Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Talash #23

Unfortunately, none of the articles in this latest issue are available online. Unfortunate indeed, as the subject is the revival of Iranian culture during the reign of Reza Shah the Great.

Fruits of the "victorious" revolution



The tragedy of women’s self-immolation in the province of Kurdestan
A Report by Zagros


Souma Kohnepushi was a 14-year-old girl who lived in Asr Abad, one of the villages near the township of Marivan. She set herself on fire in the summer of 2004. According to an investigation of the case, her brother had informed her that she had failed a school exam, one that she had been warned about by an older brother, who had threatened her. Fearing abuse, she set herself on fire and died with severe burns over 65% of her body.

Zagros News
August 22, 2005

Social and economic pressures in the province of Kurdestan are so severe that to free themselves of them, and as a sign of protest, some Kurdish women resort to self-immolation. In this province, women must not only bear the hardships of living in a patriarchal society, but they must also suffer from the tragic consequences of this arrangement. Theirs is a daily struggle with numerous social and cultural predicaments. Forced marriages, the denial of basic human rights, and domestic violence are all pains that make life for Kurdish women unbearable.

On June 28 2005, in the town of Kanidiyar a woman by the name of Shahla set herself on fire because of a dispute with her husband, resulting in burns over 85% of her body.

To view some pictures of Kurdish women who are victims of self-immolation click HERE.

According to a social researcher, “Unemployment rates in the province of Kurdestan are higher than in any other state. Investment is at its lowest rate, and the underprivileged live in absolute poverty.”

It should be noted that the excessive presence of the Islamic Republic’s military and security units also imposes many restrictions on the people in all the various cities of Kurdestan. Economic and commercial activities, and also transit along the borders, have been very perilous and at times even impossible. These circumstances play a large role in the rise of poverty and unemployment in this province.

This expert adds, “Without a fundamental change on the national level, any hopes for improvement in the province of Kurdestan seem unfounded, but an information bureau by Kurdish women may be necessary in the meantime to at least reduce the cases of self-immolation.

Siran Rashidi, member of the board of directors of Women of Marivan’s People’s Assembly, talks about the many difficulties faced by these Iranian women. (in Persian)

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Shayan Badraie

The unfortunate Shayan Badraie, yet another proof of the “glory” in the Glorious Revolution.


"Shayan's picture (Left), which he drew as a 6 year old, shows Shayan and his sister crying, with their parents. The van at bottom right is the ambulance that would take Shayan to and from Westmead Children's Hospital, when he needed to be rehydrated because he would not eat or drink properly. Top left is a guard with a baton. Bottom left is a detainee bleeding where he has cut his wrist. All along the top is the razor wire..." (Continued)


Shayan is the subject of the film The Cage House.

The continuous raping of Iran

Historical, archeological sites in the province of Mazandaran are being looted at an incredible rate.

Given our appreciation of and close acquaintance with Iran’s contemporary history, an appreciation displayed by the act of the “glorious” revolution itself, you can just imagine the degree to which this medicine, the continuous looting of archeological sites, is intended to improve our appreciation of our very national identity.

Having survived our bad memories and amnesia in a bloodied and wretched state, Iran will not survive a national Alzheimer’s. No nation can.

The Pan-Turkists, Pan-Arabs, and the rest could not possibly find better allies than the Mullahs of Iran.

On Iranmania.com

Two years ago, this website, registered to Persicom Ltd in London, was caught with its pants down (by myself actually!) when it altered an AFP article about Shahzadeh Reza Pahlavi by inserting the following line (which you see here in bold) in one of the paragraphs:

"Pahlavi fled Iran when the 1979 Islamic Revolution ousted the monarchy headed by his father, Mohammad Reza, and now lives in the United States, where he still insists on being addressed as 'your highness'."

This article is available HERE as I write.

Anyway, two days ago I came across THIS article in the same website. Please notice the last paragraph:

“Takhti was found dead at one room in a Tehran hotel when he was 37. His popularity and sympathy for religious activists involved in anti-Shah political campaign brought the former regime to a situation in which they could not tolerate him and decided to assassinate him by misleading public opinion at the same time to thwart popular protest against the murder.”


In the real world, Emadodin Baghi, a researcher who lives in Iran, and with direct access to documents kept by the Islamist regime, has rejected the charge. Pahlavan Takhti’s sister has also dismissed the charge as fabrication. Even Takhti’s own son, Babak, who incidentally does hold the Iranian government responsible for his father's death, when asked by Shargh, “Is it possible to conclude that Takhti's death is still ambiguous, and that he is likely to have been killed?” replied: “This would certainly be out of question. I can give no definite comment on his death.”

I will, however, grant that "Iranmania" does know something about misleading public opinion.


