Another Irani Online

I Will Vote

2009-06-04T19:47:00.002-04:00

In theory, I do not believe that diasporas should have the right to vote in the elections of their homeland, but as long as Iranian laws allow for non-residents to vote, I think I would be remiss not to vote, especially in such an important election as the upcoming one on June 12.

Although the site is still under construction, this page provides information on voting locations in the United States. Canada only allows voting in Ottowa (based on some lame security argument), so Iranians from all over Canada can only vote in one location. This is really too bad, since thousands of Iranians in Canada will be unable to trek across that gigantic country just to cast their vote in the capital. I don't have information for voters in other countries, but the best bet is to refer to the local Iranian embassy.

Iranian presidential elections have been very exciting since the late 90s, but this one seems to be breaking a record, and I predict a very high turn out both in Iran and abroad. The rallies, events, and active street campaigns (and street fights) have made it evident that those in Iran are fully geared to participate in the elections; the video below of diasporic Iranians indicates that the election fever has spread far beyond Iran's borders.

If you can vote, please do.

(Thanks to my cousin and my friend Sima for the above links)

Tehran From Google Maps Satellite

2009-05-03T12:33:00.000-04:00

Although it makes me slightly nervous to have Iran be mapped out on google like this, it is still cool to catch a glimpse from above.

The journalist Ali Mosleh has take a few screen shots that I am using here with his permission. I hope you enjoy them.

The Azadi Stadium. This is where some of the recent humiliating soccer games have taken place:

This is the famous Azadi Memorial Tower:

Tajrish square, a well-known area with an old-school market place:

One of the busy expressways, at a moment where there is not too much traffic:

The newly unveiled Milad Tower:

Jomhouri Square:

Tohid Square:

Mehrabad Airport, formerly the main international airport in Tehran, now for domestic flights:

Some of my favorite parts of Tehran are its numerous, expansive parks, so green and full of fountains. If I get a chance I may take some screen shots of those for you.

Iranian Letters to FriendFeed

2009-04-29T21:51:00.004-04:00

If you've been wondering why I haven't blogged so much lately, it has only partially been because I have been very busy. The whole truth is that blogs are outdated, and I've been spending my spare net-time on Friendfeed, where I almost exclusively converse in Persian, and that alone has been really great.

Without warning today, Friendfeed decided to switch over to its beta version, and all of us who were online collectively freaked out. The well-known blogger sibil tala volunteered to write sample notes of complaint for the Persian speakers who wanted to give Friendfeed comments on the new website but didn't have the English skills to do so. But at one moment, she started to write sample letters for specific groups and individuals, and so the letters turned into hilarious and brilliant satiric comments on contemporary Iranian culture.

With her permission, I am copying and pasting her letters below. You need to know a little bit about contemporary Iranian culture, language, and politics to get all of what she says, but I hope there is something here for everyone to enjoy:

1. Sample Message:

Dear ferfer (that is what we call you in Persian). My father came door (it is a Persian slang with much negative connotation) with this new version, please change it to classic version or I will make your father come (door)!

2. Sample Message for Hezbollahi users:

In the name of God. It was the will of God that I found your site and I have been using it as digital tool to do good for the world. The new design has made my life very difficult and I cannot engage in my duties as a Muslim! Out of respect for my religious duties, I respectfully ask you to change it! May God help you.

3. Sample Message for Modernist Akhoonds (my note: the Akhoonds are the clergy, or as Americans/Euro call them, the Muuuuuuuuuuulahs)

We have this exact design in Islam too. We have made it more Islamic but I just wanted to bring the Islamic elements of this design to everyone's attention and thank ferfer. There is only a slight problem and that is in Islam we allow for multiplicity and it would be good to have the classic option too.

3. Sample Message for Gherti users(my note: the ghertis are the trendy/preppy/hipster users):

Hi, my name is Kambiz and I am from Persia the land of Cyrus the great and the birthplace of democracy. I am writing to you in the name of Zoroaster and asking you to take a vote and see if in the spirit of referendum, users prefer the old version of Friendfeed or not! Long live free Persia!

4. Sample Message for 101 Feminists (my note: these are the "feminists" who live outside Iran and usually can't put two words of Persian together):

Hi my name is Melodia Ghanbarzadeh and I am a women's right activist from Iran. The old site was very helpful for those poor, uneducated, very religious and slightly retarded women that Lily and I were trying to save. Can you please bring it back or Islamic fundamentalism will make us all become temporary wives!

5. Sample Message for Fakhravar (my note: Fakhravar is the "student leader" who is well known to readers of this blog)

In the name of the people of Iran. For month Mullahs torture I. They put stone and hot them in my arse. They put my head in white towel and white room. I have survived all that to bring you the maasaage of love and peace and you are even more too much tourchuring me with this new design? Long live free Iran. we love you AAmrica and Israel.

What does the Persian Gulf Have to Do With Israel?

2009-04-25T14:44:00.000-04:00

The issue of the name of the Persian Gulf is a sensitive one for Iranians, and so it may not be a surprise that NIAC took a step to publicly comment on a testimony in the US Senate during which the term Arabian Gulf was used to describe that body of the water.

However, what is striking is that in raising its concern, NIAC identified the usage of the term as a politically divisive one used "to create divisions in the region against non-Arab entities, particularly Iran and Israel."

Why would the naming of the Persian Gulf, a body of water that is no where near Israel, be a matter of concern to Israel? More importantly, why would the concerns of Israel be an issue for the National Iranian American Council?

Finally, the naming of the Persian Gulf as Arabian may be divisive, but it is also divisive to treat both Iran and Israel as though they have no Arab populations themselves. Iran has over 2 million Arabs and Israel has approximately 1 million Arab citizens who are Palestinian and hundreds of thousands of Arab Jews.

NIAC should seriously reconsider its approach to issues of importance to its Iranian constituency. As it is, NIAC is being as divisive as the terms it is critiquing, and it is also causing confusion for the consistent consideration and priority it gives to Israel's needs and concerns.

The OffensiveToilet Drain

2009-03-30T22:33:00.000-04:00

This really bothers me every time I see it, and I see it pretty often because it is in the toilet of one of my favorite restaurants:

Would people get away with having a toilet drain embossed with "Queen of England", "President of the US," "the Dalai Lama" or some such other title?

Another Idiotic Consequence of Anti-Iran Sanctions

2009-03-27T21:49:00.000-04:00

I always maintain that those who push for sanctions against Iran (or any other country for that matter) on the basis that sanctions will punish the governments and not the people are either foolish or blatant liars. In my experience, almost all who offer that logic in promoting sanctions are the latter.

Without exception, sanctions primarily and disproportionately hurt the civilian population. Those who deviously promote sanctions as a deterrent of governments know very well that it is the people that will be hurt, and this is in fact what they want: unhappy, ailing, poor, miserable populations. This allows them to hit two birds with one stone: they can say "oh look how poorly government X manages its affairs, it's people are unhappy, ailing, poor and miserable" and they also believe that such populations are more likely to overthrow government X, thus saving them the trouble of ground invasions.

Today, I just want to point to one of the many idiotic consequences of sanctions, and since Mr. Obama renewed sanctions on Iran mere days before his New Year's Address to Iran, I think this should become a regular feature of this blog.

I saw on a Persian friendfeed thread today that someone in Iran was unable to access
the streaming music site Pandora.com and received the following message:

We believe that you are in Islamic Republic of Iran (your IP address appears to be 94.185.154.82). If you believe we have made a mistake, we apologize and ask that you please contact us at pandora-support@pandora.com

How infuriating and frustrating is that? When the Iranian government blocks access to sites like facebook or youtube, all hell breaks loose and accusations fly that the government is trying to block "western culture" and "western influence." But when a citizen in Iran is blocked by those who operate in the so-called free market and the free world, shouldn't there be outrage directed at them as well?

Someone with legal expertise please take this on. I remember back when Yahoo or Hotmail was also pulling something similar where they were denying Iran residents access to their accounts for a while, so perhaps Pandora can be convinced using whatever argument was employed in getting these others to change their foolish policy. In the meantime, if you hear of other sanction-related consequences that hurt the Iranian citizenry--whether it is small annoyances or major problems--please let me know the details.

Happy Nowruz!

2009-03-20T10:53:00.002-04:00

Happy 1388 to one and all!

Nowruz Message From Obama

2009-03-20T00:45:00.000-04:00

I have to admit it, I am impressed!

There is less than eight hours until spring and the new year, so happy nowruz everyone!

Warning Against Project for "Training" Iranian Women

2009-03-19T19:56:00.001-04:00

I just received an email urging participation in something called the "Iranian Women's Political Leadership Project." Now if this project were being initiated inside Iran or even if it were a transnational and independent project by and for Iranian women, then one could perhaps be enthusiastic. Unfortunately, none of this is the case, and unless unsuspecting Iranian women are warned about the nature of this project, they may risk great harm to themselves and their various campaigns for justice and social change.

According to the three page project summary document I received, the "Iranian Women's Political Leadership Project" or IWPLP as it calls itself, "stems directly from – and builds on – the connections within Iran of Dr. Fatemeh Haghighatjoo, IWPL Project Director, who has been a leader of the women’s movement in Iran, served a member of the Iranian Parliament, and is now a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts Boston."

Haghighatjoo, who never misses an opportunity to stick "Dr." in front of her name, was at one moment an admirable and inspirational figure inside Iran. But this post is not about her as a person but about the project she is directing, so I won't get into her past or present.

At a time when Iranian activists have explicitly rejected foreign funded interference both to maintain their independence and to protect themselves from governmental accusations of being directed from the outside, this project dangerously and publicly claims that it will hold on-line and US-based "training of trainers" who "will conduct similar trainings in Iran with at least 100 Iranian women."

The distance learning courses proposed by this project include "Fostering the rule of law and judicial procedures: how women can gain access and fair
treatment in Iran" and "Understanding and influencing the legislative process in Iran." More than anything, such courses are insulting, since women inside Iran not only know their legislative process better than some folks sitting in Boston, but women in Iran have also been at the forefront of attempting to lobby and impact the legislative process.

Most shocking among these proposed courses, however, is a class entitled "Conflict resolution in a transitional state." What, exactly, is "transitional" in Iran at the moment? Why are they applying a term most often used to describe post-invasion Iraq and Afghanistan in a context relating to Iran? Do they know something we don't?

Along these same lines, the project summary says that they will create an "interactive website" to facilitate sharing information "on women’s political participation from all over the world, international organizations, and women’s issues during pre and post conflict situations." Again, what is the story about pre and post conflict situations? What eventual conflict are they preparing these women for? Perhaps a better question to ask is what eventual conflict are they preparing for, period.

The project summary also notes that the website will make available "all of the materials we develop as part of the NED training, plus blogs, chat-rooms, readings, and discussions." This is indeed the first and only time that NED is mentioned in the summary. The rest of the proposal refers to the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy at UMASS Boston, where the project will presumably be housed.

This adds yet another dangerous dimension to the project since it will likely lure the participation of Iranian women using the cover of the university. While most seasoned activists in Iran are now accustomed to reading between the lines and fully investigating projects before joining in, younger and more vulnerable groups of women may fall for ill-conceived and misleading projects such as this at great cost to their credibility and safety upon return to Iran.

I know for my part, I will try to get this information out to as many Iran-based activists as possible. For those who work hard to maintain their independence, I think they deserve the fair warning.

For Herzog Fans

2009-03-16T20:13:00.000-04:00

This is for Werner Herzog fans, he comes through as his charming, crazy, obsessive, genius, lovable self:

Watch Werner Herzog: Beyond Reason [Part 1] | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Part II:

Watch Werner Herzog: Beyond Reason [Part 2] | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Mousavi Enters Iranian Presidential Race

2009-03-11T09:45:00.000-04:00

I am still suffering from election fatigue following the US elections, but the upcoming summer elections in Iran are getting too exciting to ignore. Former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi has confirmed that he will enter the race for the presidency. While I am looking forward to watching how his rivals will react, I am especially interested in seeing how the English-language, non-Iranian press/pundits/Iran "experts" will deal with Mousavi, as he defies many of the rigid categories ("reformist", "conservative", etc)that are most often used in talking about Iran. The relative silence so far may be an indication of how confused and caught off guard they all are, but it may be too soon to tell. All things elections will likely pick up after the upcoming Iranian New Year holiday, so much of the interesting political maneuverings are still to come. Stay tuned!

2009-03-08T18:32:00.003-04:00

The letter below was initiated by a group of Muslim bloggers inside Iran and calls on the Head of the Judiciary to act in bringing justice to Hossein Derakhshan, who is now entering his fourth month in detention. At the moment, I wont comment on the letter, but I wanted to translate and post it here so that the text is available in English:

"O you who believe! Stand out firmly for God as just witnesses; and let not the enmity and hatred of others make you avoid justice. Be just: that is nearer to piety; and fear God. Verily, God is well-Acquainted with what you do"- The Holy Koran

To the Honorable Ayatollah Hashemi Shahrudi-

As you are aware, Hossein Derakhshan, an Iranian blogger, has been in detention for approximately four months. As Muslim bloggers who believe in the ideals of the Islamic Revolution, the signatories of this letter have no intention of defending all of the past positions, behaviors, and actions of the above named. Yet following the principle of bearing fair witness requires that we state that in recent years Derakhshan not only admitted to his own mistakes and expressed regret about some of his past writings and actions, but he had also gained fame in the weblogistan and in the foreign media for defending the Islamic Revolution and the system of the Islamic Republic.
It is natural that many had reservations about the roots of the changes in his positions and to wanted to take certain precautions. Yet what is clear is that Derakhshan, given his recent positions and his role in providing information about the relationships and actions of some political groups and media active abroad, had been severely blacklisted by those who are known to oppose the Revolution and the system. The Persian language news media outside the country, contrary to their routine methods, did not create any commotion after his arrest, and refrained for a long time from even reporting the smallest news about him.
The signatories of this letter do not have any knowledge about the contents of the case against Hossein Derakhshan, however it appears that his long detention is not appropriate for the accusations that have been formally discussed in relation to him, especially given that with his recent positions and actions, Derakhshan was clearly taking steps to make up for his past. Without doubt, if he had not been detained during the brutal attacks of the Zionist regime in Gaza, he would have used his pen and weblog to further expose those crimes and to defend the innocent people of Gaza. We wonder, if Derkhashan has changed his ideas and actions in earnest, then what message does this way of dealing with him send to Derakhshan and others like him?
Despite our differences with Hossein Derakhshan’s beliefs, viewpoints, and tastes, we Muslim bloggers owe our familiarity with blogging to his direct or indirect instructional activities in the arena of weblog writing in Iran. In the spirit of knowing and learning, and given the special situation of this individual and his committed and respected family, we ask your honor to please order that his case be handled with Islamic mercy and his detention ended.
We thank you in advance for your consideration.

Best wishes for success,

A group of Muslim Bloggers

Mohammad Ale Habib, Aghazadeh
Shahab Esfandiari, Naghd-e Farhang
Amir-Reza Bagherpour Shirazi, Webneveshteha
Ahmad Reza Baligh, Engar
Safar Pourabbas, Salman
Mohammad Hassan Jalali, Namnamak
Omid Hosseini, Ahestan
Golara Hamzeh, Dadabase
Hatef Khalidi, Kharchangzadeh
Seyyed Kamaladdein Doaee, Shagh Al-Ghalam
Ahmad Zoalam, Telepathy
Saleh Zamani, Gozar Looti Saleh
Sajad Safar Harandi, Khosoosi Neest
Mohammad Ali Taebi, Mihan Parast
Hasti Ali, Goosh-e Ghermez
Hamid Reza Alagheband, Gerdbad
Seyyed Ali Alavi, Nasl-e Sevomi
Hamed Fatahi, Armanshahr
Seyed Ali Kashefi Khansari, Kashef Dot Net
Hossein Komeilian, Cinematograd
Masoud Levasani, Jaab-e Khaterat
Davood Moradian, Hees
Seyyed Morteza Hashemi Madani, Kalameh

Confiscation and Auction of Iranian Historical Artifacts

2009-02-24T13:31:00.000-05:00

In 2006, I wrote that the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute was being sued to turn over ancient Iranian artifacts so that they could be auctioned and the proceeds used to compensate victims of bombings in Israel(!).

It seems that this looting of Iranian artifacts is one step closer to realization, so please take a moment to write a letter to President Obama and the Department of Justice asking them to intervene. You don't have to sign the cheesy (and in some places, rather problematic) letter that NIAC has written up; I wrote up my own letter and used their form to send it. It is quite convenient and NIAC should be commended for taking up the effort, even if the actual letter they wrote leaves much to be desired.

Links

2009-02-21T14:45:00.001-05:00

1. "Note to mainstream media: Iran cannot construct nuclear bombs with uranium enriched only to less than 4%." With Bibi Nethanyahu and his frothing-at-the-mouth allies, get ready for an overdose of anti-Iran propaganda!

2. “The Quran is perfect just the way it is, that’s why it is only written in Islamic.” Hey, anybody know where I can learn to speak Islamic? Does Rossetta Stone have their Islamic language series out yet?

3.The New Year is coming, and for all of you in the DC area, there are some great free events to celebrate.

Letter to Harper's

2009-02-21T10:21:00.000-05:00

Does anyone read blogs anymore? Not too many even bother to write them either. The hay days of blogging seem to have come and gone, I'm not sure whether to mourn or celebrate.

Since the anti-blog bug seems to have bit me as well, I will just limit to sharing with you a brief letter I wrote to Harper's Magazine about the Index in their March 2009 issue. After reading my letter and checking out the offending piece, if you agree with me that what they did was weird, sneaky, devious, and/or hateful, you can send them a polite note at letters@harpers.org.

Here is what I wrote:

"Dear Harper's-

Our household subscribes to your magazine, and we particularly look forward to reading the Harper's Index in each issue.

However, reading the Index as part of my bedtime ritual tonight, I was so aggravated that I had to get out of bed and write you this short note. Regarding Palestine and Israel, you included three figures. First, you put the estimated total in pounds of explosives Israel dropped on Gaza during the first week of the recent invasion (40,000) as well as the estimated total (also 40,000) that Palestinians fired into Israel over the course of the year. While one figure notes the amount dropped in a week versus what happened over an entire year, the fact that the figures are the same suggests some kind of equivalence of powers. But never mind that, what is even more troubling is that while you take care to note the number of Israelis who have been killed by Hamas rocket fire since 2001 (28), there is no mention of Palestinian casualties as a result of the bombs Israel has dropped on Gaza. As you may well know, the casualties on the first night of the recent Israeli assault on Gaza surpassed 28. If you care to count, and apparently you don't, there are credible estimates--by international, Palestinian, and yes, Israeli organizations--that can provide you with those figures.

Implying an equivalence in fire power between Israel and Palestine is a familiar trick, but choosing to acknowledge the victims of only one side is a whole other kind of low. I hope that at some point in the future, you will find Palestinian lives worthy enough to be included as a line in your index."

