In Iran, it's not always about religion

After the presidential elections of 2005, many had tried to explain Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's surprising victory by pointing to his promises on solving the economical problems in the country. After all, the only thing that mattered to the common people were not ideological issues, nor the veils, but the very basic needs of mankind: enough food, clothes and a shelter.

You shouldn't think that this is recent problem in Iran. Academicians have argued that the underlying cause of the revolution against the Shah in 1979 was not really his authoritarian rule or his Westernist policies, but the bad economical conditions. Yet, the mullahs were no saviors, nor economists, so the situation remained.

If I had been a mullah (who I assume to be devout), I would have already left the country. I mean, the fact that the problems were continuing despite the rule of religion was surely a sign of Allah, wasn't it? Is there a better way to say "beat it you mullahs!"?

Ahmadinejad, the first non-mullah president of the Islamic Republic, has been in office for two years now, but has not succeeded in improving the conditions of the masses either. Instead, he has sought confrontation with Western governments and is facing harsh sanctions now. Well, you don't have to be an economist to see that this will aggravate the economical situation even more.


Iranians burn a gas station / AP

The decision to ration gasoline is the first measure of the government to deal with the threat of sanctions. The riots after the declaration of this decision, however, seem to be the first signs of public opposition against the government.

A hymn chanted out of place

On wednesday last week, a group of Egyptian bloggers and activists, partly from the Muslim Brotherhood, held a conference and demonstration in favor of online press freedom at the Press Syndicate in Downtown Cairo. Read more about it here.

It seems that at a certain moment the Muslim Brothers started to sing the Muslim Brotherhood hymn. I don't know what that is like, but I can imagine that the other participants weren't really enthousiastic about this. I mean, it's like only singing the Belgian national hymn at the start of a game between Belgium and the Netherlands (random pick). Really stupid.

If I would have been at the site, I surely would have started chanting the Internationale (preferably in Arabic). Not that I'm a socialist, no I just like annoying and provocating others in such situations!

By the way, check out this Arabic version of the Internationale. They play it with the oud! Hah!

Ah, almost forgot to say! You can find pictures of the conference on Hossam el-Hamalawy's blog.

The Turkish dilemma

Two ordinary Turks having a chat:

Ali: If you were rowing a boat with only one extra seat and passed by a deserted island with the Prophet Muhammad and Ataturk, whom would you save?

Veli: Ataturk is resourceful. He can save himself. I'd take Muhammad.

The Birth of Venus

It was time for a banner update!

What you see now is a detail of Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus". A beautiful painting, one of my favorites!

According to Roman mythology, Venus was born as a full grown woman out of the sea. This was actually the result of - it may sound strange, I warn you - Uranus' genitals falling into the sea and fertilizing the water. In case you might ask why his genitals fell in the first place - and here I warn you again - well, his son Cronus chopped them off!

In reality, Venus arrived in Rome from the east. The Romans had borrowed her from the Greeks, who were calling her Aphrodite, but the goddess had her origins even further to the east. According to the Ionian historian Herodotus, the Greeks had borrowed her from the Phoenicians. In fact, she was known as Astarte in the Levant and as Ishtar in Mesopotamia. The Sumerians, creators of the first Mesopotamian civilization, called her Inanna. From Mesopotamia to Rome, quite a journey huh?!

I wonder why there is no sign of the goddess in her native lands nowadays. Might it be that she has fled the violence as well?

Khatami shaking hands of na-mahram women

Lately there has been much fuss in Iran about the former president Mohammad Khatami. The thing is that he shook the hands of women during his visit to the Italian city of Udine. "What's so special about that?" I hear you say. Well, the act is forbidden in Iran! That's the fuss about!

When are people going to stop blathering about such trivial things?



(I myself count two three hand shakes; one two around 4.30 and one around 4.40)

Khuzestan: a new theater of war?

Since the start of the war in Iraq, there has been a widespread concern that the conflict could lead to a regional war, involving such countries as Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Israel. It has caught my attention that the number of news items referring to this danger has been rising lately.

I'm not only referring to the Turkish desire to enter Northern Iraq, but also to the (apparently) growing tensions in Khuzestan (also called Arabistan), an Iranian province in which the majority is constituted by Arabs.


Source: Google Maps


"Iranian Arabs in the oil-rich province of Khuzestan in southwest Iran have expressed a strong will to split from Iran and restore their own state, accusing Tehran of suppressing them racially, economically, and politically."

I was bowled over when reading these lines in an article entitled "Iran Arabs denounce discrimination" on Al Jazeera. I knew that Arab separatist movements existed in the region, but these lines make it seem as if the whole Arabic population of Khuzestan is engaged in a struggle for independence. Does that sound reasonable to you in any way?