---EDIT:

A short while after posting this message, a truly kind visitor, whom I cannot thank enough, has provided THIS article from the second volume of Important Personalities in Contemporary Iranian History by Dr. Mostafa Alamuti: After the revolution, the newspaper PAYAME AZADI (“Message of Freedom”) reported that the pro-Soviet Tudeh Party’s former first secretary, Kianuri, informed the Islamic Republic’s revolutionary court that Takhti was murdered by the Tudeh Party in order to point the finger at the Iranian government and the Shah. Thank you again and many thanks to ARYAMEHR.ORG for making this document available on the net.

From Scream to Scream

I would very much like to see this new documentary…



However, I will e-mail this post to Pantea Bahrami, the filmmaker, asking her about a statement in the film’s synopsis placed in the website:

“Massacres from 1981 till 1988 are still unknown for the new generation.”

Dear Ms. Bahrami, this statement may give the impression that the massacres during the 1979-1980 period are known to the new generation. Not too long ago, the anti-monarchist Iran-emrooz, in an article by a Hizbollahi “reviewing” Empress Farah Pahlavi’s An Enduring Love, referred to the 79-80 massacres as “rumors”, and an “Iranian leftist” website (as fake as they come) in Europe, operating as a “human rights” group (I’ll not name it here) is on record for its statement that the killings began some THREE years after the revolution! Would it not be better, then, to present your film as one concerned with ALL massacres since the coming of the “Imam”, instead of a selected period, even if for no other purpose than an acknowledgment, against the deniers, that the earlier massacres took place?

Eager to see your film,
Khorshid

Friday, August 26, 2005

Anglo-Arab claims on Iranian territory

http://www.baztab.com/news/27992.php

Yes, I am quite aware that Baztab is playing the nationalist card. But our awareness of that fact alone will not make the threats against our sovereignty, which have existed all along, go away.

The introductory part is perhaps the greatest piece of tragi-comedy in existence. One is literally at a loss whether to laugh or to cry. Nevertheless, do not take the warning lightly, even as it’s being issued by those who could not RAPE our territorial integrity further if they tried. Through them, and thanks to the absolute apathy of 95% of “Iranians” living abroad---with the rest either serving the interests of foreign governments (visited “Iranian.com” lately?) or too powerless to make an immediate change--- their masters, I feel, have already laid the grounds for the disintegration of Iran.

Do you remember, dear compatriot, how our “intellectuals” aped their western counterparts in calling our Shah “Jandarme Mantagheh!”?


Arrogance of Arab Governments, Abuse of Iran’s Good Will

Baztab
August 21, 2005

Recent fateful events in Iraq, particularly the drafting of a constitution that is sure to affect every nation in the region, and also maneuvers by the enemies of Iran for the past few months against Iran’s territorial integrity, especially in the Persian Gulf, are illustrative of the need by our policymakers, media and the people of Iran to be more than ever before attentive to the history of Iran’s relations with the Arab states.

August 14 marked an important dual anniversary in this history: The unfortunate separation of Bahrain from Iran on August 14, 1971 and Saddam Hussein’s declaration of Iraq’s commitment to the 1975 Algiers Accord on borders on August 14, 1990.

In a year that’s been named “the year of national unity”, although Arab states have intensified their attacks against the national interests and the territorial integrity of Iran, unfortunately this matter has not induced the necessary sensitivity of the Iranian media and other forms of mass communication in return.

The role of Al-Jazeera TV---operating under the auspices of Qatar---during the recent incidents in Khuzestan was so blatantly obvious that it led to a strong reaction by the Iranian authorities. Concurrent with these disturbances, the government of United Arab Emirates too, by setting up a website aggressively titled www.3Emirates-Islands.org.ae/maps.htm, had displayed a few pictures as historical documents to prove its claim to the islands. UAE’s latest claim, incidentally, concerns the “occupied” Siri Island in the Persian Gulf!

An evaluation of the ventures by Arab countries expanding decades, and even after the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, are proof that the racist Arab spirit has played a far greater role in their dealings with Iran than their governments’ Islamic leanings.

The Islamic Republic, from its inception, viewed the biggest Arab problem, meaning Palestine, as one of the most fundamental concerns of the Iranian people, and demonstrated its sympathy to such extent that supporting Palestine and Palestinian rebellions were numbered among its foreign policy objectives. During the years that followed the victory of the revolution, this support, in the form of annual payments from the Iranian national budget, has continuously demonstrated the good will and humanist feelings of Iranian officials. Little attention has been paid, until now, to the reaction by the Arab governments, particularly those supposedly allied with Iran, toward the national interests and the territorial integrity of Iran.

Sadly, and contrary to what one would expect, we see that in every single Arab proclamation and declaration signed over the years against Iran’s territorial integrity in the Persian Gulf, concerning, to name but few, the three islands, the name Persian Gulf, or “Iranian-occupied” territories, our “allies” Syria, Lebanon and Palestine also appear as signatories! These are wrongful conducts that have never received admonitions from Iran. The neglectfulness of Iran’s state and private media in addressing Iranian people’s concerns, and the needs of the younger generation, calls for a brief examination of Arab claims regarding the territorial integrity of Iran.