Hero of the Day

2009-01-29T23:59:00.000-05:00

Notice that David Ignatius of The Washington Post shows the same kind of objectivity and fairness in moderating the discussion between Turkish Prime Minster Erdogan and former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres as he does when he covers Middle East issues in his newspaper.

Danger of Dennis Ross Still Looms

2009-01-23T10:40:00.000-05:00

Believe it or not, and contrary to the direction some of my formerly Obama-maniac friends are going, I am actually becoming more hopeful in what is possible under an Obama administration. Anyone who was present among the masses gathered during inauguration can't deny that this guy is different, or at least different enough that it is worth engaging him. Instead of withdrawing, the progressive forces who are responsible for bringing Obama to power should continue to press him to make sure that he is held accountable for his promises.

And many have been doing that already. It appears that the outcry against Dennis Ross as the Special Middle East Envoy was successful. The appointment of Mitchell, while sure not to please everyone in the progressive community, is certainly perceived by most as a positive development.

Unfortunately, insiders in DC are now discussing rumors that while Ross may not receive any kind of "envoy" status, he may still be in charge of an "Iran Portfolio." The scope and nature of this position is not yet clear, but for all of the reasons outlined in my previous post, putting Ross in charge of Iran policy is tantamount to putting the wolf in charge of the chicken coop.

If Obama is serious about changing Iran policy, then he must steer clear of appointing someone who could have easily been appointed by the Bush-Cheney administration. While I understand the pragmatism and rhetoric of "working with both sides of the aisle," there is no need to reach out to extremists and place them in the most sensitive posts.

I hope everyone who is well-placed, or not so well-placed, will speak out against the appointment of Dennis Ross to any and all government positions dealing with Iran or the region more broadly.

Pictures from Pre-Inauguration Concert in DC

2009-01-18T19:09:00.000-05:00

Approaching the site of the concert, the Washington memorial can be seen on the left, and Stevie Wonder is on the screen:

A view of some of the port-a-potties (something like five thousand total) that are supposed to serve the couple of million people who are going to be on the mall on Tuesday:

The FBI and other security forces:

A view of the lincoln monument. U2 was playing and I think you can catch a glimpse of them on the screen:

This is another view of the lincoln monument during Obama's speech (you can see him on the screen):

These were among the many kitschy items for sale today:

This guy was my favorite person of the day. What I really wanted a picture of was his full length fur coat, but that was covered by what you can see is a very large portrait. He said he was here all the way from Minneapolis.

Dennis Ross as "Special Envoy to Iran"

2009-01-12T12:30:00.000-05:00

Around three days ago, CNN reported that Dennis Ross was likely to be appointed "ambassador at large" to the Middle East. While some insiders in DC are reporting that the Ross appointment as ambassador at Large/special envoy to Iran is not yet a 100% done deal, the fact that he appears to be the top candidate is very telling.

For those who may not know Ross, I am including below a list of relevant facts. Ross (along with Martin Indyk) are well-known for their disastrous impact on Palestine-Israel issues, but I am going to limit most of my points here to facts which will highlight why Ross will also be a huge disaster for Iran:

- Ross (again with Martin Indyk) co-founded the self-described "America's Pro-Israel Lobby", AIPAC, as well as its "think-tank" arm, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

-Ross was the director for policy planning in the State Department under President George H.W. Bush.

-In a November 2008 piece in Newsweek, Ross, after repeating all of the familiar--and baseless-- accusations about an Iranian nuclear weapon, insisted that "the more Washington shows it's willing to engage Iran directly, the more these other parties, will feel comfortable ratcheting up the pressure." This stance against straightforward negotiations , of course, in direct contradiction to Obama's campaign-time statements about his plans to hold unconditional talks with Iran.

-In a April 2008 testimony to Congress, Ross' options for "diplomacy" include suggestions to "tighten the noose" on Iran (meaning more devastating sanctions on the people of Iran). Although he says that he is for talks with "pressure", it seems to be a smokescreen so that they can say they tried diplomacy. Ross directly reveals this cunning strategy when he says: "Tougher policies—either military or meaningful containment—will be easier to sell internationally and domestically if we have diplomatically tried to resolve our differences with Iran in a serious and credible fashion."

For further reading on Ross and further proof (as if one needed it) for why Obama's-change-is-a-joke, you can see the following links:

-Dennis Ross interview with Nathan Gardels on the Huffington Post

-Top Obama Adviser Has Long Ties to Neocons by Michael Flynn.

-Obama's Neocon in Residence by Philip Giraldi

-The Same Old Change:Obama's Middle East 'czar' signals the Lobby's still in charge by Justin Raimondo

2009-01-09T13:40:00.001-05:00

My friend Sima sent me the above photo from the gathering to protest the unprovoked murder of 22 year old Oscar Grant in Oakland, CA.

In case you can't read the sign, it says "Justice for Oscar Grant! Justice for Gaza! End Government Sponsored Murder in the Ghettos of Oakland and Palestine."

If you can stomach the horror, here is the video of the police officer shooting Oscar Grant in the back at point blank range. As you will be able to see, Grant was on the ground, on his stomach, in a position of surrender.

For the massacres in the Gaza ghetto, there are too many ghastly images to post, but this video posted in an earlier comment section, is another sad example of government sponsored, unaccountable murder of innocent civilians.

"a big concentration camp" and the Ashura of our Time

2009-01-08T01:26:00.001-05:00

You can always count on Ron Paul to say it like it is, as he did in this statement a few days ago, where he described Palestinians as being confined in a big "concentration camp" in Gaza. A representative of the Pope also spoke out in calling Gaza "a big concentration camp". I'm sure both the Pope and Ron Paul will shortly be bombarded with accusations of antisemitism.

In addition to nightmarish visions of Nazi concentration camps, the situation in Gaza is also prompting many to compare it to Ashura, the day on the Islamic calendar month of Muharram marking the martyrdom of Imam Hossein, the grandson of the prophet Mohammad. On his way to Kufa, at the Battle of Karbala, Hossein and his small army of men, along with scores of womenandchildren, were slaughtered by the massive army of Yazid, and the historic battle is often viewed as a symbol of the importance of fighting against injustice, even if one is outnumbered and facing a brutal army that shows no mercy.

One of the things still mourned to this day is the failure of the people of Kufa and others to come to the aid of Hossein.

The orientalists working for the Israeli Ministry of foreign affairs, apparently in their zeal to further the strife they have been creating and nurturing between Shia and Sunni, seem to have been so convinced about their own narratives about Shia/Sunni dischord that they figured bombing during Muharram would go unnoticed by the Muslim world.

Well, it hasn't. Calling Gaza the Ashura of our times in a recent speech, Hassan Nassrollah successfully tapped into the resonance of this story in a way that goes beyond Sunni/Shia divisions.

In addition to fueling world outrage against itself, Israel may have also dealt a blow to the US-Israel project of fostering Shia-Sunni sectarianism.

Yesterday, in marking Ashura, Iranians also remembered Gaza, making the same link between the historical tale of injustice and the story playing out before our very eyes. You may be surprised if you see the faces of some of the people who joined this commemoration, here is one example:

(original picture from here)

Despite the best efforts of State Department funded VOA and similar stations trying to brainwash the Iranian people to worry about their own troubles (why don't you take your own advice, State Department!), there are plenty of Iranians who can think and see for themselves.

I am happy that people of various beliefs, in Iran and throughout the world, are putting aside their ideological differences and joining one another in raising their voice against the massacres of Gaza.

Thousands of protesters around the world. The UN. Ron Paul. The Pope. Girls in Tehran with too much make-up and girls with their plastic surgery bandages still on their nose. I'm proud to be part of this diverse group!

Continuing Pressures on Shirin Ebadi

2009-01-03T23:53:00.000-05:00

While I am still critical of Ebadi's statement on Gaza and other issues, she makes some important points in an interview published today about all of the pressure she has been under. I've translated a few excerpts from it and pasted it below. I have to say that I admire her tenacity and was moved by her declaration that she would never leave Iran. Countless people would have long left Iran if they faced the troubles she has faced; in fact, sadly, many people go looking for trouble just so they can have a remotely believable reason for asylum applications. There is a guy here in DC, one of Tabarzadi's gang now working for Voice of America, who apparently used to seek out and take money from desperate Iranian refugees in Turkey, promising in exchange to put their names in "student movement" newsletters so they could claim that they were politically active and couldn't go back to Iran. Anyway, back to Ebadi and the interview:

Question: Some say that one of the goals of these pressures is to force you to leave Iran. What do you think about this?

Answer: I can only say that as long as I am alive, I will leave Iran under no conditions. I am an Iranian and must live, work, and die in Iran.

Question: Mr. Ahmadinejad once said that he is willing to provide you with protection given the threats that had been made against you. But you did not accept. Why not?

Answer: My aim is defend all citizens. Providing body guards for one or a few people will not solve anything. Society should be safe and calm for all citizens so that they can live in complete security. And I'm sorry that I had to call the police for help on Thursday and two people from Yusuf-abad even came, but in their presence and right in front of their eyes, [the protestors] tore down the sign from my office and spray painted slogans against me all over the walls. And the police showed no reaction. My legal question for them is this: do gatherings and protests require permits or no? If they are not needed and the police did not stop those who attacked my house, then how come when women show the slightest protest in opposition to discriminatory laws, they deal with them in the harshest of ways? And if gatherings do require permits, then how come the police didn't deal with [the protesters] and just stood there watching? And if they had a permit, then they must announce which authority granted them that permit. This is a legal question and I put it out their for general consideration.

Question: How long will you bear these illegal actions?

Answer: As long as I am alive.

The full article in Persian is available here (I think this may be a fishy website, but the only other option was to link to gooya, so it is a lose-lose situation. If this interview appears on a less troubling site, I'll replace the link).

More Empty and Shameful Statements

2009-01-01T17:55:00.000-05:00

Iranian Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi and her organization, the Defenders of Human Rights Center, have been under a tremendous amount of pressure lately. First, the Iranian authorities shut down the Center on December 21, then they confiscated documents from Ebadi's private law office on December 29, and just this morning, a group of about 150 protesters showed up at her private residence, condemning her silence on Gaza.

It goes without saying that official harassment of Ebadi and her colleagues is unacceptable and must end immediately, but when one reads the maddeningly inane statement Ebadi's Defenders of Human Rights Center just put out, it is hard not to feel frustrated with its calculating hypocrisy. Had Ebadi not said anything at all, it would have been better. I have copied and pasted the full translated statement below in italics, with my comments after each paragraph:

What has transpired in recent days in Gaza has been cause for serious concern of human rights defenders and supporters of peace around the world. The raw and extreme violence perpetuated in Gaza has injured the conscience of humanity and it is clear that such developments will only work to further endanger sustainable world peace.

"What has transpired" and the "extreme violence perpetuated"? What, pray tell, has transpired and by whom? I understand the prevalence of passive construction in Persian, I use it all the time myself, but why doesn't Ebadi's statement name Israel in this or any other paragraph? Why don't they give us a sense of "what has transpired"? Why so vague?

The defenseless women and children of the region have been victimized even further by the perpetrators of violence who fathom nothing else but increasing their own power.

Here we go with the womenandchildren again. Are womenandchildren the only ones victimized? Are all dead, wounded, or starving men in the Gaza strip fair targets? And to say that these womenandchildren are victimized "by the perpetrators of violence who fathom nothing else but increasing their own power," is this not the most thinly veiled accusation against Hamas and only Hamas?

The world community has grown tired and impatient with the acts of murder, bloodshed and violence, and what is taking place in Gaza today is yet another example of these bitter and bloody events.

Ok, yes, "the world community", whatever that phrase means, have grown tired of bloodshed. But you know what else is tiresome? Carefully crafted statements by so-called human rights organizations who don't have the guts to call a spade a spade when it comes to anything having to do with Israel and Palestine. This used to be a problem that was particularly evident in the case of US-based organizations, but I guess when you start imagining that your main audience are the US-based groups who invite you to their conferences and arrange speaking tours for you, you have to adjust your language to that which pleases them.

We call upon the international community to react quickly and with force through whatever means possible to end the murder and violence in Gaza, and call upon humanitarian organizations to take necessary steps to defend the basic human rights of the citizens of Gaza and to quickly, seriously and effectively respond to and address the needs of victims in Gaza.

Even in the concluding paragraph, the writers can't bring themselves to name the perpetrators or to give an example of the violence they claim to abhor.

I haven't been this disappointed in Ebadi since she decided to parrot the US demands on Iran regarding the nuclear issue.

The Office for the Consolidation of Unity,dafter-e Tahkeem-e Vahdat, put out a statement on Gaza that was so shamefully bad that it makes Ebadi's look like a the work of a conscientious radical. I may write about them in another post, though I am not sure if they are worth the effort. It suffices to say for now, that I wouldn't expect anything more from a group whose leaders/role models are the likes of former NED fellow Ali Afshari and AEI favorite Akbar Atri.

Another Propaganda Outlet

2008-12-31T18:34:00.000-05:00

In the middle of all the troubling news coming from everywhere, this is not a priority topic, but I still think the issue is worth a quick mention. Yesterday, a friend of mine alerted me to this interview with Israeli analyst Meir Javedanfar on the Dutch government funded Radio Zamaneh. Apparently a number of journalists had vociferously objected to the piece, which just crudely repeats official Israeli propaganda about what is happening in Gaza, but the new Zamaneh management/editorial crew, decided to run the piece anyway. (It is very telling that the book that is advertised on the right hand column of the interview is that of Mehdi Khalaji, who works for the Israeli lobby think tank, Washington Institute for Near East policy).

Although I am in principle against foreign government funded outlets aimed at Iranian audiences, I know a lot of bright and talented journalists (many of whom have since quit) who worked with Zamaneh and produced some impressive content. Unfortunately, since such media are by definition agenda-driven--their lofty claims about democracy and free and fair journalism notwithstanding--it was only a matter of time before Zamaneh went the way of US State Department funded Radio Farda and Voice of America.

There is much more that I want to say about Zamaneh and its predecessors, but for now, I just wanted to express my frustration about both the interview with Javednafar and the censorship of the moderator who refused to put my comment, despite the fact that I was polite and merely expressed my disappointment in what is happening to the site. If you look at the site now, the negative comments far outnumber the supportive ones, but I suppose they still wanted to somewhat save face and not show how much they have angered their soon-to-be-former audience.

That's all for now, Happy 2009.

2008-12-30T20:47:00.000-05:00

I was carrying a sign, and walking my bike, and I'm not the tallest person in the world, so I have plenty of excuses for not taking fabulous photos from today's protests and march from the State Department to the White House and beyond. But I'll share the pictures with you anyway. The turn out was quite big (I would say in the thousands), and considering it is holiday season and DC usually empties out during this time, it was a remarkable turnout. There will be more protests and marches throughout the week, I'll try to attend and to capture better pictures.

Meanwhile, here are snapshots showing the diversity of those who had gathered--people from various ethnic backgrounds, a range of ages, and even differing political ideologies, all speaking out against the horrors in Gaza.

For other, and slightly better pictures, please go here.

Shoes not Bombs II

2008-12-19T14:23:00.000-05:00

Thanks to the generosity and talents of Mehrdad Aref-Adib, I now have a logo inspired by Food not Bombs. This could be the start of a movement!

Petition for Hoder

2008-12-18T10:23:00.000-05:00

I, along with a number of other bloggers, have put our names on the following petition (available in English and Persian) expressing concern for Hossein Derakhshan and calling for his release. Needless to say, I have several reservations about the whole thing, not the least of which is that the text is in English. If it were up to me, the text would only be in Persian: it is a letter by Iranian bloggers, addressed to the Iranian authorities, about another fellow Iranian blogger. Why does it need to be in English? Furthermore, portions of what the text says and implies--about what a wonderful role bloggers have, how this arrest is being viewed (by whom?), how great we are for signing this petition--are the kinds of statements that are likely to come under scrutiny, and for good reason. Nonetheless, I think the arguments for signing the petition outweigh my reservations in this case, and I hope that it does more good than harm in resolving the situation. Thanks to all of the people who signed the petition and who took time to iron-out some of their differences. If you would like to sign-on to the petition, please go ahead and do so and republish the statement on your own blogs. Please also leave a comment for any of the original signatories that you have also added your signature. I think we will eventually need a more systematic way to figure out how to aggregate all of the signatories, but I suppose this is a good start for now.

Now here is the actual petition:

We, the undersigned, view the circumstances surrounding the Iranian authorities' arrest of Hossein Derakhshan (hoder.com), one of the most prominent Iranian bloggers, as extremely worrying. Derakhshan's disappearance, detention at an unknown location, lack of access to his family and attorneys, and the authorities' failure to provide clear information about his potential charges is a source of concern for us.

The Iranian blogging community is one of the largest and most vibrant in the world. From ordinary citizens to the President, a diverse and large number of Iranians are engaged in blogging. These bloggers encompass a wide spectrum of views and perspectives, and they play a vital role in open discussions of social, cultural and political affairs.

Unfortunately, in recent years, numerous websites and blogs have been routinely blocked by the authorities, and some bloggers have been harassed or detained. Derakhshan's detention is but the latest episode in this ongoing saga and is being viewed as an attempt to silence and intimidate the blogging community as a whole.

Derakhshan's own position regarding a number of prisoners of conscience in Iran has been a source of contention among the blogging community and has caused many to distance themselves from him. This, however, doesn't change the fact that the freedom of expression is sacred for all not just the ones with whom we agree.

We therefore categorically condemn the circumstances surrounding Derakhshan's arrest and detention and demand his immediate release.

ما امضا کنندگان ذیل، شرایط دستگیری حسین درخشان، یکی از سرشناس ترین بلاگرهای ایرانی، توسط مقامات ایران را به شدت نگران کننده می دانیم. ناپدید شدن، حبس در مکانی مجهول، عدم دسترسی به اعضای خانواده و وکلای مدافع، و اعلام نکردن اطلاعات شفاف در خصوص موارد اتهام احتمالی نامبرده همگی باعث نگرانی ما ست.

جامعه وبلاگ نویسان ایران یکی از فعال ترین و بزرگترین جوامع اینترنتی جهان است. از شهروندان معمولی تا رییس جمهور ایران، بسیاری به امر نوشتن در وبلاگهای مختلف مشغول اند. این وبلاگ نویسان دارای طیف وسیعی از عقاید و آرا هستند و نقش مهمی در مباحث اجتماعی، فرهنگی، و سیاسی ایفا می کنند.

متاسفانه ظرف سالهای اخیر، وبسایت ها و وبلاگهای متعددی به صورت منظم توسط مقامات ایران فیلتر شده و شماری از وبلاگ نویسان با آزار و حبس روبرو شده اند. بازداشت حسین درخشان تنها آخرین نمونه از این نوع برخوردها ست و به نظر می آید این اقدام در راستای ایجاد رعب و واداشتن وبلاگ نویسان به سکوت طراحی شده است.

