What a horrible few weeks it has been. Like so many of the people who had been following the discussions feverishly for a while, I had gone off for a few days to recover from the sick emotional charge of the site over the past several weeks.
This site has been increasingly feeling like the Gaza Strip, complete with settlements, check points, bombs, and bullets.
There are a group of non-Iranian users who seem to have settled quite comfortably in spaces previously occupied by Iranians, the squeamish ones who couldn’t stand the hate and left. It is now their home and it seems the rest of us are no longer as entitled to be here as we were before.
Much like the beautiful olive farms, beautiful pieces of poetry and writing were completely burnt down in the fires of hate and prejudice recently.
The minute someone expressed an opinion remotely supportive of Palestinians, at least one and at times a whole platoon of pro-Israeli users descended upon him, accusing him of anti Semitism, lack of interest in Iranians, and for being an IRI apologist. Even poets and non-political writers of the site were not spared. Everybody became a mouthpiece of this or that if they expressed disapproval for Israel’s actions.
Irannian.com continues to appear as a war zone, even after the “Mission Accomplished” blog by a fervent non-Iranian was issued. Seems like Iranians are too dense to get the message and keep out of stuff which has nothing to do with them!
In all of this I have a thought for Mr. Javid as the publisher of this site. I want to know if he was watching the 24/7 attack on the regular users of the site by members I mentioned above. I want to know if he was aware that the tactics used by the pro-Israeli users were shockingly similar to that of Hossein Shariatmadi and Keyhan, attempting to label and shut up any kind of voice that tried to say anything against Israel’s policies or in support of the people of Gaza.
When looking at comments on different threads, it seemed like one particularly aggressive user may not have been one user at all, but 10! For no matter how avid a debater she is, or how fanatic and thus appropriately aggressive she might be, it seemed like no one person could be writing that many comments on that many threads each and every day for weeks. It was as though there was no break, no sleep, or no life other than Iranian.com for this user.
Mr. Javid may be a cool guy and he might believe in freedom of speech, letting every Ali, Keikhosrow, Moshe, and Tom on his site to say their piece. Good on him, really. We all need to learn from others. But is he aware that a group of site users were extremely abusive to others, displaying behavior which was reminiscent of Iranian Ministry of Information’s attempts to listen to everything and everyone on the phone, on the internet, and at their homes, bullying, labeling, and persecuting them for their sin of having an opinion? This was by no means free speech. It felt like harassment and interrogation, and many of us felt like some users were routinely stopped at a checkpoint every time they said something, having to prove their legitimacy, humanity, and reasoning or they were immediately “dealt with” by these arrogant users.
I wish he would consider his rules of participation and to stop the growing harassment of users on his site. Sitting in my orchestra seat, I am here to enjoy the show that Iranian.com is. I’m not giving up my seat, and will write again to tell you what I see on the stage.