Arab claims can generally be divided into five parts:

1. Claim regarding the Arabness and the name of Persian Gulf.
2. Claim regarding Bahrain (which was unfortunately realized)
3. Claim regarding the Islands Abu Musa, Greater and Lesser Tunbs
4. Claim regarding Iraq’s total sovereignty over Arvandrood (lit. Arvand River)
5. Claim regarding the detachment of Khuzestan (because some Khuzestanis are of Arab descent)

The Persian Gulf

One of the oldest and most recognizable locations in world geography, the Persian Gulf has been recognized by this name not by Iranians alone, but by such ancient civilizations as the Greek and Roman. Even after Islam, in all documents, books and historic texts written in Arabic, the terms “Al-Khalij Farsi” or “Bahr Fars” were used by Arabs themselves in reference to the body of water in southern Iran. Arab governments indeed used the name until the 1950s. There is even a line in Egypt’s national anthem stating: “Our borders extend from the PERSIAN Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea!”

It was Arab humiliation in the Six Day War with Israel, and ultra-nationalist claims by Egypt’s Nasser and the Iraqi Ba’ath Party, that created the right atmosphere for Nasser to refer to the Persian Gulf as the “Arabian Gulf” for the first time. (Before Nasser, the anti-Iranian British colonialist, Sir Charles Belgrave, had used the term in a book; a gesture which to many signifies British animosity towards Iran, a sort of revenge against the people of Iran, who earlier, under the leadership of Mossadegh, had managed for a short time to cut off the hands of Britain from Iran.

Such unbecoming diplomatic conduct was met with such severe protests from Iran that in 1971 the United Nations was obliged to issue a directive to all member states demanding the name Persian Gulf be used fully and unabbreviated (“the Gulf”/”Arabian Gulf”) in all documents, correspondence, media, etc. Threats from Iran combined with this directive in fact prevented the founding of a certain “Arabian Gulf News Agency” by the Arab governments.

In the 1980s, Saddam Hussein decided to follow the footsteps of Nasser, in the context of a war in which he, according to himself, was the leader of Arab world’s eastern frontiers. At the time, the insistence of Arab governments on adopting the counterfeit name was so great that in 1984 the UN, for the second time, condemned the use of the forged name, insisting once more on the use of Persian Gulf in all documents, correspondence, etc. Interestingly enough, Arab insistence over this matter was occurring at a time when they themselves were justifying the name of the Gulf of Aqaba, against a proposal to change it to the “Gulf of Eilat” (which is a port in Israel), based on the HISTORIC nature of the name!

Recently, with Arab boldness towards Iran’s national interests on the rise, the journal “National Geographic” placed a counterfeit name, no doubt by the suggestion of Arab states, next to the name Persian Gulf in one of its maps. Iranians inside and abroad, and all Iranian groups and parties regardless of their political inclinations reacted so strongly that the journal was forced to back down and issue an official apology, demonstrating that sensitivity towards national values can be very advantageous to the Iranian people.

The conduct of Arab governments, and of course dealings behind closed doors, has caused some news agencies such as the BBC, ABC, and Reuters to warn all other news agencies, websites, etc., that either deliberately or inadvertently use counterfeit names to use the correct name.

Bahrain

An island in the Persian Gulf, Bahrain had been a part of Iran since ancient times. The island was governed by Iran from the second millennium BC, and according to many its name is derived from the Iranian “Bahram”.

In the era after the advent of Islam too Bahrain had remained Iranian territory and was considered the center of Shiite Islam in the Persian Gulf area. With the coming to power of the Safavids and the contemporaneous arrival of Portugal in the Persian Gulf, the Safavid leader Emamgholikhan, son of Allahverdikhan, managed, with the help of courageous Iranians, to liberate Bahrain, Qeshm, Kish, port of Gameron (Bandar Abbas), and other ports and islands in the Persian Gulf of their Portuguese occupiers.

Later, during the Afsharid period, Nader Shah Afshar would appoint Latifkhan Dashtestani as the Governor General of all southern provinces of Iran and the Captain of all ports and shores along the Persian Gulf. In 1736 Dashtestani presented Nader Shah with the key to the fortress of Bahrain.

Karim Khan Zand too, in 1765, rules over all ports and islands in the Persian Gulf, and it is even said that what are today the shores of Dubai, were then used as a place to banish hardened criminals. Only later, taking advantage of the impotence of the Qajar government and under the pretext of safeguarding the Persian Gulf, Britain was able to gradually strengthen its foothold in the area, and by bribing the Sheikdoms to the south of Persian Gulf, in a deal signed by Britain and Arab mercenaries in 1853, encouraged their disobedience towards Iran. From that year on Britain gradually increased its presence in Bahrain and the other islands, a presence that for years led to various protests from Iran. The extent of these protests was so great that in the late 1950s the Iranian parliament declared Bahrain as the 14th province of Iran.

