Souri

Just have a look on the number of the reads

Almost 7000 for the blog of his interview with Massih Alinejad.

700 for this humble blog which is not even a political debate!

Do you still think that he is irrelevant to the people?

هنوز هم؟

اگر شما در سال ۱۳۶۰ این استدلال را میکردی میشد گفت هنوز بد تر از اون را ندیدی اما پس از سه دهه و این همه مصائب که بر سر این ملت آمده اگر همان طور استدلال کنی‌ که سی‌ سال پیش از آن میکردی، باید گفت که هنوز نفستان از جای گرم بر می‌‌آید. 

He is no more so irrelevant

Let not do the same mistake which we did before the 79 revolution! Even 6 months before the revolution, I hadn't even heard the name of Khomeini. Most of the people, didn't know nothing about him. Some older ones, only knew that he was a resistant in exile. We didn't know nothing about his real ideology and motivations.

Back to RP's subject, I agree with you that some years ago, he was really irrelevant to most of the Iranians, inside and outside of the country. But not any more, now.

Pahlavi has progressed. He was consistant in his views and activities and this is one of asset that put him above many other leaders of opposiotion whether inside or outside of the country. Just compare him with others, like Mousavi, for example.

We didn't pay attention to RP. We considered him as irrelevant, because he was the son of the Shah. He was representing a system which have been "tried and rejected" by the majority of the Iranians. We always throw him away along with everything around him, mostly his supporters! I have to say, his  big problems which always turn off the majority, are two things : 1 His father and 2- His supporters (the Monarchists)

Rather than these two phenomenal problems, he has no other default, to win the majority's vote. All other critics, like: he never worked in his entire life, he was used to disco and casino....etc etc, are really minimal.

I am not a pro Phalavi. Despite this blog which may represent me as one, I am just trying to understand him better. I admit that he won my attention since a year and I am seriously thinking to give him a chance to prove his points. The ultimate decision, as to accept him as a representative of the opposition, goes to the people of Iran, mostly the ones who live inside of the country.

Believe it or not, he is not so irrelevant inside Iran (something which  surprised me too, once I noticed it last year). Don't forget that the majority of the Iranians, are used to watch the Satellite, which we, the Iranians abroad  are not so much fun of it.

Thanks to all the friends

For having participated in this thread.

Anahid:  I agree with you that time has came to focus on the future, instead of the past! That was the main purpose of this blog. Thanks.

MPD jon: You are too nice to me. I believe your views about the Pahlavi's era and the revolution are a bit too soft. But this might be related to you own  nature which is always nice and reconsiling toward everybody :)

Ali jon: I have a lot to say about just the mere notion of "Gomashteh" but let it for a future debate. We have still a lot on our plate, for now :-)

Dear Doctor Ala: How nice to see you here. Welcome back. Thanks for your great input. The discussion here, is not about RP as a "leader" but only we are discussing his legitimity as an opposition representative. The future government of Iran should be a secular republic. There's no doubt about it.

Dear Iraj Khan: Thank you very much for your time. I always read all of your comments, and most of the time I do agree with you, completely or partially. Not this time, though :-)

Shirin aziz: I always loved you honey. As I said before, you could be my twin. but fortunately, you are much younger and much more  talented than me :-)

Dear Arj: Thanks for your vital comment. I will reply to you in a seperate comment.

Iraj Khan

he is irrelevant inside or outside of Iran. 

If so then why are all the anti Pahlavi working overtime? Obviously they are worried that RP is making progress.

اگر میتوانستم

اگر میتوانستم مانند سوری مینوشتم

واژه به واژه...جمله به جمله...با نظر سوری عزیز موافقم

شیرین

Love Or Hate Reza Pahlavi?

That's not the question.

in the present political situation,

he is irrelevant inside or outside of Iran. 