مواضع حسین درخشان در خصوص تعدادی از کسانی که بدلیل عقایدشان زندانی شده اند باعث رنجش جامعه وبلاگ نویسان ایرانی بوده و همین موجب شده بسیاری از آنان از وی دوری بجویند. با اینهمه، این موضوع این حقیقت را نفی نمی کند که آزادی بیان حقی مقدس است و باید برای همه در نظر گرفته شود، نه فقط کسانی که با آنها موافقیم.

بنابرین، ما از این منظر، به طور اصولی شرایط دستگیری و بازداشت حسین درخشان را محکوم می کنیم و خواهان آزادی فوری او هستیم.

Arash Abadpour
http://kamangir.net/

Niki Akhavan
http://benevis-dige.blogspot.com/

Hossein Bagher Zadeh
http://www.iranian.com/bagherzadeh

Sanam Dolatshahi
http://www.khorshidkhanoom.com/

Mehdi Jami
http://sibestaan.malakut.org/

Jahanshah Javid
http://www.iranian.com/

Abdee Kalantari
http://www.nilgoon.org

Sheema Kalbasi
http://www.zaneirani.blogspot.com/

Nazli Kamvari
http://sibiltala.blogspot.com/

Nazy Kaviani
http://nazykaviani.blogspot.com/

Peyvand Khorsandi
http://soulbean.wordpress.com/

Nikahang Kowsar
http://nikahang.blogspot.com/

Omid Memarian
http://omidmemarian.blogspot.com/

Pedram Moallemian
http://www.eyeranian.net/

Ali Moayedian
http://payvand.com/

Ebrahim Nabavi
http://www.doomdam.com/

Masoome Naseri
http://www.mimnoon.com/

Khodadad Rezakhani
http://www.vishistorica.com/

Leva Zand
http://balootak.com/

Shoes not Bombs

2008-12-15T23:35:00.002-05:00

If I had any sketching talent, I would make a Shoes not Bombs sign using the following Food not Bombs logo as inspiration:

Side note: As much as I admire the work of the Food not Bombs folks, from what I remember, their food kind of tastes like shoes anyway, so it is even more appropriate that they would inspire my imaginary logo.

Journalists Who Throw Shoes, and Those Who Kiss Them

2008-12-14T15:29:00.001-05:00

As soon as I heard the news about the shoe throwing incident in Baghdad, I sent the link to everyone I saw online, including Roozbeh Mirebrahimi, who immediately wrote a blog asking whether it was "becoming of a journalist" to do such a thing. I asked myself a similar question a couple of days ago when I read that Iranian journalist and blogger, Arash Sigarchi, had accepted an invitation to meet George Bush because according to Sigarchi, it would not be "right" if he did not accept. In fact, not only did Mr. Sigarchi attend the event, he repeated to Bush the kinds of accusations that that US administration routinely uses to threaten Iran with war and more sanctions.

Now Montazer Al-Zeidy, on the other hand, also had access to a meeting with Bush, and he too, decided to attend, and the rest is history. In fact, one of the best moments in history, ever.

And so I wonder, what is more befitting for a journalist: the one who throws shoes at the man who destroys his country, or the one who kisses those shoes?

Hoder's Arrest Confirmed By Family

2008-12-09T09:31:00.000-05:00

1. All those "human rights" activists and political "analysts" who have been playing dumb for over a month, justifying why they have not spoken out against Hossein Derakhshan's arrest on the basis of not having confirmation or those who have spread the most vicious lies speculating on where Hossein really is, no longer have many excuses left. Hossein's family has confirmed his arrest and detention at Eshratabad, where he is at the mercy of Saeed Mortazavi. Someone has put together a Persian language website to follow developments in the case and to call for his release, it would be cool if someone could put together an English site as well.

2. I wanted to only write about Hossein quickly, but now that I am here, what is up with the European legislators and courts these days? First, the British parliament invites the likes of Amir-Abbas Fakhravar and others to speak on behalf of Iranian students, and today, Rahman Haj-Ahmadi, a leader of violent Kurdish separatist group PEJAK is scheduled for an event. And last week, an EU court took steps to remove the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) from the terror list. In fairness, the MKO are not violent separatists, they've just been accused of supporting such groups and given their long history of fighting against Iran during the Iran-Iraq war and acting as Saddam's henchmen during various periods, I am sure they have been guilty of much more that may never come to light.

2008-11-24T21:28:00.002-05:00

When I first heard that Iranian businessman, Harvard graduate, and former Chief Executive of the Iran Heritage Foundation, Farhad Hakimzadeh had taken a knife to 150 books in the British library, I had a whole jumble of reactions. They were, in no particular order, as follows:

1. What kind of an animal would destroy books? (that was the nerdy part of me)

2. Great, another shameful blot on the record of Iran and Iranians (that was the nationlistic part of me that I try to suppress and pretend doesn't exist)

3. The Iran Heritage Foundation, it figures. (that was the part of me that is suspicious of all Iranian diaspora cultural and political activities).

4. The rich bastard, couldn't he just buy himself some stolen treasures instead? (this is the Marx-101 part of me that romanticizes the working class and believes that only the rich are capable of evil).

I'm still not sure what to make of the whole thing, though what was of interest to me was the reactions to the story as covered by the Chronicle of Higher Education. I saw that Khashayar had already mentioned the reactions on Iranian.com and how people were trying to justify what this man has done. But that is Iranian.com, and it hosts all kinds of crazed regulars. But it was surprising to see similar responses as those found on Iranian.com in the Chronicle, which as far as I know is usually only read by geeky academics. For example, in response to a commenter who had said that "Perhaps they will re-think their opposition to capital punishment," another reader had angrily responded that You mean capital punishment for tearing out a few pages from a place that was not even a real country till a few centuries back, or for shamelessly stealing monuments from a several-thousand year old civilization, such as the first monument of Human Rights by Cyrus the Great, now at the British museum, or all priceless Indian treasures?"

And you know, yes, granted, the Brits have most of that stuff because they outright stole it, but would one justify, say, the smashing to bits of the Kooh-e Noor using the same logic? I find the whole thing sad, but I am quite morbidly interested in uncovering what made the guy do it.

Free Hossein, You Unjust Bastards

2008-11-21T09:13:00.001-05:00

[editor's note: The following is a translation of Nazli Kamvari's Persian post on the arrest of Hossein Derakhshan. I have taken some liberties as the translator, for example, using "unjust bastards" for bi-ensaf because "unjust" or "unfair" alone wouldn't carry the weight of the original Persian's connotation. I don't want to be in collusion with those who have either delighted in Hossein's arrest, justified their silence (through wordy treatises on why they are being silent), or those who are spreading outright lies about him. But since I don't have time now to think through a proper piece of my own, I am just translating Nazli's piece, since she consistently surpasses everyone in having courage and a conscience.]

They have arrested Hossein, I have no doubt about it. All of the people who email me these days, writing a bunch of bologna and taking their political revenge don't understand that Hossein, given all of his idiocy and given all of the troubles that he single-handedly created for the women's movement, is now in a very bad situation. It is the story of the boy who cried wolf, I know. I am worried about my former friend, Hossein. A lot of papers have written,all of them with suspicion, that this is Hossein's own doing. Or that it is some game by the security apparatus. All of you no good bastards who are giving false information to these papers, how do you know and how can you be so sure? Why do you play with the life of someone whose whereabouts are unknown and who cannot defend himself.

People, lawyers, human rights defenders, are writing all kinds of crap in the Toronto email lists: posing in the name of rights and rightfulness, they feed others with the news that Hossein is not arrested and is collaborating. He has not been arrested? How do you know? How is it that you know and I don't know? What is this collaborating that Hossein is doing and therefore deserves to be detained? Whatever he has done to others, and all of you who hate him, are you happy if they beat him? If they cause hell for him? Well, you are crazy after all. All of what Hossein has said, all of the violence that he has enacted on us, it was all within the boundaries of his text. He didn't pick up a gun and shoot anyone. Now he has been arrested and you are all celebrating? There isn't enough reliable information? How come for everyone else before him who has been detained, the information has always been enough? Because he said don't write? How come when they arrested Sina, you didn't listen! Will you be satisfied that if a person is completely destroyed over one huge mistake?

I don't know what is going on. But I am worried for Hossein since Jahan News says that he has confessed to spying for Israel. This worries me. I am worried they will sacrifice him. It would be a shame if he were sacrificed. Have a little sense of justness.

Support NIAC event on Iran

2008-11-17T10:02:00.001-05:00

Despite my critical post below, I have to say that NIAC still deserves kudos for taking on some of the scariest people who have been working for war and tougher sanctions on Iran. Monarchists and Mojahedin-e Khalq groups, those ever strange bed fellows, do in fact share some commonalities besides wanting war and sanctions on Iran: they are fossilized, dogmatic, cultish, and have variously milked foreign governments (be it Iraq, the US, or Sweden)for funds in exchange for "intelligence" or other mercenary services.

If you see how Kenneth Timmerman's group is freaking out, you get a sense that maybe NIAC is doing something right after all.

So, at the end of the day, while I have strong reservations about some of the tactics and positions of NIAC and its president, I wish them luck at tomorrow's event on the hill. If you are US taxpayer or citizen, please call your representative or senator in support of holding this event, apparently the monarchist-MKO block has been trying to stop it.

2008-11-13T19:30:00.000-05:00

1. Does NIAC stand for National Iranian American Council or National Israeli American Council? Why does NIAC promote and disseminate articles with the title Why US-Iran Talks Are Good for Israel? I suggest that NIAC either leave it to Israel to worry about what is and isn't good for it or take the "iranian" out of its name all together. After all, virtually every statement regarding US-Iran relations that comes from NIAC or its President Trita Parsi frames issues in terms of US or Israeli interests. The former, of course, at least makes sense (though I don't find it particularly ethically justifiable) given that the organization is US based and it is trying to appeal to US policy makers.

Anyway, this article argues that the US should not oppose European gas purchases from Iran. Why? Not because the article calls on any legal or ethical principles, no, not all; rather, the author sums up his claims by saying that standing in the way of such purchases will "give Russia further opportunity to exploit European-American differences, and do nothing to moderate Iranian behavior toward Israel."

It appears that in the world of the National Iranian American Council, policy is primarily assessed in terms of what is bad for Russia and good for Israel. How cold-war of them.

2. I finally saw Caveh Zahedi's I'm A Sex Addict, and surprisingly I liked it very much. I even cried in the last scene. Zahedi's I Don't Hate Las Vegas Anymore aggravated me, and I thought that he came through as highly self-indulgent both as a person and a director. There were elements of this self-indulgence in this film as well, but it somehow worked, and I found myself cheer-leading for him in the end. There was also the added bonus of spotting the cameo of my friend's husband, who is an accomplished artist in his own right. Anyway, if you are in the mood for a different kind of film, check it out.

3. This item was announced at least half a day ago, old news in other words. Still, in case you missed it, Obama appointed Madeleine "we think the price is worth it" Alright as his representative at the global economic forum this weekend.

4. Judith Butler is quite readable when she is writing for a general audience. Her article Uncritical Exuberance?, raises a number of great points, though predictably, it is annoying die-hard Obamaniacs who get a hernia if one dares to even hint at a criticism of the man.

2008-11-11T10:27:00.000-05:00

1. My friend Mink mentioned in a comment on a previous post about Rahm Emanuel that "it is unfair to point of his father's past without mentioning his mother - according to wikipedia, a Chicago civil rights acticivist. Theoretically both are as valid as sources of inspiration." I didn't know about his mom, so I want to thank Mink for pointing out her background. And I certainly hope that she was more of a source of inspiration for Rahm Emmanuel, especially since his father was quoted this week as saying "Obviously he will influence the president to be pro-Israel. Why wouldn't he be? What is he, an Arab? He's not going to clean the floors of the White House."

2. I don't know what the deal is with Obama appointing folks with problem parents (there may be room for some psychoanalytic conclusions here), but apparently transition team member Sonal Shah has family ties to right-wing Hindu parties and organizations linked to the murder of Muslims and Christians in Gujarat. Shah denies her own links to such groups, though as far as I know she hasn't specifically addressed her family's connections to them. Anyway, I've been promised some insider information on Sonal Shah, so expect updates if I am able to share.

3. That mysterious stolen laptop is raising questions again; Gareth Porter reports that the IAEA "has obtained evidence suggesting that documents which have been described as technical studies for a secret Iranian nuclear weapons-related research program may have been fabricated."

4. And finally, some good news, Cal State student and activist Esha Momeni has been released on bail. I feel like there was not so much attention paid to her case, and I blame that only partly on the elections. I have some theories on why this has been the case, but I want to think about it a bit more before I write about it. For now, I'm glad she is out and hope that she is ok.

Ahmadinejad Rejects Panoptic Surveillance

2008-11-09T13:01:00.002-05:00

From my good friend Alireza Doostdar sent this note from Tehran:

This is interesting for a number of reasons. First, it's the second time (as far as i know) that ahmadinejad's government has opposed a disciplinary police move like this. The first time it was in response to the so-called "social security project" that has seen male and female police officers stationed in different parts of town and confronting men and women who are dressed "improperly" (or men who have "unconventional" hairstyles). The government spokesman announced back then that the government was against this plan and had no role in its design, but then the police retorted that the government had known about it all along and was in agreement with its basics. It ended up being implemented and it has been fairly controversial, with horror stories told every now and then (one interesting case i heard about recently was from a friend who personally saw a girl face down police officers who wanted to force her into their van, up to the point where a female officer grabs her to push her in, she resists and falls down, then the people who were watching step forward a few steps, the girl gets up and curses at the cops at the top of her lungs, and the police get into their car and drive off, leaving people clapping and booing and whistling). I haven't seen anything like this myself during the past five months: I've only seen two police cars from the "social security" unit in all of Tehran, and they have been tucked away into inconspicuous corners (I've seen one in Tajrish and one near the Mirdamad subway station). And the project doesn't seem to me to have
had much of an effect on men's hairstyles or women's hijab.

The second interesting thing about this is that Ahmadinejad doesn't really control the police. Their commander is appointed by the Supreme Leader and I believe they only report to him, except in cases where the interior minister is delegated this authority (which hasn't happened in a long long time, since before Khatami I believe). So I don't know what sort of power Ahmadinejad really wields in this case,
although he seems pretty sure of himself in the letter.

The third thing is that police have, for a few years now, been focusing on a discourse of "science" and "rationalization," up to the point where they would distribute reports about the scientific reasons for bad hejab (some girls have run away from home, some are exhibitionists, some are depressed, and other nonsense like this), and talk about all sorts of scientific foundations for their projects.
This camera things seems to me to be along the same lines, adopting the measures of "advanced" societies in controlling their citizens (this is actually pointed out by a few people in the comments section of this news item. people say if the UK does it, why not us?). I think that if it hadn't happened in the context of years of police intrusions into people's privacy, it probably wouldn't have been seen
as particularly controversial (although ahmadinejad is the only person I've heard of on this so far!!!).

President Orders that Camera Installations in Thoroughfares be Canceled

Translation of Article:

The President has written a letter to the Commander of Police in response to published reports that cameras will be installed in some areas. Ordering that such measures be stopped and canceled, he commented that "this measure is against [the country's] interests, it would be a step in the direction of policification of the peaceful and secure atmosphere of the country, pitting police against the majority
of the people and purging trust and mental security from society."

The full letter of Dr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Commander Brigadier General Ismail Ahmadi Moqaddam is as follows:

"Based on published reports, the Police Force of the Islamic Republic of Iran is to install cameras in some areas in order to control individuals. Notwithstanding the fact that neither the National Security Council nor any other decision-making body in the country has ratified any such measure, this measure would be against [the
country's] interests, it would be a step in the direction of policification of the peaceful and secure atmosphere of the country, pitting police against the majority of the people and purging trust and mental security from society.

The criminals and offenders in our country are very few compared to the population. Rather than using methods that would stoke suspicions that police is out for a general confrontation with the people, it can employ advanced and proper intelligence methods to confront offenders and protect the public's rights.

I repeat that police has to be beside the people and avoid implementing projects that show its distrust of people, that pits the police force against them, and that lacks legitimacy and necessity. It is necessary that you stop and cancel these decisions and report the results [to me].

I ask Almighty God for the increased success of the dutiful police.

2008-11-06T15:01:00.001-05:00

I shared the joy of the young, diverse crowds that celebrated on Tuesday night, not because I like Obama, but because I saw in them the potentials that can be unleashed to make real change in the US and the world. In the historic U Street corridor of Washington DC, which burned to the ground during the 1968 riots following the assassination of Martin Luther King, young black men and women danced in the middle of intersections, defying the police who hound them any other night. The crowds reflected spontaneous, unrestrained joy, and it was a pleasure to see the happiness all around.

When Obama was campaigning and saying one terrible thing after another, his supporters kept telling us, "no, no, he is just saying those things; if he didn't he wouldn't get elected." On election night, in the midst of the celebrations in which I joined, I thought to myself: "Let's hope that the Obama supporters were right that he was lying to us all along."

But no, that doesn't seem to be the case. Obama backers who took the immoral and unjustifiable position that it is ok to promote a candidate who lies because he "has to" now have to face the fact that their man actually meant the horrible things he said. The presidential candidate who made the unprecedented move of promising Jerusalem to Israel has picked a citizen of that country and a former "volunteer" with its army as the first member of his cabinet. His father a member of the Zionist militia Irgun, soon to be chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel served with the Israeli army during the First Gulf War and distinguished himself as the only member of the Illinois Congressional delegation to vote for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

And so it appears, Obama was not lying about the terrible things he said, but he was, in fact, may have been lying about the few good things he promised. With the selection of Emanuel, it is clear that Obama will not be open to unconditional negotiations with Iran any time soon. And since Obama wont be listening to them, you might want to hear the message of "the man on the street" in Iran to president-elect Obama:

2008-10-24T10:05:00.000-04:00

Just a few links for Friday reading, in case you don't feel like doing what you really should be doing:

-Retired Colonel Sam Gardner on US covert operations in Iran

-Yours truly on the interventionism of both major party presidential tickets

-Eric Hobsbawm on the current economic crisis (this is actually a 15 minute audio file)

Endangering Lives for Political Gain

2008-10-23T17:07:00.000-04:00

It's been a while since I've done one of my "expose" style posts on one of the seemingly countless members of the Iranian "opposition" in diaspora who are willing to lie, cheat, steal, and god knows what else just to get a paycheck and a little praise. Frankly, there are too many of them, and despite the millions of dollars being thrown around, they are mostly useless and pathetic, eventually fading away, as they claw at each other for a little piece of the pie.

But every once in a while, someone acts so unethically, with such brazen disregard for the safety and livelihood of others, that it becomes imperative to address the issue.

