The strategy involved various entities in power and the orchestration was smooth: Mr. Ahmadinejad played the card of women's rights by announcing that he was allowing indiscriminate access to football stadiums, then a number of grand Ayatollahs publicly expressed their disapproval (one of them being the President's own mentor) and finally the Leader himself said that it was inappropriate and the President bowed to Ayatollah Khamenei's wish, of course. Back to square one, with a few popular gains.
A few days ago I came across an article about a talk given by Ramin Jahanbegloo at the Amir Kabir University some months ago (unfortunately it is in Persian). During the talk Mr. Jahanbegloo made reference to the present government by calling them "populists" and in response to a question on the present situation in Iran he cited Jean-Paul Sartre saying France was never as free as during the Vichy regime. Later in the presentation, he went on to strongly criticize the Reformists as well, saying that the Populists appeared in our society because people no longer trusted the Reformists...
No wonder the man is now in Evin.
Showing posts with label football. Show all posts
Showing posts with label football. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
Sunday, March 05, 2006
Women, ladies and girls
There has been some talk about women’s rights in Iran lately, whether it was concerning the access to the Iran/Costa Rica match or our first lady accompanying Mr. Ahmadinejad to Malaysia, or on the subject of domestic violence.
Today, the BBC had on its site a piece by its correspondent on how increasingly difficult it was to be a female journalist in Iran. Interestingly, however, there is just one bit of the audio that does not appear in the text on the page, although to me it is perhaps the most revealing, so I have transcribed it:
“Every time I go to the weekly foreign ministry briefing the security officials reprimand me for some tuft of hair showing, then there is one public relations official in the foreign ministry who delights in leaving my name off the list of reporters who want to ask a question during the news conferences. His clear enjoyment of humiliating me borders on some perverted kind of flirtation. He clearly gets a kick out of it. And when I once accused him of having a problem with me because I was a woman, he just laughed as if I’d complimented him. In retrospect, I thought it was quite amazing that I could tell an official he was a male chauvinist, and he wasn’t at all offended.”
Today, the BBC had on its site a piece by its correspondent on how increasingly difficult it was to be a female journalist in Iran. Interestingly, however, there is just one bit of the audio that does not appear in the text on the page, although to me it is perhaps the most revealing, so I have transcribed it:
“Every time I go to the weekly foreign ministry briefing the security officials reprimand me for some tuft of hair showing, then there is one public relations official in the foreign ministry who delights in leaving my name off the list of reporters who want to ask a question during the news conferences. His clear enjoyment of humiliating me borders on some perverted kind of flirtation. He clearly gets a kick out of it. And when I once accused him of having a problem with me because I was a woman, he just laughed as if I’d complimented him. In retrospect, I thought it was quite amazing that I could tell an official he was a male chauvinist, and he wasn’t at all offended.”
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