1. The World Public Opinion organization today released the findings of their poll on press and internet freedoms . They polled the following nations, the total populations of which represent 59% of the world: China, India, the United States, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Russia as well as Argentina, Azerbaijan, Britain, Egypt, France, Iran, Jordan, Mexico, Peru, Poland, South Korea, Turkey, Ukraine, and the Palestinian Territories.

The results of their polling on Iran was a surprise to me, I am copying some of their major points below:

-Only three countries express relative contentment with their press freedoms: Iran, US, and the UK. Majorities in Britain (59%) and the United States (52%) say that they have the right amount of freedom, as do 43 percent in Iran.

-Of the countries polled, the only two publics where majorities do not endorse full internet access are Jordan and Iran. In Jordan 63 percent support government regulation of the Internet as do 44 percent in Iran (32% favor unlimited access).

-On the question of whether the government should control potentially destabilizing information, a plurality in Iran (45%) supports government control under such circumstances (31% feel the media should be able to publish freely).

(for a country-by-country breakdown of the polls findings click here, the full report can be found here)

2. God knows how many friends and acquaintances I've alienated for refusing to worship the ground that Obama walks on, but now that I have gone this far, there is no sense in stopping now.

I was not surprised when Obama sold Palestinians and Muslims in general down the river, cow towing to AIPAC and fascist islamophobia. By the way, word around town is that AIPAC head honchos have reached a private consensus that should Obama win the nomination, they will back his rival. For all he did, it just wasn't enough (he didn't like, you know, threaten to obliterate Iran).

But while his betrayal of Palestinians and Muslims was to be expected, I did not think he would go the same lengths--indeed, even farther--with the black community in the United States. And I'm not just talking about the Reverend Wright stuff, as bad as it is. Too much of the wrong kind of attention has been paid to that saga. But what about Obama's refusal to go to Memphis to mark the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King's assassination? Or what about his strong condemnation of people who may protest the acquittal of policemen charged with shooting an unarmed black man 50 times without saying a word about police violence?

In an article I just read, an Obama supporter raising concern about Obama's positions on these issues pleads "Senator Obama, Please Come to Your Senses." I think my plea from now on will be "Obama supporters, please come to your senses"!

Football Fields and Poker Tables at Guantanamo

Kianoosh Sanjari, the latest Iranian activist to magically end up in the studios of the US State owned Voice of America, actually asserted in his April 28 interview with Bijan Farhoudi that inmates at Guantanamo Bay have themselves a merry old time.

Sanjari claims that his prison cell mate was a former Guantanamo detainee who entered Iran with someone from the ICRC and then ended up in Evin Prison (yes, I know, the story makes a whole lot of sense already). While incarcerated together, the former Guantanamo detainee told Sanjari about what fun he had playing cards with his female warden (perhaps the female guard needed a break from smearing menstrual blood on the faces of detainees), participating in outdoor football games(I guess its all that fresh air and exercise that caused detainees like Salim Ahmed Hamdan to lose their sanity), and enjoying access to his lawyers and the greater outside world (never mind what you heard about US government efforts to limit lawyers access to detainees and denying them access to files they need to actually defend their clients)

If you want to hear Sanjari tell this moving story of the former detainee who was waxing nostalgic for his time at Guantanamo, click here, start listening at 51:41, when a polite guy from Tabriz calls in to raise the issue of US secret prisons and is promptly cut off.

Having newly arrived to DC just a few weeks ago, it is not clear if Mr. Sanjari will become the newest "fellow" at the American Enterprise Institute, the National Endowment for Democracy, Freedom House, or whether he will continue providing services at the US state owned Voice of America.

Either way, expect more assertions along the lines of Guantanamo-is-heaven and Iran-is-hell.

Who says the world is suffering from a shortage in fertilizer?

1. So Scott MacLeod, TIME's Cairo Bureau Chief for about a decade, goes to Tehran to write a piece on bloggers in Iran and he decides to interview a journalism student in Berkeley, California for thoughts on the topic. With all due respect to the subject of this interview, who happens to be my friend, MacCleod would have probably had more insightful information for his readers if he had just stepped out on the street and asked a random person if her or she has a blog. What is the point of going all the way to Iran if you are going to call a guy in California about blogging in Iran?

And have you ever noticed that "western" Iran observers--from journalists to policy analysts to Iran "experts" of various stripes--all talk to the same 8 Iranians? The reason you find so many cliches floating around on Iran is not just due to the intellectual laziness and general ineptitude of those who reproduce this stuff, it is also largely due to the fact that only about 8 people are the original source for the material.

