Kamangir (Archer)
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The Kings and The Clowns (Updated)
Kamangir | January 13, 2007 | Category Iran
Important Notice: Please read this note before reading this post.
At the middle of the rhetoric and preparation for war who could imagine an ambassador of peace working passionately toward’s clearing up centuries-old misunderstanding and mistrust. Haaretz has published an interview with the “King of the Iranian bloggers” and the “spiritual father of the bloggers in Iran”, Hossein Derakhshan a.k.a. Hoder. He is at the same time the king and also the prophet. He teaches us how to oppose the Iranian regime, while we do insists on our “definite” right to posses nuclear bombs, one for every Iranian. The amazing part is that Hoder is so modest he writes,
The title [of the article] is “King of the Iranian bloggers,” but I had no role in choosing this title. I know some people would soon start blaming me for this. But I repeat that, like the title Blogfather, these titles are given by journalists, not me. Please don’t hold it against me.
I am proud of our beloved king/imam.
p.s. I forgot to admire Americans for their great king, Noah DiCaprio. Guys, do you also have a “spiritual leader”?
Update: Do read Lisa’s comment.
Update: Apparently, the title of this post has been used before for a Korean movie (see). Thanks Shaghaiegh for bringing that to my attention.
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Salam (Hi) - سلام
Welcome to Kamangir. This is the personal blog of Arash Abadpour (Abad Pour), an Iranian student in Canada (more)
Contact: arash@kamangir.net
Other places around here: Persian Blog, Academic Background, Photography Blog,
Photoblog, and Azadeh (My Wife)
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I wish for you bests
Hi, Arash. The link to the article on Hossein’s blog does not, for some odd reason, take his readers to the version that allows comments. You might be interested in reading the feedback to the original article, here. The reporter who did the interview, Meron Rappaport, is a friend of Mike Dahan’s - who invited Hossein to the conference.
Also, Hossein was interviewed for a radio show hosted by Hugh Hewitt, here. I never thought I’d find myself writing this about someone whose politics I usually abhor, but I think he did rather a good job in this case. I doubt that Hossein will put a link to the interview on his blog, though - you’ll see why when you read the transcript.
Nowadays nobody has any respect for this person unless some people who are fed by the regime.
He was the first person in Iran who created a weblog. So, what?
It is a long time that I don’t even bother myself to read anything in his weblog. It is just a pure waste of time :)
Lets make someone a king based on the content of the Character not anything else.
Frieda,
So how do you see his character?
In fact: We don’t need any “kings” or “prophets”. We need openminded people, who are “daring” to have democratic ideals and visions and are speaking them out. I do consider Derakhshan to be one (!) of them. We all finally should be sick and tired of all these fucked out and cynical politicians and warmongers - hello Bush-Admin!, hello Olmert & Co.! - who are lying and cheating, at the moment they are opening their mouth and continously are styling Iran up to the peace-enemy no 1.
The ’spiritual leaders’ of America or Americanism would probably be the group we call the founding fathers…Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton. Their leadership and writings are what set the form of our republic.
Hmm…
What Anna says is theorically very true. Is it also true in practice?
There is a saying that, the most dangerous enemies of a concept are those who support it in a bad way. This is a very old but very powerful method to fight with anything which is against your interests.
Lets take the example of MP3 download sites. What could artists and CD producer companies do against them? it was very easy. They made tens of thousands of MP3 sites and linked to each other to make google bombs. Now when you search for any “mp3 free download” in google you will end up to some sh*t!
Another example is excessive usage of very deep concepts like Nirvana, Santa Clause, etc, etc by traders. This is how you destroy an extremely valuable concept by actually USING them. Anything like t-shirts, caps, mugs, and logos can do the job.
Hoder is nothing but a stupid tool used by the IR government. He has the biggest role in the Internet for encouraging people to vote more and more for ahmadinejad and others. Is this democracy? it really depends on your interpretion of democracy ;)
I am speechless!
