Faramarz's Latest Rambling

One Iran - not a different bits of!

To all those ethnics who want to divide up the great land of Iran. Stop and think. Feel proud of your heritage. Look at how Great Britain has remained "Great" - and its tiny country in comparison. Be proud of the whole, not just the part.

Focus people - focus!

Dribble like "getting rid of the root cause of our problems, Islam" is tactical time wasting - the type that has prevented us from returning our once great land to a secularMonarchy for 30 years. Getting rid of Islam is a non-starter. It insults the majority of Iranians and weakens the opposition; and it de-focuses us from the real and practical opportunities that exists to free our land. It also creates a "them and us" divide, when it is blatantly clear the majority of Iranians are fore Islam and who, unlike the ruling regime, are genuine in their faith - regardless of what that may be.
 
Focus people. Focus on condemning the regime that ha s used the good name religion for their own survival and manipulated the faith of believers to sustain an ultimately unsustainable regime that has robbed us of our history and good standing in the world. 

Focus too on how the regime spends money on time wasters (the "Court Jesters" of the IRI) to cloud your minds with impossible notions about getting rid of Islam from Iran.

Don' be fooled. These people know what they are doing - simply distracting you from what can really be achieved. Don't buy in to those who's life mission is to "educate" you about the wrong's of he Shah and Islam, or the "impartial evidence" they they offer in the form of published books and research papers. These are the same people who try to sell you apartments in Dubai and tickets to Iranian concerts. Their agenda is clear - to prolong the status quo just so long as they earn from it. Focus people. Don't be fooled.
 
And to those who try to distract us with your false stances -- before you attempt to educate others with intellectual thought and free speach....why not at least TRY for once in your lives to be true, humble, grateful and sincere: say you are sorry for uttering a word against the Shah han Shah of Iran; forget your bank balance and instead join hands so that one day you will be able to express your anti-islamic views freely in your homeland without fear of your entire family being persecuted. ONL THEN will you have earned my time to listen to what you have to say. (That's assuming you would not have moved on to another band wagon by then. Just be sure, your Islamic republic gravy train WILL run out of steam soon and you will not have fooled everyone). 

Explain

How did the Shahs regime only benefit the top 20 percent of iranians when he made literacy programs to eliminate illiteracy, he provided free education to EVERY iranian who got accepted into iranian schools, and he even provided loans to students who wanted to study abroad. Please explain specifically which of his policies only benefited the upper 20 percent of Iranians.

Shahryar I feel sorry for you!So much hate.My parents are muslim

They didn't participate in the revolution. Does that make them "the problem"? Stop making a boogyman of Islam. Catholicism is just as dangerous IF NOT MORE SO. Hell, a dictator, Mousolini, gave them a nation, Vatican City. They may even assasinate Obama for his abortion stance.

Anyway. What I'm saying is, the politics of Iran, and the foreign interference have hurt Iran so much, and AMerica too, that we are left to hate on our own. Look how many Iranians here hate each other and talk badly to each other. Yet they love Zionists and Bush and others. It's khaly sad. 

The Coming Iranian Class Wars by Rosa Faiz

I have to agree with Shahryar Pars.

The particular shape of the ruling classes in Iran has, for the past one thousand and one years at least, consisted of two major components. In Iran they are referred to as the ‘Shah’ and the ‘Shaykh’; the King and the Cleric.

For those less familiar with the history of Iran, it is instructive to know that the clergy were a most integral part of the ruling classes all the way until 1920s, when the founder of the Pahlavi Dynasty, Reza Shah, summarily stripped the mullahs of almost all their social institutions of power.

From that point on the clergy had to stay content with running the mosques for the most part. Even large land holdings of the organized clergy were confiscated.

As Reza Shah’s liking grew for Germans, who built the first railway system in Iran, his occupancy of the Peacock Throne eventually became too intolerable for the British and the Soviets, who jointly invaded Iran in 1941; the British occupying the southern regions and the Soviets occupying the northern regions. So, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi had to watch his father sent to exile, and was himself installed as the king.

