Iran. Why so little mention in the Western press of the demonstrations that still took place this Saturday and Sunday, in the streets of Tehran? Thanks to the Franco-Iranian writer Armin Arefi and his dissident friends on the inside, we followed them, live, on the website of my online magazine, minute by minute, street by street, twitters, photos, videos captured on cell phones and immediately posted, messages of distress and hope, calls for help, minuscule and pathetic victories. Even if there were only a few thousand, even just a few hundred, demonstrating, even if only a handful defied the Basiji paramilitaries on their motorcycles and the combat helicopters swooping down over Behesht-e Zahra cemetery, even if only a small minority disobeyed their leaders, who, fearing the threat of a bloodbath at any moment, called on them to stay home, still it was up to us to be at their side in thought, to salute them, support them, count them when we could, name them. And in the place of that, nothing. Or, shall we say, almost nothing. Well, that's the norm for mass media coverage. One day, bright lights, the next, an inexplicable shadow. And on this stage, where world peace and the future of democracy in the Muslim world play out, in this tense space where the only worthwhile battle, pitting the obscurantist, fanatical, fascistic Islam of Ahmadinejad and his allies against the immense majority of those who adhere to a modern Islam, friend of the Enlightenment and of human rights, is taking place, a bell jar of leaden silence. A shame.
More than a shame, this debate on the boycott that, in Europe, is like the comet's tail following the "flotilla affair" in Gaza, is infamous. The blockade of Gaza is one thing. We can discuss it, deplore it, pronounce it counter-productive, make it more flexible. Hamas being what it is, that is to say a totalitarian and fascistic party, we can open the same debate that took place over the sanctions against Milosevic, against the racists of South Africa before Mandela, or against the jailers of the tropical gulag of Cuba. "Is it effective, or not? Are there perverse effects, and if so which ones? In our intent to topple a dictatorship, don't we risk inflicting even further suffering on a people this dictatorship has taken hostage and oppressed?" What we do not have the right to do is 1) to reverse the roles and transform people of the same ilk as yesterday's Serbian nationalists, day-before-yesterday's Afrikaner racists, and day-before-the-day-before-yesterday's Cuban torturers (Hamas) into nice democrats; 2) to distort the meaning of words in a semantic sleight-of-hand, thereby transforming a military blockade (of arms and of any other product considered, wrongly or rightly, useful in their production) into a humanitarian blockade (we must not tire of repeating: there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza); and 3) to mix everything up, confuse everything and, in an effect of false symmetry that's palmed off on us as patently obvious, answer the blockade with the boycott and, when one is stopping arms, respond by refusing works of the mind. I refer, of course, to the affair of the Utopia chain of French cinemas which, after a good deal of prevarication, shabby cowardice, and sordid calculations, has simply called off the screening of Israeli Leon Prudovsky's film. During the war in Iraq, did anyone think of boycotting a single American film? On the pretext of Turkey's occupation of Cyprus, has it occurred to anyone to deprive the French public of Yilmaz Güney's films? Why the double standard? In the name of what obscure reflex are a people and its artists demonized ? When infamy rhymes with idiocy, according to the Sunday fedayin's conception of culture.
Cinema, precisely. If there's a film well worth seeing this week in Paris, it's Romain Goupil's «Mains en l'air» (Hands Up), a treat, full of mischievousness and humor, a concentrate of insolence, freedom, cheekiness and wit, anger as well, true utopia, how not to give up when you have your hands in the air, with stubbornness to spare, as has been said of childhood--for it's the story of an old lady in a far-off future who remembers her childhood in France. She cannot recall the name of the President at the time (Nicolas Sarkozy), but on the other hand, she remembers very well that children without papers were expelled from the country. It's the return of Goupil of «Mourir à trente ans». It's the eternal rebel, the unrepentant sixty-eighter I have so often encountered in the many struggles I have joined over the past thirty years. It's the little Romain of long ago «high school combats» who must have decided, one day, never to betray the dreams of his youth and who, it should be remarked, has never tired of keeping his word. A film of children, without the soppiness that goes with it. A film about children, but lacking the usual complacencies about childish innocence. There's something of a hooky player in the tone, a classroom rowdy in the narration and the rhythm, yet all escape falling into the effortless banality of a schoolboy mentality. Imagine François Truffaut's "Les 400 coups» in Monsieur Hortefeux's* France. Or the same director's «Les Mistons» at a time when the Gallic cock, his hackles up more than ever, is afraid of other children whose only fault is their slightly darker complexion. Or else a version of Marcel Carné's "Les Tricheurs», for sombre times when the foreigner becomes the enemy and when it is sometimes necessary to become an outlaw to be straight with Justice. A powerful film. Unexpected. And one that breathes a pleasant wind of freshness and revolt in an era where we are constantly confronted with stupidity, cowardice, or simply the serious-mindedness of French ideological crowing.
*Brice Hortefeux is France's Minister of the Interior.
And who has the moral authority to promote "human rights" in Iran? U.S., Israel, France, UK, etc. etc. etc.
Klutzy and botched but pointless derring-do adventures, farcifal and inept overkill, rogue soldiers taking lethal potshots at civilians, systematic harrasment of Pal travellers, sometimes also lethal, willful ignoring of settler crimes against property and person: All these have been key components in the loop that has been the failure of the peace process.
There are two sides to this story. Really.
For such a "humanist", but die-hard pro-Israeli supporter, you sure do turn a strong and biased blind-eye to the 60+ years of Palestinian suffering. What about them? Let me guess, you feel "sympathetic" to their cause but at the same time won't refrain from throwing me talking points and the regular fictitious propaganda lines whilst refusing to write ONE article about them and their pain?