Colonialism’s power over the previous government led to the consideration by the Iranian parliament of a proposal regarding the ultimate fate of Bahrain, sadly leading to its separation from Iran in 1970, after a fake poll was put to a number of Sheiks in Bahrain. Given the extreme provocation by the Arab governments towards Iran, it needs to be said that as no plan or bill regarding Bahrain’s separation has been ratified by the Iranian parliament, from the legal point of view this separation is null, and that whenever Iranians demonstrate a will, they can do whatever is necessary to regain the island.

The Three Islands

From the beginning of history and during the entire periods when Medes, Achamenids, Sassanids, (and after Islam) Al-Buyeh, Safavids, Afsharids, Zands and Qajars ruled Iran, the three islands of the Persian Gulf were part of Iran. The 6th paragraph in the first column of the Bitistun inscription states that the islands, along with other islands in the Persian Gulf, belong to the province of Pars, while during the Parthian and Sassanid periods they were considered part of the province of “Seistan” (Sistan). Iranians governed the islands also in the Al-Buyeh period, and after coming to power of the Seljuks, they were ruled by the Chancellors of Pars. The Timurids too regarded the tributes from the Persian Gulf islands as tributes from the province of Pars. The islands would come under Portuguese occupation later, and we’ve already discussed their liberation above.

Hundreds of old documents and texts testify to Iran’s sovereignty over the islands, such as a book by M.K. Bandarabbasi, مقاس اليالي و منارال ميالي, which contains a document showing that the shepherds who were the ancestors of the present rulers of Sharjah and Ras al-Khaimah (emirates in the UAE) would lease the islands from Iranian rulers to graze their cattle. Additionally, docks from the Nader Shah and Bazaars from the Karim Khan periods also demonstrate Iran’s dominance over the islands.

With the arrival of British colonialism during the reign of the incompetent Qajars, these islands, along with Bahrain, came under British occupation, one that until the recovery of our territory was accompanied by many protests by all Iranian governments, from official letters of protest to periodic visits to the islands. The British occupation, begun in 1891, lasted until November 30, 1971, when the Islands were returned to Iran.

During the years of occupation, the colonialists had awarded the islands as gifts to their devoted Arab servants: Abu Musa Island to the Emir of Sharjah, and the Greater and Lesser Tunbs to the Emir of Ras al-Khaimah. Thus, all claims by the Arab governments rest wholly on this 80-year period during which the islands were under British occupation; otherwise, there exists no document or proof showing the ownership of the islands by the Arab governments and the UAE. In light of the fact that United Arab Emirates was itself founded AFTER the return of the islands to Iran, these claims become even more interesting!

Arvandrood (The Arvand River)

This some 1500-meter wide frontier waterway between Iran and Iraq is one of the biggest channels in the world, formed by the merging of rivers Dajla (Tigris), Farat (Euphrates) and Karoon. More than 4/5 of its water comes from Karoon, as Turkey, Syria, and Iraq’s use of Dajla and Farat leaves little water from these rivers to form Arvandrood.

In the past, and for centuries, there were skirmishes between Iran and the Ottomans over the rights to this river, and these skirmishes continued after the founding of Iraq along our western front. Finally with the 1975 Algiers Accord, it was divided along the “al-gharar” or “Thalweg” line between the two countries, an agreement that Arab governments would later regard as to have been to their disadvantage, using it as one of their excuses to start an 8-year war with Iran. Interestingly, even two years after the fall of Saddam, the new Iraqi government is shirking its obligation to adhere to the 1975 agreement so that it may find other ways to claim full sovereignty over the Arvand River.

Khuzestan

Throughout history, the province of Khuzestan has been a part of Iran. In the rock relief of Darius the Great Khuzestan is remembered by the name “Suziana”. This province was the residence of the ancient Elamites who were a part of the Achamenid Empire. After the coming of Islam and the arrival of the Arab tribe, the province became the center of Shiism in Iran. During the 1400 years since the advent of Islam, all tribes residing in this province, be they Arabs, Lors, Bakhtiaris, Dezfulis… have guarded Iran’s bordered through peace and unity.

Using racist views to strengthen the claims regarding the three islands, Arvandrood and Khuzestan, Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi government, with overwhelming Arab support and the backed by the great powers, imposed an 8-year war on Iran. That war provided ample proof of the unity among all Iranian tribes.

