JustAnIranian

A while back, I received an email from a bitter friend in Iran. He said that during the 2009 election uprising, Akbar Ganji was the one who had recommended to the United States not to intervene. I don't know how true this statement is, and I am definitely not for a military intervention in Iran, but, I think we need to understand the situation of people living in Iran in these difficult times. My friends statement made me think.

I used to read the articles by Akbar Ganji in BBC Persian. I think the most memorable was the one where he had predicted that sanctions and of course military action are only going to make the people poorer and that they will change nothing. We still have to see whether this is true, but it was a very depressing article.

Then I saw him in Parazit. Frankly, I got the feeling he's planning to be Iran's Erdogan. First, he said that Turkey is far ahead of Iran - which I doubt. And then he went ahead to suggest that an Islamic Political Party is absolutely OK to have - just like the Christian Democrats in Germany. At that point, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I know the political system in Germany very well. Germans have a very clear and healthy relationship to religion. They do not mix religion and politics. Christian Democratic Union of Germany is NOT a religious party. But, if we want to compare the two countries, NPD is a good example. NPD is the National Partei Deutschland. The Neo Nazi Party. This is a party of fanatics which caused the second world war.

Yes, the NPD is a political party in Germany, BUT even in the admirable German democracy, there is constant debate as to whether to allow it. The only reason they let it stay, is to stop it from going underground.

Mr. Ganji can have his Erdogan party, if he wishes. But I want to see how many people will vote for it. I am betting on not many. While Mr. Ganji is still trying to figure out whether the 11th Imam had a son and whether the myth of Imam Zaman is true, I have a message for him: Sir, you have changed for the better since the beginning of the revolution. But you still don't get it!