Re Evin, Gohardasht prisons and political prisoners

Dispite Shahollahis and monarchists' claim that call murder and torture of political prisoners "exagerated" myths, the addition of Gohardasht (now renamed Rejaeishahr) prison towards the end of Shah's rule indicates that Shah was preparing for a bigger crackdown on political dissent! Otherwise, if the claim of the families of the victims are false (as the Shahollahis wish to depict), why weren't the already existing prisons such as Evin (with its modern facilities and torture chambers for high security political prisoners), Ghasr and Ghezel Hesar (which were mainly for non-political crimes, but housed lower ranked political prioners too) weren't enough?! Why did Shah need to build the Gohardasht prison if there weren't that many political prisoners in Iran?!

Coincidentally, I was in Gohardasht the week following the 1979 revolution, and (while always curious about the thick walls of the would-be prison, yet never been able to get close due to the police and SAVAK's non-stop patroling of its perimeters) finally got the chance to see the prison which was near completion, before the Pasdars of the new regime took over! The make up of this prison was appalling and surreal -- and in most parts only matched by the Nazi prisons I had seen in movies! Three consecutive rows of 3-4-meter-wide walls, equipped with surveilence posts and ready for electrical fence, toture chambers in every section of about half-dozen cells with what would been medical centers to revive the dying victims! Of course, before anything, IRI put its hands and best efforts to complete the construction of this state of the art prison, and managed to put it to full-capacity use in a matter of a year or two!

In all fairness, it would've taken much longer for Shah to fully pack the infamous prison than it did IRI. But, it nonetheless speaks volumes about the direction he envisioned for the future political climate in Iran, especially with the advent of his Rastakhiz party and expansion of hi-tech political prisons in parallel unison!

The Colonel's lovely girl was the fringe benefits for Gomashteh

For the most part gomashteh had it pretty tough, but once in a while they were working for  a frustrated officer's wife, or the bodacious teen daughter,...

I'm sure you heard more than one story aboout such "encounters," on hot summer days, inside those damp and cool stair ways,...

On a serious note, the modern Iranian Army actaully has an incredible fecund history as far as divergent movements being active within it.As such we see an amalgamation of Royalist, Nationalist and Leftist officer. Of course the upper hand and control was always with the Royalist, but those other currents  were also there.

Love or hate.

Souri jan;

Thanks for your care and contributions.

Love or hate,  an Iranian passion?

My simple question is why a person to lead us?  We need a group of Iranians who will lead Iran and will be flexible to adapt and take Iran’s national interests to heart.  At this moment, many Iranians (more than 90%) are placing their personal interests ahead of national interests.

If Iranians care and there is a continuous improvement system in place, there will be less fight over who will lead us.  The fight has been over “power” to have “monetary” rewards.   

Re: Zolmeh arteshee haa

Souri jaan:

1) Just because your amoojaan sarhang was nasty to his gomaashteh, it doesn't mean the military personnel committed atrocities across the board :-)

2) The Iranian Army was the reason we all spent many years at peace, since no foreign foe dared to mess with Iran.

3) Draft sucks. Everywhere. It is one of those times in young people's lives, that in retrospect, is very memorable, but while you are in it, is miserable. A "gomaasheteh" had a choice: Stay in the barrecks and get yelled at by the drill seargent, or go and serve in some high ranking officer's house. Many chose the latter.

4) Many draftees went to teach in villages as sepaaheh daanesh, sepaaheh behdaasht, and others.

5) 1% of the Army was consisted as high ranking officers. Non-committioned Officers and low ranking officers did not have gomaashteh.

6) I am confused about the 'priviledges' the army personnel had, but others didn't. Yes, they had to obey orders from the above, they had to salute their superiors, and they had to shoot at the enemy, and get shot in the process. You could have joined the army, or not join. Some chose to do so, while others didn't.

Yours,

Ali P.

Dear ROOG

Thank you for your kind words.

The reason people like VPK and I read and post here on IC is to exchange intelligent ideas, to learn from others and to stay current on events.