---

To conclude, negligence on the part of our politicians and the Iranian media to address the question of national unity and the importance of historic pride and historic values have resulted in a situation where, every once in a while, new claims regarding the territorial integrity of Iran are issued from Arab governments. After distorting the name of the Persian Gulf, after separating Bahrain from Iran, and after the preposterous claim by the UAE regarding the eternally Iranian three islands, the latest claim is a barefaced lie by the racist Al-Jazeera that Khuzestan is not a part of Iran and that it is being “occupied” by Iranians. Then there is the latest claim by the UAE concerning the Siri Island… If we’re at all concerned about our national interests and the fate of future generations these threats suffice for sounding the alarm. While Iranians politicians have kept silent, in addition to the above, Arab governments have made claims regarding Kish, Qeshm, Lavan and Bandar Lengeh as well. (Let’s not forget the renaming of these areas, which, along with the renaming of the Persian Gulf by the National Geographic, had been approved by Arab governments.) And so, it is important for the government of Iran and Iranian patriots to utilize textbooks, radio and television, printed press, websites and other means of mass communication to provide incontrovertible proof of Iran’s borders for all Iranians, particularly the younger generation and all the fair-minded people in the world. Our apathy will only encourage our enemies in their boldness in realizing their plan for a Greater Middle East and a Lesser Iran.

Friday, August 19, 2005

Remembering Iran’s 9/11

Remembering Iran’s 9/11

Today marks the 27th anniversary of one of the most heinous terrorist acts by the founders of the Islamic Republic: The August 19, 1978 burning of Cinema Rex in the city of Abadan, in which some 400 Iranians were burned alive.

Masterminded in order to point the finger at the Iranian government, this mass murder was, as a number of commentators have put it, Iran’s 9/11.

There was a major difference, however: In our country, the terrorists won.

Several months after this heinous act and after the fall of the Iranian government, in a February 4, 1980 interview with the now republican-controlled Pars News, Nasser Minachi, “Committee for the Defense of Freedom and Human Right’s” contact with the US embassy---members of this committee included such luminaries as Mullah Mehdi Bazargan, Karim Sanjabi, and “comrades” Ali-Asghar Haj Seyd Javadi and Abdolkarim Lahiji---, would give some details about the services rendered by this committee in the realization of the “Glorious” Revolution:

“During the Cinema Rex fire in Abadan, we along with ‘Students’ Islamic Association’ organized a meeting in front of Washington Post’s Tehran office, where we succeeded in representing the Shah’s government as the culprit, thus preventing the blame being put on the Mullahs and Moslems. We completely changed US public opinion regarding the Cinema Rex fire.”



For a detailed account, please read THIS.

For the most complete archive of articles about the Cinema Rex arson go HERE.

Thursday, August 18, 2005

US-based “AssyriaSat” is giving anti-Iranians airtime

I was flipping the channels on the satellite a few hours ago when I saw a man wearing the traditional Saudi hat, and with a peculiar version of the Iraqi flag behind him, speaking about “al-Iraniya” and “al-ahwaz.” He was followed by another guy, who too kept mentioning “al-ahwaz”, “khalgh”….



Well, as it turned out, it was a program by the so-called “AL-Ahwaz Revolutionary Council” (part of the “Al-ahwaz” Organization), which is calling for a “Democratic Republic of AL-Ahwaz”.



The satellite channel, however, was AssyriaSat, an Assyrian satellite service from the AssyriaVision (KBSV-TV Ch 23 U.S.A) studios at the Assyrian Cultural Center of Bet Nahrain (Bet-Nahrain, Inc.) in California!

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Mehrgan's seminar and NIAC

Mohamad Parvin on the upcoming seminar by the Mehrgan Cultural Foundation, scheduled for the Labor Day weekend. You may have seen the ad on the so-called “Iranian.com”.

http://www.sendmefile.com/00051364

This MP3 file contains Mr. Parvin’s reference to this event on August 7 and August 14 during his radio program on human rights.

A letter to Vanity Fair Magazine

The following is a letter to Vanity Fair regarding Christopher Hitchens's article on Iran in the magazine’s July 2005 issue.

Vanity Fair/September 2005/Letters/p.174

I am writing to comment on a recent article by Christopher Hitchens entitled “Iran’s Waiting Game”. I would like to thank Mr. Hitchens for writing about how Iranians truly feel both inside and outside of Iran and what they want for the future of their country. In today’s Western media, astute articles like his are, unfortunately, a rarity.

My first comment is about Mr. Hitchens’s apparent fascination with meeting a Khomeini. Iranians do not regard Hossein Khomeini---whose grandfather was an inhumane terrorist and Islamist Fascist with complete disregard for Iran and its people, culture, and heritage---with such awe.

My second comment is with respect to Hossein Khomeini’s concerns about Mr. Reza Pahlavi’s potential claim to the throne. In short, nobody cares what Hossein Khomeini thinks, nor is he in any position to ask whether Pahlavi’s descendants should give up their claim to the throne. Regardless of any mistakes that dynasty might have made, its kings did help build Iran, not the Islamic Republic of Iran. Ultimately, it is for the people to decide what political capacity certain individuals will have in the new Iran once they have removed the Khomeinis from their soil.

Sheda Vasseghi
Washington, D.C.

A foreword to Hedayat's البعثة الاسلامیه الی البلاد الافرنجیه

Unauthorized translation of Amir Sepehr's foreword to Sadegh Hedayat's...