Alireza, I have to admit that I did not understand completely what you are all at with your examples. Fact in my humble opinion is, that we all are living - worldwide - in huge processes of partly dramatic transformations. Partly due to what generally is calles “globalization”. There once has been a time, that under this word I understood something different as it’s now and in reality showing: Sort of “free-market-religion” a go-go and with just new forms of slaveries, a kind of “think” not in long or longer terms and futures, but in “end of quarters”. And so on and forth.
The collapse of communism in eastern europe and the sovjetunion as a possible chance for new orders, reflection and orientation got just (mis)used to implement the US-hegemony, simply put. A very problematic “victory” as we nowadays all have to recognize and with this moron and marionetteof the US-military-complex for example as president and marionette of a “commander in chief”. What do think how come this calculated, strategic islamophobia with all their problematic and partly really tragic impacts and this hegemonial highly explosive fixation to be the one creating a new near-and middle-east according to ones own gust? It’s just pure madness and in fact only a matter left to the psychiatrists to judge about … the only way left to “understand” at all a bit.
Many people see the reality, but they don’t have the power to really change something. Nevertheless one tries with what means ever to not be marching with the morons.
Also (!) Derakhshan is doing exatly this. Shall one blame him and talk bad about him for this? I say NO and I do not!
Sorry the typos!
I’m just correcting this one:
….. creating a new near-and middle-east according to ones own gust? GUSTO, of course.
Okay, I need to clarify myself…
There are two ways for fighting with an idea:
1- by fighting directly with the idea as an emeny. For example, I want to fight with Islamism. So, I open a TV channel and put a person there to only curse the regime for 24 hours a day and 7 days a week.
2- by supporting the idea in a wrong way. For example, I want to fight with Islamism. I find a stupid religious person who can do anything for his religion. I organize a team of Islamists and they kidnap a westerner, they behead the person and record it using a simple camcorder. Then I put the videos in the Internet, and make a nice coverage in CNN, Fox, BBC, etc.
What do you think? which one works better?
The second method is very cheap, it is very successful, and worse than all, those who are actually doing the job never think that they are the best enemy of their own beloved idea or religion.
In this example, Hoder plays role of the person who beheads the guy (the Mullahs). You and I and himself think that he is a great frontline for the democracy movement. The reality? he is the biggest enemy of that!
Just look at the past few elections. People were happy that they were voting to make a change. In fact they were helping the system to become stronger. Who helped the system? so many people like Hoder and Ebrahim Nabavi and Masoud Behnoud who always encourage people to vote more and more. Voting for someone that they never believed in him. This is indeed fighting with democracy.
Democracy is a matter of saying Yes when required and more importantly saying No when required.
Look, Alireza, and believe me: In times like these where so much “things” are up side down and on the edge, it’s not only for me, who is not an Iranian, but also in general not easy to “here we go, that’s the one and only way!” Situations - and such situations - are never linear, to the contrary they are very complex and processual with numberless factors playing a role.
In this example, Hoder plays role of the person who beheads the guy (the Mullahs). You and I and himself think that he is a great frontline for the democracy movement. The reality? he is the biggest enemy of that!
Constatating this I suppose you having serious reasons, maybe even proofs for it. I don’t have whether the impression of that nor a proof for it.
As an atheist - but wearing without the slightest problem the hijab, if demanded - I respect the religions … as long as religious beliefs do not lead to “reason” for madness and wars. Bush for example taks himself for a utterly religiously enlighted person. And what all the hell his doing? Believing that democracy is implementable by paranoid lies, aggressions and bombings.
The implementation of democratic systems is a long way. What do you think was and is going on in the former sovjetunion, now Russia … do you think there realms democracy just because the whole “west” thinks so. Forget it, I know the situation very well from inside. May be some day, now it’s most of all corrupcy and with the mafia and its fingers in literally everything. But - true - some few people got a bit richer since 1990.
There are so many ways to be in opposition to morons and maybe there are almost as many ideas and expectations how not to be oppposing a system. Where or whom is the truth? I dont know.
Maybe Frieda is knowing and telling yet something.