You are absolutely right and I agree 100%. with you. IC is not the only blog I read but it is has potential. Yes it is a shame that is gets blasted by non stop nay saying and insults from some. One of the mistakes the Marxists make is this:

• They assume most people are poor and "working class".
• Therefore most people are "socialists".
• Therefore democracy means people vote socialist. 

What they miss is there is more to voting than this. If it were then last election in America Republicans would have been crushed. We saw the opposite happen because poor does not mean socialist! I bet you if there are free elections in Iran they are in for a surprise. I just hope they are willing to accept the results peacefully. What I read here is not making me feel any better. I do not see much openness to other ideas. If you disagree they get angry.

Dear Souri

I can write in Farsi and have done so before. However I am not getting bullied by HTG and will not do so now. Anyone who wants to could go and find my previous posts here on IC.

I use the "English" script because I use a version of Linux 64 that has poor Farsi font support. It does not do "cursive" and the letters come out individually. Makes it really hard to read Farsi so I have to get another machine to read Farsi.

What I see is a person running out of argument hence attacking the person. By falsely claiming I don't know Farsi he wants to discredit me. Instead he is discrediting himself due to his blatant mistake.

As I knew it well, you are an excellent writer, Souri

Too bad you mainly confine yourself to writing comments.

I have these two points to say:

• Most of the claims against the previous regime turns out to be illusions, exaggerations, made up stories to make the regime look worse than what it was.  The statistical numbers are not there to show that the regime imprisoned and killed as many people as it has been claimed by the new regime.  Certainly, whatever that number is, it is a minute fraction of what the new regime has done to the people in the name progress.

 

• Back then we did not need a revolution, we needed a peaceful civil disobedient movement to force the regime into reforms.  We had a workable constitution, we did not need to demolish the whole damn thing.  Unfortunately, we did not have fortune teller opposition movement leaders to foresee the future.  

Re the "mistake"

Dear Souri, a mistake is to opt for the wrong option when it comes to more than one choice! While you admit that the revolution was inevitable, you call people's revolt against Shah's despotic rule a "mistake!" Which is it; a mistake as in choosing the wrong option, or an unavoidable reaction to Shah's tyranny?! If it is a mistake, as opposed to what alternative?

The only choice Shah had left for Iranians was to join his Rastakhiz party or try to overtheow him at any cost! Bakhtyar who was brought to the mix at the time of Shah's leaving the country, was introduced when it was already too late. Not to mention that he never was a part of Shah's regime, and never would've been! Maybe if he was allowed to take over the governance from the Shah a year or two prior to that, scrapped the Rastakhiz party business and gradually allowed elections and participation of independant political parties in the process, there would've been a good chance that the atmosphere in which Khomeini took advantage of the poiltical vacuum, be avoided! But then again, HIM was too "big" to allow that happen! Just like "Khamenei" was too big to submit to the results of the election, hence is on his way to meet Shah's fate! 

I'm not a revolutionary, nor am I a supporter of any revolutions, but I agree with you on inevitability of the 1979 revolution! At the same time, I believe that compared to IRI, not only Shah, but even Ghajar dynasty which was one of the darker periods of our history would be vindicated! However, that does not mean that now that we're about to get rid of IRI, we should put Shah's regime as a role model! I can relate to the secular nature of the pre-1979 society, but not to its utter despotic rule! However, with regards to RP, I bellieve that he's secular, but I don't find his claims of being pro-democracy plausible! As I've mentioned in other blogs; to me, there are issues that cast doubt on such claims. One of these issues is his fence-sitting in terms of what role he wants to have, or what system he represents! He can not have proclaimed himself as the king while claiming to be impartial between the choices that people are at some time to make between a kingdom and a republican system! Which is it; is he the king already or is he not?