البعثة الاسلامیه الی البلاد الافرنجیه


Though it may seem that Iranian society is brimming with thinkers, the truth is that during these150 years that we regard as a period of awakening, we’ve had fewer than a dozen individuals worthy of the name. The idea, believed by some, that our society is filled with intellectuals is a misunderstanding and simply false. In our society the term “intellectual” has become so devalued and hollowed that anyone who gets himself a university degree or writes a cookbook or a few aimless lines of poetry is regarded as an “intellectual”, even as these have little to do with intellectualism.

One would have hoped that after the events of 79 our people would realize that the clan known as intellectuals are far less competent in understanding the problems of our society and in choosing the right course than the ordinary people on the street, but unfortunately it did not turn out that way and today, once again, from what we read we gather that our society possesses thousands of intellectuals, thinkers, philosophers and scholars! Very few are troubled by the inconvenient fact that a people with so many intellectuals would hardly find itself under the most backward, bloodthirsty theocratic regime at the dawn of the third millennium. On the other hand, a nation whose “intellectuals” don’t know that the foundation of a theocratic regime cannot be democratic, who follow Mullahs and start Islamic Revolutions, will naturally have a “Supreme Leader of Moslems”-regime, and repulsive and medieval laws such on stoning and human dismemberment.

The harm caused to our country and people by this ignorant clan did reach a climax in 79, but then again, in every move and decision for at least the past one hundred years these “intellectuals” have been on the wrong side. The level of understanding of this stupid and backward clan is so low, and these fake “thinkers” are so ignorant of matters of political philosophy that far from learning from their own mistakes they’ve repeated them a number of times. Their ink on thousands of articles extolling and worshipping Mullah Khatami, and in defense of “secular law in the framework of religious law”, has yet to dry.

All their thoughts too for the past fifty years have been concerned with mourning and chest beating for the “1953 coup”. They will not admit that if from that so-called coup there eventually emerged the literacy corps, the health corps and land distribution, their own “revolution” in 1979 replaced these progressive and people-based initiatives with “the committee concerned with sins” and the revolutionary and Islamic law courts that until today have sacrificed the lives of more than a million Iranians, a revolution that destroyed the fruits of at least two hundred years of civil struggle, one that has led to an entire generation’s seeking foreign asylum and unconditional acceptance of a refugee status, and one that has forced innumerable Iranians to sell themselves or their own organs. At a time when France (the cradle of democracy) and Britain (with 800 years of experience in democracy) remain unable to find substitutes for the likes of Sartre, de Beauvoir and Russell, we comfort ourselves that each day the number of our thinkers is increased by a thousand, and are impressed to find “intellectuals” in every nook and corner.

In reality, the political problems of Iran are not the result of either the cluelessness or the treachery of our “intellectuals”, but of the lack of actual intellectuals. If one hundred years ago alert and responsible intellectuals such as Akhundzadeh, Kermani, Taleb Tabrizi, Ehtesham ol-Saltaneh and a few others were able, by their understanding of the land they lived in and through illumination, to lead a backward and illiterate population to secularism and a progressive revolution like the constitutional revolution, seventy years later another group, who had no other expertise other than spying for foreign states and vilifying the Shah, led a people a thousands times more educated and modern than the constitutional generation into the trap of Mullahs and an ultra reactionary regime. It is regrettable that after the constitutional movement the subject known as enlightenment practically disappeared and our intelligentsia closed shop, so that from the constitutional period to the present we’re at a loss to name a single conscientious intellectual, who felt his or her responsibilities in enlightening the people. After the constitutional period, whatever there was, it was either guerilla intellectualism and the glorification of destruction, or attempts to Islamize the scientific study of the individual, neither of which was useful for our society.

Nevertheless there were a few exceptions in this one hundred year period, but not of the level and stature of those first intellectuals. Seyed Hassan Taghizadeh, Ali Dashti, Mohamad Taghi Bahar, and Ahmad Kasravi, who interestingly enough were all former Mullahs, are members of this group. Although Sadegh Hedayat can too be considered a member of this group, one cannot liken Hedayat to these exceptional individuals.

For Hedayat may be the exceptional figure throughout Iranian history, and for the past one hundred years, an exception among exceptions; a learned individual who remains matchless to this date. He was a modern intellectual par excellence. He not only knew Iranian and Eastern culture, history and philosophy, but was also in touch with the modern world and the historical-philosophical changes then taking place. He knew Iran, knew Islam, and knew of Islam’s domination of Iran and the cultural ravage that was the consequence of that dominance. It was with that deep familiarity that Hedayat---unlike those who, after destroying Iran, have today become Mullaholosists one and all---understood Mullahism and its reactionary and destructive nature some 40 years before the establishment of the Islamic Republic.

