Thursday, June 28, 2007

So What Next?

So after years of not investing money in oil refineries and instead the Islamic Republic pouring Iran's petro-dollars into terrorist organisations and efforts to destabilise the region, the petrol chicken has come home to roost. Once again an opportunity has risen where Iranian people have seen the strength in their numbers and gained confidence to challenge the authorities. Will the petrol riots be similar to the football riots, the student uprising in July 99, the six days dusk protests, or the urban riots caused by changing boundaries etc. Will the initial confidence and momentum suddenly fizzle out as a result of lack of support, brutal crackdown etc. by the regime?

I was watching the Islamic Republic state TV tonight. The situation is serious. It seemed like the country was at war. Patriotic songs were played, as they usualy are in times of crisis for the clerics, the state radio suddenly remembered our pre-Islamic and national heroes. The very people who had removed the statue of our mythical hero, Kaveh, for fear of becoming a focus for anti-regime activities, were playing songs that praised Kaveh, Arash, Rostam, kings Cyrus and Darius. An archive footage of the late Ayatollah Beheshti lecturing the volunteers for the war front was shown in which he talked about how futile sanctions and imperialist plots are when faced by people who look forward to become martyrs.

Why is the regime fearing this petrol crisis more than other protests it has faced? Well for a start, this crisis is affecting all of Iran at once. It is not just an isolated incident of an urban riot in one area where it can be crushed easily and it is not a flash in the pan incident either.

What should the opposition do? In my view the most important thing is to explain to people what a sensible secular regime, which is not bound by a fanatical Islamic ideology, will do to resolve the problem. We know why this mess has happened and we know who is responsible for it, but how would a secular alternative to the Islamic regime solve the problem? Thats what Iranian people want to know, thats what will give them the confidence to continue to challenge the regime. If the Iranian secular opposition does not provide the answer, once again without the offer of a viable alternative, people will just be content to improvise for their problems and deal with the status quo rather than make sacrifices for an unknown alternative. I wonder if such plans were even discussed in the recent Paris conference of the Iranian opposition groups or were they once again for the umpteenth time just happy that so many different groups sat next to each other under one roof and some obscure groups with zero reputation or support in Iran got promoted by Kenneth Timmerman?!

I will have limited access to the internet over the next few days. Don't be disheartened if there is delay in publishing your comments.

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Monday, June 25, 2007

Governor Sacked for Low Turnout to Welcome Ahmadi-Nejad

Iranian daily, Nowrooz, reports that the governor of Garmsar was sacked because of the low turnout to welcome President Ahmadi-Nejad.

Garmsar, in the province of Semnan, is the birth place of President Ahmadi-Nejad, and the governor was expected to stage manage a particularly big crowd to welcome the President of the Islamic Republic.

Sunday, June 24, 2007

Hypocrisy of IRI Supporters in London
















I have always said I get on better with fanatics who live the way they preach. People who stick to their beliefs and principles deserve some kind of respect no matter how much you oppose their views. Most of them are just unfortunate foot soldiers who are genuine but brainwashed by those who see them as an easy tool to line up their pockets and achieve their lust for power.

For me the real scum are those who change their principles as easily as the shirts they wear. In Iran these people are referred to aptly as the members of the "Wind Party". Whichever way the winds of fortune blow, thats where their loyalties will be.

There are many of such lowlifes in London. People with no Islamic convictions who like the present status quo and exploit it to the full for their personal gains. They live in the UK and enjoy their personal freedoms that lets them live life the way they want to but at the same time support and promote the Islamic Republic and do business with the mullahs, oblivious to the suffering of the people who have to live under the tyranny of religious dictatorship.

During the last Islamic Republic "elections", we went to the polling booths set up by the Islamic Republic in London. We wanted to talk to the Iranians who still took part in such charades. They fell into 4 categories. Those who worked for the system, like embassy employees, those who were scared that not voting will have consequences for them, such as a young girl who was on medical treatment and thought she would lose her special government currency rate for medical treatments abroad if she did not vote. Those who just needed mental care, such as one woman who said her husband and teenage son told her off but she had come to vote for the "Hidden Imam"! But the last category were the ones we really loathed. Wealthy Iranians living in London, coming to the "polls" in their expensive cars and latest designer gears, with their women wearing heavy make up. Their women would put on a scarf just before they entered the Islamic Centre, and quickly take their scarves off as they went back into their luxury cars.

