This summer, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won the Iranian presidential election. As the votes were tallied, Iran’s capital city, Tehran, exploded with colour: green, the official colour of opposition leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi, and red, the colour of blood.

The series of protests, now known as the Green Revolution, began when speculation about a rigged election permeated the city of Tehran. On August 5, after rioting and demonstrations that lasted for eight weeks and killed over one hundred people, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was sworn in to parliament and declared Iran’s president.

Despite the months of protests and ignoring the warnings of friends and family, fourth-year UBC Economics major Ahmad Zavari decided to travel alone to Tehran, where he was born and spent his childhood.

“When I was there nothing much happened,” Zavari said.

“There were a couple of unrests here and there, but for the most part there [were] revolutionary guards roaming certain areas and the army had instalments in certain regions. Going out shopping, they would be walking around, but not in a threatening way, just as a precautionary measure,” Zavari explained.

“Still, my family was really worried,” he added.

But unlike his family, Zavari wasn’t too concerned.

“I went just about everywhere. I used the transit system. I really didn’t care.”

And why would he? The summertime events were not the only incidents of violence and political upheaval Zavari has witnessed. He has seen the effects of revolution firsthand. He was raised in the midst of Iran’s Cultural Revolution, with a father in the military.

“When the new regime took over and the monarch and the Shah of Iran were kicked out, many people were killed, assassinated or forced to flee the country,” he explained.

His father was one of the lucky ones. Receiving a post under the new government, he at least had a job, which was more than could be said for many. However, working for the corrupt regime was not easy on Zavari’s father.

“There was a lot of stealing, a lot of hook-ups,” Zavari explained.

“Most of these positions and opportunities and revenue from natural gas and crude oil went straight to the revolutionaries—there was no room for the honest working class.”

Before long, Zavari’s father had had enough. He refused to compromise his integrity any longer by complying with the government, and so he moved his family to Canada.

“It was a fairly easy decision for him to make,” Zavari explained.

Zavari’s decision to return to Tehran this summer was also an easy decision.

“I had only been to Iran twice since we moved and hadn’t seen my family in over ten years,” Zavari explained. “I went to Iran to take pictures and visit my mother’s family.”

However, Zavari wanted more than a few casual snapshots. He took over 3000 photographs, hoping to reveal a different side of Iran, far from the images seen in the media.

“Iran isn’t just deserts and camels running around,” Zavari explained. “There is a lot of connectivity [with Iran and] with the rest of the world. I wanted to erase some of these stereotypes of what it is like living in Iran. Regardless of how it may be depicted through the media, Iran is a very modern country.”

Zavari himself was surprised by the change in Tehran. “It has progressed considerably in the ten years that I was absent. The first impression I had when I got back was that I didn’t recognize anything—even the highways. Everything was just so clean. The city takes such good care of the conditioning of the different districts it is mind-blowing. It is like someone is cleaning it 24/7,” he said.

“Later I found out they have thousands of crews, that all they do from about 6am to midnight is clean. Every night. It wasn’t like that before.”

He was especially surprised at the seemingly relaxed political and social atmosphere he found there.

“Almost none of the social confinements as far as dress codes or fashion were there,” he said.

“I was walking down the street and girls my age wouldn’t really be covering their hair. It was almost like they’d have a headband on or something, with a shirt, sandals. It was a lot stricter when I left and [I was surprised to see] it’s not like that at all.”

Yet while the government may have appeared calm and clean on the exterior, Zavari assured this appearance was only a facade.

“The government in Iran represents a very small minority of the population,” he said. “I suppose things are different because the government doesn’t want to piss people off. They are sitting in ashes and they don’t want to blow air onto the ashes otherwise they are afraid they are going to engulf the country again.”

The country is very difficult to live in, he explained. “The government are fundamentalists, they are thieves and they are not really worried about the safety of their people,” Zavari claimed. “They don’t really care if people are going to die.

“Economically the country is very poor, and socially there are very limiting political restrictions, he added.

Despite the poor economic conditions, the people of Iran do their best to rally together. “You really do feel like you are related to people here,” Zavari said. “People will go out of their way to find something in common with each other.”

Zavari experienced this connection firsthand during his stay in the south Iranian village of Savari. He slept in a family’s house he had never met, he was taken on a tour of the village, met the entire extended family, including their kids and their daughter-in-laws, and was cooked for daily.

“In four days I felt like one of their grandkids,” he said. “The bonding, over such a short field of time, and the way it develops is fascinating. You don’t understand what is happening, but you are enjoying it so much. That is the thing that struck me the most about Iran—that the people are so happy.

“I have pictures of people who lived in this village who have nothing—not even $300 a month. They pretty much eat what they make and they trade for what they have. They build their shelters themselves.

And these are the happiest people, the most accommodating people.”

After spending over a month in the country, travelling to north, south and central Iran, Zavari still isn’t sure that he got what he came for: the true image of Iran and its cultural diversity.

“When I arrived in Iran my intentions were to present the cultural diversity of the country. I wanted to go out into the countryside and look for the abundant ancient architecture that is all over the country. I wanted to show the history of the place,” he said.

“Then I realized that there is so much cultural diversity—intra-cultural diversity. I mean you go to the capital city and drive two hours south and it will be so different.

“I am not done editing my photos just yet, so we’ll see how much of that diversity I portrayed. But I don’t think I can. It’s very difficult,” he admitted.

While he is unsure of whether or not he captured all of Iran’s diversity, he did capture another image in its place: an image of compassion and hope.

“I have seen many in the face of adverse circumstances,” Zavari said, “and the difference between those who emerge triumphant and those who collapse and wither away is the difference in their degrees of hope.

“What I walked away with from my trip was admiration for the strength of the character that you need to lift above the living circumstances. A way of living that stretches beyond the material world.”

So while the green signs of protestors and the red blood of this summer are images that should not be forgotten, these are not the images of Iran that Zavari wishes to share. Instead, he aims to show a culturally diverse and historically rich Iran; a place with the potential to drive the hearts and minds of its people together—even in the face of a corrupt government.

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