Amir Farshad Ebrahimi, whose seemingly prurient interest in other people's private sexual conduct was evident when he gleefully publicized an intimate moment featuring well-known Iranian devotional singer Abdolreza Helali, is now doing the same with a sex tape (one which was clearly filmed by a hidden camera) involving who he says is a cleric and a married woman.

It would be bad enough if Amir Farshad Ebrahimi were merely guilty of being disgusting enough to violate the privacy and dignity of the two people filmed. Extramarital sex between two individuals who are already married to other people can carry a death sentence, a fact that Amir Farshad Ebrahimi knows very well. Indeed, he concludes his shameful post with a taunt wondering about the fate of the man pictured, since according to him, others have been executed for much less.

So Mr. Amir Farshad Ebrahimi, the self designated human rights activist, I have some questions for you:

- How do you justify violating the privacy of two consenting adults (two adults, by the way, who seem to very much enjoy each others, ahem, company)?

-How do you justify endangering the lives of these people? Not their reputation, their dignity, their livelihoods, their families, their jobs, which you endangered as well, but their lives?

-How did these sex tapes, clearly filmed secretly and likely without the knowledge of at least one of the people involved, end up in your hands?

Oh, by the way, Mr. Amir Farshad Ebrahimi, this is only the beginning of the inquiries that will be sent your way. If you think that your maneuverings aroundRadio Zamaneh, your tall tales about what happened in Turkey last summer, or your overall thuggish ways will go unchallenged, you have another thing coming.

Looking Presidential

2008-10-16T04:25:00.000-04:00

Compared to the last two--which had vacillated between completely boring and infuriating me--the final "debate" between Obama and McCain was actually kind of interesting.

The best moment of the night, however, was when McCain, true to form, wandered about stage as though he didn't know where he is going:

And here I was worried that with the imminent departure of Bush, we would be deprived of such great photos, like this one capturing a moment of love between President Bush and Prime Minister Berlusconi:

Oh, and here is a blast from the past, former president Khatami, aloof as someone kisses his hand:

I wonder how the supporters of Khatami and other so-called "reformists" feel when they see how Ahmadinejad treats his supporters? I bet they get really really mad when they see pictures likes this:

------
Photo credits:

-McCain looking presidential is Reuters and can be found here)

-Heads of state lovingly touching heads is also Reuters, but I lost the original link.

-Khatami getting has hand kissed, obviously a Magnum Photo as you can tell from the stamp on the photo, link from here.

-Ahmadinejad kissing hand of a fan is a Fars News Photo and can be found here

2008-09-18T23:26:00.000-04:00

1. A couple of friends invited me to go to an Iranian mosque for Iftar tonight, but I declined. Since I'm not fasting, I felt like I'd be a hypocrite if I went. I've enjoyed and even hosted Iftars even though I don't fast, but going into a mosque somehow takes it to a diffierent level. Besides, I had some work I needed to finish up.

But I happened to finish my work five minutes after I was supposed to have been picked up to go to the mosque, and my stomach started to growl at the thought of all the delicious Iranian food that I would be missing.

And that is when it hit me: hypocrites rarely go hungry.

2. Speaking of hypocrites, do you all remember when Ahmandinejad's VP, Esfandyar Rahim Mashaee, said that "Today Iran is the friend of the people of the United States and Israel and no nation in the world is our enemy." Despite the furor his comments caused inside Iran among hardliners who vociferously called for his resignation, Ahmadienjad has resisted and today he again defended his embattered VP, going so far as to say that "Mashahee's views represent the administration's views."

So, where are the ogres who have been milking a mistranslated and out of context phrase to scaremonger the world about Iran wanting to "wipe Israel off the map"?

Their silence, of course, is not surprising. The hypocrites whose visa status or jobs at the Washington Institute or Voice of America depends on building a monstrous image of Iran have reason to fear any reconcilations among, well, just about anybody.

3. Today, a British friend asked for my thoughts on a piece that claimed, among other things, that "an Obama victory would bolster reformists in Iran."

What I told him was that I am no fan of these so-called reformists, and that I find them very much similar to the US Democratic party: no principles and no spine.

Moreover, I don't see that Obama would be all that much better for Iran; his rhetoric may be less scary, but when it comes to action, I very much doubt he will take the US in a productive direction vis-a-vis Iran: just look at his foreign policy advisors and the type of lobbyists he prostrates himself before.

4. I find it somehow odd that Oscar Wilde's only great-granchild is a computer programmer, at least that is what wiki says. More importantly, why did it take me so long to discover his writings? I mean I always knew about him, particularly in relation to dandyism and all of that, but to actually read his work, it was long overdue.

5. My friend Sima writes lots of great emails when she has looming writing deadlines; I write blogs, and I'll leave it up to you decide if they are any good.

مار در باغ

2008-09-16T22:50:00.009-04:00

چند ماه پیش هنگام پیاده روی در پارک زیبای «مانوا فالز» از کناریک زوج جوان و دو دوستشان رد شدیم که به نظر میامد توریست و از اهالی آسیای شرقی بودند . همه دم پایی پوشیده بودند و من و رائد به هم گفتیم که عجب جراتی دارند که با دم پایی دارند از کوه لیز باران خورده بالا می روند. ما که کفش های مناسب به پا داشتیم و از نی خیزران برای خود عصا هم درست کرده بودیم زود از آنها جلو زدیم و رسیدیم به آبشار بالای کوه . بعد از کمی استراحت تصمیم گرفتیم که دیگر بالاتر از جایی که بودیم نرویم و برگشتیم به سمت پایین. چندی نرفته بودیم که دوباره بر خوردیم به گروه توریست های آسیایی. سه دختر گروه از شیب کوه به دره نگاه میکردند و هیجان زده به زبانشان صحبت میکردند. من ذوق کردم که شاید آنها ببری یا خرسی یا همچین چیزی دیده باشند و فوری پرسیدم « آیا در دره حیوانی پیدا کردید؟» و رفتم کنارشان ایستادم تا ببینم دارند به چه نگاه می کنند.

متاسفانه حیوان شگفت انگیزی در کار نبود. دوست آنها، تنها پسر گروه، لیز خورده بود و ته دره پرت شده بود. به دوست دخترش گفتیم که به اورژانس- همین 911 معروف- زنگ بزند و درخواست کمک فوری بکند.

آن چه بعد گذشت مثل یک طنز تلخ بود:

دوست دختر پسر پرتاب شده (که به سختی انگلیسی صحبت می کند): از من آدرس می خواد.
رائد: بهش بگو ما در مانوا فالز هستیم.
دوست دختر پسر پرتاب شده: میگه آدرس دقیق می خواد.
من (عصبانی): یعنی چی آدرس دقیق؟ بگو وسط جنگل.
رائد: بگو در مانوا فالز هستیم، یک سوم راه مونده به آبشار.

دوست دختر پسر پرتاب شده: می پرسه حال دوستم چطوره؟
من ( دوباره عصبانی): یعنی چی حالش چطوره؟ از 100 متر پرت شده ته دره. انتظار داره چه حالی داشته باشه؟ چرا یارو داره وقت تلف می کنه؟ ما زنگ زدیم که اینا بیان ببینند که چه بلای سره این بد بخت آمده.

دوست دختر پسر پرتاب شده سرش را به سوی دره دراز می کند و چند سوال می کند. صدای خفیفی از پایین پاسخ می دهد.

دوست دختر پسر پرتاب شده کمی بیشتر با مرد پشت خط صحبت می کند. ما سعی می کنیم که پسر پرتاب شده را از بالا ببینیم و دلداریش بدهیم. پسر اصلا انگلیسی بلد نیست و دو دختر دیگر برای ما ترجمه می کنند. اول متوجه نمی شویم که دوست دختر پسر پرتاب شده دیگر تلفن را قطع کرده است .

من: خب کی می رسن؟
دوست دختر پسر پرتاب شده: میگه نمیان.
من و رائد: چی؟!؟ چرا؟
دوست دختر پسر پرتاب شده: میگه چون اون جاییش نشکسته و داره با ما صحبت می کنه لزومی نیست که بیان.
رائد: یعنی اگر ما پنج دقیقه دیگه زنگ بزنیم و بگیم که دیگه صداش نمیاد اون وقت پا می شن میان؟ می خوان
مطمئن بشن طرف مرده بعد بیان؟
من (دوباره عصبانی):این اورژانسشون برا مرده هاس یا زنده ها؟
دوست دختر پسر پرتاب شده: گفت اگه جاییش نشکسته می تونه از کنار کوه بیاد بالا.
من ( خیلی عصبانی): آخه در حالت عادی کسی نمی تونه از کنار این کوه گلی بیاد بالا چه برسه به کسی که پنج دقیقه پیش پرت شده به ته دره. تازه از کجا معلومه که سرش ضربه نخورده باشه؟ شاید حرکت براش خطرناک باشه. شاید هم یجاش شکسته اما چون شکه شده حالیش نیست.
رائد: خب چاره ای نداریم. باید خودمون یه جوری کمکش کنیم.

و بالاخره خودمان هم کمکش کردیم با هزار زحمت. از بالا او را هدایت کردیم تا یواش یواش تو دره راه برود تا برسد به جایی که بتواند از سخره با درختی بالا برود. از چند جا بالا رفت و موفق نشد. لیز می خورد به پایین و ما هر دفعه نفس در سینه نگر می داشتیم که نکند این دفعه حسابش رسیده باشد. آخر سر به جایی رسید که توانست تا نصف کوه بالا بیاید. دیگر از آن بیشتر نمی توانست بالاتر بیاید ولی حداقل دوباره پرت نشد. رائد توانست به زور او را با یک دست بکشد بالا. همه دست به دست هم دادیم که نکند رائد هم پرت شود. ولی با این حال رائد کلی زخمی شد. بیچاره پسر پرتاب شده هم سر تا پا گلی بود و در هوای گرم شرجی می لرزید.

این یکی از آن تجربه ها است که همیشه با ما خواهد ماند. نه سرویس 911 و نه هیچ یک از آمریکای های سفیدی که ازکنار ما رد شدند کمکی به ما نکردند. فقط یک پسر جوان همان اول نگاهی و نصیحتی کرد و بعد با دوست دخترش رفتند به طرف آبشار.

چرا من این جریان را حالا می نویسم؟ چون دیروز در وبلاگ نویسنده محترمی که خود کمتر از دو سال است که به آمریکا آمده است این را خواندم:

دیروز زنگ زدم ایران. خواهرم گفت: «توی خانه‌امان چهار تا مار پیدا شده که با بدبختی آنها را کشته‌ایم.»
گفتم: «به آتش‌نشانی زنگ نزدید؟»
گفت: «چرا اما آنها گفتند:چون مارها را کشته‌اید دیگر نیازی نیست که ما بیائیم.»
پسرم گفت: «واقعاً آتش‌نشانی نرفته...»
بابک گفت: «این‌جا هم که می‌آيند پول می‌گیرند. آنجا به فکر جیب آدم‌ها هستند.»
پسرم گفت: «بابا اینجا به فکر جان آدم‌ها هستند...» پسرم اشاره می‌کرد به مارهايی که در خانه خاله‌اش در ساکرمنتو پیدا شده بود و بعد از چهار دقیقه آتش‌نشانی آمده بود و باغ و خانه را برای پیداکردن مارهای دیگر زیر و رو کرده بود...

با توجه به ماجرایی که برایتان تعریف کردم از این جمله پسر خانم نویسنده که ایشان هم با تکرارش تایید می کنند هم خنده ام گرفت و هم سخت عصبی شدم: ««بابا اینجا به فکر جان آدم‌ها هستند..»

شاید بگویید اتفاقی که برای ما در مانوا فالز افتاد استثنایی بود( که می دانم نیست). ولی می خواهم بدانم که آیا خانم نویسنده محترم و پسرشان خبر دارند که سرعت رسیدن و یا اینکه پلیس یا آتش نشانی «اینجا» اصلا تشریف میارند بستگی به مقصد دارد؟ برای نمونه این را ملاحظه کنید. آیا خانم نویسنده محترم و پسرشان می دانند که در«اینجا» بعضی از بیمارستان های عمومی به جای درمان مریض های بی خا نمان آنها را با آمبولانس به پس کوچه ها می برند و ول می کنند؟ این کار آنقدر شایع است که حتی در ویکیپیدیا صفحه اختصاصی خود را دارد.

جسارتا به خانم نویسنده محترم و پسرشان پیشنهاد می کنم که کمی بیشتر با جامعه ای که در آن زندگی می کنند آشنا بشوند و کمتر با ساختن تصویری غیرواقعی دل آنهایی را که «آنجا» هستند را به حسرت «اینجا» بسوزانند.

البته شاید بد نباشد که آن آتش‌نشانی را که در طی چهار دقیقه خود را به خانه خاله رساند را بفرستید به ناحیه وانشگتن؛ یعنی ناحیه پایتخت «اینجا» . چند وقتی است که پارک ها پر از مار شده اند ولی علی رغم تماس های متعدد مسئلولین شکایت های مردم را جدی نگرفته اند.

Sharbat

2008-09-16T16:26:00.000-04:00

Long before I discovered bobo drinks, there was Sharbat-e Tokhm Sharbati:

Nothing hits the spot more on a hot day!

Directions for making around 4 cups:

1. Get yourself to an Iranian store and buy a pack of Tokhme Sharbati (these are the seeds of a particular kind of basil known sometimes as Mountain Basil in Iran)

2. Measure two heaping spoonfuls of the seeds and soak in enough water to cover the seeds by about 2 inches (you may want to first rinse the seeds in a fine colander in case there is any dust on the seeds; also I tend to way over do it with the seeds, you may want to adjust depending on how much seeds you like in the drink).

3. Let the seeds soak for 2-3 hours at room temperature; when they are ready, the seeds will plump up and look fuzzy, like they have a white furry halo around them.

4. Add four cups of water and sweeten with sugar and rosewater to taste. Chill in the refrigerator four a few hours, and then drink up.

In addition to being delicious, the seeds apparently have health benefits for one's heart and nerves. Enjoy!

2008-09-12T11:23:00.000-04:00

1. Dear US voters, if there is a presidential candidate that you actually respect and want to vote for but fear facing the wrath of annoying people who sing the praises of US democracy but attack anyone who would like to exercise that right by voting for a third party, there is a solution for you: the vote pact.

The details are on the website, but the basic idea goes something like this: two people whose votes may otherwise cancel each other out (i.e. someone voting for McCain and someone voting for Obama) pair up and vote for whatever third party candidate they really want to vote for. This would ensure that the overall balance of votes between Obama and McCain is not impacted and the third party candidates get the votes that more accurately reflect the support they really have. Of course, this means that people from opposite sides of the political spectrum have a conversation together (yikes!), and trust each other enough to keep their side of the pact.

2. How come Toomas Hendrik Ilves, the current president of Estonia, speaks English with an American accent? Anyone know if his Estonian sounds as native of his English?

Fun facts about Mr. Ilves: not only was he himself a journalist with US State media Radio Free Europe, but his brother headed that radio's Prague based Afghanistan Bureau (the brother currently heads the Persian and Pashto world services of the BBC).

3. Is it a coincidence that more than thirty five years after his release, new video showing footage of McCain's release from Vietnamese POW camps is emerging less than 60 days before the US election? Perhaps, but I somehow doubt it. McCain sure was handsome back then, and I bet he would get a lot more votes if he still looked even remotely like the man seen in this video.

2008-09-11T14:33:00.000-04:00

Last night, I went to an event where Javier Bardem was supposed to lead a panel discussion and then screen his newly released documentary, The Invisibles. But Bardem was a no show, and the documentary was quite bad. Most folks, including myself, didn't make it through the screening.

I think most people had come to see Bardem anyway, and they were probably itching to leave since the moment they found out he wasn't coming. Many of the women sitting around me got very excited when a tall, shaggy haired guy approached the stage early on, but they were disappointed to see that it was John Prendergast. Prendergast had a good sense of humor about it though. He joked that while he had considered trying to cut his hair to look like Bardem, any such cosmetic attempts on his part would be like "putting lipstick on a pig."

To fill in the celebrity gap, the organizers had managed to invite the beautiful and likable Robin Wright Penn, but lovely as she is, she is just not as cool as, you know, Javier Bardem.

Anyway, the event was all about typical "left" interventionism. While the right-wingers have gatherings where they talk about how to intervene in other countries by bombing, proselytizing, and what ever else it is that they do, the folks ostensibly on the left of that spectrum get together to talk about how they can stick their nose in other people's business by sending in their (often state-connected) NGOs and various other components of their "soft power" machinery.

During the question and answer period, one guy politely intervened in the love-fest of how "we" must act to lobby the US government to fix the problems in Congo to ask what the panel made of the fact that the US has channeled millions and millions of dollars to fund six different sides in the Congo.

The only person to respond-- if you can even call it a response since was a total evasion of the main point-- was Prendergast, who said: "Well, that just goes to show you how much influence the US can have."

Say what?

One of the panelists, whose name I can't recall since he was also late addition and his name doesn't appear on the program, is an American author who has written about the situation in Congo, particularly about the rape as a tactic of war, said at one point that the solution to Congo's ills would come when all those who had entered the country from elsewhere went back to where they came from: if left alone, the fighting would stop and the Congolese could heal their own wounds.

His point was clear, made perfect sense, and should have been taken to heart by the rest of the panel and the attendees. But this type of audience, which always takes itself as an exception, certainly didn't get it; the sense of entitlement to interfere in the business of the world over is just too deep-seated.

And finally, I think the sudden boom of interest in Africa related affairs is clearly rooted in broader political concerns that have nothing to do with the sufferings of the people Africa whatsoever. It will take many more posts to further explore this, but what is issue can for the time being be summed up in one single word: China.

I hope people expose these links, rather than falling for yet another "humanitarian" cover for expanding the powers that be.

2008-09-09T19:20:00.000-04:00

A little immature humor doesn't hurt anyone, does it? Good, because I've been dying to poke fun at something for a few days, but I was restraining myself to be nice.

There is a Persian language blog that has the English title "Iranian USA." I'm not exactly sure what the author means by this, perhaps he means that he is an Iranian in the USA, or a USA that is becoming Iranian. Who can tell from this construction? But the best part is the URL of the blog which is Iranianus.blogspot.com. Now, I'm sure the guy meant it to be read as Iranian US, but my friends, it is clear to me that the URL also reads Irani Anus.

Normally, I would just feel sorry for the person who made this mistake and perhaps have a quite little laugh. But then I took a closer look at the blog and thought that there was some poetic justice at play, and perhaps we are indeed dealing here with an Irani Anus.

Look, for example, at the post where he gleefully points out a tear in Ahmadinejad's jacket, while gratuitously and awkwardly photo-shopping a photo of a monkey nearby.

On the day when Evo Morales--the first indigenous president of gas-rich Bolivia--meets with the President of oil rich Iran, I did not see on a single analysis about the symbolic or material importance of the meeting on any diaspora or opposition sites. Different zoom-ins on the tear from various angles, on the other hand, there were plenty of those.

