Attending the Islamic Revolution Day rally earlier this month in Iran, I felt terrified for the first half-hour. I was standing on a stand, approximately 30 meters directly ahead of the platform where Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would deliver his speech.

Behind me was a boundless crowd. The Iranian officials announced that there were two to three million people attending the rally. Maybe there were not that many, but as far as my eyes could see, there was a sea of jubilant people waving Iranian flags.

Between the stand and the platform were members of the Revolutionary Guard. The stand was about one meter high.

Every time I looked down, Iranian youth, mostly in their teens and twenties, fervently and cheerfully waved at me and said "hello" to me.

They asked me to take photos of the placards they held that read "Down with USA" and "Down with Israel" or on which there were portraits of Iranian spiritual leaders Ayatollah Seyed Ali Hoseyni Khamenei and the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

I leaned forward to shake hands with those young people. Accompanied by Islamic music, I felt like a superstar. But meanwhile, I had some worries and fears: What's to be done if chaos or terrorist attacks happen? Why were there so few police maintaining order? However, it turned out that my worries were unnecessary.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniya addressed the crowd before Ahmadinejad. It was the first time that Haniya had attended the Revolution Day rally. His speech was rather stimulating. Saying Islam would conquer all, he was fiercely echoed by the crowd. Every time the speech reached a climax, helicopters sprinkled down flowers on the crowd from the sky. Hamas and Iran were closely integrated at the moment.

The appearance of Ahmadinejad caused chaos at around 11 am. He prayed first and then started stating his political views. People were listening at the beginning and yelling at his words. But when Ahmadinejad started telling the crowd that Iran has the best government and enjoys the fastest development, some people gradually drifted away. 40 minutes later, about half of the crowd had gone. 

At the end of the speech, there were only the Revolutionary Guard and a few rally attendants left.

I stepped off the reviewing stand and took photos of Ahmadinejad at the place less than 10 meters from him. Nobody stopped me.

I asked the Iranian diplomat who accompanied our visit, "Why did so many people leave before the speech was over? Does that imply most Iranians are not satisfied with Ahmadinejad?" The diplomat didn't answer me clearly but said the people could also hear the speech on their way home since the broadcast could reach over long distances.

However, local reporters told me that the president was bragging, and that Iran was not doing well as Ahmadinejad claimed.

The Revolutionary Guard fell out of the ranks immediately after Ahmadinejad's speech was over and when other officials were still saying the final prayers.

The rally to mark the 33rd anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution began cheerfully but ended quietly. This made me contemplate what kind of religious zealousness and political order lay behind it.

Huang Ping, director of the Institute of American Studies at Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told me that it was not religious zealousness, and the Iranians just attended the rally for fun.

Human beings are social animals and need ceremony to release emotions and seek social identity. That's why Iran has a lower official suicide rate than North European countries that enjoy the highest social development indexes in the world.

But what role can religion play? Can it help political mobilization? These questions could only be answered by religious politics.

As an observer, I just want to point out that millions of people attend Iranian rallies every year, but I saw only good order.  

I believe Iranians have a better sense of rules and order than in the US and European countries where chaos, accidents and fights easily happen at rallies, football games and strikes.

Many Western media took Iran's rally as evidence of a noisy and disordered society. But in my opinion, it shows Iran's unique political scene and social order. 

The author is an editorial writer and chief opinion editor at the Chinese edition of the Global Times. wangwen@globaltimes.com.cn