(2 of 4)
As the relatively wild soccer celebrations showed, the children of the revolution in particular are desperate for Khatami to succeed. Seconds after the game was over, they began pouring into the streets by the thousands, performing rituals of public joy that would have got them arrested in everyday circumstances. Teenagers played rock music at full volume on their car tape decks and hopped out to boogie in the streets. Young women hung outside the windows of streaking cars and let their dark tresses flow outside their compulsory head scarves, unchaste behavior to the mullahs.
On several occasions, small crowds boldly confronted policemen who tried to interfere with the fun. "You think you have power just because you have a walkie-talkie!" yelled a young man on a motorcycle, boldly taunting a bearded fundamentalist from the basij, a volunteer force responsible for upholding strict Islamic conduct. "You see how happy we are," said Vaheed Aghani, 20, born the year before Khomeini came to power, who was wearing a Tommy Hilfiger sweatshirt. "Why should the government try to stop us?" Among the revelers was Ibrahim Yazdi, Khomeini's first Foreign Minister, ousted by Islamic militants after the U.S. embassy takeover. "After 20 years of having these feelings suppressed," he said gleefully as he surveyed the crowds, "people are making the most of this opportunity."
Even before the soccer celebration, signs of Khatami's new Iran were increasingly visible. Cinemas are showing Hollywood films such as Seven, starring Brad Pitt, who has become a favorite heartthrob in Iran. Titanic is a huge black-market hit, available only on pirate videos smuggled from New York City and Los Angeles. Boys are walking around sporting Leonardo DiCaprio T shirts, and girls are plastering their bedrooms with the teen idol's picture. Women are for the first time exposing polished toenails in public.
The changes are not only cosmetic. Khatami has permitted the founding of dozens of new daily newspapers and weeklies, some of which are tackling once taboo topics like Khomeini's shortcomings and the need for better relations with the U.S. Khatami's Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance has unbanned scores of books, like Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and stopped requiring Iran's film directors to submit their scripts for advance approval. Students have been granted permits for demonstrations to protest the bullying tactics of Muslim hard-liners and even the validity of Islamic government.
Maybe the most remarkable change is in the nation's official rhetoric, so memorably filled with anti-U.S. invective when Khomeini was alive. On the first anniversary of Khatami's election last month, tens of thousands of supporters crammed into an outdoor theater at Tehran University to hear a speech by the President. They cheered and stamped their feet, shouted, "Khatami, we love you!" and denounced the conservative mullahs in Qum as "Taliban," an insulting allusion to the ultra-fundamentalists governing neighboring Afghanistan. When a small section of hard-line students began yelling "Death to America!" the President reprimanded them, declaring "In this gathering, I prefer that we speak about life, not death." The majority in the audience cheered.