One day, maybe the self-designated Iranian elites and intellectuals will finally stop their classist jibes at Ahmadinejad, and maybe then they will understand that the very features they deride--like Ahamdinejad's scruffy look and worn out clothes- are what endear him to his sizeable domestic and international supporters.

But it looks like these folks would like to keep their head where the sun don't shine (or name themselves after such places), and the more they stay in the dark and entertain themselves with silly jokes about Ahmadinejad, the higher the chances of another Ahmadinejad landslide in June 2009.

Police Violence at DNC

2008-08-30T12:17:00.000-04:00

I'm not a fan of Codepink, but I was very disturbed to see this policeman take a baton to a peaceful Codepink protester for no apparent reason. These security forces should be held accountable for using excessive force, who knows what else they've done that wasn't caught on tape.

You can see the full uncut video and narration from the point of view of the photojournalist who documented the whole thing (you can also see the police tackle and arrest some other random peaceful protester) at this link.

2008-08-26T15:36:00.000-04:00

1. Garfield is not at all funny, but Garfield Minus Garfield, now that is pretty hilarious. See yesterday's strip, for example, I just can't stop laughing! (A big thanks to Mana and Seth for introducing me to strip, the newest weapon in my procrastination arsenal)

2. US and Euro press love to cover stories about Iran's "modesty squads" and whatever admittedly annoying activities they take on. But who knew that Israel has some pretty robust "modesty squads" of its own? How many of you heard about the 7 Israeli men who broke into the apartment of a woman and violently assaulted her because they thought she had carried on an "improper" relationship with some guy? If the perpetrators in this case were Iranian or some vigilante group in Iraq or Palestine or some other Muslim-identified group, we would have been bombarded with news stories and emails on listservs. Seriously, if this was a case in Iran or Palestine, some nerdy guy in Canada would have posted it to Balatarin at least a dozen times, and then he would have come back with a dozen of his other usernames to leave snarky comments about how backwards muslims are, how they just need to learn to practice democracy, etc. etc.

3. Michael Ledeen is so bad that even the notorious neo-con nest known as the American Enterprise Institute has rid themselves of him. Ledeen, you may remember, claimed in January 2007, that Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei had died and continued to hold on to the position for days thereafter, even in the face of various new evidence proving the contrary (he claimed it was all state propaganda or something)! Ledeen has now moved to the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy, apparently a clear demotion, but I think we should now keep a more alert eye on this Foundation and what they are up to.

2008-08-24T19:23:00.000-04:00

1. Iran's olympic athletes returned home today, and huge crowds came to greet them at the airport. I think they mostly came to see taekwondo champ Hadi Saei, the only gold medal winner for Iran. In the photo from ISNA pasted below, a group of little girls in colorful traditional dress present Saei with flowers, and in the background you can see the people who have packed into the airport to see him:

Iran fared pretty poorly at the olympics, other than Saeei's gold, I think they got a couple of other medals. A country of over 65 million which is relatively sports-positive and can afford to nurture its athlete should have done a lot better.

Of course, the usual suspects are wasting no time blaming the person of Ahmadinejad and his administration for the olympic shortcomings. I was reading the blog of a hard-core Ahmadinejad supporter the other day and saw that one of his readers had left a comment asking him to please write a post showing that there is no relationship between the failures at the olympics and the current administration. In answer to this request, the blogger had sarcastically responded: as far as I know, there is nothing on this earth that isn't related to the Ahmadinejad government.

And the guy has a point. The Ahmadinejad administration is to blame for a whole lot of stuff, but come on, the olympics? The website of the Dutch government funded online paper Roozonline is actually a good place for finding some of the far-out connections people make between Ahmadinejad and whatever is going wrong anywhere. Too bad their headlines are just in Persian, but I'll try to translate some every now and again, just for comic value.

Anyway, congratulations to Iran's olympians, here is to a better performance next time.

2. My culinary goals for the next months are to find recipes for and cook as many northern Iranian dishes as I can find the ingredients for. Yesterday, I cooked Morghe Torshe, which is a chicken dish from Mazandaran made with ground herbs and walnuts. Folks from the province of Gilan have a dish with the same name, but their version has weird things in it like split yellow lentils and eggs. Still, I'm up for trying their version as well. For Mazandarani dishes, I am for now relying on recipes from my dad and grandmother, but I need some good stuff from Gilan. Any suggestions of websites or books to look into?

3. My friend Joann is one of the greatest people you could ever hope to know. I've been trying to get her to blog for ages, but it took being stuck in Chicago to persuade her to actually do it. If you want to discover Chicago along with Joann, check out her blog.

Georgia on My Mind

2008-08-12T17:01:00.000-04:00

1. I'm back from a trip to Canada where I presented at the Iranian Studies conference, and then we took a mini-road trip within Canada and throughout the US northeast. Canada is really great, at least from what I can tell. And it helped to be hosted by Nazli, who is generous, lovable, and real. She and the many other volunteers at the ISIS conference deserve to be publicly recognized and thanked for all of their hard work. Maybe I missed it, but it didn't seem like their contributions were adequately acknowledged during the conference.

2. Historically, Russia has not been a good neighbor to Iran. Its colonial interventions in Iran meant the loss of much territory and wealth as well as a whole lot of other immeasurable intangibles, like feelings of security or national pride. Even in contemporary times, Russia has continued its exploitation. Taking advantage of US sanctions that prevent Iran from having access to what is legally its right to have, the Russians have stepped in to sell Iran a bunch of technological equipment at exorbitant prices, with dubious quality, all the while extracting a whole lot of other concessions from Iran.

Despite all of this, Russia's reemergence as evidenced by the conflict with Georgia (which is only one example of the territories Iran lost to Russia), probably bodes well for Iran and the region as a whole.

It is best to have no bullies on the block, but having two bullies is better than having one.

The conflict between Georgia and Russia as well as its implications, which will be wide and far reaching, deserve careful consideration which I hope to expand on in the future. For now, it will suffice to say that a significant power shift has occurred, and we will be feeling its global consequences for a long time yet.

3. I just received the DVD for Iran (is Not the Problem), which I'm looking forward to watching later this week. Here is the trailer, if you want to take a look.

2008-07-26T10:23:00.000-04:00

Last night we saw Norman Finkelstein speak, and as much as I respect and admire him, I couldn't quite reconcile the Norman we saw last night the Norman I've read and heard speak elsewhere.

Finkelstein, if you remember, was denied tenure for purely political reasons. In an attack on academic freedom, Depaul University dean Chuck Suchar ignored the positive 9-3 vote of Finkelstein's department and the 5-0 vote of his college and recommended that Finkelstein not be granted tenure. A key force influencing Suchar's decision, it seems, was Mr. Alan Dershowitz, a one time civil liberties buff turned enthusiast for torture, who interfered in what is supposed to be an internal decision process by turning in a 50 page dossier against Professor Finkelstein.

Dershowitz' spirited justification of torture and his campaigns to compromise the freedom and integrity of independent academic research has apparently made him irresistible to one Joel B. Pollak, who my friends in Harvard describe as an "aspiring Dershowitz." Mr. Pollak also happens to be the research assistant to Mr. Dershowitz.

On July 5, 2008, the Washington Post published an op-ed by Pollak in which he claimed that the book used for instruction in beginner's Arabic classes at Harvard is filled with the "stale prejudices and preoccupations of the pre-Sept. 11 Middle East."

Mr. Pollak's claims have been met with many objections, though I doubt that outfits like the Washington Post would give equal space to the critics of Dershowitz and mini-Dershowitz. For that reason, a friend suggested that bloggers may want to link to some of the responses that are otherwise likely to be ignored by mainstream media sources. Following his lead, here are the links:

-Elijah Zarwan's response to Joel Pollak

-Philip Weiss' response to Joel Pollak

-Will Youmans' response Joel Pollak

-Matthew Yglesias' response to Joel Pollak

If you know of anyone else who has written in response to Pollak's op-ed, let me know and I will try to remember to link them.

2008-07-16T19:17:00.000-04:00

Until very recently, one stereotype about Iranians coming to North America was that they all eventually try to pass themselves off as pop singers. Nowadays, every Tom, Dick, and Harry, or rather, every Ali, Akbar, and Hassan claim to be a "human rights activist."

There is even an Iranian woman who is aspiring to do both, i.e. to be a famous singer and prominent human rights activist, so maybe she will spark a new trend. In fact, I was all set to share some funny stories about this person, but after reading a friend's post about the tendency of Iranians to randomly attack and counter attack one another, I decided to hold my tongue. But just a word of friendly advice to this lady and others in pursuit of becoming singer-human rights activists: if you are ever invited to speak about your human rights work, say at the UK parliament, it may not be such a good idea to play your music video because, you know, that's embarrassing and inappropriate.

But back to my main point, which is about this new tendency for nearly every Iranian political activist, writer, or public personality of any sort that arrives in North America to affix the label "human rights activist" to his or her name. While some who consider themselves as part of a "human rights movement" may consider this a good sign, I would urge caution, especially when it comes to the Iran context. Several months ago, a US State Department official, after listing familiar complaints about the factionalization and in-fighting among Iranian political groups, told me: "we believe that that human rights is the one thing that will unite all Iranians." Translation: "we will be using human rights instrumentally in whatever way we can to make sure we get our way with Iran."

And herein lies the biggest danger to human rights as a concept and as a mode of activism: rather than being used against those in power who abuse human rights, human rights are being used by those in power as a tool to punish their enemies without being held accountable for their own abuses.

With regards to Iran, its mechanisms are obvious, and I didn't need to hear it from the horse's mouth to know so. The state funded Voice of America Persian, for example, is now heavily focused on human rights in Iran, but in a disgustingly skewed and politicized manner. All sorts of websites have sprung up as well, clearly well-funded , but unfortunately not very reliable in terms of the information they provide. Of course, there are still a number of credible Iranian websites--almost all of them in Iran--which provide accurate information about human rights violations. But in a sea of lies and propaganda, it is difficult to discern the truth or to know who to trust.

Despite all of the Iranian "pop stars" who have cropped up in North America over the last three decades, most of us tend to think that a good singer should have the minimum qualities of a nice or strong voice and preferably some charisma or charm. If there are minimum qualifications for singers, shouldn't there be some for human rights activists?

Note: "I suffered a lot" or "my human rights were violated" is not a qualification. It may make one more sensitive to violations or inspire one to work for human rights, but it is not by itself a qualification. Similarly, if you say "I hate government X" or "I loathe president Y", that may make you an opponent or critic of said government or politician, but not a human rights activist specialized in that country. If hating a president or a government automatically made one somehow well qualified to be a human rights activist in relation to a particular country, then we could all likely claim that title vis-a-vis multiple countries.

I think it would be good for everybody if we treated every person who declares himself/herself an Iranian human rights activist with the same healthy skepticism we have when we hear of a new singer coming out of Los Angeles' Iranian quarters: Sure, let's give them a chance and encourage them if they are good, but let's have some minimum standards too.

2008-07-14T22:29:00.000-04:00

In this month's Foreign Policy magazine, one of the resident Iran "experts" in Washington DC, has an interview in which he says about the prospects of war or reconciliation with Iran:

"That said, a U.S. military attack would be more carrot than stick for Ahmadinejad. There are two things that would really rehabilitate his presidency: One is a U.S. attack on Iran, and the second is a major U.S. diplomatic overture to Iran. I think the United States should not offer him either."

Mr. Sadjadpour is not the first policy buff to make the former argument. Even some self-described peace activists go around town telling lawmakers "don't bomb Iran, it will make the hardliners stronger."

A few months ago, a delegation of Iranian victims of chemical weapons from the Iran-Iraq war and the physicians caring for them were in the US for a mini-tour during which they also had a chance to meet with Mr. Sadjadpour. It did not go well. "why," they asked him, "do you frame your opposition to war in terms of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and not on the humanitarian grounds that war would devastate the people of Iran?"

For these folks who are still paying the price for a war that ended nearly twenty years ago, Sadjadpour's argument against war was both disturbing and incomprehensible.

And now, Mr. Sadjadpour goes even further to argue against any diplomatic overtures to Iran. Why? Because it might make Ahmadinejad and his faction stronger.

Can you imagine, a guy working with a well-known think tank in the heart of washington, dc, giving an interview to an influential foreign policy magazine at a moment when tensions between the US and Iran are explosive, and he is provided the chance to make a forceful argument against war (between his adopted and native countries, no less) and to diffuse the situation with an offer of a solution, and the best he comes up is this: don't start a war, but don't try to fix things either, because it may benefit one man!

If not war or diplomacy, then what? More sanctions, like the punishing set that is coming up before congress soon?

I hate to pick on Sadjadpour, when there are the likes of Mehdi Khalaji and his bosses at the the Washington Institute for Near East Policy running around selling sanctions as diplomacy and working to bring the fate of Iraq to Iran. But really how different is Sadjadpour's position from Khalaji, given that the latter has argued: "Negotiations between the United States and Iran under current circumstances run the risk of negatively affecting the U.S. image in Iran."

Doesn't it just come down to this small distinction: that Sadjadpour argues against diplomacy because it might make Ahmadinejad look good, whereas Khalaji argues against diplomacy because it might make the US look bad. Neither of their arguments are tenable, by the way, but that is a discussion for another time.

When the biggest difference between the Iran guy at Carnegie and the Iran guy at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy comes down to the fact that one has a full head of fluffy hair and the other looks like a hairless ape, you know that it is time for some diversity in Washington's thinking on Iran.

Go Archeologists!

2008-07-13T19:51:00.000-04:00

Top archeologists have urged their colleagues to refuse any requests from US or other military to draw up a list of sites that should be avoided in the increasingly likely event of air strikes on Iran:

"Such advice would provide cultural credibility and respectability to the military action," said a resolution agreed by the World Archaeological Congress in Dublin, Ireland, last week.

They further recommend that archeologists should emphasize that any military attack would bring irreparable harm to the people and heritage of Iran.

A big thanks to these responsible archeologists and to New Scientist for covering their story. The science magazine I currently subscribe to, Scientific American, is filled with advertisements for big time defense contractors like Lockheed Martin, and I can't imagine them covering a story like this one. Now may be a good time to make the switch.

2008-07-12T21:36:00.000-04:00

These are some of the people who are known to refer to contemporary Iran and Iranians as "persia" or "Persians": Saddam Hossein, self-hating and/or clueless Iranians living in North America, supporters and participants in US backed operations aimed at splitting Iran into multiple ethnic enclaves, and most recently, the Saudi MBC Persia, whose owners also run the well-known mouthpiece of Israeli and US propaganda, the Al-Arabiya Channel (which incidentally also has a newly inaugurated Persian language site as well).

Despite my distaste for and suspicion of anyone who uses the word "Persian" to refer to anything other than the language (excepted also, of course, are those who use the term in a properly descriptive and/or historical sense), I am a huge fan of the Iranian-British rapper Reveal AKA Mehrak, and especially his song "Prince of Persia," which you can listen to on his myspace page.

Reveal is a totally legit rapper who won the British freestyle battle championships in 2000, when he was only 15 or 16 years old. As opposed to some commercial pseudo-rappers in Iran that specialize in silly and fun lyrics, for example, Rezaya and 2afm, who I will admit to liking as well, Reveal is politically aware and astute, and his lyrics show both a transnational grasp of world affairs as well as an understanding of the local nuances of Iranian and British societies. Perhaps most importantly, Reveal addresses class issues, something that is entirely absent from contemporary Iranian cultural productions. (You can learn more about Reveal in this interview).

And while the macho militarism is a bit too much for me, I highly recommend the song "Vatan Parast", which is a rap he did with the Hichkas, the self-dubbed (and I think maybe fairly so) father of Iranian rap. The song, which is rapped in both Persian and English, is an expression of anger and nationalistic bravado in response to the threats of war against Iran and the hypocrisy of those who work daily to lay the groundwork for it.

Someone took the song and put it against a backdrop of pictures from Iran's armed forces. Whomever did this also tacked on to the end of the rap a line from an Iran-Iraq war song. If you lived through the Iran-Iraq war like I did, you will know the original song very well. What is being sung here is apparently a new version.

In any case, the imagery and what has been added at the tail end give new layers of meaning to the whole thing, which I am including below for your listening/viewing pleasure:

2008-06-04T16:42:00.002-04:00

The US media has been keen to point out that Mugabe (the UK's #1 bogeyman) and Ahmadinejad (the US's #1 bogeyman) will be a huge distraction from what should really be the focus at the the UN Food Summit in Rome.

Of course, by harping on this during the news broadcasts and various programs (NPR I'm talking to you) the news media are the very ones deliberately creating this distraction and it is they rather than Mugabe or Ahmadinejad who are to be rightfully blamed for deflecting attention from the issues at hand.

While we are on the topic of unwelcome attendees of the event, US State funded Radio Farda reporter was apparently denied entry into the UN Food Summit in Rome yesterday.

Of course, the one and only available source about the incident is Radio Farda's parent organization Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Someone influential from the US government must have complained, so the decision has since been revoked. It was fun while it lasted though, listening to Rafat and RFE/RL President Jeffrey Gedmin fuming about the incident and posturing about "independent" journalism.

If you don't know Rafat, you may have heard of his Italian "news" agency Adnkronos International, which is a regular source for misinformation and propaganda.

Whatever the details may be, the folks at the UN were probably justified in barring Rafat. A good friend of mine at an internationally respected organization has a policy of refusing to speak to certain self-proclaimed journalists or news organizations. He once flat out told Eli Lake of the tabloid NY Sun that he only gives interviews to "real papers."

2008-05-01T20:49:00.000-04:00

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

2008-04-30T21:19:00.000-04:00

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?

2008-04-28T23:15:00.000-04:00

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

2008-04-27T17:08:00.000-04:00

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

2008-04-24T00:12:00.000-04:00

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.

2008-04-22T21:55:00.000-04:00

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?

2008-04-21T21:30:00.000-04:00

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!

2008-04-09T20:19:00.000-04:00

Sometime ago I heard about a mini-fight breaking out among fringe activists over starting an anti-war march at the Gandhi statue in Washington, DC. One of the women went nuts over the idea because according to her, "Gandhi was a wife beater." This came as a big shock to me not because Gandhi has wrongly been made synonymous with some sort of passive non-violence. I know that these types of icons are often hypocrites in their personal lives. I was just surprised since Gandhi was such a skinny little dude.

I ran this idea of a wife-abusing Gandhi by Nazli of Sibil Tala fame, and while she didn't know anything about any beatings, she told me that the guy decided at some point that he was going to go celibate, and therefore denied his wife any form of a sexual relations, which counts as a form of abuse, I suppose, since apparently Mrs. Gandhi had no say in this decision.

It turns out that Gandhi did go celibate at around aged 40, and he used to "test" himself, he used to sleep naked with nubile Indian women. But that is neither here nor there.

I bring up Gandhi and the allegations of wife abuse because lately I've been hearing about many renowned men who are world class jerks in the private realm.

