[Reader-list] Hope in Iran?

[rashneek kher]

Dear Shudda,

Iran is so difficult a psyche that one wonders what is right and what is
wrong.A friend of mine from Iran once told me this.During Shah's regime I
used to wear long skirts and Shah's soldiers would literally pull it up to
my knees while now I wear a scraf and Basij pulls it to cover the last
strand of visible hair.
The problem with revolutions is that they breed counter-revolutions and
while one despotic regime goes another comes.Iran has seen enough of it
since the war with Arabs which they lost and the nation became an Islamic
post.Firdausi describes it so well in Shahnama.
Anyways one hopes that peace is restored in true sense of it and is
permanent and not fragile.

Best Regards

Rashneek

On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 3:57 AM, Shuddhabrata Sengupta <shuddha at sarai.net>wrote:

> Dear All,
>
> The protests at what is rapidly unravelling as the 'stolen election'
> in Iran are showing us a different face of Iran today. Hundreds and
> thousands of peaceful men and women, assembling to denounce
> Ahmedinijad as a dictator, all night long rooftop assemblies in
> neighbourhoods that say 'death to the dictatorship' and a visibly
> nervous 'Guardians Council'. Perhaps the next few days will show
> which way Iran will turn.
>
> There are already reports of attacks on dormitories in Tehran, and
> the regime's thugs have already killed several people, which has
> unleashed another wave of mass protests. The BBC, which has an
> excellent Farsi service (much better than many of its other bureaus)
> has been doing a good job of reporting from Tehran, Isfahan, Tabriz
> and elsewhere in Iran, and you can follow more links at
>
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8108115.stm
>
> I am appending a matter of fact report that appeared on the AP wire
> earlier below.
>
> I'd like to thank Paul Miller, who forwarded us Naeem Moaheiemen's
> text, and the statement of the Tudeh Party. I hope that list members
> will take the trouble to trawl through Iranian websites and blogs and
> send us more material, and if anyone knows Iranian friends who can
> write to the list directly, it would be great
>
> Hopefully, the Ahmedinijad regime, drunk for years on high petrol
> prices, and now suffering from a recession induced hangover, brutal
> and callous as it is, is on its last legs, but we have seen people in
> Iran move close to liberty and then be crushed again, and again,
> before. Let us home that Tehran does not echo Tienanmen.
>
> Many years ago, our own Urdu poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz, wrote a nazm
> dedicated to Iranian students (Irani tulba ke naam), who were
> protesting against the Shah's tyranny. And it goes something like this.
> .
> Yeh kaun jawan hain
> arz-e-ajam
> Yeh lakh lut
> Jin kay jismon ka kundan
> Yun khak main raiza
> raiza hay
>
> (Who are these young men,
> O the land of Ajam
> These large-hearted
> The jewel of whose bodies
> Is scattered on dust in pieces)
>
> Let us hope that the jewels of Iran do not get scattered on the
> streets of Tehran this time. Let us hope that Ahmedinijad and the
> corrupt theocracy that backs him, meets the same fate that the Shah
> did. Let us hope that what unfolds in the next few days in the
> streets of Tehran leaves us smiling and not in tears.
>
> crossing my fingers,
>
> Shuddha
>
>
>
>
>
> Tehran protests stretch five miles
> By ANNA JOHNSON and BRIAN MURPHY
> The Associated Press
>
> TEHRAN, Iran | In a massive outpouring reminiscent of the 1979
> Islamic Revolution, hundreds of thousands of Iranians streamed
> through the capital Monday, denouncing President Mahmoud
> Ahmadinejad’s claim to victory in a disputed election.
>
> The huge rally — and smaller protests across the country — reinforced
> what has become increasingly clear since the election: the opposition
> forces rallying behind reform leader Mir Hossein Mousavi show no
> signs of backing down.
>
> The rapidly spreading unrest also has pushed Supreme Leader Ayatollah
> Ali Khamenei, the state’s most powerful figure, into the high-profile
> role of political referee. Much of the real power in the nation rests
> with the 70-year-old cleric, who reigns over Iran’s Islamic system
> and functions as a one-man supreme court.
>
> In a dramatic turnaround Monday, Khamenei ordered an investigation
> into election fraud allegations, just two days after he had urged the
> nation to unite behind Ahmadinejad.
>
> The probe by the Guardian Council, composed of clerics closely allied
> with Khamenei, illustrates the supreme leader’s desire to avoid a
> drawn-out political battle that could endanger the stability and
> legitimacy of the country’s Islamic theocracy. At the very least, the
> intervention could buy time in hopes of reducing the anti-Ahmadinejad
> anger.
>
> Khamenei is a hard-liner who has battled reformists in the past, and
> whose support helped Ahmadinejad first get elected in 2005. But
> analysts say he is also a political realist, and in the past he has
> made concessions to ensure his main goals — his own survival and that
> of Iran’s cleric-run system.
>
> It appeared that Khamenei had opened the door for Monday’s
> demonstrations in a possible bid to avoid more street clashes and
> seek some breathing room.
>
> But a single moment could change all that. Gunfire erupted from a
> compound used by the Basij, a volunteer militia linked to Iran’s
> powerful Revolutionary Guard. An Associated Press photographer saw at
> least one demonstrator killed and several others with what appeared
> to be serious wounds. The protesters had tried to storm and set fire
> to the compound on the edge of Azadi Square, also known as Freedom
> Square.
>
> Some reports put the death toll higher, but they could not be confirmed.
>
> Angry men showed their bloody palms after cradling the dead man and
> the wounded, who had been part of a crowd that stretched more than
> five miles supporting Mousavi.
>
> In his first public comment on the Iranian election, President Barack
> Obama said he was “deeply troubled by the violence I’ve been seeing
> on TV.”
>
> Although he said he had no way of knowing whether the election was
> valid, Obama praised protesters and Iranian youth who questioned the
> results.
>
> “The world is watching and is inspired by their participation,
> regardless of what the ultimate outcome of the election was,” he said.
>
> Police and other security forces stood by quietly — some sitting on
> stoops with their batons and shields resting behind them as the
> marchers swallowed the streets in parts of Tehran.
>
> Mousavi made his first public appearance since the polls closed, and
> he launched his claims that the vote was rigged to re-elect the hard-
> line president.
>
> Brief clips of the march were shown on state television in an
> extremely rare nod to anti-government protests.
>
> “Respect the people’s vote!” Mousavi cried through a hand-held
> loudspeaker in Azadi Square, where Iran’s leaders hold military and
> political gatherings.
>
> Shuddhabrata Sengupta
> The Sarai Programme at CSDS
> Raqs Media Collective
> shuddha at sarai.net
> www.sarai.net
> www.raqsmediacollective.net
>
>
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-- 
Rashneek Kher
http://www.kashmiris-in-exile.blogspot.com
http://www.nietzschereborn.blogspot.com