Hamid,
Chakerim. :)
Lisa,
Thanks very much for the links. I see what he might not like the interview very much.
Nice thoughts.
Anna
What do you mean by “calculated, strategic islamophobia”? In my view there is no such thing. The phobia is based on real things like 9/11, attacks in London underground, in Spain, and burning cars in France. It is no wonder that some people are afraid when there are more 1600 people investigated for active terrorist plots in UK and in USA FBI investigates around 8000. Brits are following 30 known plots, there is no data how many FBI are following. It also does not help when groups of iranians chant “death to america” and palestinians, jordanians and egyptians have demonstration with the slogans like “Kill the cartoonists” “down with the west”. I myself would be rather scared of iranians if I did know that majority who chants “death to america” do it automatically and do not believe it. Still there are Iranian who do believe in what they chant. Some of the muslims got taught that people in the west are racist and when they come to the west they believe that they are treated differently from others when in reality they are not. Others want to be treated differently, because they are muslims. Still others intentionally try to blow up things out of proportion. There are also the cases of some real racism, but not as many as it is claimed. So it is no wonder when seeing that many things are blown out of proportion by muslims themselves some people wonder “what the hell do they want? To treat them differently from ourselves? Why should we.”
So it would be better if you search for the beginning and the spread of so called “islamophobia” in the behaviour of muslims themselves and do not blame it on Bush, America, the west and the globalisation.
You also say that you know russia, what about islamophobia in russia? did it not started from chechenia? Russians do not love their “black” neighbours nevertheless the mafia in russia is partially directed by people of eastern origins.
So it seems that this “calculated, strategic islamophobia” is also in russia Now, whose fault is that? american “form of slaveries”? “US military complex”? “russophilia”?
In fact: We don’t need any “kings†or “prophetsâ€. We all finally should be sick and tired of all these fucked out and cynical politicians and warmongers - hello Bush-Admin!, hello Olmert & Co.! - who are lying and cheating, at the moment they are opening their mouth and continously are styling Iran up to the peace-enemy no 1.
Anna
Why didn’t you put Ahmadinejad on your list. He also is lying, cheating and with his behaviour continuously puts Iran in the 1st place as the enemy of the west. Why recently UN did agree on watered-down resolution against Iran? Don’t you think that even Russia and China got fed up with continuous ranting of Ahmadinejad?
And because of him many people think that majority of iranians are crazy terrorists dreaming only of blowing up the west, when in reality majority of iranians dream of having a lot of money, having a good time and winning all the matches in soccer!!!
Dear Ella
Let me personally come to an end in this discussion:
I do not whorship Ahmadinedjad at all
Persia and the IRI is by history not an aggressor seeking or having seeked and started war with other countries
My informations and knowledges about it all- also in its geopolitical dimensions and after all meanings and tragic results - stem not from the kitchen of Fox-TV and ALIKES.
“War against terror” is a big and ugly US-american hegemonial lie and paranoid construct with already countless (!!!) victims paying the prize for those almost 3000 victims by 9/11
Anna,
What do you think about the elections in Egypt? is it a type of democracy?
Elections in Egypt are still a bad joke.
Though one should not confuse democraCy with democraZy … nevertheless of course it happens (just as shit does as well).
I’m just really quite afraid, that Iran has got into a dreadful “operative” focus within an escalative strategy I can’t but call paranoia. New problems are about to be “created”. But no problem at all will be solved. And as usual countless innocents again will have to pay the price.
Anybody out there to stop these morons? I’m rather hopeless and as an atheist I’m not capable to hope for a wonder.
But you think it is not a joke in Iran, right? :D
Alireza
Re: election in Iran
I have listened to a program on iranian elections which was put on the internet about two weeks before the voting. One of the points experts made was the number of voters in the election. They said that Khamenei said that there would be X (don’t remember the exact figure)numbers of voters in the elections. Lo and behold, there were exactly that many people voting in the Iranian elections. ;-)
Anna
“persia has never been an agressor”.
Have you heard of greek states fighting persian empire? Do you know what was the origin of marathon?