In general, when I have critiques of such men (and women), I try to keep my focus on their ideas, works, and professional activities, rather than getting into their personal life. However, I would be lying if I didn't admit taking a certain amount of guilty pleasure when I find out that someone with bad politics is also horrible as a person (though sadly, I'm just as often disappointed to hear that someone whose work and ideas I admire is also a complete jerk as a person).

But today, let's stick to cases of the former, that is, terrible people who have equally terrible ideas. I found out this week that V.S. Naipul, whose writings are troubling in many respects, was in real life arrogant, racist, and abusive not only to his wives but his mistresses as well. I'm looking forward to reading the biography that lays it all out.

Finally, the wife-abuser I really want to talk about, I can't, since all I have are rumors and speculations. But I will give you a hint: he is Iranian, he is one of those 79-revolutionaries turned frequent US visitor/resident/employee, and he is a scholar (a real one, not one of the dime a doze who work for the US "think" tanks and claim degrees and expertise that they don't have). Apparently when this guy started falling out with the powers that be, his political rivals arranged the leak of documents from doctors who had treated his wives after what appeared to be incidents of domestic violence. I can't say much more than this, but the last characteristic I mentioned--the fact that this guy is smart and knows things-- eliminates a whole lot of people, so feel free to take a guess!

Questions

2008-04-06T14:01:00.000-04:00

1. A well-placed person in DC said the other day that Reza Pahlavi, the pretender to the Pahlavi throne, lives off the billions of dollars of Iran's assets that the US "froze" in 1979 as result of the hostage crisis. This person, I should add, was not Iranian and not at all critical of the fact that Reza P has been siphoning off from what rightfully belongs to the Iranian people. In fact, he was supportive since it is a loophole that lets the US government to pay for RP without actually paying for RP. It is this money from Iran's assets that allows RP, for example, to pay some 60,000 dollars to publish a letter in theWashington Post, make no mention of the fact that his letter is a paid ad, and basically pass it off as an op-ed piece. Just look at Pahlavi's post on his official website, if you don't want to take my word for it. Many people, including myself, thought that the Washington Post had published his letter, but the fact that it was a paid ad explains why a search of the regular features of the newspaper comes out blank.

Now here are my questions: Has anyone else heard this, that the surviving Pahlavis in the US are living off Iran's national wealth? I am not talking about what they brought with them from Iran or money they had stashed outside of Iran before the revolution. I am talking about the frozen assets specifically. This sounds like a great project for an investigative journalist in the US (do they still exist?) to follow, or at least to provide Iranian nationals with some hints about how one might begin to check out this story.

2. Charlton Heston died today. Did they have to pry a gun from his "cold, dead hands"?

3. Any recommendations for a good software (freeware, I don't want to pay for it) for tracking bibliographies and generating footnotes and endnotes?

Absoluto (Boycott IKEA?)

2008-04-04T23:13:00.000-04:00

Too bad we no longer watch American television, I would love to see the Fox pundits going crazy over this. This Swedish ad campaign may turn out to be the Danish Mohammad cartoons of the US!

If you have some time to kill, look at the Americans going crazy in the comments sections here, here, and here. The comments section of The Dallas Daily News' story on the issue is particularly good.

2008-04-03T22:46:00.000-04:00

I'm going to miss George W. Bush, I really am. A McCain presidency will mean all the same terror, but without the constant comic relief that Bush has offered. I don't expect a democratic presidency to be much different either, the democrats are not particularly distinguishable from their republican counterparts when it comes to foreign policy, and you can forget about getting any laughs. There must be folks who are more humorless than democrats, though I'm not sure who they might be.

Of course laughing at Bush's buffoonery is never without bitterness since we know the cost of his reckless stupidity for the people of the United States and the world.

I know that Thomas Young, 25, paralyzed from the chest down because of a bullet wound through the spine, is one of Bush's victims who doesn't find his antics one bit funny. Thomas is the main character in the documentary Body of War, which shows Thomas' personal tragedy against the backdrop of the rush to war.

The film is produced by Phil Donahue, who I am pretty sure pioneered the afternoon talk show before that genre spiraled out of control. The last time Donahue had a show, it was on MSNBC, where he was the only person in mainstream media who was skeptical about the 'evidence" for war and questioned the motives behind it. Of course, the "free" US media couldn't deal with that and canceled the popular show because it presented "a difficult public face for NBC in a time of war."

But anyway, back to the film. In addition to Thomas Young, the other hero of the film is Senator Byrd of West Virginia, who made a valiant effort to convince his colleagues in the congress to slow down the rush to war. And boy, if you thought the 90 plus senator is a character based on what you've seen about him on CSPAN--like footage of him kicking out code pink protesters or taking a stand against the Bush administration's notion of preemptive war--wait until you see the guy in person.

I was at a special screening of the film last night, and Senator Byrd, Thomas Young, and Phil Donahue were in attendance. Every now and again, one member of the audience would make loud sounds, not exactly words, in enthusiastic support of something on the screen. I'm pretty sure it was Senator Byrd who was doing the yelling.

Here is the trailor, have a look and watch the film if you like (and the soundtrack is quite good as well.)

2008-04-01T00:47:00.000-04:00

1. I spent a good two hours feeling lousy this morning for giving a woman the wrong directions and realizing it too late to let her know. DC is supposed to be among the world's easiest cities to navigate, with a grid system that is so straight forward that in most cases you can figure out the intersection based on the number of the address alone. And yet, after a year and half of living here, I can't even manage to remember that the streets called after numbers intersect with streets that are named after letters. I told some poor woman to go down T street to get to K. For god's sake they are parallel, and anyone who has been in DC five minutes should know that. So I'm sorry, unknown woman in the van, I usually decline to give directions, but somehow I was feeling so confident this morning, I hope you found your way before too long.

2. More bad news, the Russian News and Information Agency, Novosti, about which I know very little, is reporting that Russian intelligence has detected US troop buildup on the Iranian border. Canada based Global Research has this headline: The Saudis Prepare for "Sudden Nuclear Hazards" After Cheney Visit.

3. In a senseless act of violence, Manuchehr Farhangi, an Iranian millionaire I hadn't heard of until I saw this news, was stabbed to death by a woman who assailed him at his home in a suburb of Madrid. Sadly, the Iranian "opposition" (who else?) were already spreading rumors blaming the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and planting some story that he had gotten in an argument with a woman putting up pro- Iranian government posters up and implying that she had later hunted him down and killed him! Even the usually not-that-crappy Radio Zamaneh was repeating these claims. Well, Spanish police have since caught the culprit, a 24 year old woman who tried to stab a second man in the same area. I'm very sorry he was killed, and I'm very sorry that the Iranian "opposition" tries to score off of every tragedy, no matter where it occurs or under what circumstances.

4. Imagine how horrible this new film by that Dutch Islamo-phobic Fascist must be, that it has stirred so-called international bodies out of their usual slumber. I know that at least the following have issued statements condemning the film, its racism, and its naked provocation to hatred: The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour, the EU parliament, the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, Doudou Diene; the Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, Asma Jahangir; and the Special Rapporteur for the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, Ambeyi Ligabo, and my god, even the insipid Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon.

The Betrayers or the Betrayed?

2008-03-30T19:14:00.000-04:00

On Saturdays, I like to listen to NPR's Wait, Wait, don't Tell Me and This American Life while I leisurely clean up the house. Last week, I was off to a slow start, so I ended up listening to Studio 360, which had an Iraq themed show. They talked about the lackluster performances of Iraq films at the box office and later interviewed Kimberly Pierce, the director of Boys Don' Cry who has now made Stop Loss.

But then they got to George Packer, and a play he has made about locals collaborating with US forces in Iraq. The play and the article on which it was based are called, ironically, Betrayed. Of course Packer is not using the word "betrayed" in the sense that most Iraqis would use it when referring to these people: most Iraqis would probably say that the collaborators have betrayed their own people, whereas for Packer, it is the US that has betrayed these servants who for a few dollars, er, I mean, out of their loyalty to the US project in Iraq, joined the US forces as interpreters, errand boys, etc.

In the scene that NPR broadcast from the play, a woman interpreter is harassed or beaten or killed (clearly I was too angry to pay too close of attention to this thing) by some undetermined group of "fundamentalists." For Packard, who apparently was pro-war before and for some time after the invasion, the Iraqi people as a whole did not and do not need protection against devastating sanctions and the invaders of their country. Only the handful who have worked with the coalition forces are the ones in need of protection, and they need to be protected against other Iraqis, or as he puts it, fundamentalists (and never mind that the rise of fundamentalism in Iraq is itself traceable to US sanctions and war).

But it seems no one dares to point these things out to Mr. Packard. Certainly the fawning NPR reporter isn't going to do it. And Mr. Packard surely has enough pet Iraqis, for example the pro-occupation dentist turned blogger that Packard brought to the US, that will be more than happy to condone everything that comes out of his mouth. How could they not? You can't bite the hand that feeds you. Well, you can, but it requires some principle, and people who cooperate with invading armies are generally lacking in that.

This sponsoring of bloggers, by the way, seems to be a family business. Mr. Packard's wife, in fact, has brought two of her own, an Iranian couple. I'd like to say more, but because I don't want to make this a personal attack and because the Iranian blogger is a friend of sorts, I I will leave it at that.

More broadly, however, someone should look at the bring-an-Iraqi (and now, increasingly, bring-an-Irani) phenomenon, and the power grids that make them possible. Who are the real beneficiaries of these relationships, the local who gets "saved" by the compassionate American journalist, or the American journalist, who will build a career and collect countless accolades as a result?

2008-03-28T23:54:00.000-04:00

1. I was sorry when I heard last week that Iranian folk singer Shusha Guppy had passed away. I have one of her CDs, I think its called Persian Love Songs or something. The album consists of well-known folk songs, but her unique voice and delivery made you feel like you had never heard them before. I have to say, however, that I could only take her music in small doses.

Unfortunately, I read the sad news of her death via this idiotic Guardian obituary , which annoyed me so much by paragraph two, that I couldn't read any further.

Roger Scruton, the author of said obituary, states in the second sentence that Guppy was the daughter of grand Ayatollah Mohammad Kazem Assar. In the second paragraph, he notes: "Although Assar enjoyed the title of Grand Ayatollah, and was in all probability a direct descendant of Muhammad, he had absorbed the open-minded philosophy of the Sufi masters, was an admirer of western civilization, and sent his children to the French lycée for their education."

Did you notice the word "Although" ? In the worlds inhabited by the author and his readers, Islam and muslims are equated with all that is evil, backwards, close-minded, closed-in, and violent. But in this world, there are also some "good" muslims as well, they are either the ones who either enthusiastically bash Islam and only Islam, or they are the "Sufis," you know, the "spiritual" and peaceful ones. Roger Scruton has to immediately throw that "although" out there right away or risk tainting the subject of his obituary: It is as if he is saying, "Yes, it's true that she was a child of a Grand Ayatollah, but don't hold it against her, he was in any case influenced by the Sufis."

Well, I hate to burst the oblivious bubble of people basking in some kind of hippie sufi love, but there is no singular entity known as "the sufi" or "the beliefs" of "the sufi."

And here is a fun fact that may really confuse the hell out of these folks who fetishize sufism as a somehow exceptional type of Islam: Former Iraqi Vice president, Ezzat Ad-duri, is a Naqshbandi Sufi, and his Naqshbandia Army is responsible for all sorts of attacks against occupation forces in Iraq.

2. There is a Canada-based Iranian blogger who scours the Net on a daily basis, looking for anything and everything that can be used to make Iran or Islam look like the pits of hell. He then re-posts his findings with glee on his own English and Persian blogs, as well as an Iranian equivalent of the site Digg. Well, this poor guy has been killing himself the last few posts it seems, trying to draw attention to the crappy video of the islamo-phobic fascist who made that anti-muslim "film." Luckily, the reaction to this video has been relatively "muted". I certainly hope it stays this way.

The best way to deal with pigs like this video-maker and the hapless Iranian blogger in Canada doing his bidding, is to ignore their blatant attempts at being provocative. Don't name them, don't link to them, don't click on the video. This is my advice to anyone who is tempted to talk about the whole thing. If you really want to vent about it, do so without giving these thugs and fools the satisfaction of having their names mentioned even on some random blog.

3. And now, for a little happiness, check out the enthusiasm of this little boy during his graduation from pres-school, his pure joy is just contagious:

Dead Men Speak Volumes

2008-03-27T19:00:00.000-04:00

Making sense of US and UK announcements of casualty figures in Iraq or Afghanistan is not always straightforward. For example, the US government openly says that it may not reveal information about those killed or wounded in say, the Green Zone, for "security" reasons. In some ways, it makes sense, revealing the names of civilian war profiteers, mercenary contractors, and local collaborators who die or are wounded in the green zone is tainting. Somewhere deep down inside, most of these people probably feel burdened by the shame of what they are doing.

But even if names are not always available, and the coalition forces are not always forthcoming, every now and again, random news of deaths inside and outside of the green zone raises questions that the US and the UK would rather avoid at all cost. For example, what was this man doing in Baghdad? Is it not the case, as the article itself notes, that British forces are officially not involved in combat operations inside Iraq? So it bears repeating again, what was this UK SAS soldier doing, carrying out a "a covert operation in the Baghdad area" , if the British are supposed to be holed up in their base in Basra?

What else have the British been doing covertly in Iraq, that when they are caught red-handed, the UK sends helicopters and tanks to bust them out of prison?

One day the stories of these covert operations will trickle out, and when it does, the people involved will be shivering like those in the green zone, and like them, they will be more afraid of the shame of their names being revealed than the prospect of dying.

"Soft" Power, Hard Luck

2008-03-26T01:42:00.000-04:00

The "soft power" arm of US intervention in the rest of the world has for some time now been ostensibly enamored with the idea of non-violent resistance and civil disobedience. The big push for "non-violence" has been largely mobilized through a handful of institutions that are wholly or partially funded by the US government and yet bizarrely insist on calling themselves "non-governmental." Much of this new found love for non-violence is directed at the Arab and Iranian audience, even as the US government drops bombs, arms militias, and enhances Israeli military might.

The State Department and UASAID funded Freedom House translates for Iranians one book on Non-violent Resistance, and the US congress funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED) translates for Iranians another book on the topic. I heard that even the Palestinian activist, Mubarak Award of Non-Violence International, who I once met and admired, had received funding from some fishy sources to do work on Iran.

I have much to say about these governmental non-governmental organizations and their destructive role throughout the world, and in West Asia in particular, but today, I just want to raise these questions: Given that "fire brand cleric" Moqtada Al-Sadr has threatened a massive civil-disobedience campaign, will NED make him one of its grantees? Will Freedom House sponsor Moqtada to come participate as one of the "high-profile candidates from the Middle East and North Africa" it picks for a six-week, all expenses paid tour of the United States?

These questions are important not because the obvious answer to them is a big fat "no", but because they get at the fundamental hypocrisy of organizations that hide behind, misuse, and therefore defile even the most commendable principles.

2008-03-24T01:50:00.000-04:00

1. The disqualifications of many reformists before the recent parliamentary elections in Iran were inexcusable, but these reformists and their supporters are really loathsome. I told a friend who shares my contempt for this bunch that these so-called reformist politicians remind me of US Democrats in lacking two things: convictions and something else that rhymes with mesticles.

Later this same friend sent out an email outlining his problem with Akbar Ganji and reformists more generally, and I think that his concise and incisive comment is so right-on, that I asked if I could copy and paste it here, citing him only as an anonymous scholar and friend. So here it is:

The reformists and their entire intellectual and political vanguard of theorists had their days in the sun from 1997-2001. since then they've been totally and utterly irrelevant (and i think the smarter among them know this). for two reasons i think: 1- the reality of american power, which has been much more brutally visible since 2001, even though reformists should've known about it before then. khatami's "dialogue" and all talk of democracy and republicanism and human rights in the mode of 97-01 basically amount to a steaming pile of shit after 9/11. 2- reformists never ever were able to get a handle on a decent discourse of social justice. they were and still are interested in nothing more than a political "emancipation" of the middle class. ahmadinejad and his ilk have stolen the show on the social justice discourse, even though it is populist and they may not produce any results in the end. i still think though that they haven't lost their steam and they will be able to stay dominant (and their discourse hegemonic) for the next four or five years at least, even without intervention of the guardians, the sepah, rahbar, etc.

i'm not saying anything new or different from everything that's been said by many others since 2001, and especially 2005. until reformist thinkers are able to produce some kind of critique of state and society in iran that is also cognizant of the problems of empire and capital on the one hand, and is understanding of the religious feelings of a vast segment of the iranian population on the other (the way marxists never have been), they're not going to get anywhere. until then, ganji and his ilk are going to be an irrelevant bunch of losers. and they'll for ever have to do the rounds of europe and north america begging for patronage and trying to please the self-satisfied young secular middle class "activists" (of whom maybe we are some of the more disgruntled) whose lot is not much more than intellectual and political masturbation on weblogs and discussion boards and email lists.

2. Thank you, Harry de Winter from Another Jewish Voice, for being brave enough to state the obvious about the latest Islamaphobe-Fascist, Geert Wilder: "If Wilders had said the same thing about Jews (and the Old Testament) as he does about Muslims (and the Koran), he would have been ostracized a long time ago and accused of anti-Semitism."

3. Following a steady increase in attacks against occupation forces in the last few weeks, the announced US casualty count in Iraq just hit 4,000. After months of repeating the administration's line that the surge is "working," somnambulist pundits and reporters are on pause, waiting for the recent developments to be re-framed and handed to them. Expect the "analysis" to include a whole lot of references to eye-ran and the eyeranian president, I'mgonnaneedajob.

Separate This

2008-02-19T00:40:00.000-05:00

Have the US or UK ever met any separatists they didn't love? I'm not talking about separatists within the borders of their own nation-state, of course, because when it comes to them, territorial integrity and national sovereignty mean something.

I don't know enough about the Balkans to comment on the wars, internal dynamics, or the seemingly endless crumbling of the region into smaller states, but to me it speaks volumes that during a February 17 rally for independence, US and UK flags seem to outnumber those of Kosovo:

I was a self-absorbed teen when the Balkans were on fire, so I never really followed the news, but I imagine that the peoples of former Yugoslavia were subject to what we in our household call Sunni-Shia-ing (yes, it is a verb). In other words, I'm sure the press couldn't describe a burning building without throwing in gratuitous references to ethnicity or religion, just like now, the 'western' media cannot report the most banal detail about Iraq without throwing in the terms Sunni or Shia for good measure.

In the build-up to the 2001 war on Afghanistan, I was on a college campus that fancied itself progressive and so had arranged a teach-in. A couple of the 'expert' members of the panel were going on about Pashtuns, Hezara, Sunni, Shia, and I wasn't paying too much attention until a few Afghan students got up to speak during the question session. The first guy was asked about his ethnicity and sect, to which he furiously responded that he was Afghan. The other two Afghan students (I think there were a total of three Afghans in the entire school, as a matter of fact), were similarly irate about some of the presenters' compartmentalization of Afghanistan by language, ethnicity, and religion.

