Nasrin Alavi, a keen follower of Iranian politics and its blogosphere, has a fine piece in the latest New Internationalist that challenges our media-led perceptions of the Islamic Republic:
A simple glance at the background of Iran’s prominent student leaders tells you that, by and large, they are not the children of affluent citizens of north Tehran, but instead come from provincial working-class families or are the children of rural schoolteachers and clerks. The Western media cliché of an opposition limited to the urban upper class belies the current realities. These future leaders of Iran commonly hail from the very heartland of Ahmadinejad’s purported support base.