so forth, to be able to communicate with Iran.” Ultrasurf is a ‘filter-breaker’, which lets
users escape state censorship, while encrypting their data to provide security. This
interviewee nonetheless recognized his tendency to be circumspect in digesting news of
the unravelling crisis, elaborating in his interview on how he had his “guard up”:

I look at everything, I critically analyze everything. But what I mean by [having my] guard up is that I
don’t let it get to me. That’s what I mean by ‘guard’. I don’t let it make me go psycho or something,
you know, or I don’t let it influence my judgment, um, you know bias my judgment. I try not to let it
bias my judgment, and um, you know what I mean? Because when people see that stuff, um, they
become very emotionally involved; they start either crying or avoiding. And that’s not what I mean by
‘guard up’; not crying or, or, or having bad dreams about it, or, you know what I mean? Or becoming
depressed, or, or something. A lot of people have that effect; it has that effect on them. What I mean by
‘guard up’ is I don’t, I don’t let it have those types of effects on me. That’s what I try to do so that’s
what I mean by that. (Male, law graduate, age 28, in diaspora about 26 years)

Though seeming to refer only to representational publics online, these comments are
important in apprehending a key feature of all online social media, namely their capacity
to supersede the once-unrelegable face-to-face time. As one expert notes, “For the first
time in history, the possibility exists for all human interaction to occur in a mediated
realm” (UBC Reports, 2010). Forasmuch as this is true, personal judgments can be
constantly balanced against public opinion within online networks.

Conclusions: Future Analysis

The study of ‘online publics’ that forms a basis for this research, focuses on ‘subaltern
counterpublics’, insofar as they are “parallel discursive arenas where members of
subordinated social groups invent and circulate counterdiscourses to formulate
oppositional interpretations of their identities, interests, and needs.” (Fraser quoted in
Parham, 2005). Another interviewee’s remarks shed some light on the push to formulate
one’s personal views online:

I think for me, because, I told you I used to study English literature back home, so, I never felt inclined
to have any sort of, point of view, on any of these things. So the fact that I had many options and that I
had these variety of things to believe in, or not to believe in maybe, that was comforting. And now that
I feel like, I’m being constantly asked ‘what are your political views, or [] your ideology?’ I feel more
inclined to ‘OK, maybe I should have something, maybe there’s something wrong with me. With all
these information that I have, I don’t still … I can’t label myself as being something in particular.’ So,
I think before, it was… it didn’t matter to me that much when I was back in Iran. Because in Iran, you
really don’t have to be, like, you don’t have to label yourself in some sort of particular way to say that
‘I care.’ But here it seems like in order to have a say, or care about what goes on, you need to be on
 some special side. So now I feel, OK, maybe now it gives me a little anxiety, that confusion. But
before, no, that confusion was just the fact that, ‘OK, I still have time to figure out what I want to do.’
(Female, Master’s student, Vancouver, age 23, in diaspora for about six months)

In response to the question of whether online social networking has the net effect of
reiterating one’s biases, or broadening one’s worldview, these comments signify the
omnipresence of networking media in shaping our decisions. The overarching question,
of whether Vancouver’s Iranian youth form a subaltern counterpublic online, is beyond
the scope of analysis here. But previous studies offer some caveats. The first – in line
with a contemporary sociologist’s sentiment that “uncoupling communicated opinions
from concrete practical obligations tends to have an intellectualizing effect” (Habermas
quoted in Parham, 2005, 373-4) — is the relevance of more traditional methods of debate
if they can feed back to their online counterparts. The other caveat is a conception of
“diasporic positioning [that] is not about choosing territories but about newly created
spaces in which territories overlap” (Ghorashi and Boersma, 2009, 669). In keeping with
this concept, the initial exilic identity, with its rooted notion of a home left behind, [can
be] replaced by a more rhizomatic network-based diasporic approach to Iran (Ibid, 678).
At least one activist apparently took these caveats to heart, when he travelled with a
group to New York to protest the election results. He, along with a friend, took the
opportunity to try to bridge the gap in understanding by speaking to Iranians there,
including a couple of “permanent representatives of Iran in the UN”. He explained how
this led to some scathing within his local relationships, and castigation from several
members of his online social network Facebook:

I think When I came back – uh – we were in New York and we were talking to the Iranian diplomats
and when we came back, I saw that somewhere around ten of my friends, I mean, ten of my contacts,
they actually deleted me; just because they found out that we talked to the Iranian diplomats. And
without ever knowing what we did there, what we talked about in that meeting and in everything,
without any … [] … They were calling me on my cell phone, and saying ‘did you actually talk to
them?’ and I said, ‘yeah, I talked to them.’ And they said ‘OK, I can’t, I can’t be your friend any more
because you talked to them. And now, um, my safety is in danger because, we might, we think that you
gave out our names or anything.’ So they don’t know the context of the discussions that we had with
the diplomats, so… (Male, graduate student, age 26, in diaspora for app. 14 years)

