Reporter’s Notebook : Signs of War Pervade Gray Tehran

TEHRAN —  As a visitor to this gray capital city drives south toward the poorer neighborhoods, the streets are enlivened by barrels that have been placed on the sidewalks and are ablaze with colored lights.

This display helps to diminish the drabness of winter, but actually it serves a melancholy purpose.

Each barrel, called hejli-- Persian for wedding bed--symbolizes a family’s grief for a son who has been “martyred” in the war with Iraq, before he had an opportunity to get married.

After 5 1/2 years of fighting, Iran has just launched a new offensive against Iraq. It is not yet clear how it will turn out, but the signs of war, such as the latest profusion of hejli, have become a fixture of daily life in the capital.

One middle-class family told a foreign friend of being ostracized in their new Tehran neighborhood until they lost a son at the front. Since then, they have rarely been alone; they are comforted and accepted by their neighbors.

Uniforms Are Everywhere

Military uniforms are visible on just about every street corner, not only on returning war veterans but also on people who simply want to dress well and inexpensively. Down by the bazaar, there are dozens of army surplus stores that sell the elements of Tehran’s primary male fashion: olive drab fatigues, combat boots and fatigue jackets. It is hard to separate the soldiers from the fashion-conscious.

Much of the war is financed by private donations, and storefront operations have been set up to receive donated goOds such as blankets and canned food. Volunteers canvass neighborhoods for goods in short supply.

According to longtime residents, when the volunteers fail to get enough donations, they approach merchants directly about making a contribution to the war effort. Few refuse.

Another reminder of the war is the constant sight of men crippled in combat. It is common to see men on crutches being helped out of taxis or slowly making their way down Tehran’s broad boulevards.

Iranian ingenuity has risen to the challenge by designing a motorized conveyance--a regular wheelchair attached to a motor scooter. The drivers, though handicapped, join the anarchy that is motor traffic in Tehran with spirited enthusiasm.

The area along Ayatollah Talagan Street is deserted these days, but there is no shortage of anti-American graffiti on the walls of the old U.S. Embassy compound.

It is the place where from 1979 to 1981 the American hostages were held for 444 days by student radicals loyal to Iran’s supreme leader, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

The compound is still under the jurisdiction of the Revolutionary Guards, who were long in charge of security in the capital but have recently been moved for the most part to the war front.

Revolutionary Guardsmen man the watch towers at the embassy, which have been strung with bright lights. They were the only Revolutionary Guards seen in a five-day visit to Iran who were heavily armed.

When two reporters appeared at the back door recently and asked for a tour, they were turned away. “This is the den of espionage,” a guard commander said. “We do not permit visitors.”

On the commander’s desk, the embassy telephone list, in English and Persian, was visible under a cover of glass. A bureaucrat’s telephone lock still guarded the phone.

According to Western officials, the embassy compound is used as a Revolutionary Guards training center. The blue-and-yellow emblem of the guards--an upheld arm with a rifle--hangs over the front door of the chancery building.

Along Ayatollah Talagan Street, a slogan in foot-high letters, English and Persian, runs for most of a block. It says: “We Will Make America Face a Severe Defeat.”

Adjacent to the front gate is a bookstall called the Center for the Publication of the U.S. Espionage Den’s Documents. In it are several volumes that have been painstakingly pieced together from documents that the U.S. diplomats had in their files and then passed through a shredder when it appeared that the embassy was being taken over.

When a reporter looked inside the gate for a glimpse of the tree-lined compound, the sound of the bolt being drawn on an automatic rifle could be heard.

“I don’t like to stop here,” a taxi driver said. “The sepah (guards) always make trouble.”

On an Iran Air flight from Tehran to London over a weekend, a remarkable transformation took place in the passenger cabin just after the plane reached the halfway point.

Women who had been enveloped in black chadors-- the long robes and veils that have become virtually synonymous with the Iranian revolution--suddenly disappeared into the restrooms. When they emerged, the chadors were gone. The women had changed into chic Parisian dresses, applied eye makeup and even painted their nails.

The separation of women in society is one of the most visible signs of the Islamic revolution that hit Iran in 1979.

Now a woman would not dare walk outside without her hair covered, for fear of being stopped by a member of the local komiteh charged with maintaining public morals.

An Iranian woman who traveled across Tehran in a taxi with a reporter spent several minutes concocting a scenario she could tell the komiteh if they were stopped. The punishment for being with a woman who is not a relative, even in a taxi, is flogging.

Despite such strictures, social life continues unabated in Tehran’s northern suburbs, where the mansions rival those of Beverly Hills for ostentatious displays of wealth. Chauffeurs can still be seen polishing the family Mercedes-Benz. Behind closed doors, it is said, there are dancing and music, even alcohol that has to be smuggled in from Iraq.

The north Tehranis, who are known as tawhudti, or idle rich, are nonetheless the most disaffected with the regime.

“I hate it here,” a young man said. “You have no freedom of speech or thought. You can’t even walk with a girl.”

Because of their wealth, the tawhudti are able to travel frequently to the West, which is beyond the reach of most Iranians. An exit visa costs $500 for the first trip and $1,000 for each subsequent departure.

It is also said that the tawhudti pay upward of $50,000 to get their adolescent boys out of the country. It is illegal for Iranian men above 15 to leave without doing military service.

Perhaps as a result, there are few of the brightly lighted hejli in north Tehran.