Word on the Tehran street

THE TAXI DROVE past a mural of the American flag. There were skulls where the stars should have been and the words Death to America! scrawled across the stripes. It was the only such sign I'd seen in Iran, but at ten stories tall, it made a strong impression. Just then the taxi driver asked me, "Madam, you German?" "No," I replied hesitantly. "U.S.A."

"Amrika? Amrika! We love Amrika!" he responded. Really? I thought to myself. The mural and the words of your president could have fooled me. But from Tehran to Shiraz to Isfahan the word I heard on the Iranian street was--we love America.

I was in Tehran to speak at a conference on science and religion. Since I was interested in what Iranians were thinking, I often slipped out into the marketplaces of Tehran. It wasn't hard to find conversation. My red hair and blue eyes--and the way my headscarf kept sliding off the back of my head--marked me as a Westerner and an object of curiosity.

What did they think of a nuclear Iran? Everyone I spoke to said it was a good and necessary thing. But they weren't thinking of bombs. "It's the economy," they explained.

After a surge in oil prices during the '90s, the economy is limping. Unemployment, officially at 11 percent, is estimated on the street to be closer to 30 percent. The oil sector fuels the government, which directly or indirectly provides 90 percent of the country's jobs, and Iran has enough oil and natural gas to sustain itself for a long time to come. Gasoline costs 10 cents a liter. But the Iranians are also aware that, excluding a small market in carpets and pistachios, oil and gas are their only exportable commodities. If Iran has nuclear power, it can save the oil for export. More oil for export, more jobs.

What about a bomb? The Iranians want "respect," some say. As one taxi driver put it, "America treats North Korea better than us. If we had the bomb they'd have to talk to us." But others are not so sure. A teacher of the Qur'an was skeptical: "If we go nuclear and some terrorists use a bomb, no matter where ... we'll get blamed. Israel will dump everything they have on us."

I was assigned two guides to help me navigate Tehran--Amin and Amir, 22-year-old twins with dark curly hair and laughing brown eyes. They represent the 70 percent of Iran's population that is under 30. Like most young people in the middle class, both finished university, where enrollment has increased from 30,000 before the Islamic revolution of 1978-1979 to 300,000 today. Amin has a degree in business management and hopes some day to take over his father's textile plant, which specializes in winter coats. But business is not booming. "It's hard to compete with the flood of cheap clothes from China. We used to employ 70 people, now it's 40, and in the future, who knows?" His situation is typical. Unemployment across Iran is increasing. Each year 1 million young people join the workforce, but only half of them find jobs.

Those who are employed may work at jobs that have little to do with their educational training. Amir's friend Reza holds a degree in electrical engineering, but works part-time as a flight attendant for the Iranian national airline and part-time as a tour guide. He complained to me that the government is not providing enough opportunities for the young. I asked why this is up to the government and learned that 60-70 percent of Iran's economy is publicly owned. Entrepreneurship is risky. Those who lived through the revolution remember when shops, newspapers and schools were shut down by the government.

Unemployment and underemployment lead to restlessness and discontent among the youth. There is a second factor in their discontent. I asked each of the young men I met if he had a girlfriend. Despite their good looks and charm, none did. They assured me that it was easy to meet girls, but when I asked how, they hesitated, "Well, in class." But with classes over, prospects seem restricted to friends of the family or the sisters of friends. In a country where it's technically illegal for women to be out on the streets alone or with men to whom they are not related, dating is relegated to clandestine meetings in "safe apartments" (if one is wealthy) or on walks in the hills above North Tehran, where couples can escape the eyes of the police or the mullahs on a sunny afternoon. When I hiked these hills, I saw bands of young men but only a few couples furtively holding hands.

"What do you do for fun?" I asked Amin. He replied that he generally gets together with his friends in the evening. They drink sodas (alcohol is illegal) and listen to bootleg CDs. I had noticed that there is no music in Iran's public spaces--no Muzak in the hotel lobby, no radio during taxi rides. Music is frowned upon and considered frivolous and un-Islamic. Even the restaurants have no background music, although one or two have recently introduced a floor show of traditional Persian poetry and song. But when I asked Amin if I could get CDs, he said, "No problem," and brought me three homemade disks. Apparently the technology for burning CDs is readily available and inexpensive.