Ironically this story can be used to show that, far from being ‘deterritorialized’, “home is
constructed by external relationships as much as it is by internal relations; it is unbounded,
open, and constantly changing (Staeheli and Nagel, 2006, 1600). Yet it gives us hope to
learn that “Political attachment, it seems, may be expanded rather than allocated; it is not
a zero-sum, as some of the transnational literature and political debate suggests” (Ibid,
1613). It remains unclear to me as to whether the threat of Iranian ‘intelligence’ lurking
in the shadows is indeed the primary cause of dismemberment within online publics,
though its study deserves attention. A possible alternative may be that “migrant class
relations replicate and reinforce historic class identities”, as discovered in a study of
transnational Iranians in London, Sydney, and Vancouver (McAuliffe, 2008, 68). The
same study found however, that “[u]nlike Iran, and to some extent the wider
socioeconomic disparities of London, there were fewer socioeconomic barriers to
segregate higher class Iranians from mixing with the ‘lower classes’ in Vancouver” (Ibid,
69). And if educational background can be used as a proxy, the majority of my study’s
participants can be considered ‘middle-class’. Additional studies looking at elements of
change in social stratification (offline publics) within this Iranian diaspora and others, can
inform us as to any links to ‘cyber capital’, that is, social capital within their online
counterparts. Further research that follows Iranian diasporic communities’ links to ‘roots’
in Iran –though difficult– would probably prove of no lesser importance.

Chart A: Means of Keeping in Touch with Relatives and/or Friends in Iran

10

6 Rank1 (For first 25 participants)

Rank2 (For all 28 participants)

5

Number for Whom This is the Primary Means (Out of

4 25)

0
Email Telephone Personal Reports from Voice Over Postal Mail
Visit(s) Relatives Internet
Protocol

Chart B: Means of Preserving 'Iranian Heritage'

25

20

15

No. of Participants (Out of 25)

10

0
Still Maintaining Joining Persian/Iranian Reading Memoirs from Reading Historical Other Means
Cultural Ties Community Activities Iran Texts about Iran
 Chart C: Channels of Receiving, Digesting, and Disseminating News about Iran

16

14

12

10

Rank1 (For first 25 participants)

8
Rank2 (For all 28 participants)
6
Number for Whom Media is of Primary Use (Out of
25)
4

0
G ine es
fr B C C

G C
i

er
ce e
ok

Fa ite

ts
A

B
r
V

TV

TV
R a rs

r s itte

na per
gl
Fa ub

in
ew

iT
BB

CB

o n IR I

si
th
iv

US ebs
bo

IR
nl
oo

Ne US

an

Vi
F
ut

at

rs
N

O
a
O

iP
T

di
Yo

el

al
s
w
B

ya
nl
om

Fa

Ca

rs
oo
O

Pe
n
Ir a
s
rt
po
Re

Chart D: How did you become Aware of locally organized events in solidarity with Iranian victims of
political instability and violence in the aftermath of the 2009 Elections?

16

14

12

10

8 No. of Participants (Out of 25)

0
Twitter Posts Local TV News No Response Local Farsi Other Facebook Posts Word of Mouth
Newspapers of Family or
Friends
 Chart E: Questions Designed to Gauge the Cohort's Level of Understanding and Political Awareness

25

20

15
Total Score Based on No. of Participants (Out of
25) Who Answered "Yes" ['Score 1'] "No" ['Score 0']
or "Somewhat" ['Score 0.5']
10

0
Are you Were you Were you Were you Were you Were you
familiar with aware of Iran’s aware of any aware of any aware of the aware of the
the expression nuclear changes in changes in Stand with the Iranian Digital
“exile ambitions prior U.S. U.S. Iranian People Empowerment
syndrome”? to the disputed Administration Administration Act (SWIPA), Act (IDEA),
2009 policy toward policy toward introduced in introduced in
Presidential Iran prior to the Iran after to the the U.S. the U.S.
Elections? disputed 2009 disputed 2009 Congress? Congress?
Presidential Presidential
Elections? Elections?

Chart F: "National Character" + Demographic Majority Status

25

20

15

No. of Participants (Out of 25)

10

0
Iranian Persian Canadian Other Hybrid Demographical ID:
Shia Majority
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