Although Hedayat was from a thoroughly political family (he was the son of Mokhber al-Dowleh Hedayat and brother of the wife of Haj’ali Razmara, Iran’s Prime Minister assassinated by the “Fadayeen of Islam”) he never showed any inclination towards politics. He knew that a thinker’s outpost were located far above the dark lair of politics. Like the great Western thinkers Hedayat also knew that an intellectual should not necessarily be political. For this reason he neither played the part of a guerilla nor was at war with the Shah. Nor did he find himself in trouble with the government, and yet he had a great effect on Iranian society.

Sadegh Hedayat recognized the basic reason for the backwardness of our society very well; he knew that the dominating tyranny was a religious, not a political one. This is why it became his target; the same destructive tyranny that would take full advantage of an absence of people like Hedayat and, by holding the reins of an unaware people, would in the end brake the backs of a so-called “tyrannical” King, a renaissance and a heedless and superstitious people all at once, and all that with the direct help of a self-satisfied, ignorant bunch who too regarded themselves as intellectuals!

Although everything Hedayat wrote is valuable and instructive, we who are experiencing a theocratic regime undoubtedly find his البعثة الاسلامیه الی البلاد الافرنجیه his most appealing and attractive work. What a pity that he put an end to his own life, far away from home, precisely at a time when he was at the top of his form and capable of creating other valuable works.

Hedayat was a sensitive soul, no longer able to endure the cultural apathy and lethargy induced by the Mullahs and a population under their influence. We should not hide the fact that during the last months of his life, he was so fed up by his heedless and ungrateful people that he confided to his friend, Mas’oud Farzad: “I don’t even want my corpse to be buried in this wretched land, near these ignorant, damn people.”

He had the right to say so. I myself heard from my father that no one knew his value. My father would say, “Ignorant people aside, the poor fellow was even called retarded and crazy by some of our writers, out of jealousy, and the Mullahs too called him an atheist and a Kafir.”

But Hedayat was not the first victim of such ignorance in Iran. This sad story is a common thread running throughout our history. Either asleep or grateful only towards the dead, we Iranians have never honored our greats while they have lived. Ferdowsi, Hafez, Aref… how they suffered and what hardships they endured. I remember well that before Forough Farrokhzad died, some people would call her a “prostitute” and her good, intelligent and Iran-loving brother, Fereydoun, a “homo”. And Saidi Sirjani too was called “Rafsanjani’s servant” before his death.

May they all be remembered forever!

Saturday, August 13, 2005

Denouncing Ahmadinejad's UN visit

Roxanne Ganji is asking her compatriots to sign THIS petition, concerning the upcoming visit by Ahmadinejad to New York.

I’ve already signed, but I’d like to remind Banoo Ganji that the 1980 Algiers Accord signed by the US granted immunity to the hostage takers. If Ahmadinejad was indeed one of the hostage takers or interrogators, then he will not be the first such individual to meet with US officials. Also, as his stated mission is to address the UN, and not a formal meeting with US officials, that too will provide him with further immunity.

What doesn’t get reported and why

One of course would not expect it from Hizbullahis, but had the Akbar Ganji public relations campaign not succeeded in putting everyone else in a coma, perhaps our “opposition” websites would have troubled themselves to mention a word or two about such news as THIS or the 43 day hunger strike by five of our compatriots in the Netherlands which ended yesterday, with most people not even knowing that it took place. Perhaps then articles like THIS would have focused instead on “A People’s Cry For Freedom”.

A small error

To: World Peace Herald

Dear Sir/Madam,

I’m writing to you regarding the article “Outside View: Iran human rights in crisis”, By Ronald J. McNamara, International Policy Director of the United States Helsinki Commission. I would only like to point out a minor error on the part of the author concerning the year Abdolkarim Lahiji "fled" Iran. It was not 1979. Lahiji in fact ran as a candidate for the Islamic Republic’s Majless in (as late as) March 1980.

Sincerely yours,
Khorshid

Ayatollah Ebadi on violations of human rights…

Friday, August 12, 2005

سالروز آغاز دفاع مردانه آريو برزن در برابر اسکندر

August 12th is considered the date marking the beginning, in 330 BC, of the resistance by some 1000 Iranians led by General Ario Barzan against the onslaught of Alexander of Macedon and his bandits, numbering tens of thousands. The exact date was noted by the Greek historian Callisthenes who had followed Alexander on his expedition.

With our country under occupation once more, this time by Islamists, let us remember these brave Iranians who died defending our honor, and learn a lesson or two in loving one’s motherland. (Jona Lendering gives a somewhat different account of the death of Ario Barzan)

In an article written last year to note this anniversary, one Iranian historian rightly complained that unlike modern Greeks who constructed monuments to celebrate Greek patriotic heroism in such instances as the battle of Thermopylae, we have no monuments to honor Ario Barzan and his soldiers and that they have been all but forgotten.

See also the following, on past attempts to celebrate our history:
Denigration of History And the Mocking of the National Flag

William O. Beeman

Few Iranians opposed to the Islamist Republic of anti-Iran are unfamiliar with the name William O. Beeman, one of its western apologists and one of the darlings of the anti-Pahlavists.