2. Filmmaker Deepa Mehta, known for works such as Water and Earth, which have themselves been variously critiqued for being neo-Orientalist and lacking critical engagement with Indian history, is apparently in contract talks with Azar Nafisi to make a film about Nafisi's infamously crappy Reading Lolita in Tehran. Somehow I doubt that Deepa Mehta would be moved by one's pleas to refrain from giving this boring and severely problematic book any more publicity, but it may be worth a try. Deepa Mehta's website may have some leads on how to get in touch with her.

3. Three days ago, the National Endowment for Democracy issued a statement asserting that it "neither organized nor funded the March demonstrations inside Tibet." As we say in Iran, when you pick up a stick, the thieving cat starts to run.

After South and Central Americans, now East Asia has become aware of the intrusive and destructive role of NED and its sister organizations. The same is not yet true of Iran and the rest of West Asia, but much to the dismay of those on the payroll, word is slowly getting around.

I hear that one NED paid "activist" is so alarmed, she has taken to making threatening phone calls to those who publicly challenge her.

Gender and Criticism

Recently, a journalist writing in one of Iran's major newspapers created a lot of controversy by comparing the masses who eagerly greet Ahmadinejad in his visits to every little corner of the country with a certain (albeit cute) type of animals who dance hungrily for a piece of food from their trainer.

Iranians, like most people in the world, don't enjoy negative comparisons to non-human animals, so it is hard to believe the author when she pleads surprise at the angry responses she has gotten. What bothers me about the article is not whether or not she intended to insult millions of Iranians, but that she--like many of her colleagues who share parallels in their political outlooks--refuse to recognize the fact that Ahmadinejad has a large and enthusiastic constituency from all over Iran. It should be obvious that until that basic fact is acknowledged, analyzing why he has support or convincing his constituency to abandon him is an impossibility.

In short, I was annoyed by the article and am not particularly fond of the writer's work in general (she even writes for Roozonline, and I've made my feelings on that publication pretty clear). Nonetheless, I find the ferocity of her critics rather disturbing. It is the same furor one finds, for example, in assaults on the Iranian Feminist movement. It is also similar to the nasty attacks on Fatemeh Rajabi, the bold ultra right wing writer often referred to as the "wife of Elham" (the spokesperson for Ahmadinejad's government).

Male journalists and writers, as well members of male-dominated social and political movements of all stripes often come under attack in the lively press inside Iran and the zombie press in diaspora. Yet there seems to be substantive differences in the tone and nature of criticisms targeting women and women-identified movements and organizations. Documenting and detailing these differences is on my to-do list, but for now, I want to flag the phenomena, since it seems to be a persistent feature of Iranian discourses.

Of course, this issue is not unique to Iranian discourses. Compare the kind of comments routinely made about Hillary Clinton (her outfits, her hair, her wrinkles, etc.) with what what the US press says about John McCain. That man has a tumor the size of a basketball on his face but, how many of his critics bring up his deformed jaw in their analysis of his views? Yet Clinton's critics will talk about the highlights in her hair in the same breath as her health care plan. Clinton is routinely photographed from unflattering angles or close-up shots that emphasize her wrinkles. When was the last time you saw a McCain photo that enhanced the size of that thing in his jaw, his thinning hair, or the 600 deep wrinkles in his forehead?

Clinton may be loathsome, but so is the gendered double standard to which she is subjected, even by Democrat-identified magazines such as The New Republic. One might even feel a bit of sympathy for her as a result (imagine how bad it has to be to make you feel sympathy for that woman). Similarly, the Iranian journalist, despite her rude and shallow article, the Iranian feminist movement, despite some of their troubling stances, and Fatemeh Rajabi, despite her abrasiveness, deserve the same respect (as minimal as it may be) as what is accorded to their male counterparts.

What is an “N”GO? Part I

An “N”GO, or “non”-governmental organization, is a institution that receives all or most of its funds from one or more governments and yet insists that it is NON-governmental organization. "N"GOs are not only in the business of surviving on governmental funds, they also specialize in sub-contracting funds to other organizations around the world who then claim: "No, we do not receive money from any governments, we receive them from "N"GOs!" The "N"GOs, therefore, are first and foremost supreme money launderers.

Take for example, the notorious NED, or National Endowment for Democracy, which has been the central topic of a number of bitter exchanges in the Iranian blogosphere. Anyone involved in Central and South American work, of course, has long known of the sinister role of NED in that region: starting with Panama soon after it was founded by Reagan and more recently in Venezuela, NED's disruptive interventionist role is no secret to Central and South American activists and intelligentsia. It seems that us Iranian are a bit of latecomers in discerning what is at work with such organizations, but it seems that many are slowly coming around.