Read your history, Anna.
BTW I am not saying that persia was the only aggressor in the ancient world. There was China, there was Roman Empire, there were others. But please, do not unequivocally state that persian history was always peaceful and quite different from other empires.
Hi Arash,
Looks like I missed some very interesting posts.Speaking about Kings and Clowns,Has any one heard about H.I.M. Aryamehr lately?
Thanks Ella
Read your history, Anna.
BTW I am not saying that persia was the only aggressor in the ancient world.
Though having used the name Persia too I actually wasn’t talking at all about the ancient world and time!
We are LIVING nowadays, and just hope that you can agree with this reality.
Sorry and good luck!
Anna,
I appreciate the fact that you are contributing to our discussion, I really do. Just to make it more constructive, I suggest we pick one sentence and talk about it. Do you think we can talk about “the 9/11 terrorists were convinced by religion to commit murder”. Any thought on that?
Ella and Alireza,
Do you agree with me on my last comment to Anna?
But Anna didn’t answer my question. In my opinion, election in Iran is nothing different than election in egypt or Lybia.
When the leader (or whoever) gives you a list of people as candidates, voting for them is a joke.
But a person from the so-called intellectual society should encourage people to participate in this joke?
Siamak,
How does he think about Hoder?
Religion is not made of a set of clear rules. Religion is interpretion of available resources.
It really depends of your point of view.
In Quran it is clearly mentioned that a man can beat his woman. Ask any religious person, they will give you millions and billions of speeches that it didn’t mean to literally beat a woman. ;)
How can someone say with such a confidence that it was “committing murder”?
Dear Kamangir, dear Alireza,
I will take me out of this discussion and doing so without any “bad vibrations”.
My concluding opinion is, that this - by the hegemon - declared and inscenated “war on terror” will grow up into an even more destraous mess as already it is and has become. I consider it the longer the more to be nothing but sheer madness and having absolutely no more nothing to do with reasonable and understandable kind of justice. And far away from bringing enduring freedom as the hegemon has thougt in his idiotic imaginations.
The realization of democratic strutucture an culture and its development is a process, is a process, is a process, and in general a slowly growing one. Where there yet is none, it’ll be hard to start with such progress, during nothing but tremendous chaos (Irak). Concerning Iran I’m still hopeful. Hopefully not in vain .. for Iran is already in the hegemonial focus to be next. Seymour Hersh told so already many months ago. There are hegemonial plans for a new near- and middle-east. And Iran never saw himself in the role of an US-marionette. “Too bad” … because the hegemon doesn’t like such at all , nor is he got used to such “disobedience.”
Anna,
So you believe that the “process” of democracy in Iran is already going well but it needs more time.
May be I am too perfectionist for this matter. But I think if Japan could do it in a day, or if Singapore could do it, so Iran should have done it decades ago. Why should we wait for more decades? I think the Iranian revolution went so good but at the last moment the Air France spoiled everything. Even after loosing the very good chance of the revolution, once again we had a good chance 10 years ago that we simply wasted entire the decade (2×4 years of Khatami + 2 years of Ahmadinejad)
Please, try and error is enough!
I think the Iranian revolution went so good but at the last moment the Air France spoiled everything.
alireza
You are so right!!!
Anna
In my opinion a lot of countries are wannabe hegemons, fortunately they do not have the means to do so.
Don’t you think that some countries in the ME wouldn’t like to have as much power as USA? Don’t you think that China do not have hegemonic tendencies in Asia and outside of it? What about Russia, do you think Putin wouldn’t like to have this kind of power? What about France?
It is also easy to claim that “war on terror” is wrong, but you forgot that it wasn’t started by USA but by terrorist attack on 9/11.
As for Iran, I guess USA should take an example from IRI and i/o “war on terror” try “war by proxy”.
Archer
I think it is complicated. Yes, religion was definitely a factor, but they did not thought of themselves as murderers. They thought of their action as an act in the war with unbelievers. As a strike for umma and Islam.
