Kamangir (Archer)

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Politics of Testosterone

Kamangir | July 31, 2006 | Category Iran

I was watching the images from couple of protests in Tehran held for condemning Israel’s attack to Lebanon. Basically, the theme of all of them was men shouting with their fists pointing at the sky. Also, there were always a few flags, dominantly US and Israel, burning at the middle of the celebrating crowd. Looking at the people’s eyes the first and the most obvious impression was anger and determination to annihilate.
When you watch CNN it is always showing pictures of people from middle east shouting and spreading hatred. Sometimes I say to myself, hey this is not real. Then, I sadly admit to myself that these picture are very real.

I can understand the argument that for the people at the end of the rope shouting is the only possible means of survival, or its fantasy. So, basically I kind of understand if Lebanese people hate Israel. At the end of the day they are being killed and they have no protecting army except for the rocket launching Hezbollah. But for the people of Iran, I assume if they are convinced that Israel is the devil why don’t they all rush into Lebanon?
I think the actual story is very different. The Iranian administration has always announced itself as a God-based for-the-Muslims divine government. Such an entity can not step aside when Muslims are being killed, like what many Arabic nations are doing. On the other hand they know that any â€œrealâ€ engagement carries along with it the US bombers. So, the obvious and yet very practical approach is to arrange street shows, where people can shout at, insult, and burn the â€œenemyâ€ or its assets. Then, everybody goes home and they are all proud of their Islamic-nationalistic rule in the politics.

Just as a reminder, from the forty or so Basij members who left for Lebanon only six actually got into Turkey. The rest were returned from the Iranian border due to orders from the administration officials.

Reader's Comments

peace | August 1st, 2006 at 1:04 am
I beg you to look at this blogger’s comment on Qana’s PR work…
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/

and who is this guy wth green hat in every picutre http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2006/07/who-is-this-man.html

she is raising interesting issues…are we being fooled by Hezboullahs’ PR game?
kamangir | August 1st, 2006 at 11:02 am
So, I suppose you may then say the dead bodies are also fake.
kashka | August 1st, 2006 at 11:29 am
There was an article in an Israeli paper (Haaretz, the only paper vaguely worth reading in Israel) that spoke about Iranian blogs. This is how I got here, so I expect there will be some other Israelis turning up. Hopefully not all of them will try to convince you Qana never happened or that it had to happen or something. I am an Israeli living in London and from reading the Israeli papers online I can see that people in Israel get an entirely different picture of what’s happening than people here in the UK. I don’t believe a word the Israeli army says about what’s happening, or the Israeli media. It all has to be taken with a grain of salt. Sadly, I am in the minority, but a minority is still more than nothing.
No one has a bigger PR game than the Israelis, except the Americans, who are telling the world all Iranians are insane.
kamangir | August 1st, 2006 at 12:27 pm
I suppose this is the exact reason why we write our blogs and read others’; to get rid of IDF spokesmen and Ahmadinejad and to hear real people talking about their ideas firsthand. I think we have been very successful. I have many Israeli friends, including you, and I think we, Iranian bloggers, have been able to show that the extremism is not the only substance in the Iranian boiling pot.
Thanks for your comment and lets talk more!
Abraham | August 2nd, 2006 at 5:49 am
I am an israeli and we watch all of the media, both the israeli and the arabian and I havent seen the destruction that the arabians done to israel on the arabian media and we know that we have refugees, many dead citizen and buildings destruction.

Is this a honest and fair media??
kamangir | August 2nd, 2006 at 9:13 am
The media is obviously not fair, if fair means a man any where in the world is worth one unit of attention. Just think of people of Congo.
Indeed, Israelis are killed and forced to leave their homes. I am thinking at the end of this destruction spree will be any outcome worth the suffering of people engaged in it?
Amir | November 8th, 2007 at 12:41 am
The act of burning the flag is a sign of increased aggression. Which is a sign of overly excessive testosterone. Testosterone replacement therapies is gainly quite a popularity along with growth hormone treatments. Remember that there is a healthy range of testosterone , overly or under will result in unwanted symptoms.