Esfand Aashena

Khatami's admission of having failed is good or bad?

Hamsade who else who has served in Islamic Republic has admitted to failure?  I take his admission of failure as a good thing.  In fact, during the last presidential election he made this statement many many times.  He even ran for presidency again noting the failures and then folded in favor of Mousavi and put his support behind him.

His admission of failure is to announce what he wanted to do and what he didn't do so people know what still needs to be done and how hard it is to get something done so no one is under any more "illusions"!

Everything is sacred

my tongue and cheek

my tongue and cheek reference to the pahlavis was not that they did not do anything for iran.  it was reference to attributing anything good happening to iran (whether from their effort or not) to their mere existence.  as if the clocks would've stopped if they didn't exist.  you're attributing the success of gifted artists, and perhaps showing some extra hair by women as successes of khatami. don't you think some of these artists were accumulating their knowledge and training under rafsanjani?  can ahmadinejad calim success for the finishing of bushehr nuclear plant when it was started under pahlavis?

Esfand, You are very logical

I like your logics in answering all your commentators.  Your are great communicator and I am now to the point to agree with all your points made in your blog and your responses.  Thanks

esfand jan, so if khatami

esfand jan, so if khatami admits that his presidency as a reformer was a failure, if those who supported him admit that he was a failure and if there's ample observations on different issues that shows he has failed as a reformer, would you believe that he was a failure?  here's a few light readings for you:

//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_surrounding_President_Mohammad_Khatami

Controversies surrounding President Mohammad Khatami

//www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/dissatisfied-students-turn-to-violence-over-khatamis-failure-to-reform-iran-707829.html

Dissatisfied students turn to violence over Khatami's failure to reform Iran//www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/may/04/iran

Khatami blames clerics for failure

Different times different tactics

COP jaan are you saying we're screwed no matter what?!  Look last time there was a genuine desire to participate in a massive turnout to show support for the movement, not support for the regime.  People outside Iran even went to vote too, right?  Do you remember people outside Iran ever voting before? 

Granted regime took advantage and gave itself the credit but the fact remains that was a show of force by the people as well.  A lot was learned from that whole episode which undoubtly will be used in the future.

Bavafa jaan, what has ever been fast in Iran?!  Iranians are by far, by far, the most impatient people in the world!  We can't stay in line without fidgeting for one second!  Yet nothing gets done quickly!

I just think it serves no purpose to ridicule the known reformers and think the people behind them are idiots.

Hamsade jaan so yes we should be grateful for Pahlavis for some of the things they did.  They were reformers in some aspects too.  My point is that when the reformers came to power they opened the doors.  That's not the case now.  The artists are much more restricted in what they can say.  In the movie Our Times you see an open door concert in a park (shahrak-e gharb I think) where young women play musical instruments and sing.  Yes sing!  Wasn't there a ban on women singing before Khatami? What about women singing in a film? 

Everything is sacred

Esfand, Thanks for your Response

 I agree with you to be inclusive seems a better solution. Thanks for very good & stimulating blog.

esfand jan, with the same

esfand jan, with the same logic, without the pahlavi dynasty you still wouldn't have a last name, no oil would have been extracted in iran, and you'd be riding your donkey to the fields.  what else did khatami do again?  oh, i forgot, during his presidency there was ghormeh sabzi pizza.

Illusions?

Hamsade you say Khatami's reforms were "illusions"?  We may not like Khatami but the fact that many artists started their careers during his terms and later left Iran, say Naamjoo, I believe Hamed Nikpay, Golshifteh Farahani, Niki Karimi, Hedieh Tehrani, etc., women wearing sandals, these may seem little but they're certainly not "illusions".

"Illusion" is Ahmadi's propaganda that, Holocaust is a myth, so was 9/11, Iran can take care of its own security, has the best democracy in the world, economy is good, sanctions are ineffective, 10% inflation and finally poverty will be be vanished in Iran.  These are illusions.  

Everything is sacred

Esfand jaan:

As an ex-semi-believer/defender of Khatami and reformist in general, I have long come to believe that even if their effort is genuine, the pace of it is way too slow compared to the erosions caused by the hardliners. During the last election, I believed boycotting the so called election would be the best way to vote for the Iranian people. Well, contrary to that hope they went to polls in masses with the hopes of change, then they poured on to streets to reclaim their votes when and met with the kind of brutality by the regime that had not been seen before in public.