Well, I myself am quite sceptical about it. I don't question the claims of suppression or discrimination, but I do think that being suppressed or discriminated doesn't automatically make one aspire independence. Independence is a political ideal, not the practical solution that comes to the mind of the ordinary man. It is possible to spread such ideals among the people, but in order to do that, one has to have effective propaganda tools at its disposal. As far as I know, no such thing is the case in Khuzestan.

Secondly, the indifference of the common people towards this political ideal has in fact already been demonstrated during the First Gulf War (1980-1988). In those days, Saddam Hussein had expected that the Arabs in Khuzestan would join the Iraqi forces against Tehran, but this appeared to be a big miscalculation. Most Arabs did not join the Iraqi forces at all and a considerable number even allied with the Iranian forces!

Of course, things may have changed since the First Gulf War, but I believe that things have also changed since the war in Iraq. Confronted with images showing the brutality of war in the media everyday, I don't think many are willing to open up a new theater of war.

No Israelis and Palestinians in the pub

Have you ever seen an Israeli and a Palestinian official sitting around the same table in public? I mean in real, not on television or in newspapers! Well, did you? I myself did yesterday!

The deputy chief of the Israeli embassy in the Netherlands, Yair Even, and the Palestinian ambassador to the Netherlands, Sumaya Barghouti, met each other yesterday evening in a debate organized by a group of students of the University of Amsterdam (UvA). They were joined by Bert Bakker, former Dutch MP and Foreign Affairs spokesman for the small Dutch liberal party Democrats '66. The debate was presided by Paul Aarts, lecturer of International Relations at the UvA.

The event was titled "The good, the bad and the Dutch: The Netherlands' role in the Israel-Palestine conflict", but it was clearly not this Dutch thing that had attracted the 100-120 people present in the lecture room. It was rather the fact that two high ranked Israeli and Palestinian officials would talk to each other in public. The debate started with the aforementioned topic, but quickly shifted to the main issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I will only mention the main arguments though - this blog entry is not intended as a report or whatever.

"We want Israel to end the occupation, which is the root problem of the Palestinian question! If the occupation ends, there will be no Palestinian question!" shouted Barghouti. I never know what to think about female politicians and diplomats. There are so few of them, especially in the Middle East, that I can't afford myself to utter any critical word about them...

"If the Palestinians are really committed to peace, like Sadat (the former Egyptian president) was, then we will end the occupation and disband all settlements. Remember that we had cities in Sinai! We disbanded them all! Why? Because we saw that Sadat was committed to peace!" was Yair Even's reply. Though people had reminded him several times to speak up, the guy muttered throughout the debate, which really drove me crazy.

The Pub
The most interesting part of a debate in the Netherlands starts after the actual debate, as both the audience and the participants rush into a pub to continue talks in a more informal atmosphere. I was eagerly awaiting the moment that Even and Barghouti would have a beer together, but sadly enough, that did not happen.

The only debater that did come to the pub was Bert Bakker. Rushing into the pub, shouting "They sent me here!", he seemed as if he was totally unaware of the Dutch tradition of the Borrel (this is how the Dutch call such post-lecture pub sessions), but was eventually spotted drinking several pints of beer. At the end of the evening he greeted me twice; the first time on his way to the men's room and the second time on his way back - and this actually caused me some trouble in judging the guy: was he a real gentleman or simply a drunk man?

I myself was of course totally clearheaded, despite one Palm, two Maredsous and two La Chouffe...

Weddings!

Last Saturday, my good friend C (The Anatolian) invited me to the wedding of his one and only brother. I hadn't been to a Turkish wedding for quite a long time, so I felt a bit special about it. C himself had come over all the way from Istanbul for the event.

I remember how I used to be excited about weddings when I was a child. For us children, it usually meant a great occasion to play our favorite games in a big hall, until very late in the night. We often ended up with so much perspiration that all our clothes were soaked through, which of course caused the anger of our beloved mothers.

As we grew older, weddings assumed a completely different meaning. The games we used to play as children were replaced by the act of flirting. Both the boys and the girls often made extensive use of the dance floor, trying to impress the opposite sex with their dancing skills. Signs and especially notes were the initial means of communication, as many did not dare to simply walk to the one they fancied (among others because of the presence of the parents and other relatives). I remember how I was once given a note that was so badly written, that I could not read a single word!

Looking around at the wedding of C's brother, I realized that nothing had changed really. Children were, as always, running all over the place, playing their games and annoying all other guests. The flirty behavior of boys and girls was to be observed in all its splendor too all right. Several times, I was poked by M, who continuously pointed to a girl on the dance floor, whispering how much he liked her dress.

Well M, the next time you should write it on a note and pass it on!