Category: Iran

Akbar Ganji dreams of a Free Iran:

The misfortune of the people who live in the Middle East, the region from which I come, is that the international conditions have never been conducive to achieving democracy. Quite to the contrary, these conditions have always been to the benefit of the enemies of freedom.

[…]

People of the Middle East had been living under the tyranny of secular and corrupt governments, which were all supported by the United States and other Western countries. This context left them recourse to only one political alternative: religious fundamentalism. The United States and the Western world reaped the first fruit of their own deeds with the Islamic Revolution in 1979, and today they face fully grown and powerful trees of violent fundamentalism.

What comes is something in agreement with Ganji that I’d written while ago – before I got to read this article – with few corrections in the terminology:

Here is the warning: As a reaction to secular dictatorship, I think we Iranians were the first nation in the contemporary middle east who actually went into a trap called religious fundamentalism as a political system. We’ve experienced it now for more than three decades and now as the counter-reaction we are about to survive. Sooner or later we’ll overcome a totalitarian religious form of a regime. What concerns me the most is actually about our neighbors: a possible dark future for some other middle eastern states. Pakistanis, Arabs, Turks, other potential nations should not remake our mistakes; democracy is still the only way to resolve. Or else, the failures of the Bush administration will remain in the middle east for a century.

Related @ Nim:

• A book called The Road to Democracy in Iran
• The turning Point

The picture shows today’s huge pro-government protest during the rush hour around Azadi square, Tehran to mark the 31st of Anniversary of Iran’s Revolution.

The information that is not shown on the picture is the that most of the attendees around the Azadi square are opposition demonstrators who didn’t dare to carry green symbols because of the governmental high security control. I talked to two of them on the phone today and they regretted playing the role of two additional grains of rice on the supreme leader’s dish tonight!

As a result of new executions and having anticipated vast number of security forces and militia men, the green movement this time employed a highly compromising “Trojan Horse” strategy: the opposition supporters were to dress and act as pro-government demonstrators to safely join the crowd and then later on turn it into a protest; however, unlike the former clear hijacks they failed accomplishing it but adding more pixels to the image.

I wish the GeoEye service was launched/working or we were somehow aware of that on June 15, 2009 when the opposition took to the streets of Tehran (estimated between 2 to 3 million) and many of us pointed the need for a counting method, which could metaphorically be such a big pot of delicious food for the lovers of democracy and peace.

Introduction: December 7 is the student day in Iran, and like similar events after the disputed election, we expect riots and consequently brutal crackdowns of protesters in many campuses in Tehran as well as many other cities.

At the same date, we students at NTNU, want to make a global image in order to support the Iranian students’ peaceful movement. Many universities around the world will join this program to support non-violent GREEN movement and to show their solidarity with Iranian students and teachers who are in prison due to their peaceful democratic demonstration. We invite you all to join others to be a pixel in this global image!

Besides, there will be a brief discussion panel and live videos of crackdown will be shown.

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• Time: Monday – December 7, 2009 (16:00 to 18:00)
• Location: NTNU, Gløshaugen Campus, Central Building, Lecture hall S1 (confirmed)

Notes if you join:

• Every piece of green that you wear (or bring) will sharpen our image!
• Be creative! Wear GREEN in solidarity (shirts, wristbands, ribbons, balloons, …)
• Hold signs such as : “WE SUPPORT YOU”, “WE ARE IRANIANS”, “WE ARE WITH YOU”, etc.
• Norwegian flags, NTNU logo, etc, are more then welcome

The end result will be a video with all the photo shoots combined, which will be shared on Youtube and sent to Iranian students back home.

Although these global actions do not change anything overnight, but they do render an immeasurable service to the morale of those who are struggling for the democratic project within Iran.

Historical background:

Iranian government stole votes of its own people and announced the election results upside down. The people didn’t give up their right. They protested peacefully and as a result they were killed, imprisoned and raped. They stood by their rights. They exposed themselves to all these dangers and through that they presented their movement to the rest of the world. Now, Iranians not only do not have right to protest peacefully, but also after the supreme leader’s religious dictum on May 19 they might easily get shot by the government’s agents while taking part in any kind of riot, however they still take any opportunity, ceremony and event to express their movement and to eventually take their votes back. Dec 7 known as the student day in Iran is one of those events in a row.

The student day goes back to 55 years ago. During the Shah era, since Iranian police agents fired and killed three students (two marxists and one liberal) inside the campus of Tehran University, the day 7th of December has been recognized as an official day in Iranian calendar called the Student Day. Since then, before and after the revolution, Iranian students, both secular and religious, celebrate this anniversary, protesting against the dictatorship and policies of the government.