I believe again, the best way to vote in the next election is by withholding your vote. Let the regime know of your [lack of] support for the system. Surely, they will manufacture some great number of votes again but the reality will be unambiguous for them and every one else.

Thanks for the good blog

Mehrdad

Yes, esfand, It's more than elections

but your reference to boycotting the elections is what prompted me to point out the falacies of elections in an assbackward environment such as Iran. So, if the people decide to boycot, it would not make any difference, in my mind.

Having said all this, I must say that it looks like that to change the status quo, the only reasonable thing to expect is for this regime to morph into something more mainstream. In essence, an evolution of today's incomprehensible mumbo jumbo that is force-fed to people as governance. You can call it reform, I suppose. I do not believe that even another revolution - a highly unlikely scenario in the first place - would be successful as it would probably turn Iran into another Lebanon. Never underestimate the will of the mullahs not to let go of anything they get their hands on.

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IRAN FIRST

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if any reform comes, rahbar and sepah will kick it in the nuts..

...

So if any reform comes along we'll just kick it in the jewels!

This is not about "hoping" for reforms. My intent of writing this blog was to bring to your attention on "how" the young people in Iran are doing it.  Not "doing it" doing it!  

Just "how" they live, think, work and play politics.  They are not as dismissive as we are or how some others inside Iran.  If they were like us they would not have created a green movement.  They would not have voted and they would not have protested when their votes were stolen.

Everything is sacred

esfand jan, iri cannot be

esfand jan, iri cannot be reformed.  i talk to intellectuals (professionals and academics) in iran and even people who are in the 'system' (mostly in media).  they all say the same thing: this regime is not reformable.  the intellectuals heavily invested in the previous election and paid a heavy price for it.  the media people, seda and sima/press tv, simply echo (in private, of course) what the general public says. 

as far as boycotting the next election: the regime can always lie about voter turnout just like they did before, or they could attach a penalty/reward system.  they'll find the greenest candidate from amongst themselves and most rabid one and will have their 'selection.'  most of the so-called reformers to which you allude have family ties to each other and are eating chelo kabab from the same sofreh as we speak (followed by ghalioon va tariak va baiaanieh va .. va.. va..).  all these so called reform leaders know that if velayat faghih is gone, no one will remember their effort to bring it about.  they're in this boat together.

the freedoms that you claim khatami brought about is an illusion.  there have never been so many newspaper closing and editors/journalists being jailed under khatami's term than any other presidency.  the uprising of 1998 was just a glimpse to what happened in 2009.  enough tadaarokchini already... it's a shol kon, seft kon by the gov't.  now, in the t.v., they're talking about 'hejab' not from qoran (another shol kon, seft kon strategy), women being 'allowed' to opine on teaching of qoran (progress, they say).  is this the reform you're looking for?

i like your enthusiasm though.  you're a good kid. ;)

قاسم! مرده شور خودتو ببرن با اون غیاث آبادت!

Just kidding!  Yes of course Sepah is THE faction.  On the other hand you can argue that the people themselves are the bigger faction. No?

The whole reformists are tools and as you can see they come and go and sometimes they pay with their lives.  Someone else will come along when the situation is ripe and reap the benefits.  Hopefully we'll be ready to take advantage of that situation.

I agree that other modes of resistance such as strikes, sit ins, passive resistance, slowdowns or community networkings are valid.  However, they all need to happen like a domino.  Something has to start the spark.  The boycotting of next election may be that spark or something else that we can not think of at this moment.  Maybe Ghiyas Abaad will rise first! 

As for The May Lady (1998) I'd agree it was until Our Times came along!  Motaki's firing and Bahrain were off topic Ghasem! 

Everything is sacred

Dear Esfand, chashm and thanks for writing about...

Dear Esfand,Ok., mikonam neeki, andazam dar Dejleh :). By the way, Rakhshan Banietemaad and Baran Kosari are two of my favorite people in Iranian film. I have seen at least one of Rakhshan's films which was Banooye Ordibehesht, which was a good movie. I have also seen Baran in couple movies; and she is a very energetic and natural actress and very good looking too and brings a charm to her roles. So thanks for writing about them and having a picture of this talented mother and daughter.

"The fallacy of false equivalence"

No doubt, but:

It could have been , still can be, and will be more so if we don't measure our present sentiments by our factual experience from the past, within our vision about now and future.

The seriousness of what is materialistically at stake makes hogs kosher.

Never increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything.

Roozbeh jan: I agree. The

Roozbeh jan: I agree. The house is on fire and some people want to re-decorate the house, as the saying goes....lol (paraphrasing)

Iranian.com is a great place...