Seeing how his father had been hated and feared so fiercely, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi decided to at least start out as a nicer, gentler Pahlavi King, and so, “To assure the public that the dictatorship would not be re-imposed, the new shah granted amnesty to all political prisoners,… and decreed a return of ecclesiastical lands to the religious foundations,…” (Abrahamian). 1

In time, there would shortly come a big turn to the right, big crackdowns would follow, and a huge new wave of dissidents would be created, consisting mostly of the communist sympathizers of the Tudeh Party and the left-nationalist supporters of the National Front led by Dr.Mohammad Mossadegh.

So, for the most part, the second King of the Pahlavi ‘dynasty’ set his priorities in line with the Cold War-dictated aims and goals of his enablers in the West, and participated wholeheartedly in pursuing the leftists and making them into public enemy number one.

A most telling episode of a Pahlavi-era union between the Shah and the Shaykh, harkening back to the good old days when the two ruled harmoniously together, came in the wake of the social struggles of 1951-1953, which pit different factions of Iranian bourgeoisie against each other: the monarchist-comprador bourgeoisie and the feudal landowners against the nationalist factions, led by Mossadegh, the Prime Minister who successfully nationalized the Iranian oil industry. The struggle between these two factions naturally opened up the political arena to a wider participation on the part of other segments of society with other political inclinations, most significantly other nationalist-democrats as well as leftists.

It is instructive to see how Khomeini’s mentor, Ayatollah Kashani, acted in the fight between the nationalist and the comprador (i.e. imperialist lackey) factions of the Iranian bourgeoisie. At the height of the struggle, Ayatollah Kashani, a leading clergy of that time, openly sided with the absolutist monarch, inciting his followers to oppose Mossadegh, who, according to Ayatollah Kashani, was clearly a communist/atheist lover...""

//www.williambowles.info/guests/2005/iran_cla...

There's no such thing as a "real" or "fake' enemy. All are bad!

Shah, imam, all of them. Crap. Disaster. Awful. Democracy. Thanks very much. It's tough because even at dinner parties we argue about who is an under cover spy. Poor Iran.

IRI has created so many

IRI has created so many enemies for herself, including the sunni muslim world. Chickens haven't come to roost, yet; wait until Iraq is partitioned a la Biden doctrine. Stand by!

Islam, and islamists are the real enemy

Apart from all discussions, conflicting realities, liberal versus dictatorial ideas, the historical fact is that Islam in general and it's organized criminal organization of clergy and mosques has been the greatest source of dishonesty, malpractice, misleadings, crimes and distortions in our country, not just during the last 30 years, but still worse, during the last 900 years.
As long as there is an institutionalized Islamic system, in power or not, existing in the center or the backgrounds of our political, cultural, economic
and traditional life, then there is no way for the growth of freedom, liberty, real intellectualism and development.
It is the responsibility of all free individuals, to fight this cancerous disease, there does not exist a bad or a good Islam, there does not exist a real versus faulty Islam. None of you ordinary citizens or so called liberals who still paralyzed by your defeatist attitude of liberalism can claim to know Islam better than Great Ayatollahs in Qom, Mashad, Najaf,...
The Islamic republic is the true fruit of True and pure islam with ignorant revolutionaries who demonstrated their talent of trahision better than anyone else.
Still none of the so called 98% majority who committed the crime of revolution has had the gut and intellectual honesty to humbly beg pardon for their mistakes, still there is no Ayatollah who openly rejects Islamism, terrorism and the idea of revolution.
As long as you avoid realities, you will never find the final remedy against our national weakness, namely ISLAM and Islamism.

No one has the balls to F*ck with Iran today either

Including America. Whatever. Iranian people are the ones suffering. Get over your doomsday comic book notions about history and people. They are families and working people and they just want to live in peace. Stop being so dramatic. This isn't about shahs, it's about dignified, happy families in Iran. 

"Iran grew smaller and weaker under a shah "?

Oh, yeah? Like what Shah? Cyrusn the Great or Mohammad Reza Shah?
They have all been Shahs!