Here he is, writing in New York Daily News, sharing his views about the prospects of an Islamic Republic of Iraq. If by any chance you do not know Beeman, bear in mind while reading it that this is the opinion of one who has closely followed the developments in Iran since the 79 reaction.

Understanding an “Islamic” state of Iraq

(Note the quotation marks!)

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

Meet Professor Hamid Algar

British born Algar is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Read about him HERE, and be sure to follow the links in that article, including those posted on the left, under resources. Also take a look at his mug in the Islamic digest website, HERE.

Very comforting, isn't it, to know that a Komeinist has contributed more than 100 articles to Encyclopaedia Iranica.

Monday, August 08, 2005

ali larijani

ايرانيان قبل از اسلام مردمی بی فرهنگ بودند
سخنرانی "دكتر" علی لاريجانی در شريف
روزنامه شريف (مه ٢٠٠٣)

يكشنبه ی هفته جاری به مناسبت ميلاد پيامبر اسلام حضرت محمد (ص) و امام جعفر صادق (ع) پيشوای مذهب جعفری از سوی كانون قرآن شريف جشنی تحت عنوان "طلوع مهر" در محل آمفی تئاتر مركزی دانشگاه برگزار شد. در اين مراسم كه با تلاوت آياتی چند از قرآن كريم آغاز شد ابتدا گروه موسيقی "باران" به اجرای برنامه پرداختند. در ادامه پس از دكلمه ی شعری در وصف پيامبر (ص) دكتر علی لاريجانی رئيس سازمان صدا و سيما سخنانی در مورد شرايط جهان در زمان تولد پيامبر ايراد كرد و در مورد شرايط ايران قبل از اسلام گفت: "متاسفانه امروزه دروغ های بسيار زيادی در مورد ايرانيان قبل از اسلام، ميزان فرهنگ و تمدن آنها و همچنين آتش سوزی كتابخانه ها در زمان حملهء مسلمانان گفته می شود."

وی در ادامه افزود: "ايرانيان قبل از اسلام مردمانی بی سواد، بی فرهنگ و در كل وحشی بودند و در عين حال خود نيز علاقه داشتند كه بی سواد باقی بمانند." وی همچنين تمامی پيشرفت های فرهنگی و علمی ايرانيان قبل از ا‌سلام را دروغ خواند و اندك فعاليت هايی نظير تاسيس دانشگاه "جندی شاپور" را حاصل تلاش عده ای از مسيحيان دانست. گفتنی است در پايان جشن ميهمانان با شربت و شيرينی مورد پذيرايی قرار گرفتند.


With Ali Larijani as the Islamic Republic's new chief nuclear negotiator, we could not have found a better person to defend "Iranian pride!"

Ali Larijani's speech (above) in "Sharif university", May 2003:

"Sadly, much lies are told today of Iranians before Islam, the extent of their culture and civilization, and the burning of their libraries during the Moslem invasion...Before Islam Iranians were an illiterate, uncivilized and basically barbaric people who desired to remain as such."

Friday, August 05, 2005

“What is it to you?!”

Excerpts from a "press conference" with the Islamic Republic of anti-Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi, which aired last week.

First Reporter: What will the scope of the (UCF) activity in Esfahan be at the beginning? Will it have full or partial capacity?
Asefi: What is it to you?!
Moments later…
Second reporter: Regarding the UCF in Esfahan... Will its activity start at full or partial capacity, in order to show that the suspension...
Asefi: He asked, and I already said it is of no interest to you.
Second reporter: Please tell us, it might interest us.
Asefi: No. I know it is of no interest to you.

Thursday, August 04, 2005

Ostad Fouladvand interviews Dr. Wafa Sultan

Anjomane Padeshahi interviews LA Psychologist and Syrian expatriate Wafa Sultan on the subject of Islam and terrorism.



This was conducted yesterday and you can watch it by going to Nomullas.com (I recommend downloading it HERE; clip 526).

Last week Dr. Sultan debated and clashed with Algerian Islamist Ahmad bin Muhammad over Islamic teachings and terrorism, live on Al-Jazeera TV.

Dr. Wafa Sultan's writings can be found at Annaqed.com

Thank you Wafa Sultan.

Wednesday, August 03, 2005

من مفسد فی الارض ام

Monday, August 01, 2005

Minstrel in a pool of blood

How happy I am to hear that the great Fereidoun Farrokhzad is being remembered in a new book about his life, his patriotism and tragic death titled Khonyagar dar Khoon, by the Iranian poet Mirza Agha Asgari (“Mani”).



صدای او، صدای اعتراض مردم به بند کشیده ی ایران بود.نگذاریم صدای شومن بزرگ ایران فراموش شود


این کتاب را تنها از خود مولف آن می توانید تهیه کنید چون در کتابفروشی ها عرضه نخواهد شد