public space. 3 Political power tries to intervene, to dominate space with its own monuments; the monuments, squares and palaces exert a powerful presence. Citizens live their everyday and business rhythms in this struggle for appropriation of public space. By using urban public space as the place of encounters, of discussions and negotiations, of intrigue and spectacle, citizens appropriate it quite spontaneously. This tug of war between a totalitarian government and the everyday life of the citizens in Tehran is visible similar to the way that ‘while the Islamist authorities impose the hijab on women, many respond by turning it into a symbol of fashion’. 4 Most recently the tussle has gone beyond this and has turned into an uprising for the everyday rights of the citizens to the city and their aspiration for freedom.
In February 2011 when for almost two weeks, Cairo’s Tahrir Square had been flooded with Egyptians demanding an end to the government, TIME magazine made a list of plazas and public squares in the world that hosted tremendous scenes of political upheaval. Tehran’s Azadi (freedom) square was ranked fourth. 5
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1 Goonewardena, K et al. Space, Difference, Everyday Life, Read- ing Henri Lefebvre. Routledge, 2008. p 269 2 Amir-Ebrahimi, M.‘Conquering enclosed public spaces’ Cities, 23(6), 2006. pp 455-461 3 Light, A, Smith, M J. Philosophy & Geography: the production of public space. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1998. 4 Bayat, A. ‘Tehran: paradox city, Metropolitan disorders’ New Left Review 66, 2010. pp 199-122 5 http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/com- pletelist/0,29569,2047066,00.html
Farzaneh Bahrami
anonymous citizen journalist
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