Say what you want about the late Shah, but when he took over , Iran was under the Allied occupation. Soviets were forced out of our land. During his reign, no one had the balls to f*ck with us. The Imperial army scared the sh*t out of anyone who looked at our soil the wrong way! Our neighbors respected us as they feared us. That policy was set by him, and it worked!
We owe him much!

Iran grew smaller and weaker under a shah during modern era

Napoli you're really stretching reality. Dictatorships fail, and IRI will too.

What's it like being stuck in the year 35 A.D.?? 

More statistics...

In 1978 (the stable iran before revolution) iran had about 3200 discontent political prisoners and close-to full employment. Employment rate is about 75%.

In 1988, iran had upward of 35,000 discontent political prisoners when khomeini ordered the clean up of prisons.

Oh, one more thing...

Your numbers are flawed, IRI is not good for 20% of iranians (that is 14 millions, a lot more if you consider their close relatives). Only 14% favor IRI today according to a poll taken this past summer. Distribution of wealth was some 9 times more widespread in 1978 than in 2008 (standard deviation in technical terms), and was infinitely larger than when reza shah took over (when the only high income trade for the masses was in opium).

One more thing: reza shah wanted to set up a republic, just like attaturk did. You know who opposed him: Mullas, calling republic western-made unislamic, mullas crowned him as the shah, assuming that they can manage him.

Likes of you are the problem...

Iran survived 2500 years with Monarchy. Likes of you are the ones who sold iran "before" there was a better choice. Shah was the one who educated likes of you and 50,000 other iranian students so all can have a full belly and a secure job waiting for them, oppose him, pass the country to mullas, and then be the first ones to run away.

If Monarchy is so bad, then YOU offer a solution that YOU can implement within the confines of iran and cultural realities of iranians. It is easy to sit on the sidelines and dream of a non-existent never-arriving solution while mullas are vulturing iran; we already took that route when we wanted shah out no matter what followed and we saw the result of it; there will be no iran by the time your solution comes to materialize if ever.

Iranians of 1979 did not revolt for a better iran, they were deceived by a stupid mulla who had nothing to offer but how one should wash his a** and what the other should do with a mule after he had s*x with it. So given that sense of judgment, whatever shah was, he was too good for those people, as they de-crowned him only to crown a brutal line of mullas in his place.

The usual iranian arrogance, think-know-all, yet incapable, naive, uninformed, and unlearned from past experiences keeps showing up to make sure that the past mistakes are to only repeat.

You have a better solution that YOU can implement, 90% of 70 million iranians are waiting for YOUR offer of change.

I suggest that you read about three iran's, one on the day that reza shah took over, one the day that khomeini took over, and one today.

More metaphors! I think Eshaal = Shah though because

Monarchy lasted much longer and the nature of eshaal is such that it is long and painful period of abdominal pain and discomfort. IRI is like an immediate way to get rid of a virus, which is what vomitting is really, just a quick way to get rid of toxins. IRI did it, but it swallowed some other viruses too. 

Looking forward

SOLUTIONS FOR IRAN

1. BELIEVE in ourselves
2. UNITE based on the common principals that brings us together instead of distractions and exclusions that divide us
3. ORGANIZE

PRINCIPALS OF UNITY OF ALL IRANIANS

• Territorial integrity
• Independence
• Separation of Religion and State
• Freedom of Expression
• Gender Equality
• Human Rights

We have no problem with Islam!

I am an Iranian Muslim. My entire family is Muslim. Most of the people of Iran are Muslim.

What are you Islamophobic fascists going to do? Kill us all?!

Farmarz jan: The power

Farmarz jan: The power struggle between the monarchy and clerics has been raging for over a thousand years; and finally the cleric usurped the power in 1978. It has been class war since the beginning and it will not stop until Iranians learn not to trust either ruling class anymore.

Simply not fair

Shah was certainly no angel, but it would be unfair to simply place him at the same level as IRI. His reign was a difficult time for political activists and freedom seekers, but not so much for the average man/woman. He was biased, brute, selfish and arrogant, but still way-way-way better than what came afterwards.

In your food comparison, Shah definitely ranks at the Noon-o-Paneer Ba ToSari level; with Khomeni just as you said, but the bloody type. 

Arash M-K