I think they were murderers and terrorists, they thought they were shaheeds.
Alireza,
This is how Google defines “murder”, do you have any problem with that? :)
Anna,
Come on! we are just doing a civilized discussion here. Would you please give an answer to my question? I repeat it here “the 9/11 terrorists were convinced by religion to commit murder”. I am waiting…
Ella,
So, briefly speaking, you are saying “yes they were convinced by religion but they had good reasons for commiting what they did”. Is that what you are saying?
Kamangir,
That definition is not given by google. It is from http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn and if you accept this definition, then execution and self defence will be also defined as murder.
I think this one is better: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder)
Murder is the unlawful and intentional killing of a human being by another
As you see, the term “unlawful” is a key in this definition. So, again interpretion comes in the picture. Therefore, there is no absolute definition for that. From a religious person’s point of view, it was 100% lawful.
In this link try to search for “kill” in two links, Quran and Hadeeth:
http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/reference/searchquran.html
Yes, indeed it was lawful!
No, Archer. I am saying that they thought that they had good reason.
Alireza
I do not agree with your interpretation. If you go further to Quran and Hadiths and start reading explanations you would see that they did not have right to kill.
Very briefly, in sunni islam:.
1) 1923 was the ending of caliphate, from that time on muslims rely on various clerics to interpret for them the Quran.
2) This interpretation varies from cleric to cleric and from school to school
3) One of the contentious matter is the interpretation of jihad ( so called small jihad otherwise known as holly war)
4) There are two main interpretation of it
a/ Traditionally only Caliph can make the decision to start jihad, it is not up to individual .
I asked: If there is no state or ruler of the Muslims? He replied: In this situation, dissociate yourself from all groups, even if you have to chew the roots of a tree at the time of your death. Sahih Bukhari 7084
b/ it is individual decision to fight jihad. That means that any cleric or follower of the cleric can decide that he/she is attacked and therefore it is lawful for him/her to fight, kill, maim etc. This is the interpretation of all jihadists and that is how they explain what they do.
however
Abdullah Ibn ‘Umar (rta) reports from the Prophet (sws) that once in a battle when it became known that a woman had been killed, the Prophet (sws) emphatically forbade the killing of the women and children. Sahih Bukhari 3015
As you see, because on 9/11 many of the people killed were women and muslims (there is sura about prohibition of killing muslims) the 9/11 terrorists committed crime according to the reading of Quran.
pls read “It was unlawfull according to the reading of Quran” i/o “committed crime”
Ok, Kamangir, and of course: This is just a civilized discussion, what else? For me it’s primarly a matter of time I must say and to be quite honest and as I feel as well it’s a matter of my limited possibilities of expression in english-language which I don’t feel quite corresponding with my usual standards.
As to the 9/11 terrorists … and other terrorist and fanatics as well: Yes, their doing and thus becoming killers has been based on religious beliefs and convictions!
I consider Religion to be a similiar quality just as Freedom too: It can be and is being instrumentalized and abused, with all its tragic and desastrous consequences … and so it happens. The holy books themselves, be that the Bible, be it the Talmud, be it the Quran are full with it … they are - after all - all written by human beings and it’s hard to believe - not only for an atheist - that God or Gods themselves should have spread such brutalities and behavioral “instructions”. But it’s what mankind understands and “makes” about. One has just to look at the histories with all its tremendous bloodsheds … just too often for the sake and in the name of Gods and religious convictions.
And there exists a lot more of any kind and forms of religously based bigottery and idiocy in the behavior and selfunderstanding of the human beings quite amidst times and worlds calling themselves educated and progressive … for example in the USA too. Up till nowadays and all in all its an utterly sad chapter in the history of mankind. Not only Voltaire should feel disappointed and horrified.
Anyhow I will be reading by in your blog, may be now and then even say something :-)
Greetings and all the best to you all!
Arash,
I don’t think he cares much about Hoder as long as he is … [censored].
Alireza,
Execution is a type murder, which then we justify it. Intentionally, I did not include anything regarding the lawfulness of the act in my sentence. Let’s return to the argument “the 9/11 terrorists were convinced by religion to commit murder”.
Ella,
I don’t care how they digested it. Do you agree that “the 9/11 terrorists were convinced by religion to commit murder”?
Anna,
So, we seem to agree on the main argument. It only remains to add another argument to it. Let’s wait for Alireza and Ella to catch up with us.
Ella,
Once upon a time in a jungle all animals were running. A rabbit asked a deer why are you escaping? the deer answered, there is a beast in the jungle that kills any animal who has 6 legs. The rabbit scratched his head and asked, so why are YOU escaping, God sake you have only 4 legs. The deer answered yes, you and I know that I have only 4 legs but the problem is, this beast doesn’t know numbers :D
I am sorry, but you and I know what a religion is for, but those people don’t know that. Hehehe :D
They don’t know history, caliphs, mullahs or anything else. They know only one thing, if Bin Laden says you should kill, then you should kill! For them, Bin Laden is the Caliph if you like.
Please do not forget that even amongst Shaiks and Mullahs there are many many problems in interpretion of Quran and Hadeeth. So, as a Sunni muslim, you can follow Bin Laden or X or Y
And please be aware of beasts who don’t know how to count :) :D
But as Kamangir said, yes of course that I agree with you all. Only thing is, I prefer to discuss in preactical context rather than theorical. These incidents are not based on logic or rational way of thinking. They are based on emotions, belief and interpretion of the holy texts.
To analyse the situation, first you have put yourself in their shoes…
Alireza
I do understand very well what you are trying to say. That is what I tried to show all along. That’s why I wrote “they thought”.
If we disregards right or wrong interpretation of Quran, then yes. According to terrorist interpretation of quran they were right in what they were doing. According to terrorists, some other followers of islam, and some clerics interpretation of Quran what they were doing agreed with Islam.
Archer
But you asked about religion. Religion, is a set of beliefs. Religion, particularly Islam, can be interpreted differently by different people. It was interpreted differently during different points in time. Today it is interpreted differently then 200 years ago. Religious interpretation depends on followers of the religion and not on religion as such. It changes with the time although the followers of the particular religion will tell you that it is unchangeable.
Islam interpreted (in my view) wrongly convinced terrorists. Islam interpreted differently will condemn terrorists.
Ella,
I understand your concerns. But, don’t you think every single concept changes over time? For example, do you think family, education, and art have the same meanings they had a hundred years ago. My question is very clear. When the 9/11 guys (and I refrain from using terrorist or any word which implies any specific meaning) rushed to the cockpit they were thinking of Allah Almighty. Do you agree with that? I am not saying every Muslim, or religion person, will try to kill any infidel they find or anything like that. I am just making one simple argument “the 9/11 guys were convinced by their religion to kill people” (and I have changed the sentence a bit! :) )
BTW
Archer I think you want here a condemnation of religion. I condemn only a followers of religion. As a rather non-religious person I feel I am not in position to condemn any religion as such.
Ella,
No, not by any means. The only thing is, I am tired of yelling at each other. I am trying to find one argument upon which we all agree and then move forward, one step at a time.
Now I will answer again changing your statement a bit.
The 9/11 guys were convinced by their interpretation of their religion to kill people. Yes!
Ella,
Thanks God!
Alireza,
Are you okay with this sentence?
Agreed, so what is the next step? ;)
Are Hoder, Masoud Behnoud, Ebrahim Nabavi and other similar intellectual who encourage people to vote more for the puppet candidates helping the democracy in Iran or slowing it down? for God sake don’t tell me that democracy needs time and that we have to wait for a century to give a chance to the people to try and error and practice democracy.
BTW, this is a nice link, worth to see it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkkbAyibomE
Does democracy need very high educated, very intellectual, very clever, very experienced people? I really doubt! :D
Here let us also remember name the biggest democracy of the world: Replublic of India! :D
Alireza and Ella,
So, “The 9/11 guys were convinced by their interpretation of their religion to kill people”. Now, do you agree that “one can interpret religion in the way that it authorizes killing others”.
Is this a question of “can” or “cannot”? if yes, of course anyone “can” do anything without getting a permission from me or you ;)
Or if it is a question of being “right” or “wrong”, then my answer is a very big “WRONG”
And you didn’t answer my question. I hope you guys didn’t forget that we are now in the topic of The Kings and The Clowns so I am trying to concentrate on this topic more…
Alireza,
My question is a very simple “can”.
About your interest, let me think more. :)
Ok, please take your time.
Honestly, I finished my last project in December and now I am looking for a job. That’s why I can enjoy browsing in the Internet and writing comments for some weblogs.
If I get my next project, I will disapear for some time until my job become more relaxed again.
So I am a free man now! :D
Archer
We are going to the realm of philosophy, and I hate philosophy.
alireza
I think democracy do not need (it is just helpfull) highly educated, very intellectual, very clever, very experienced people. It just need certain frame of mind, certain way of thinking by majority of the people in the country. I know some people who are not very intellectual or very clever but they are more democratic in their thinking than other highly educated people.
BTW the biggest anti-democratic bsd&*rds were highly educated, very intellectual, very clever people like Lenin or……hmm…….. others ;-)
Ella,
That was a great comment! I too try to avoid phylosophy ;)
BTW, do you think that this “frame of mind” is something that people could be educated for, or should they learn it by try and error?
Thanks
Its a pity that I missed all this discussion going on here!
a few words:
Anna: are you sure that Iran has not attacked any countries for many centuries?! you don’t have to go far back in the history. The Iran-Iraq war started with Saddam’s attack on Iran. Two years later he asked for peace. Arab countries who supported Saddam were ready to pay Iran compensation. Iranian leader, Khomeini didn’t accept it and said even if the war took 20 years he would not stop the war until the capture (occupation) of the whole Iraq, and then he wanted to attack Israel and capture Jerusalem. For the next six years Iranians killed Iraqi women and children with bombs with firm belief that they were fighting for Allah.
The shia and Sunni Iraqis kill each other’s innocent people, each believing they are doing this for Allah.
9/11 happened by people who believed they were doing this for Allah.
These are not the fault of religion or even the interpretation of religion, its the fault of politicians who use religion or any other belief system (like communism) to use illiterate massess for their grab for power. Communism also caused the death of millions upon millions of Russians or Chinese people. They were killed becuase they were against “people”. Its alwasy easy to find reasons for killing others. killing for “Allah” or “people” or “the truth” or ” the great spirti”
As Agha Reza says (whoever he is)even when there were four people in the world (Adam, eve and the kids) one of the killed another!
Also: You seem to consider Olmert as a warmonger. The man did enough damage to his own people with trying to give Arab terrorists whatever he can, so that he may bring peace. Why don’t you recognize that it is the Iranian leaders who are constangly talking about wiping Israel off the map. Israel is not intersted in “destroying” other countries. its people have not been chanting “death to Iran” for the last 30 years. Israel’s people don’t walk on Iran’s flag when entering government buildings. Its the Iraninas who are doing this. In what other country in the world you see they put other countries flags on the ground and ask people to walk on it? What is all this hatred coming from but from religious ideals of a group of politicians who yearn for power and bullying others?
Gholi
But at the moment in the ME you really can not talk about illiterate masses. I mean KSA have around 80% literacy, the same is for other countries minus Iraq (around 50%) so it is not fault of illiterate people. And it is not solely fault of the politicians.
Consider Egypt. The people listen to Mubarak and he is telling them that the situation is, by and large, fault of the west (or USA or Israel). Then they go to the mosque where cleric is also telling them it is fault of unbelievers or it is because they are not religious enough. Then they listen to Al Jazeera or al Arabiya and they are telling them that many things are not their fault, it is mainly fault of others. Then some educated people read western newspapers or listen to the TV. Some of the articles, if you pick and choose, also claim that many things are fault of current (western) government, or politicians or globalisation or whatever.
