Fallen out of blogging

I know, I have not been blogging at all in months, and I also know that you are still checking it regularly. But what can I say? This one-way conversation was interesting as long as I felt the need to vent and somehow expose the IRI. Today it is one year after the deaths, the tortures, the rapes... and the world has finally come to know what has been going on for years, decades. And when Mr. Larijani says at the UN that "we are, perhaps, the only, the greatest democracy in the Middle East" it raised laughter in the audience.
So you will understand why there is no longer much to say here, and perhaps decide to communicate differently.

The man

I have not been blogging in a long time because things are so much the same (but in a worse manner) in Iran that I feel the only thing I would be doing is reapeating myself over and over again.

But Mr. Qaddafi came out with such a surprising statement (I know, he is good at doing that but hey...) that I had to post it.

A women's rights defender

Don't you love it when Mr. Ahmadinejad implies that the US is not advanced enough to elect a woman as president?

A MehrNews wire was quoted in the New York Times but unfortunately, I was not able to find the original article.

We all know what the situation in Iran is. I have blogged about it a number of times and things aren't getting better.

But my question to our president is: can a woman be elected as President in Iran in the first place? And since he said that: "Presidency of a woman in a country that boasts its gunmanship is unlikely." Does it mean that Iran is also great at boasting its gunmanship? (and I have no wish to posts links about this...)

Fart and the temple

As can be seen, I have been reading Mr. Abtahi's blog fairly regularly and although his unfailing support of Mr. Khatami is a little unnerving to say the least, I recently had to admit that I enjoyed some of his posts.

Well, clearly now, they are after him, and I am not surprised because he has been quite critical of some of the political stances taken lately.

For those who cannot read Persian, Mr. Abtahi has been accused by an ultra-conservative site of having his blog designed and run by Baha'is. And in order to make their accusations look credible, the authors of the article included a number of links. Out of curiosity, I tried all of them... and (of course) none of them led to anything that might remotely suggest any link to the alleged designers.

Moreover, there is this box on the side of the article that without showing any name indicates "Age:24" and then what can be assumed to say "Children: no", "Ethnicity: Middle-Eastern", "speak: Persian" (which is not correct English, by the way...), and "Religion: Baha'i" . Now, the form being in English, I really wonder where in the Western world would any form ask for one's religion?...

But my final question is: so what? And even if Mr. Abtahi's website designers are Baha'is, what does it have to do with the way the site is designed or run? Are they running subliminal messages so that everyone reading the blog are going to become hypnotized and convert? Is Mr. Abtahi less of a Muslim cleric because of his webmasters' alleged religion?

In all fairness

Has any election in Iran not been rigged? And at some point wasn't Mr. Abtahi Vice-President for Legal and Parliamentary Affairs? One part of me resisted writing this (thus the delay) precisely because of the above-mentioned reasons, and yet, this time I have to say I enjoyed his post.

A new blogger in town

At a time when our best Iranian bloggers (here, here and here) have either stopped or taken a looong leave of absence, Mr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has decided to launch his own personal blog. Silly me! Six months ago, I thought I was late in starting mine!

Now a few remarks:

- Mr. Abtahi will either complain or be honoured because I noticed that Mr. Ahmadinejad has taken a few ideas from his blog -- he has even used the same font in the Persian header!

- The flag that represents English for the choice of language is really strange, looks a little like the American flag and yet not quite -- perhaps another way of destroying it?

- Mr. Ahmadinejad has immediately started a poll. When I checked last, there were more "no" than "yes" -- if the final result remains the same, will he face a fate similar to that of previous pollsters?

Iran Blog

(double) Standards

A while ago, another blogger wrote about double standards, or more precisely about various interpretations depending on what suits the argument. His was in favour of the IRI. The discourse was so "nonsensical" (to use the terms of someone who responded in the comments) that my disappointment with the author led me to stop reading the blog altogether, rather than responding.

But the malaise of not having expressed my frustration remained, I guess (although I gladly found today that, in fact, someone did.)