The other issue that appals me to my core, is his supporters' (majority of whom are Shahollahis) utter lack of remorse with regards to the Pahlavi reign and crimes committed under their rule! Yes, he half-heartedly alludes to Shah's mistakes here and there while condemning the breach of HR under IRI in prisons like Evin and Gohardasht! While these prisons were built by his father with state of the art torture chambers that were left to IRI upon his downfall! You may argue that it's not his fault that his father tortured people! But just look around or listen to the overwhelming majority of his supporter who totally support Shah's torture of political prisoners and their justification as "necessary evil" to get rid of the threats of "evil communists" and "traitor Mossadeghis" while shedding crocodile tears for the same group of people who were tortured and killed by IRI in 1988! Meaning that IRI's murder of those people is a crime while Shah's murder of them was "legal" and kosher! Some even claim that Shah didn't kill enough and herald the upcoming rule of the "iron fist" to put things in order once they take over from IRI! Meanwhile, while taking pro-democracy postures, RP treads the line not to alienate this Shahollahi crowd (who are his main base of support as well as his father's) for the moment of truth!

thanks Souri jan for your blog

and also thanks to other friends for their comments. i have not watched many videos from rp  but in almost all of the ones that i have seen, he comes across as someone more open minded than some of other opposition forces. i think divaneh also commented either here or in another blog about positive responses that rp has generated. also time has come to focus on future rather than getting bogged down on all problems that were present in pahlavi's time. rp had no role in them so it is high time to focus on what can be done for future.

VPK and religionoutofgovernment

You are doing very great. You don't have anything to prove to anybody, especially not to the very arrogant ones. It won't be a healthy debate.

Thanks for your great input.

Also thanks agian to Mr. reglionoutofgovernment.

Good night.

Divaneh

Thanks dear Divaneh, for your time and your comment.

Roozbeh, yes I am a good writer

and I am a romantic person. But the text above was nothing romantic! You are right, I could become a writer, if I had stayed in Iran. I was used to  write for some weekly magazins since I was 15.

You want to know me better?

Read some of my writings here: 

نفس طامع

منى که من از خود ساخته‌ام، آمال من است

کودکیِ من کو؟ (قسمت اول)

کودکیِ من کو؟ (قسمت دوم)

Whose stoping you? Get moving, but remember you can't even write

in Persian!

Not to mention that, in addition to being challenged to writing in your mother tongue, you're also deceitful about the past and the present. Good luck.

Re: SHAHOLLAHIS

If you want to educate people by insults and CAP typing you waste time. Many people want a viable center to gather around: RP provides it. 

That does not mean people are Monarchists; just they want to get moving.

HTG

I am aware of what I wrote to Arj. Of course I said it. I was making a pun on DK. Anyway I don't have time to deal with you either. You do not know what my contacts are and I have no intention of telling you.

You and Arj are old timer revolutionaries go an bask in your revolution. As others said the 1979 disaster started long before. I would trace it back to 1953 and the Mossadegh debacle.

You like to say anyone who disagrees with you is ignorant. The Soviets used to call opposition "insane" and put them away. I guess this is an improvement. Anyway the "workers" stuff is gone and history. You got it right about bygones. 

Thanks for turning this into blog

I agree that revolution was inevitable those days. I don't think it is all lost, it was a high price that the Iranians paid for learning a lesson about religion, clergy and ideologues. Today we watch the victory of Islamists in one Arab country after another. If Iran had the same chance, the Islamists would come a very distant last, if that. That is one asset that we have because of the revolution.

Reading through the comments in this site it is easy to see that RP has managed to successfully connect to the Iranians. No other politician in diaspora has managed this so far. Those who still reject him exercise their own rights but their fairness will be questioned by others

Dear HTG

Is there any evidence to show that Bakhtiar helped Sadam to attack Iran?

سوری خانوم، چه زیبا و با احساسات نوشتید..

Have you considered a career in writing romantic stories? you could become Iran's Barbara cartland. seriously, no sarcasm meant.. 

