As images of the bloody crackdown by government militias and plainclothes policemen on the peaceful demonstrations were broadcast after the controversial results of the tenth presidential elections in Iran in late June 2009, the world was reminded of the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Even if Iran's political institutions have so far remained intact in the face of the recent agitation, its political culture has forever changed, perhaps even reverted to the revolutionary state of 1979, a shift reflected in the slogans chanted by people in the streets. These protests and mottos (shoar in Persian), chanted and simultaneously tweeted and YouTubed to the world, best illustrate the gradual but persistent change that has taken place in Iranian political culture. In the absence of political parties and in light of the history of mass protests in Iran (such as led to the revolution of 1979), understanding this unique political expression is an important way of gauging opposition to the rhetoric of the state.

For one month preceding the election day on June 12, 2009, young Iranians-men and women-who compose the majority of the country's population, poured into the streets all over Iran to campaign for the presidential candidate of their choice. "Choice," however, is a relative concept in the Islamic Republic of Iran. The four presidential candidates had to be vetted by an unelected body of clerics and jurists called the Guardian Council. The young men in the streets, accompanied by an unprecedented number of young women yearning for freedom, improvement of economic conditions and better relations with other countries of the world, were determined to participate in the election, to exercise their right to vote and change the status quo. The streets of Tehran, Isfahan, Shiraz, and other cities were filled with enthusiastic campaigners for the four presidential candidates; Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mehdi Karoubi, Mohsen Rezaie and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

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