I have to admit that I didn't quite get what the big deal was at the time, but I certainly get it now. And I can hardly keep my jaw from clinching or my eyes from rolling when someone tries to corner me on my own ethnic or religious background. "I'm Iranian." That is about the most you will get out of me.

But those handsomely funded folks with massive propaganda machinery at their disposal who are intent on breaking up Iran and forcing its people to identify themselves based on their language, ethnicity, or religion rather than as Iranians, their task will not be simple. And I present a linguistic map of Iran to show why they won't have an easy time. The ethnic and religious categories, of course, criss-cross over the linguistic divisions, making things even more complicated.

So just try and Sunni-Shia this, Mo-Fos!

A Human Freak

2008-02-12T21:19:00.000-05:00

Surely the well-known propaganda outfit MEMRI tried their best to edit this interview to favor the sell-out Lebanese anchor and make Norman Finkelstein look bad, but it is pretty clear that they failed. Anyway, don't take my word for it and check it out for yourself.

My favorite Finkelstein quote from the interview, by the way, is a classic: "The secretary of state said it was the birth pangs of the new middle east. That's the statement of a freak. A human freak would compare the birth of a child with the destruction of country."

Enjoy!

Gaza Hearts Will Beat On

2008-01-22T19:15:00.000-05:00

Much to my own surprise, these days I find myself far more hopeful about the potentials for change in political and social spheres in the United States than I have ever been about anything that has recently come out of Iran or the hopeless Iranian diaspora. And no, I am not talking about those lying cowards Obama and Hillary, but about the Republican candidate Ron Paul, who despite systematic and blatant US press censorship, ridicule, and hostility, has continued to take principled and consistent stances that are drawing support from even the most unlikely of quarters.

But I don't want to expand now on Ron Paul, and why he and his supporters are cause of excitement and hope among a lot of people like myself. Nor do I want to get into a discussion of my utter disappointment in most things Iranian. If you want to know about the reasons for my dismay with all things Iranian, you can take your pick of a range of governmental policies and actions or stop by any random Iranian "opposition" or "alternative" website (Iranian.com is a good place for English only speakers), and just have a look at the hateful, racist rage that oozes from the articles and comments of so-called supporters of democracy and human rights.

What I really came to talk about today, can be summed up in this picture below, of a little paralyzed boy in Gaza whose frightened siblings have to manually pump his ventilator because Israel's electricity cuts mean that he could suffocate if power goes out and no one is around to breath for him:

You can read their story here.The fate of this family, and all of the other detainees in the world's biggest prison, is in the hands of an occupier and the super-power whose support sponsors this on-going tragedy. This is what results when you vote in democratic and fair election, but the powers that be don't happen to approve of who you have chosen to lead you. The misled subjects of the US mainstream press, our so-called reformist activists and politicians in Iran, or the self-appointed "intellectual elite" in diaspora may choose to believe otherwise, but the rest of the world is not that stupid.

For $22 K in Doha

2007-12-28T10:11:00.000-05:00

The item below is copied and pasted from an ad in the employment section of Craig's List. I've cut out the contact info of the recruiter, and with the exception of a few spots that I have put in bold for your attention, I'm leaving it here without further input from me. I think the ad speaks volumes on its own:

Allworld Language Consultants is currently seeking a qualified Farsi, Arabic and Urdu linguists to fill a vacant position in Doha, Qatar. The linguists will provide extensive Farsi, Arabic and Urdu language support, both in translating written documents and providing oral interpretations where and when needed.
Specifications include:
· Term of employment: immediate employment opportunity for existing contract.
· Prerequisites: Must pass standardized language test. (*Very high language skill set in both Farsi and English).
· Citizenship cannot be or cannot have the following passports: Iran, Iraq, or Somali.
· Salary: $22K, plus provided housing or housing stipend, Qatari visa sponsorship, transportation to and from work site, life insurance, medical insurance, RT airfare to home of origin.
· Location: Doha, Qatar.
· Support of US Government Operations.
· Approximately 8 hours a day of work in comfortable office atmosphere, 5 days on- one day off.
· 21 days vacation annually.
· Position does require a one-year commitment with the option to renew.
Candidates will be required to pass a Farsi or Arabic or Urdu and English language test to qualify for the contract. ALC will set up the test to be administered.
The position is available immediately.

2007-12-27T23:22:00.000-05:00

Of all of the suicide attacks we've been unfortunate enough to learn about in recent years, when was the last time the attacker sniped his victims dead-on and then proceeded to kill him or herself? Benazir Bhutto didn't die because of a suicide attack, she was sniped by two bullets, one to the neck, and the other to the chest. My guess is that the aim of the blast that followed the shots was not to maximize casualties or to make extra sure that Bhutto died but to give the distinct impression that all of the deaths, including that of Bhutto, was a result of a suicide bomber. The failure of the bomber--whether he/she was a suicide attacker or whether he/she detonated the bomb via remote--was that he/she failed to destroy the evidence that Bhutto was killed by a sniper. In other words, the bomber failed in his mission to make the whole thing appear to be a massive suicide attack.

And why would they want to make it appear to be a suicide attack? To pin it on "the Islamists" and thus far away from Musharraf, who shared with Bhutto a distaste for them and thus could not be blamed for conspiring with them against her. For Musharraf (and perhaps his US-backers as well) the situation is a win-win: Musharraf's biggest challenger in the elections is eliminated, and he gets to condemn his other enemies, "the Islamists," for her violent death and justify more crackdowns on the people of Pakistan to boot.

When Benazir first returned to Pakistan, I made up a little jingle that will make sense only to Persian and perhaps Urdu speakers: Benazir may be be-nazir, but musharraf is bi-sharaf.

I was not a fan of Benazir. I know very well that she has been accused of ordering the assassination of her own brother, and everyone knows about the charges of financial corruption, but I think it was brave of her to return to Pakistan and refuse to make a power sharing deal with Musharraf. And her murder in Rawalpindi, in the same town where her father executed nearly thirty years earlier, will make her an icon, if she wasn't one already.

2007-12-26T20:16:00.000-05:00

1. Holidays are nice and all, but this time of year doesn't mean much to someone like me who doesn't celebrate christmas and marks the new year with the spring equinox (nowruz). Iranians do celebrate the winter equinox (shab-e yalda), however, and it was nice to be able to have friends over for a mini-party. This was our humble Shab-e Yalda spread, complete with requisite items such as dried fruits and nuts along with fresh servings of pomegranates and watermelons, as well as a copy of Hafez's poetry, which you use to read your fortune from:

For more background information on the history and traditions of Shabe-e Yalda, you can check here and here.

2. I was sad to hear both about the christmas day mauling of visitors to the San Francisco zoo and the killing of the tiger who was responsible for the death of one person and the injury of two others. Tatiana, a Siberian tiger weighing about 300 pounds, was the same animal that ripped the flesh off a zookeeper's arm just before Christmas 2006. I guess poor Tatiana really hated christmas or something!

3. These days I'm experiencing an overwhelming amount of frustration with nearly all Iran-related discourses, whether they originate in or outside Iran. I'm going to publicly commit myself to trying to take-on and unpack some of this stuff in 2008 because I'm not happy with the relative silence I've fallen into over the last few months. I hope you'll hold me accountable!

Saddam and Sarkozy

2007-12-24T21:49:00.000-05:00

Sarkozy's Rumsfeld moment:

And of course, this is the original rumsfeld moment:

2007-12-10T22:49:00.000-05:00

1. The other Batebi, Maria, is a superstar athlete who has received gold, silver, and bronze medals at a number of national and international competitions. The post is in Persian, but you can scroll through to see the pictures at least. Unfortunately, Maria's accomplishments have not been celebrated as much as they should have been because of her brother's political situation, but I hope that all of that is in the past and that she receives the recognition she deserves.

2. Who is the famous person who appears in this clip? Can you guess?

3. How come the announcement that Iran will be dropping the dollar from oil deals is hardly making any noise? After all, it was Saddam's switch from dollar to Euro that really did him in, and not his non-existent WMD or his no-existent threat to his neighbors. Instead of wrangling over the hidden meanings of the NIE or declaring victories over its findings, Iran war-watchers should pay close attention to this issue of currency precisely because it is being downplayed.

2007-11-06T21:32:00.000-05:00

1. "FBI Hoped to Follow Falafel Trail to Iranian Terrorists Here"

I'm not sure if this is the mistake of the journalist, the FBI, or both, but someone should tell the relevant folks that Falafel is not an Iranian dish.

I know a number of Iranians in the United States who buy books in cash only, afraid that some ignorant lunatic in the intelligence service is tracking them and weaving a bizarre profile out of their selection of books.

I guess they will have to start going the cash-only route with their food too. Should I be worried that last week I ate 3 times at middle eastern restaurants (two meals at an Iranian restaurant and one at an Iraqi place)?

2. Ari Fleischer, who was once the face of the Bush administration when they were selling the war on Iraq, is now in charge of running a $200 million anti-Iran PR campaign. You can now expect an increase in crude Iran-related propaganda.

3. First, the world's top paid super model, Gisele, insists that her contract be paid in almost any currency other than dollar. And now Jay-Z is flashing Euros, rather than dollars, in his videos.

The continuing fall in the value of the US dollar is really disturbing, especially now that I should start paying for all of my food in cash. I guess I need to buy a bigger wallet!

2007-11-04T14:13:00.000-05:00

1. Even after the on-going disasters of Iraq and Afghanistan, Americans--and I mean Americans, not just their government--can't seem to get enough of war: According to a recent Zogby poll, the majority of likely voters support a military strike on Iran.

2. "I never lost a night's sleep over it." Paul Warfield (what an appropriate middle name) Tibbets Jr, the unrepentant U.S. pilot who dropped the nuclear bomb that immediately killed at least 100,000 Japanese civilians, died last week. Tibbets may have been proud of mass murdering innocent civilians, but there is a sort of poetic justice about his case after all. Afraid that his death would give demonstrators a site to protest his disgusting legacy, Tibbets did not want a funeral or a headstone.

3. After the fallout from the story of the kidnappers from the French NGO (covered in my last post), the following caricature seems all the more appropriate. The hand that is reaching towards the continent of Africa says "Humanitarian Efforts." The original cartoon appeared here.

2007-10-27T16:27:00.000-04:00

1. The level of arrogance of some of these "western", so-called humanitarian NGOs is really astounding.

The French charity Arche de Zoe (Zoe's Ark) and three French journalists attempted to kidnap 103 children between the ages of one and eight years old on the pretext that they were trying to "rescue" the children from the civil war in Sudan.

The problem, according to an UNICEF representative in Chad, is that the "massive majority" of the kids were from Chad, not Sudan, and there was "nothing to say" that they were orphans.

In other words, this little charity was planning to steal these children and deliver them to French couples who had paid between 4,000-8,600 dollars to the organization for the children, and all in the name of "humanitarian rescue."

Um, it's called trafficking in children, and I hope these clueless freaks get the "severe punishment" that the Chadian president Idriss Deby has called for.

2. "I only made promises to my mother, when I was a little boy" (ok, this one is a bit dated, but the quote is too good, i just had to put it in here).

3. A while ago, a photo was circulating showing what appeared to be a "man on the street" interview between a male reporter and a woman wearing hejab. Standing beside the reporter but outside of the view of the rolling camera, a third person was holding a placard with text for the woman to read.

So our dear Iranian compatriots, not knowing the first thing about the circumstances of the photo, started posting it on websites and passing it around on email, making fun of how even supposedly spontaneous interviews in the Iranian press are pre-staged and micro-managed.

Well, it turns out that the picture was not even from Iran, it was from Lebanon, and god knows what the context was. It could have been the taping of a movie or serial for all we know.

When a US federal agency, plants its own employees as reporters and fakes a news conference to make itself look good, do the same US-based Iranians who are trigger happy in disseminating any and all news (even if false) about the restrictions on the press in Iran, even take notice of what is happening in their own back yards?

Send in the Marines

2007-10-18T20:09:00.001-04:00

Why didn't I know about this genius before?

2007-10-03T19:30:00.000-04:00

1. Freedom in the press

The NY Sun produces a lot of bad reporting on the Middle East. And of the countless lousy stories that come out on Iran, the NY Sun's Eli Lake consistently puts out the lousiest material.

But it turns that ideological fervor and lazy reporting on the part of individual journalists may not be the only explanation for the poor quality of NY Sun's journalism.

The New York Observer got their hands on the In-House Style Guide of the NY Sun, revealing that the book provides Sun journalists with much more than the standard instructions on quotes, datelines, headlines, etc.

For example, NY Sun reporters must employ the following:

West Bank and Gaza Strip. Territories under Israeli control from 1967 onward. 'The territories' is acceptable on second reference, as are Judea or Samaria for the Southern and Northern regions of the West Bank. Avoid the phrase 'occupied territories.'

Ethnic. Means not Jewish or Christian.

Jerusalem. Avoid the phrase 'Arab East Jerusalem.'

communist, socialist. See AP stylebook. Any favorable reference to a communist must be shown to either the editor or the managing editor of the Sun before publication.

How embarrassing for the NY Sun and its reporters.

2. Freedom on Campus

The University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, was slated to host civil rights activist and Nobel Laureate Desmond Tutu in the Spring of 2008.

But university officials banned the Nobel Laureate because he had made comments critical of Israel. His biggest crime was apparently committed at a 2002 speech.

During that speech, titled "Occupation Is Oppression," Tutu lambasted the Israeli government for its treatment of Palestinians in occupied territories. While a transcription clearly suggests his criticism was aimed at the Israeli government ("We don't criticize the Jewish people," he said during the speech. "We criticize, we will criticize when they need to be criticized, the government of Israel"), pro-Israeli organizations such as the Zionist Organization of America went on the offensive and protested campus appearances by Tutu, accusing him of anti-Semitism.

Maybe Desmond Tutu should pick up a copy of the NY Sun In-House Style book and shift his speech accordingly. Surely then he will be allowed to speak on whatever US campus he wishes.

"I Hate all Iranians"

2007-09-30T14:48:00.000-04:00

Debra Cagan, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Coalition Affairs to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, told a group of British Parliamentarians visiting the Pentagon:

"In any case, I hate all Iranians."

Debra Cagan is quite possibly the only Bush administration official who has had a moment of public honesty in the years that Bush has been in office.

When the Columbia Dispatch carried a cartoon showing all of Iran as a sewer from which cockroaches were pouring into neighboring countries, a few vocal Iranians echoed the claims of the paper's editor and defended it by saying: "oh, no, calm down, the cartoon is not saying that all Iranians are cockroaches, it is just saying that some Iranians are cockroaches."

I wonder how those types will try to justify a high ranking official's open expression of categorical hatred for all Iranians?

Another Iranian Leader at Columbia

2007-09-29T17:46:00.000-04:00

Two years after a CIA coup overthrew Iran's democratically elected Mossadegh, the newly reinstalled dictator of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, received an honorary degree (in Law of all things!) at Columbia University:

Now fast forward 50+ years and we have Bollinger, who also received his Law degree from Columbia, fawning over current US supported dictators such as Pakistani Parviz Musharraf.

The more I learn about Bollinger and the behind the scenes string pullers at Columbia, the more sympathy I have for the handful of great scholars and activists who are doing great work on that campus in spite of it all.

Ten Questions for Bully-inger

2007-09-25T19:22:00.000-04:00

Leave it to the US "free media" and "free speech" advocates to make Mahmoud Ahmadinejad look like a sympathetic figure.

First Ahmadinejad submitted to a hostile and belligerent 60 Minutes interview, during which CBS "journalist" Scott Pelley merely repeated the Bush administrations accusations about Iran, often rudely interrupting Ahmadinejad when he attempted to answer his questions.

And then there was Columbia President Lee Bollinger's demeaning and inappropriate introduction to Ahmadinejad, an invited guest on their campus. Bollinger's speech, "My Questions for President Ahmadinejad," deserves to be carefully dissected and analyzed, and this blog is not the forum in which I would like to do so.

In response to Bollinger's ten questions for Ahmadinejad, eight Tehran-based academics addressed a letter to the president of Columbia entitled "Ten Questions for Bollinger from the Directors of Universities and Research Centers in Tehran."

The full text of the letter can be found in Persian here, but the questions themselves, available in translation from IRNA, are as follows (I've edited their translation a bit for the sake of clarity):

1. Why did the US media put so much pressure on you to cancel President Ahmadinejad's lecture at Columbia University? Why did the US TV networks broadcast programs for several days against the Iranian president and did not allow him to respond to the allegations? Does this not run counter to the freedom of expression?

2. Why did the US come to the help of the Iranian dictator (deposed Shah) in 1953 and launched a military coup against then prime minister Mohammad Mossadeq?

3. Why did the US back the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to invade Iran in 1980 and supplied him with the chemical weapons to attack both the Iraqi people and Iranian soldiers?

4. Why doesn't the US administration recognize the democratically elected government of Palestine in Gaza and why does it put them under pressure? Why does it oppose the Iranian proposal to hold referendum in Palestine to end the 60-year old problem?

5. Why has the US Army and its advanced technologies not been able to capture Ben Laden? How do you respond to the longstanding family friendship of President George W. Bush and Ben Laden and the oil deals with Bush? How to you interpret Bush's sabotage of the process of inquiry of September 11?

6. Why does the US administration support the terrorist Mujahideen Khalq Organization (MKO) despite that fact that they have officially and openly accepted responsibility for carrying out terrorist operations in civilian areas in Iran since 1981 and for killing the people of Iran and Iraq? Why doesn't the US government allow the current Iraqi government to close down the MKOs current terrorist camps in Iraq?

7. Was there an international consensus when the US invaded Iraq in 2003? What was the real purpose in occupying Iraq, an occupation that has killed several thousand Iraqis? Where are the weapons of mass destruction (WMD) for which the US unleashed the war?

8. Why are the Middle East's most intensely undemocratic governments and monarchy regimes the US's closest friends?

9. Why did the US administration vote against the resolution of the IAEA general conference calling for making the Middle East free from weapons of mass destruction, a resolution which all countries in the Middle East with the exception of Israel support?

10. Why is the US administration dissatisfied with Iran-IAEA agreement to resolve the outstanding issues about Iranian nuclear program?

Ok, so they cheated, and most of their "10 questions" had multiple parts, so it was more like "30 questions." Nonetheless, every single one of them raises important issues which deserve serious answers.

So how about it, President Bollinger?

"Traitors" and Saviors

2007-09-11T18:36:00.000-04:00

Twice in the same day, I was asked about "My Life as a Traitor," a title I had heard about, but hadn't paid much attention to. Clearly, it is being well-promoted, so I decided to see what I could find out. The book purports to narrate the experiences of Zarah Ghahramani, an Iranian woman who was imprisoned in 2001 as a result of her participation in student protests.