And then, here I am, thanks to Mr. Zarif who had another go at the UN. Surely, he must feel a little awkward at calling upon the United Nations Security Council to somehow protect Iran when, a day or two before, his President had indicated that "Iran does not give a damn about such [Security Council] resolutions", and his main nuclear negotiator had defined them as "not very important".

NGOs, the Iranian way

Last Sunday, Omid Memarian posted his Op/Ed regarding the $ 75 million issue on his blog. And when talking about Iranian NGOs, he said: "The traditional sector is religious, well-organized and quite cohesive. Financed by the regime itself, it has access to far more extensive resources than the meager sums being offered to the modern civil society by the US, and it encompasses the most passionate supporters of the regime."

Sadly, it is a known fact that outside of the country, Iranian civil society is either represented by the very properly veiled, if not tchadored, ladies of the Network of Women's NGOs in the IRI, one of which, I understand, has a specialty in filming all the others... or by the Organization for Defending Victims of Violence, whose head once admitted having been a former interrogator.

I was recently talking to the Brussels representative of a major human rights NGO, and this person was telling me that the EU is finding itself in a "catch 22" position: there are funds allocated to helping Iranian NGOs and yet the "genuine" NGOs refuse this money. So the EU ends-up funding the likes of ODVV for lack of a better choice.

NGOs jeopardizing their already precarious situation by receiving funds from abroad is not an issue limited to Iran. There are plenty of such cases throughout the world. The most recently publicized one was Russia; Egyptian NGOs have been struggling with the issue for many years, etc. There are ways to go about it, but perhaps this Iranian sense of being "unique" takes us back to another blogger's recent post...

Paranoia

… thanks to the government of the IRI:

A few hours ago, I checked my blog and could not republish. I would get an error message. So, I tried viewing my blog and this is why I got on the web page:




After trying a couple of other blogs and a few times my own again, guess what was the thought that came to my mind?…

“They” have blocked my site!

And then I asked myself: Is it because of my latest post re what BBC did not dare to put in writing? Does that really makes me worse than the other Iranian blogs? Perhaps it’s those Baha’i photos…

While all the other American, European, etc. bloggers just asked themselves what went technically wrong – and rightly so, it was a blogger.com failure and things were fixed a couple of hours later.

To google or not to google

I have been thinking about this for some days now, and yet, frankly, I couldn't be bothered with the thought of having to move my newly created blog to some other site, find a new name, work on the design, etc. Then also change my email address, and go where? to Yahoo, not a better choice!

Apathy on one side and a sense of helplessness on the other. The remaining dilema, however, is how can we move our advocacy for human rights beyond mere words. It reminds me of a leftist old lady who used to boycott South African oranges during Apartheid, and I remember asking myself whether this would have any effect beyond depriving her of her daily dosage of needed vitamin C.

I am still convinced that google does not need my blog or my email address, and yet, I feel I am letting the Chinese down, as if I forgot about Ganji or Soltani or let the Basiji beat-up some poor guy next door and turn away, because he was a little different, after all...

More about the cartoons

I thought I was done with the subject of the cartoons, but then first came that so very UNee statement by three UN Special Rapporteurs, on contemporary forms of racism, on freedom of religion or belief and on freedom of opinion and expression. From what I understand they (and their staff at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights) had agonized about it for nearly a week! They are treading a very fine line -- it is not for me to criticize.

As much as the previous days had been rather distressing and gloomy, I started to read Brooding Persian's post, qualified by "Psychic" as "brilliant"-- and I fully agree (sorry Psychic, you left no trace, so no possible link on my part). And the day became even brighter as I read in Le Monde the opinion of Soheib Bencheikh, the very enlightened former Mufti of Marseille and that of Mona Eltahawy's in the IHT.

Too late?

Am I two years too late? Is there a point in starting a blog when it is no longer a novelty, when everyone that had something to say has already posted it, or when all the readers have already chosen and saved their favourites? I guess my do-hezari, or otherwise named coin, took a little stroll before it actually reached its final destination. So bear with me ... as always ...