Green Ribbons and Turbans

September 19, 2011
Arefi, press correspondent for several French newspapers and a refugee from Iran, offers an intimate look at the Iranian “Green Movement,” sharing the narratives of the twenty-something activists who rose up to nonviolently protest fraud in the 2009 presidential election. He sets the background—the jockeying between Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and challenger Mir-Hossein Mousavi—with prose peppered with recreated dialogue and some (slightly cloying) descriptions as if to create a blow-by-blow leading up to the protests. The crux—and real value—of the text resides within the interwoven vignettes about the activists, what they risked and how they organized. Arefi focuses especially on those imprisoned, maimed, raped, forced to flee, or—as in the case of the iconic, tragic 26 year-old Neda Agha-Soltan—murdered by government forces. Her death was captured on cell phone photos and videos and disseminated around the world, revealing once and for all the “barbaric actions of this regime.” Despite a mawkish tone (“The melancholic opening arpeffios of Coldplay’s Clocks fill the air…”) and
an undeniably clunky translation,
Arefi’s account is deeply felt and very readable.