Twenty one years have passed since Ayatollah Khomeini issued the infamous Fatwa against Salman Rushdie for his writings. The Fatwa was in effect suspended ten years later by the reformist president Mohammad Khatami.
Maybe it is actually a good thing that we forget things. Otherwise, we, Iranians, should have been actively annihilating Macedonia all over for the past two thousand years for what they did to Persepolis. Yet, fundamentalists do not seem to like it when it comes to forgetting things.
Persian Post – What is an Excerpt
Moussavi and Karoubi recently published a one-hour-long video of their first “Cyber Press Conference” on Youtube. At the end of the video the producers appreciate what they call “helps from anonymous friends of the Green Movement in the state-run broadcasting body”. I interpret this as evidence that people from the inner circles of the Iranian political system are gambling on the end of the regime, and this is text-book example of what the advocates of the non-violent movement have been theorizing for long, i.e. the possibility of finding converts in a political regime and to have the system tremble without shooting a bullet.
Persian Post – What is an Excerpt
An MP recently suggested that if everyone in the political system of Iran adheres to the Supreme Leader, then there would be complete unity. Well, you can replace “the Supreme Leader” to virtually anything in that sentence and the same assertion would still be correct. Take this, for example; if the whole political system writes a list of all the decisions to be made on any particular day and then someone, anyone, looks them up in Google and collects a list of semi-random answers which are then taken to heart by everyone, then we will have “complete unity”. But is “complete unity” something a political system would be looking for and benefit from?
On a similar note, a banner in Tehran reads “cover yourself up and not get harassed by men”. That’s another completely correct assertion which misses the point entirely.
Persian Post – What is an Excerpt
The BP oil spill will give the industry more incentive to consider safety precautions more carefully and the world in large another reason to take alternative energies more seriously. Is Ahmadinejad Iran’s “political spill”?
Maybe we needed Ahmadinejad to occupy the office and make the future generations alert the next time someone like him has their names on the ballot. Of course that is assuming that there is going to be a future. The same goes for the BP spill. Does anyone suggest that everything can be returned to how things were before the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico?
Persian Post – What is an Excerpt
The similarities of Mohammad Rigi, the 14-year-old suicide-bomber of the Zahedan terrorist attack, and Hossein Fahmideh, the iconic child-hero of the Iran-Iraq war, are striking. Can we dismiss Rigi as a brain-washed terrorist but praise Fahmideh as a hero? What is heroism and who defines is? Aren’t these two kids both victims of two different violence-seeking political systems?
Persian Post – What is an Excerpt
The state-run Fars News published a piece in Persian about Concepcion Picciotto and how she has protested in front of the White House for 28 years. The main question is, is this supposed to be a criticism of the “Imperialist Evil” or an acknowledgment of American democracy?
Persian Post – What is an Excerpt
We, especially here in the Persian blogosphere, take it for granted that online social networks are good vehicles for engaging a society in mutual and expansive discussion. The experience of being a member of the Persian subsets of the most significant social networks, including Facebook and Friend Feed, however, paints a grim picture. The fact is, these networks are partitioned into other-hating islands inside which members bash the “others”.
Social networks are good at dismantling the grip of state ideology. But are they also good for developing an environment in which citizens tolerate and cooperate despite differences?
Persian Post – What is an Excerpt
There is significant interest in a concept generally known as the Postcolonial discourse in the Persian blogosphere. The sympathizers of this mindset are active in different social networks such as Facebook and Friendfeed. I believe this discourse is fueled by laziness and the fact that it is easy to nag and put down western liberalism and all its achievements than to produce alternative content.
Persian Post – What is an Excerpt?
