Travelogue: Iran

Everything is suffused with politics in Tehran. It resides in the fabric of its history and society, as well as the simple day to day. Even riding on the metro turns into a political size-up of sorts as I struggle to discern one woman's ideological stance from the number of black folds she drapes over her head and body. Though after half a week in the city I am learning to cease associating the chador with social conservativism and the looser hijab with liberalism. The fact of the matter almost all women, chador or not, are wearing jeans, heavy make-up, and trendy accessories the likes of which you'd see in Paris.

A young Tehrani artist summed up the current attitude of his generation in Iran: "life goes on." When I commented on his mystifying photographs of young women in coffeshops with their faces blurred out, he lamented the international community's tendency towards making it "less about the art and more about politics." He went on to say he'd been labeled a feminist and his work exoticized as part of "chador art" which is particularly en vogue.

And what of the parties? It was the elephant in the room for a Western journalist not to ask and the young man laughed and shrugged reminding me that their parties are not different than any others, some good and some bad, though rarely are any journalists invited.

It may be that young Iranians are somewhat tired of politics, tired of the revolution, and tired of having the rest of the world tell them who they are whether martyrs or terrorists. For most of the people I have met they have one thing to say to the Americans and that is that they are neither.