Hell, if I were Egyptian (or saudi, or syrian or……), I myself would believe it.
In Iran it is a little different. Iran has different tradition than the rest of ME but you can not talk about illiterate masses. Majority of people in Iran are literate. And I think you can talk about interpretation of religion in Iran. After all in Iran religion and politics is intermingled. Clerics are also a politicians. I mean Rafsanjani is a mullah, Khatami was also a mullah. Ahmadinejad is not but he follows Mesbah Yazdi.
Ella,
then you mean its the fault of fanatic politicians. As a fanatic myself!, this is what I believe is true. They use people for their agenda.
about illiteracy, I dont’ mean they can’t read or write, but people in ME are being brainwashed by the government controled media. in the west one can hear and read all different viewpoints about every subject in the same paper (most papers) but at least in Iran, they can hardly hear anything but the official point of view. most people don’t go on the internet. and even if some know a lot it dosn’t make a difference, there are Enough number of thugs who believe in the regim who can kill or imprison whoever dare to say a thing. In ME what you hear from TV, or radio is not really the news, its conspiracy theories. Sort of the way that the neo-liberals or neo-leftist operate. Conspiracy theories are alwasy telling you what you hear is not the truth. By the time you can hear the truth, you won’t believe it. Its a strange mind set. In Iran most people are brainwahed to believe for ex. American news agencies alwasy lie,so you authomatically don’t belive them. And when they say something favorable about the regim, you are told: you see finally even they had to admit we are right.
About Egypt, and Syria and others, all they keep telling their people is that everything is the “others’” fault.true. smart politicians who keep their positions by making people focus on “others”. its good for Egyptians if they keep Mubarak. If they are given too much feedom, they will turn the country into another Iran, where for the next 30 years people will remember him as one of the greatest democratic leaders(!)in their history, the same way that Iranians think about the late Shah, in spite of him being sort of a dictator. when having to choose between “bad” and “worse” choosing bad is always preferable.
Gholi
Agreed.
Hi from Chicago, USA. I’ve spent hours reading your blog, thank you for writing so much.
Let me share with you the view that us “regular” American people are forming about the world…
- Yes, our gov’t isn’t perfect, often times stupid, sometimes shameful, and occasionally disasterously damaging
- We wish that history didn’t pick us to be involved around the globe, trying to “do good”, even if the good is selfish.
- We want nothing more than to live our lives in our nation that we built that is a home for people from all lands who want to live in freedom
- We know from World War II that to ignore a problem only guarantees that millions of people will die from inaction
- We know from World War II that if someone stopped Hitler , millions of people wouldn’t have died in war
- We know from World War II that when a Jew-hating dictator states his intentions that he shouldn’t be ignored, he is telling the truth.
More and more Americans are investigating Islam and what we’re finding we don’t like. We see Jihad against us. We see it exactly as the rebirth of a religious NAZIsm right before our eyes. Not only threatening the US, but all the world.
We also see this as inevitable and nothing we could have done to prevent it, we see that it is coming.
When the President of Iran speaks of Israel being removed in “one storm” and the Iranian govt calling the US the Great Satan for 20+ years, we have to conclude that Iran means what it said, just as Germany meant what it said.
We know the President of Iran was part of the group that invaded our Embassy in 1979 at the birth of the current gov’t.
Were it not for the violence of the Islamic Republic I don’t think anyone in the US would see Iran as anything other than a great culture and people trapped in a dictatorship. We’re no threat to Iran. However, Iran (and other Islamic countries / groups) are making themselves a threat to us and as we see it, it is due to religious duty.
So, we feel that the lessons of World War II must be listened to, for however bad the war might be now, it would be 100x worse if things were left alone until the eventual explosion.
This is how some of us think.
Thanks.
Vince,
Thanks for sharing your views. I may not like the general attitude of the American government, but as my government is even worse than yours I suspect I do not have anything to say.
Vince,
Thanks for sharing your views. I may not like the general attitude of the American administration, but as my government is doing uglier than yours, I suspect I do not have anything to say.
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