To "talk in abstract" and talk about reforms!

Surely. any hopes of reforming a fundementally fascistic dictatorship should had been abandoned by even the most born optimists of us, after the Ashura day massacre.

Of course there will always be  well meaning partiots hoping for reforms, and there is nothing wrong with that,as none of us wishes bloodshed. However, a brief look at the worls history would tell us that The final chapter of this sad episode of our own history will not be a Gorbechov or Yaltsin like individual reforming and eventually destroying the non working system, but a bloody uprising or a military attck. Out of ashes of either will rise an Iran quite different from what we ever had before... 

"Personal business must yield to collective interest."

from Protestant Reformist Capitalism

with usary flavour burnt at the stake to Islamist moharrab  lamb chops bbq with different sauces.

Headless headscarves.

Enlightening ... And a bit of an  oily pic/k/nic/k.

"Stuff happens and some, one way or another, get stuffed"

آناهید جان تو نیکی‌ میکنو در دجله انداز!

I think we should always start with ourselves regardless of what someone else may do.  You do the right thing.  Furthermore, when weighing a person do an overall analysis, not just bits and pieces.  No one is perfect. 

Everything is sacred

Esi jan ,you have factions and then you have THE FACTION

such as SEPAH. Behemoth is also another word to describe it!

Me thinks what Prof. Ferry was pointing out was the centrality of Sepah to the  post-election developments in Iran, and don't be surprised if Mashaiey gets nominated and elected on 2013.

While Liberal, mainstream modes of struggle are definitely an option: other than voting or boycotting elections there are also other modes of resistance such as strikes, work slow-down,community net-working...such "other" modes of  protest shall not be jettisoned from our discussion.

P.S. Bani Etemadi's best movie yet by far is The Lady of May ( Banoi Ordibehesht).

P.S.S. problem in Bahrain is minority ruling class sunni's racism towards majority poor shia, this social pathology creats "the proper environment" for all others to distort the situation furthermore, including IR.

P.S.S.S. Just to get an idea of how deeply entrenched Sepah is at the moment follow the news of Nigeria's confiscation of  Iranian arms sent there, and recall Motaki's removal, just to send a signal about his "negotitations" with his African counter-parts.

Dear Esfand, you are correct

Dear Esfand, you wrote:"How you ask?  In my opinion one way is to be inclusive and not so easily dismissive of people with shortcomings.  "

You are correct.

Clichés cut both ways.

Who says Reformers are decimated?  Whenever you have a movement in a dictatorship you go underground when the dictators start using harsher tactics.

Leaders in prisons?  Has there ever been a democratic movement whose leader(s) were never in prison?  Who am I to judge someone who is under house arrest and hasn't abandoned the calls for reforms?

If we believe reformers are dead and Islamic Republic has won and there is nothing else to it, then we're in agreement with IRI.  What more is there to talk about? 

Everything is sacred

comrade: The fallacy of

comrade: The fallacy of false equivalence.

I venture that the Iranian society is much more inhumane, deprave, perverse, unethical, unkind, ruthless now than it was during the shah's era.

I don't equate morality with superficial relgious laws such as hejab, or not drinking or praying or going to mashad or rozeh or mosque, or not eating pork.

Maryam jaan vanishing will take time.

Many of us may be too old to witness the "vanishing" of Islamic Republic but we'll probably witness a lot of milestones like we have since Islamic Republic was established.

I believe the smoke is out of the bottle and it can't be put back in and those who came to streets in 2009 and 2010 do not "vanish" in thin air.

How you ask?  In my opinion one way is to be inclusive and not so easily dismissive of people with shortcomings.   

Everything is sacred

Maryam jan, did you just get this idea?

.

reformers are only an illusion, wishful thinking that they exist

Esfand: Reformist and reformers as you said yourself have been decimated by the Sepah,  and rendred as impotent, All of their leaders crucified or languish in prison. so it really doesn't matter whether anyone supports them or not.

Comrade you talk too much! In abstract!

Everything is sacred

IRI must be vanished for sake of IRAN

& Iranians.  How?  I really have no clue!

"[C]ultural norm of this cesspool"

Replace IR, in your comment, with Imperial Government of Iran in order to get a tasteful reminder of our then-unwavering view which prevailed so stubbornly more than three decades ago. According to some of us the validity of our hard-core determination has always been subverted by our chronic shortsightedness.   

Never increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything.