AHMADINEJAD

I'm a little bit late on this subject, but having in mind the nature of the subject, and that its participant, Mr Ahmadinejad, is still in power, it is not late at all to have another glance. Either this man is crazy, or he is just an idiot (which one is worse for a president?!) is a matter for psychologists to discover. I think all he wishes is to gain some fame while it lasts. Iranian presidents aren't really powerful after-all.

I don't think he is so stupid. He is simply playing the outrageous because he doesn't have anything to lose. So, let's go through the statements that made him famous. 

Actions? I don't know much of any actions. It has always been Khamenei, the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic (who is elected for life by an assembly of clerics), who has taken the serious decisions in Iran and presidents haven't had the courage yet to question the constitution through which the supreme leader has the authority to sack them upon desire. Khamenei's grip on power is not exactly something to mess with, even if you feel pretty much comfortable with your political position as the president.

Of course presidents want re-election in Iran, but they also prefer literally surviving until their term is up.
Let's look at what this Ahmadinejad character, supposedly ruling Iran (as many think), has said. He has said many things that have played well for ignorant ears and many of these statements have made Mr Ahmadinejad more popular in Arabic, other Islamic or even Latin American, countries where there is profound hatred toward America and Israel.

He is not that popular in Iran because Iranians don't just hear his courageous (or stupid) verbal attacks on America and Israel; they have to live with his whole incompetent government, hyper-inflation, economic hardships, huge social issues and a serious problem with unemployment which has never really been fixed rendering millions of Iranian youth pursuing drugs, prostitution or criminality. Having to deal with these daily realities, which have become worse under Ahmadinejad, leaves little room for emotions and fun regarding his so-perceived courageous "anti-imperialistic" statements.

Mr Ahmadinejad has said that "Israel must be wiped off the map" ???!!! Has he? As many on this website and many other places have said, I don't think he has said the exact phrase. He has rather said lots and lots of stuff that many Western journalists have received as having wished wiping Israel off the map. He has said, somehow in his own pompous way of speaking Farsi, that the Zionist state will no longer exist in a short time.

So, when a huge country's president says something like this who cares what he actually meant? The little country, Israel, will shit itself for simply having heard something so open and candid. Imagine an Israeli president saying something like "Iran will no longer exist on the world map" and as we all assume Israel has nuclear bombs. Wouldn't that be declaring war on Iran? Wouldn't Iranians be seriously worried? This is actually quite irrelevant anyway. I am asking this, why is Mr Ahmadinejad so much worried about Palestinians anyway? Okay, let's say that Israel will disappear and so and so.

I agree with him that Palestinians have been suffering. Who cares man? Your own people have been suffering far more, you idiot! Hundreds of thousands of Iranians died in the war with Iraq. Not that many Palestinians have died because of Israel by any means. Iranians die every day because of Iran's social problems.

Why does Iran care about Palestinians this much? There are 1,5 million Arabs in Iran, which is not a small number after-all, and these same Arabs, who also happen to be of the same faith as Mr Ahmadinejad (opposed to most Palestinians who are Sunni) live in areas in Iran where it looks like abandoned wasteland and dissatisfied Iranian Arabs have been tortured and hanged by this same regime Ahmadinejad defends, for political reasons, for wanting better conditions for Iranian Arabs!

There is a Shia Muslim country to Iran's north, Republic of Azerbaijan, where there are close to one million displaced Shia Muslims and the Iranians government is actually doing the opposite of what it is preaching, helping the occupying Christian Armenia by giving them electricity and so on, with no problem or shame, very openly and transparently (who knows what is going on behind the scenes, probably much worse). The Iranian regime seems to be helping any kind of trouble-maker, no matter the faith or ideaology!

Something else that Mr Ahmadinejad has become famous for has been his remarks about the Holocaust. Has he ever openly denied the holocaust, or he has simply said something that could have been interpreted as such? For this one too, I don't think Mr Ahmadinejad has ever used the phrase "I deny the holocaust." But he has said repeatedly that the holocaust is a myth and that he is not so sure it did actually happen! This is like music to many ears.

Why? I'm not so sure. Maybe there has indeed been too much fuss about the holocaust and many people have got tired of it. Okay, I subscribe to this too. But, hey, why should an IRANIAN president, an Iranian ruler, say something about this matter? Iranian Jews never had any holocaust, ever. Iran or Iranians never had anything to do with what happened during the second World War and Iran has never been affected by either holocaust itself or its direct consequences.

Why do we care about it so much to sacrifice our country's credibility and respectability for it? I am sure the Iranian people don't. Shouldn't Iranian rulers first try to solve the problems of the Iranians? Ahmadinejad talks about holocaust and whether it is or it isn't a myth. Why doesn't Mr Ahmadienajd and his government do research to see what happened in Iran itself during the first World War to clarify why so many Iranians perished?! What about the Iran-Iraq war?

Iranian events in which millions of Iranians have died are not documented and researched enough, and Mr Ahmadinejad is concerned about issues that have had, and still have, nothing to do with Iran and Iranians?!
Has Mr Ahmadinejad ever said that Iran does not have homosexuals?! Just like the two other things he has, or has not, ever said in words, this one is also some sort of a mystery. He has indeed said that Iran does not have homosexuals as "they have in the US, or the West."

So what kind of homosexuals Iran has? Just like his other statements, this one has also been interpreted by his supporters and his opponents. But what kind of homosexuals does Iran have that the US doesn't? There are of course no reliable statistics out there, but I can bet that homosexual activity is much more prevalent in Iranian (and other Muslim countries) society than in Western societies.

I think most Iranians know this. Maybe Mr Ahmadinejad thinks that Iranian "homosexuals" are these people who engage with people of the same sex (mostly men) because they don't have the alternative! Maybe Mr Ahmadinejad only knows about this. He does not know that even in Iran there are actually men who prefer other men, even if they can choose among women.

Homosexuality in Islamic societies, where women are still kept indoors (mostly, though not exactly in Tehran and some other big cities) and have little possibility of engaging with men openly, is of two types, one genuine type, and the other is probably what Mr Ahmadinejad was ignorantly talking about, i.e. those men who for not having access to women engage with other men, secretly, in sexual activities.

But there are also genuine homosexuals in Iran, and like any other country, there have always been and therefore will always be. However homosexual activities in countries like Iran are far greater than in the US or most other countries where relations between men and women are no more dogmatic. Does this type of homosexuality, one of necessity (let's call it), require the death penalty?

No matter what, it is inhumane to execute people (as the IRI is doing) because of their free choice of having sex with someone else, whether the partner is or is not of the same sex. So, this statement of Mr Ahmadinejad, whether correct or not, is irrelevant anyway (like his other two stupid statements) because no matter the type of homosexuality it is still utterly outrageous to kill people for their free choice.