Now NED receives nearly all of its funding via an annual appropriation from the US budget, i.e the US government. While some Iranian 'exiles'--not surprisingly themselves on the payroll of NED--have attempted logical acrobatics to obfuscate this by saying for example, that the funds come from congress are therefore bi-partisan (so?), the fact remains that institutions like NED are projects of the United States Government. They are, if you like, governmental non-governmental organizations.

I won't get into the good or bad of receiving governmental funding. Some people I like and respect maintain that it is not where you receive money, but what you do with it. I don't really accept this argument, particularly since usually the people making it are somehow a beneficiary of such funds, even if in indirect ways. But that is an argument for another time.

My focus here is to point out the lengths that these organizations go to in order to detract attention from the fundamentals of what they are.

A month or so ago, VOA Persian invited the president of NED, Carl Gershman, to talk about his organization. The smug VOA reporter, Bijan Farhoudi, said with a straight face that they were going to provide their audience with objective, factual information to counter the misinformation that has been spreading about NED and its intentions. In other words, the US government funded VOA gives a platform to the US government funded NED so that they can tell the Iranian audience "the truth" about what the US government is and is not doing.

One of the things that Carl Gershman was quick to point out was that NED is non-profit organization. What he didn't say, and what none of NED defenders who are also on the payroll will say to an Iranian audience, is that non-profit status is merely a technical legal category that indicates nothing about one's connections (or lack thereof)to any government, nor about one's political leanings. The National Rifle Organization, for example, is a non-profit, and so is the marijuana advocacy group Americans for Safe Access.

Being a non-profit organization does not magically drain an institution from political positions or bias. Receiving funds from the congress, and therefore a "bi-partisan" source, is the same as getting money from the US government. Last time I checked, the US Congress was still a part of the US government! And finally, US government money that has been laundered between multiple organizations (sometimes going back and forth!), is still US government money.

The US government paid employees of NED, VOA, and other institutions receiving laundered and unlaundered monies should stop trying to confuse and pacify everyone with all of this wordplay and logical gymnastics. As we say in Persian, they are just trying to rub molasses on our heads.

But people are slowing starting to raise questions about these organizations and Gershman's appearance on VOA Persian looked like a desperate attempt to stop the inevitable tide of resistance.

Senator Hillary Clinton, speaking to ABC news: "I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the President, we will attack Iran."

Senator Barack Obama, speaking to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee: "Iran is a threat to all of us."

Senator John McCain, singing to supporters in South Carolina: "Bomb Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran."


How can anyone vote for these murderous clowns and still have a clear conscience?

1. I often wonder if the esteemed editors and writers for the Dutch government funded Iranian “news” website Roozonline are aware of a little something called the war on Iraq. These folks, along with their many other diasporic counterparts who write on a variety of other governmental or “n”go funded websites, seem to be blissfully unaware of the global context in which their statements are made.

They know neither the conditions of their own possibility (i.e. they don’t get why or how it is that suddenly the US and various EU countries are rushing to fund them in particular) nor what it means for them to say the things they do at this particular moment in time.

I deliberately abstain from citing specific problems because I don’t want to link to them and I do not want to reproduce their language, even if I am critical of it.

Suffice it to say, this press is beginning to use certain words and descriptions to draw attention to ethnic and religious distinctions among Iranians.

Also, anyone out there in the diaspora still calling themselves “Persian,” please get your head examined.

2. Surprise, surprise, the Pentagon was planting its “analysts” on the major US networks to sell the administration’s war on the world. As Gareth Porter notes, David Barstow’s lengthy and well-documented article should get people riled up to demand reform of what he calls the “massively corrupt network system of covering military affairs.”

Can someone please please translate Barstow’s article into Persian? Or better yet, can someone please please fund an NGO—or heck, even an “n”go—dedicated to gathering important articles, audio, and video and translating them to Persian?

Someone has to counter the massively funded projects aimed at shaping and skewing the material that is available to Persian-only speaking audiences.

3. I saw the Panama Deception in the fall of 2001 and was shocked to see the same rhetoric and many of the same cast of characters as those involved in the impending war on Afghanistan. I watched it again last night, and now, post the Iraq invasion, the similarities are even more eerie, especially given the parallels between the situation of Saddam and Noriega as well as what the US did to the armies of Iraq and Panama. If the film had not been made in 1992—long before the disasters of Afghanistan or Iraq--maybe some people would try to claim that the filmmaker tried to force a comparison among the situations.

The full documentary is available for free online, I highly recommend it.

This film, by the way, is a good candidate to be translated and subtitled into Persian and made available online. Now if only we had a generous funder, I would drop everything and get to work!