Iranian elections are internal matter for Iranians residing in their sovereign state as much as elections in France are internal matter for French and no one else business, Palestine is not a sovereign state while being under foreign military rules and their colonial goals, therefore it is everyone business to demand for their freedom since they're voiceless in US media circus, selectively!
Because world attention was successfully drawn, yet again, to a minor story about Israel.
This was a quite intentional diversion concocted by Iran and Turkey to draw the world away from either the Iranian regime's brutal grip on power, and, its nuclear program.
"why the ability to marshal popular support, define a coherent agenda, and pursue that agenda in an effective manner should not be the essential standard for assessing the significance of a social movement purporting to seek fundamental political change -- in Iran or anywhere else. "
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/06/14/whos_really_misreading_tehran?page=full
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/06/14/whos_really_misreading_tehran
Forget the elections.. You think they were legit? Fine. WE protested because there's a SUBSTANTIAL amount of people who feel like their civil rights are completely denied by the morality police and other laws. WE protested because Khamenei is a man-god, and that no longer flies in Iran, not since we overthrew the Shah in 1951 and elected Mossadegh. We had 2 years of freedom in a century plus old struggle. I and others, the younger generation of Iran, Iranians abroad and inside, will bring Iran to fruition and to a democracy unheralded in the West. A secular government in the hands of the people, with high tolerance in line with our rich tradition of hosting different subcultures, religions... a Cyrus-reawakening, if you will. If the people wish it, we can be as Muslim as America is Christian. An Iran like that could have many friends in the world and no enemies. And the dream is not as far as you think.
Now, you want to equate that with the attempt to block the Palestinians from resisting a group that used a centuries old connection (including a religious longing) to a land to excuse driving out those who lived there.
That's chutzpah of the highest degree.
Perhaps that's because he think's those who shoot humanitarians are saints and those who quell rioters are devils.
Here are some women apparently "rioting," which means expressing themselves for those don't speak shill-speech. Isn't it great that IRI loves their people so much that they're not afraid to go after such vicious, dangerous terrorists?:
http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/news/irans-mourning-mothers-must-be-released-20100111
Amnesty International has urged the Iranian authorities to release a group of women who were beaten and arrested during a peaceful vigil in Tehran at the weekend.
The 33 women, members of a group known as the 'Mourning Mothers', were seized during their weekly meeting in Laleh Park, Tehran on Saturday, according to media reports. Several of the women were beaten and 10 were taken to hospital.
The 'Mourning Mothers' are women whose children have been killed, disappeared or detained in post-election violence in Iran since last June, and their supporters. All 33 women are now being held in Vozara Detention Centre, Tehran.
http://iranlaborreport.com/?p=905
June 12, 2010 0
In the last few days, several labor activists in Iran have been arrested. This appears to be a new campaign of intimidation by the intelligence operatives against the independent labor activists.
Alireza Akhavan, a labor activists with the Iranian Labor Rights Defense Center, was arrested on June 3. He was visited by the intelligence forces at his home, his house searched, and taken to an unknown location.
Saeed Torabian, the head of public relations with the Tehran and Municipality Vahed Bus Workers Syndicate, was similarly arrested on June 9 at his home.
On June 12, Reza Shahabi, another board member with the syndicate, was arrested at his work place.
Human Rights and Democracy Activists in Iran report on the arrest of Mehdi Farrahi Shandiz, another labor activist, on June 1. Shandiz was one of the labor activists arrested during the May Day ceremonies of 2009 in Tehran. Paying a visit to the branch 8 of the revolutionary court to collect his personal belongings, he was met with “inhumane treatment” which led to his protest. He was then taken to the notorious Kahrizak prison in south of Tehran under baseless accusations of disturbing the peace.
I saw your reference to Iran Labor Report and I could not help thinking that maybe I introduced you to that site. It's in my morning news rotation. Great site.
It is going to take a long time, but the Green/Reform movement is linking up with labor and even the rank and file levels of the Pasdaran. As Nader Hashemi points out, an overwhelming majority of the Pasdaran voted for Khatami. Over time, many will realize that the upper levels of the Pasdaran are enriching themselves and that the Revolution's ideals need to be turned over to a new group. It will come to pass.
He was a young (30 something) and dedicated guy who really wanted to help the Left in the US understand what was going on in Iran.
The people you think are the opposition "The Greens" are part of the Islamic Regime. Why because their leaders are all sworn Khomeinists. What has that to do with Iran? Nothing if you ask any of them. They do not care for Iran. They care for their Utopia of some Islamic Caliphate once their Mahdi comes around. The Iranian people who know what Iranian Culture is, do not react to these "Greens". The Iranians react to the Sabzeh or the Green as embodied in our national celebrations called Nowruz. That is where you will see non-violent cultural opposition if you want to call it opposition, as it is really more of rejection of Islam after 1400 years. Iran is ridding itself of this dogma, but unlike the secular rejection we had in the west, Iran has its own cultural resources to ignore Islam. Imagine Hindusim for India but replaced by a modern form of Zoroastrianism. It will be spiritual but Iranian Spiritualism. It won't be the way Zoroastrianism is. It will be based on Good Thoughts, Good Words, Good Deeds, and of course Good Deeds. It will refer to the Zend-Avesta, because it is Iranian. But it will not be anything to do with the Abrahamic religions as the Zend-Avesta is older than that. The part of Iran that is close to the Rig-Veda and ancient India will blossom. Hope this helps you.
Q. -
Western women could care less about womens rights elsewhere in the world.
Does a statemate like that mean anything in particular to someone - whether young, old, right, left- in Iran?