If there was ever a shred of doubt that the boom in Iranian women's memoirs are a part of broader political agendas, the following claim from Robert Hillman, the "co-writer" of this book, should put it to rest:

What happened to Zarah and tens of thousands like her should make us anxious about a nuclear-armed Iran.

The governments of other nations in the nuclear club sanction summary detention and torture as a means of silencing their political opponents.

But another nuclear-armed nation, with the disdain for the most basic human rights shown by Iran, is one more nation too many.

Come again?

Now let's say that everything recorded about Gharamani's experience is correct, what does that have to do with the manufactured Iranian nuclear "crisis"? Hillman states at the outset of his piece that"the prospect of Iran developing nuclear weapons entitles us to speculate on what sort of nuclear custodian Iran might make."

The word "entitlement" is a good choice, Bobby, since there are a whole lot of people like yourself (99% of whom are in "the west") who feel entitled to stick their nose into the business of others, even in cases when the terms of that business have been guaranteed by international treaties such as the NPT.

Unless Hillman knows something that over 20,000 hours of IAEA inspections weren't able to find, Iran's nuclear facilities are for a civilian program. If the IAEA is allowed to do its work and the US/Israel stop their various threats against Iran, the program will hopefully always remain a civilian one.

In any case, the development of a nuclear weapons program would not negatively impact the situation of activists in Iran. Indeed, it might improve it since the government could no longer use the fact that it is being threatened with imminent destruction as an excuse to put pressure on those who object to its policies.

Of course, I am the last person to advocate for the development of weapons, nuclear or otherwise, but I just wanted to work for a moment within the framework that Hillman himself has set up to show how flawed it is.

"My Life as Traitor" is slated for a December 2007 release. Until then, here is some related reading material to satiate your curiosity: Robert Hillman living out his rescue/hero fantasy, in his own words.

2007-09-10T14:45:00.001-04:00

Despite persistent, unequivocal declarations from analysts and Iran-based activists who say outside interference in Iran's domestic affairs undermines all local efforts at change, Joe Lieberman and a handful of "regime change" lunatics who know frighteningly little about Iran have passed the Lieberman Amendment to Restore Funding for Iran Democracy Promotion:

"there is work in the State Department -- working through third-party organizations, not directly from the federal government -- to support student groups, women's groups, the whole array of civil society, to give some hope to the people of Iran."

Putting millions of dollars at the disposal of unnamed "third party organizations" who pocket most of the funds and distribute the rest to also unnamed "grantees" sounds like a recipe for disaster. How and to whom will those receiving funds be held accountable, both financially and morally?

In addition, these funding acts inevitably taint anyone who is doing any Iran-related work, whether they are based inside or outside Iran.

Take for example this ad posted on Iranian.com. They are looking for an English to Persian translator who can help them with a project involving the translation of a number of books on Non-violent struggle. A little research shows that the organization behind the project is Non-Violence International, founded by Palestinian activist Mubarak Awad in 1989, a year after Israel expelled him for his non-violent campaigns against the occupation.

I heard Awad speak a number of years ago about his efforts in occupied Palestine. He was charismatic, friendly, and a great story-teller. And while I am also a big fan of translation, Persian to English or vice-versa, the current climate prompts me to be wary of all such projects. Seventeen years after its establishment, why has Non-Violence International suddenly taken an interest in providing its materials to a Persian speaking audience, and with which funds is it able to sponsor a enormous project involving over 600 pages of material?

These are questions that will be--indeed must be--asked of all Iran-related projects that are sure to spring up in the wake of this latest funding measure. The road to hell, as the saying goes, is paved with good intentions. While the intentions of Lieberman and Brownback are certainly aimed at increasing the likelihood of an attack on Iran, there may be others who accept such funds out of a combination of ignorance and compassion, not knowing (or not wanting to know) that they will be complicit in the march towards war.

2007-09-09T22:51:00.001-04:00

1. Guess who else has extensive spying operations inside Iran? Norway. Yes, Norway. Who would have guessed? And it case you think this is some kind of Iranian paranoid conspiracy theory, I'll have you know that the Chief of the Norwegian Intelligence Service, Torgeir Hagen, has confirmed it to be true.

2. As anyone who has taken a history 101 of Iran probably knows, the common wisdom about Iran officially adopting Shi'ism on a national scale in the 16th century under the rule of the Safavids is that it provided Iran with a built-in defense against the Ottomans. But Iran under the Safavids also had to contend with European colonialism, specifically the Portuguese presence in the Persian Gulf. All history books I have read about the Safavids have emphasized the development and establishment of Twelver Shi'ism under the Safavids and the role it played in promoting and preserving a national unity against the encroaching Ottomans. The Portuguese presence was only noted largely in passing. It turns out that there is an entire conference devoted to the topic, and I think I may have missed it. If anyone has further information on the topic or has a list of suggested readings, please leave me a note.

3. People with arrogant and dictatorial personalities, especially leaders ruling with an iron fist, are loathe to appear mortal. That's why men like Saddam (while still in power) and Egypt's Hosni Mobarak (who is dead according to persistent rumors/jokes) always kept their hair jet black. Salafist fundamentalists, on the other hand, are not known to engage in such open displays of vanity. However, some graying fundamentalists do make use of red henna since the prophet Mohammad was said to dye his hair and beard with it. Thus, if Osama Bin Laden had appeared in his latest video looking like this guy on the right, it would have made a lot of sense. But Osama looking like he could have just stepped out from a Just for Men commercial is not so believable. And that's not all that is fishy about the latest Bin Laden video, and I think that this latest tape, as well as the Qaeda phenomenon as a whole, should be closely re-examined.

2007-09-07T15:40:00.000-04:00

1. Iran has a new hit t.v. show, shot on location in Budapest and Paris, which depicts the plight of Jews in Europe before and during WWII. The show's creator, Hassan Fatthi says he was inspired by the life story of Abdol Hussein Sardari, who worked at the Iranian embassy in Paris and apparently saved the lives of thousands of European Jews by forging Iranian passports for them.

The aim of the show, according to many inside and outside the country, is to draw a clear distinction between the government's views about Judaism -- which is accepted across Iranian society -- and its stance on Israel -- which the leadership denounces every chance it gets.

"Iranians have always differentiated between ordinary Jews and a minority of Zionists," says Hassan Fatthi, the show's writer and director. "The murder of innocent Jews during World War II is just as despicable, sad and shocking as the killing of innocent Palestinian women and children by racist Zionist soldiers," he says.

This is the official website of the show if you are interested in checking it out.

2. Thankfully, no one takes this guy seriously anymore (if they ever did), but you have to admit he is still good for a laugh: "Bush and I were both born on July 6, within the same hour...many Iranians would actually welcome a military strike by the U.S.".

The independent weekly City Paper sometimes teases the Washington Post for articles that attempt (and fail) to be poetic or "writerly", and I would like to nominate the following lines from Amar C. Bakshi's above noted story on Fakhravar and Bush:

"He [Fakhravar] has the fierce green eyes of a panther, and an eerie confidence that makes you wonder if he sees something you can't."

What's that line from the Morrissey song? "Love at first sight may sound trite, but it's true you know..."

3. A couple of weeks ago, Bush shocked a lot of folks by suggesting that the problem with the Vietnam war was not that it was started, but that it had ended!

When pressed by South Korean president and staunch ally about when the U.S. was planning to formally end the U.S. war with Korea, Bush was peeved:

"Bush, now looking irritated, replied: "I can't make it any more clear, Mr. President. We look forward to the day when we can end the Korean War. That will end—will happen when Kim verifiably gets rid of his weapons programs and his weapons."

I guess the guy never met a war he didn't like.

Iranians as Cockroaches and Editor Justifies His Paper's Racism

2007-09-06T11:46:00.000-04:00

Incitement to hatred, anyone?

Imagine the hell that would ensue if a US paper carried a cartoon depicting Israel as a sewer with cockroaches creeping all over the Occupied Palestinian Territories and elsewhere in the region.

I've received an email that says letters of objection may be sent to the following: gsheller@dispatch.com and michael.ramirez@investors.com.

If anyone knows of others who should be contacted in this regard, please leave a comment with your suggestions and please make sure to write a note to the editors who chose to run this disgusting image.

UPDATE

I wrote the editor of the paper of my own volition, not because CAIR or anyone else prompted me to, and look at the canned response he gave trying to justify their overt and revoltingly racist cartoon. Have a look for yourself (my response to him is below his letter):

Dear sir or madame:

Thank you for writing to The Dispatch.

You apparently are responding to a call from the Council of American-Islamic relations to write to me and to cartoonist Michael Ramirez to complain about a cartoon about the Iraqi regime’s support of violent extremists and terrorists throughout the Middle East.

CAIR claims the cartoon demeans all Iranians as cockroaches. But since the drain cover depicted in the cartoon is clearly labeled with “Iran” and “extremism” it is clear that the cartoon refers only to those elements of the Iranian regime who support extremism. In other words, it doesn’t come close to labeling all Iranians as cockroaches.

CAIR also likens the cartoon to Nazi propaganda. This is a remarkable display of intellectual gymnastics. Iranian President Ahmadinejad has called for the destruction of the Jewish state and questions the Holocaust, while his regime tries to develop nuclear weapons. If CAIR is truly concerned about the promotion of Nazi ideas and the use of Nazi methods, it should direct its attention to Tehran.

CAIR’s claims that its mission is to promote understanding of Islam and combat anti-Islamic information and anti-Islamic attitudes. That’s an honorable mission when it is directed at legitimate grievances.

In this case, CAIR has misrepresented this cartoon and missed the mark by fabricating a false grievance.

All the best,

Glenn Sheller
Editorial Page Editor
The Columbus Dispatch
614-461-5072

Dear Glenn Sheller-

I did not write to you because CAIR or anyone else prompted me to do so. In any case, CAIR has not "misrepresented" your cartoon; it's overt racism will be apparent to everyone who is not blinded by the kind of propaganda your paper seems to relish in producing.

With or without CAIR, this cartoon will be widely disseminated among Iranians and Muslims worldwide who will be disgusted by it no matter what their political or social inclinations may be. Your canned justification for the irresponsible decision to run this cartoon further discredits you.

The Week in Racial Profiling (or: Being an Iranian or Iraqi in the USA today)

2007-09-05T21:52:00.000-04:00

Kambiz Fattahi is a BBC reporter and grad student at Georgetown University. I met him once in passing at an Iran-related event. He seemed nice and friendly, and unlike many reporters, he was not at all pushy.

Apparently, some racist attendees at a Georgetown University event and two fat--or as Kambiz calls them, "portly"--security guards did not share my impressions. While sitting at the graduation ceremony for a friend and listening, ironically enough, to a self-congratulatory speech about the "tradition of freedom" in the United States, Kambiz was pulled away by security guards who told him that he was "making some people here nervous."

The guards then inquired about his national origin:

"I told him I was a US citizen. After showing forms of identification, including my card from the BBC Persian Service, he commented: "So, you're from Persia. Aren't Babylon and the Tigris River in Persia?"

I hope that Kambiz told them "no, you fool, Bablyon and the Tigris are in Iraq, you know, the country you've been occupying for the last four years." But I doubt he made fun of their glaring stupidity. Like I said, he seems like a nice guy.

Leigh Robbins of Richmond Virginia probably has a thing or two in common with these security guards and the individuals who prompted them to harass Kambiz. About to take off on a flight from San Diego to Chicago on September 1, she was so freaked out by seven Iraqi men that she demanded that American Airlines let her and her kids get off of the plane:

Robbins said she was sitting in the back of the plane with her children, awaiting the departure from the gate, when one of the Iraqis walked by to use the restroom.

She heard him “clunking around” inside the bathroom. When he came out, he had a suspicious look on his face, she said.

“He looked so mean, the way he was looking at everyone,” Robbins said. “It was very frightening, like something out of a movie.”

The best part of the story is that the seven Iraqis were defense contractors (read: mercenaries) working with the U.S. marines. The press has covered the men's occupation as though it is proof that they were "good" guys. To the more perceptive reader, this part of the story constitutes a bit of poetic justice.

Fighting off Allies and Foes

2007-09-04T18:52:00.001-04:00

In the last few days, I’ve received a number of harried emails about an imminent attack on Iran.

Here are a sampling of the news stories and analysis that have been flooding my mailbox:

Pentagon 'three-day blitz plan for Iran'
Do We Have the Courage to Stop War with Iran?
The Next Quagmire
US Preparing “Massive” Military Attack Against Iran

These terrifying revelations about an impending war were not unexpected, but I am surprised at some of the people who are forwarding this material to listservs I am on.

The “well meaning, left-leaning” folks who usually distribute dire—and often ill-contexualized and uninformed—pronouncements about Iran’s internal affairs are suddenly worried about a devastating attack on Iran. And yet they too are responsible for building an environment where a war on Iran has become possible, if not inevitable.

It may seem unfair to speak about “well meaning, left-leaning” activists in the same breath as one addresses warmongers and mercenaries, but the sad fact of the matter is that they share a number of disturbing parallels, the most important of which is that both of them go down the path of paternalistic intervention.

Ironically, the biggest challenge for anyone who is working towards preventing war and ending punitive sanctions on Iran may not come only from the belligerent right-wingers and neo-cons who are willing to go to any lengths to start another war; it also comes from our “allies” who think that it is their “responsibility” to supervise and help their little brown brothers and sisters in their various quests for social and political change.

This is a hard subject to tackle for a number of reasons, mostly because it is bound to anger many who consider themselves the friends and allies of the "Iranian people." But unless these issues are confronted head on, Iran-related activism will continue to be caught in the uncomfortable space between the military backed impositions of the right and the condescending "humanitarian" interferences of the left.

2007-08-26T23:34:00.000-04:00

1. “If you ask our opinion, do we think it's the right moment to be making investments in the Iranian oil and gas sector, no we don't,” sniffed a State Department spokesman.

Clearly, neither Iran nor Turkey asked the opinion of the US State Department because it is none of their business. What more is there to say about the naked arrogance behind declarations like this?

2. Iran and Turkey seem to be agreeing on much more than oil and gas these days, and I had suspected as much given the recent developments in Iraqi Kurdistan. Yesterday, Turkey's Prime Minister confirmed this openly: "Gül lends support to Iran’s anti-PEJAK operation in Iraq."

3. Nearly all religious music that tries to go mainstream is extremely corny, and this new Sami Yusuf song called "mother" is a marriage of cheese and corn. Anyway, what struck me is that he has no accent when he sings in Persian, and a quick google search showed that he is Iranian born. He doesn't seem to push his iranian-ness much, nor do Iranians--either in Iran or in diaspora--seem too eager to claim him. I'm sort of curious about why that might be, but not curious enough to speculate on it at the moment.

2007-08-22T22:00:00.000-04:00

1. "America has won the war in Iraq....American success is reality and only Iraqi people know this fact," so says the computer generated "iraqi" with a computer generated speech.

I guess they can't even pay anyone these who would be willing to put their name, face, or voice to this garbage.

2. Some folks have put together a campaign where they've traced the parallels between Fox News' past push for a war on Iraq and their current obsession with paving the road to a war on Iran. They are calling on other news agencies to be responsible in their reporting instead of following Fox's lead like they did the last time around.

3. If, like me, you think that Iran-based Poet, songwriter, and musician Mohsen Namjoo is just the greatest, and are bummed that his website has been down for a while, why not try joining his fan listserv. I think I will.

2007-08-10T21:49:00.000-04:00

Mehdi Khalaji, an "expert" at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy has managed to bully Hossein Derakshan (or more precisely, Hossein Derakhshan's web hosting service) into shutting down his blog.

The text of Khalaji's legal action against Hossein speaks for itself. Among the juvenile charges levied against hossein are that he has said "by innuendo [that Khalaji] is a dupe or puppet of the U.S. government" and my favorite, that he "state[s] falsely that our client struggles to express himself in the English language."

In one of the charges, they accuse Hossein of encouraging others to "follow his lead by spiting (sic) in our client's face." It appears that the lawyers, like their client, have a bit of struggle with the English language. I hope I won't get sued for pointing this out, but spiting and spitting are two different words.

In any case, when I heard the infuriating news today that Khalaji had indeed succeeded in closing down Hossein's blog, I had a bad feeling that the inter-personal fights, disagreements, and grudges on the Persian language blogosphere would most likely stand in the way of a significant and principled stance in support of Hossein Derakhshan. Nazli has been the only exception I've seen so far, which doesn't surprise me, since Nazli is an exceptional person.

Whatever personal or political differences people have with Hossein, it's the responsibility of those of us who blog in English to expose the repressive and underhanded tactics of Iranians like Khalaji and the right-wing institutions for which they work. The same people and institutions that thrust themselves to the frontlines of debates about "democracy in Iran" and "freedom of expression" are quick to mobilize their financial resources and connections to muzzle the voice of one person who uses his blog to uncover just a few cogs in the wheels of what seems like a veritable anti-Iran industry.

So why would well-funded, well-connected people like Khalaji and his supporters go after Hossein for doing what hundreds of thousands of bloggers do on a daily basis? Isn't the essence of the majority of blogs to engage in accusatory gossip and to vent ideas that you may not be able to express elsewhere?

Hossein Derakhshan is not a threat to Khalaji or the Washington Institute because of the content of what he said. What he has written about places like the Washington Institute and the National Endowment for Democracy is based on information that is widely and publicly available, often from the websites of these institutions themselves. Hossein's grave sin is that he wrote this material in Persian , and this is the real danger he poses for the Khalajis and their employers.

Perhaps if the information that Hossein has covered were previously available in translation for Persian speakers, so many Iranian activists--specifically recent immigrants and those still in Iran--would not have made the mistake of getting mixed-up with individuals and organizations with histories of destroying peoples' movements worldwide.

2007-08-09T19:04:00.000-04:00

Act 1

In the press on the same day:

"Bush Says Iraqi Leader Shares His View on Iran"

and also:

(original Reuters photo from here)

Act 2

Hamid Karzai on CNN last sunday night, August 5:

KARZAI: We have had reports of the kind you just mentioned. We are looking into these reports. Iran has been a supporter of Afghanistan in the peace process that we have and the fight against terror, and the fight against narcotics in Afghanistan.

Iran has been a participant in the Bonn process. It then has contributed steadily to Afghanistan. We have had very, very good, very, very close relations, thanks in part also to an understanding of the United States in this regard, and an environment of understanding between the two, the Iranian government and the United States government, in Afghanistan.

We will continue to have good relations with Iran. We will continue to resolve issues, if there are any, to arise.

BLITZER: Well, is Iran a problem or a solution as far as you are concerned? Are they helping you or hurting you?

KARZAI: Well, so far Iran has been a helper and a solution."

During a joint press conference together the next day, Bush contradicted Karzai's assessment of his country and its relationship with it's neighbors: "But I would be very cautious about whether or not the Iranian influence there in Afghanistan is a positive force"

(boy it must be tough when even your puppets won't repeat your lies)