One of those who fell in the last category was the chap shown in the above picture. On that day, he enjoyed the protection of the British police who were using the British taxpayers money to guard the Islamic Republic polling booths in London. The women with him walked behind him pretending their religious convictions by wearing the scarf and the manto. Last night however we came across the same guy, at the Shahrzad restaurant/club in London. Alcoholoic beverages were abundant on his table and the women with him were in no way adhering to any Islamic dress code.

All the time I was looking at these hypocrites in the restaurant, I was thinking of the pictures of Hejab crackdown in Iran. I kept imagining the picture of the little boy who was pleading with the Islamic policewoman not to arrest his mum for showing a few strands of her hair. Alarm bells must have started ringing for my companions who recognise the preliminary signs of incredible hulk transformations due to rage and anger in me. My blood was really boiling but sense was talked into me that its best to expose these hypocrites for what they are before they get a chance to change their outer clothing again.

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Did He Shake Hands or Did He Not?

Just after I posted the Unholy Men of Cloth and wrote about the warped priorities of those who like to publicly pretend their religious convictions, a row has broken out between the religious fanatics in Iran on whether Khatami shook hands with the Italian women he met or not? Khatami has denied it saying the film footage circulated is fake and edited and he does not approve of such things.

What pathetic little creatures the pious pretenders are, what pathetic things their single cell minds get occupied with, wherever they appear. So pathetic...

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Unholy Men of Cloth

Ever since I was a young teenager, experience led me to abhor organised religion, any religion that is. Although I respect people's personal beliefs, organised religion and the men who ran these organisations, to me have always been the ultimate displays of hypocrisy and evil.

I despise their made up hierarchies, their corruption, and the way they feed all that nonsense crap into people's heads.

Most of all, its their priorities that disgusts me. The way they react and issue fatwas, when someone writes something or draws a cartoon, or poses a question, and yet when real atrocities take place, these unholy men of cloth do not batter an eyelid. Instead they claim such absurdities as if you make a holy trip to some place or make a confession or dip in some smelly river or perform some other hollow bullshit ceremony your sins will be forgiven.

The appalling images from the Iraqi orphanage are just another testimony to my belief in this regard. An evil man who runs the orphanage has stocks of food at his disposal, yet he is prepared to let these children degrade to such inhumane conditions so he can profit from the sale of the food on the black market. How much more evil can you get? I can just imagine him making a trip to Mecca with some of the proceeds of his evil greed to wash his sins away. Yet there are no fatwas against him, there are no idiot fanatics or their "progressive" allies in the West marching in the streets with angry faces burning his effigies and demanding his blood.

Perhaps the worst of these unholy men of cloth can be found in the poorer countries. In my view they are the problem, they are the ones who are holding the people back. Until they are routed from the face of this earth, there shall be no real progress or peace in the under developed countries.

If there is a God, may he burn these unholy men of cloth in hell forever.

Thursday, June 07, 2007

Democracy And Security Conference in Prague

Dissidents from past and present from different parts of the world as well as academics and politicians have gathered in Prague, to discuss some of the questions on security and democracy in today's world.

Siavash Fakhravar, seated second from right in the photograph, is also one of the panelists and I believe he spoke yesterday.

Aliaksandr Milinkevich is the Belarus dissident I had not known about before. Having done some google search about him, he comes across as an impressive person. Milinkevich is 59 years old, studied physics and mathematics in France, Germany and the US. He was deputy mayor of his home town Hrodna in the early nineties. The Sakharov Prize, the prize for freedom of thought (again something I hear about for the first time) , was awarded to him last year by the European Parliament.

Also amongst the participants is of course one of my favourite characters, the former Czech dissident and president, Vaclav Havel.

Here is the statement by Reza Pahlavi for the conference:
http://www.rezapahlavi.org/speeches/?english&id=108