"Personal business must yield to collective interest."

MY LIFE MISSION IS TO EXPOSE OBTUSE SHAHOLLAHIS

Like you and your ilke.

You still haven't answered even a single one of the questions, which means you don't have an answer. Never did, never do and never will. You know why? Simply because you don't have a clue what you're talking about.

And don't forget this: your true education in life, through my enlightenment of your most confused mind has just begun.

VPK, Your lying

Just a few hours ago you were telling Arj

"Arj part 2: I agree with DK about Elaheh who? I never heard of the
people you mentioned. To do justice I did a Google search. All I got to
say is "are you joking?"

And its not just this one time lying, I frankly don't have time to put toghther all your falsehood, needless to say it's always insulting my intelligence, not to mention....

This "East," "West," horse feces is the lamest excuse anyone could have these days and its compeletly outdated. Your either are in contact with Iran or aren't.

Ofcourse for some like you and your type whose only and sole "contact" with Iran is Iranian.com, its suffice to make a "pundit" out of you and...

Ofcourse it could be worst. At least you're not as bad as jojeh morgh and don't have a blood lust.

Iranian Revolution of 1979 did not start with PMOI and Khmeini but with slum-dewllers of Tehran protesting City Hall's demolition of their slums. YOU ARE SO IGNORANT.

HTG

The reason people like VPK and I read and post here on IC is to exchange intelligent ideas, to learn from others and to stay current on events. It is very unfortunate that we have to have a constant encounter an insulting and closed minded demagogue like you. I think enough is enough. You insult everyone who does not agree with you, and when the dirt on your backward and bankrupt ideology is exposed, you always have to leave. VPK happens to be an intelligent, thoughtful Iranian who cares about his country. There are many others like him who have endured your barrage on insults. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. GET A LIFE. 

Dear Souri

I am not that young but maybe a bit younger than some. Believe me I remember the Pahlavi including Rastakhiz and Savak. There are many reasons I think revolution was a mistake:

• Shah was on his way out. If we just waited a few years he would be gone. RP would have taken over and a new game was on.
• Once Bakhtiyar was installed there was no reason for a revolution. We had freedom and were on our way to democracy. What else did people want but spite drove them to wreck it all.
• The people involved were not trustworthy. Islamists and MEK to start with. You saw what happened as soon as they got power. American hostages; VF forced hijab and executions. Next thing you know we are at war.

The revolution was doomed from day one because of the people running it. I am sorry that some people here were involved in it but it is truth. They messed up and imposed their will on an bewildered nation. Then pushed it down a well.

HTG

I am not ignorant of what is going on. 

• I know who these people are. But it makes no difference if I did not. Because I am concentrating on what to do in the West not in Iran. I need not know the names of HRW directors. What good does it do me? HRW documents violations and that is great. But its director is not going to make a "leader" for Iranian opposition.
• As for Lahiji I thought he is in France but you say Iran has that changed? Also isn't the most prominent attorney Ebadi or has that also changed? I have no problem with Lahiji joining with RP and others to form an umbrella group. In fact I welcome it very much.
• My point on Aksaryat is that calling yourself "majority" is arrogant. It is delusional.

One last thing: I don't put much faith in various HR organizations. I have seen too many HR activists who don't even belong to any organization. They just call themselves that. Hey I am an HR activists too. 

Iran has one of the most advanced civil societies in the world

For some people whose sole source of "knowledge" seems to be Iranian.com (and most probably is only Iranian.com) I would like to know how do they come up with such incredibly obtuse statements such as; lack of acivil society in Iran.

It's not the lack of civil society in Iran but its permenant, non-stop repression.

ROOG (or "rouge," as I would like to calll you) what do you call the social aggregate that has been fighting IR for the past 32 years? What do you call all these independent civil, professional, artistic formation that are active in Iran? why do you always have to sound so obtuse and repetitive, like VPK?