Syria, Imperialism and Revolution by Simon Assaf

Two street music videos from Iran

Golshifteh Farahani

My latest piece on Golshifteh Farahani's photos (in Persian).

Covert War on Iran

Chris Spannos has interviewed Muhammad Sahimi regarding the recent assassination of Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan here.

Descendants

I watched Descendants tonight. I thought it was a so-so movie. I didn't feel anything particularly special about it except the scene that Matthew King (played by George Clooney) speaks to his comatose wife after learning that she had an affair before her accident. That scene in Descendants (although not nearly as powerful and breathtaking) reminded me of one of my most favorite scenes in which Paul (played by Marlon Brenda) speaks to the dead body of his wife in the movie Last Tango In Paris. I came home from cinema finding myself searching youtube for that scene in Last Tango in Paris.

The launching of "clean intranet" in Iran

Part of an email I received from a dear friend who lives in Iran, translated by me and revised for clarity:

"If the news is correct, soon we will no longer have internet access here in Iran. We will have to say goodbye for a while... [the recent inaccessibility to internet in Iran] is apparently related to the "test" of the so called national internet or intranet. Yesterday, I read that we [people in Iran] will have only access to a "clean internet" and will no longer have access to the international one, so we might lose our connection to the net all together..."

Some news agencies confirm the launching of the "national internet" or intranet or "clean internet":

"A report by the Roozegar daily has cited telecommunications officials as saying that the reason for the reduction in internet speed was linked to the launch of a "Clean" or "National" internet, which could be as early as two weeks from now." (Link)

I don't know how realistic it is for the Iranian government, or any government for that matter, to be capable of replacing the international internet with a national "clean" one. I also can't confirm whether the recent decrease of internet speed in Iran is related to the installation of "national clean intranet" or is due to other reasons. But People in Iran are experiencing new hardships in checking their emails or using Internet-cafes.

ISNA reports that Tehran Police announced on Tuesday that internet cafes must check their customers’ identity cards before offering them any services. The cafes are also reportedly required to install closed-circuit cameras to record the faces of their customers. (Link)

Yet, the news of such government's domestic acts such as the launching of the "clean intranet" has received little to no attention from the Iranian activists living outside Iran, and they are unable to reflect the voices of their counterparts in Iran. The recent war and sanctions-mongering by US-Europe has understandably preoccupied the expat Iranian activists and disconnected many of them from the matters happening inside Iran. Not all have been preoccupied opposing the warmongering, in fact, some have been absorbed building their hopes in further sanctions and possible humanitarian bombings. However, whether endorsing or opposing the war-sanctions mongering, the activists have been distracted from the domestic happenings inside Iran. People familiar with Iran's politics know how dangerous it can be for Iran's political victims when Iran's activists are forced to neglect the domestic oppression.

The supposedly independent government of Iran (meaning independent from the world powers of the US, Israel and the Western Europe), not only receives help for its censorship from countries in Europe, Israel and elsewhere (e.g., for the launching of the "clean internet" and other similar surveillance tasks) but also gets enormous help from warmongers in preventing the activists from amplifying voices of resistance inside Iran. If a connection and solidarity was formed between the outside, inside and different segments of Iran's political opposition (up to the last demonstration in Iran, almost a year ago), that cooperation has been recently, to some extent, ripped apart by the warmongering imperialist forces. This is not to suggest that all the people in Iran are only concerned with Iran's government domestic policies and regulations as such policies and daily life experiences are interconnected and entangled to world affairs (such as the threats of wars and imposition of more fatal economic sanctions against Iran). I also don't wish to suggest that the outside activists have been ideologically homogeneous and unified in their opposition against war and sanctions. They are not. The point of the matter is that the warmongering has acted as a distracting force in favor of Iran's regime, has further compartmentalized the opposition, and has weakened the progressive voices who simultaneously oppose both domestic and imperialist oppression. In such a state of emergency, the strengthening of the threats of war and further sanctions against Iran, "you are either with us or against us" has once more become a mantra among sections of Iran's political activism sphere. Once more, imperialism seems hard at work aiding Iran's hardline sections of the government to exhaust a home-grown resistance movement.

Arab revolutions of today are reminiscent of Europe's 200 years ago?

Eric Hobsbawm in this piece implicitly suggests that Arab and North African countries are in the childhood stage of Europe and that people's struggles in those countries remind him of "Europe's year of revolutions almost two centuries earlier."

Social Darwinism in colonial explanations for the supposed "lagging" of the colonized countries is now showing itself in the interpretations of the political struggle of descendents of former colonized subjects.

Eric Hobsbawm completely disregards the fact that the econo-political discontent of people in North Africa and Arab countries of today is in many aspects shared with people living in North American-European capitalist-democracies. This shared discontent includes the shrinkage of privatized public space, the private sphere under even more surveillance by the states, the effect of neo-liberalist economic policies, police brutality, economic disparities, the militarization of the whole world, etc.

For the Egyptian revolutionaries, Eric Hobsbawm, has a message of hope based on "two years after 1848" revolution in Europe:

"For those who once crowded Tahrir Square and are now worried about the fate of their revolution, he [Eric Hobsbawm] has a word of comfort." And here that is: "Two years after 1848, it looked as if it had all failed. In the long run, it hadn't failed. A good deal of liberal advances had been made. So it was an immediate failure but a longer term partial success - though no longer in the form of a revolution."

If the racist government of Iran has proclaimed that the political struggles in African and Arab countries are the repetition of Iran's revolution of 30 years ago only in a different space (the exact revolution that they stole and demolished) the European supremacists find the Arab and African revolutions to be reminiscent of the Europe of two centuries ago. Even their word of hope is based on the assumption that the future of Muslim and Arab countries had already been experienced two centuries ago in Europe.

Eric Hobsbawm: "What unites them [revolutions in Arab and African countries] is a common discontent and common mobilisable forces - a modernising middle class, particularly a young, student middle class, and of course technology which makes it today very much easier to mobilise protests."

Lazy class analyses in which protesters become "modernising middle class" have become common sense to many analysts without any of them offering a deep elaboration. How do you define middle class? How do you detect the social class of the protesters? How do you find a big body of middle class people in poor countries such as Egypt, Iran, Syria, etc. who would "make waves" of political change?  What does modernizing middle class mean exactly? What does modernizing mean here? I would have to guess the answer as the BBC piece shallowly leaves it unanswered. Probably according to thinkers like Eric Hobsbawm if North African and Arab countries of today are in the path of Europe of two centuries ago, the agents in those countries that stay on this path are Europeanizing (or Westernizing) middle class forces. According to views similar to Hobsbawm's, the Muslim and Arab countries, if events go correctly, will become some young age of the Europe in their future. Thus, the forces who have the important mission of assimilationism are none other than the modernizing middle class. Not only the class of the protesters but rather the image of the whole world is distorted in these accounts.  

Labor protest in Tabriz, Iran

Workers protest the proposed changes to the labor law in Tabriz, Iran last week.

No one's burden to liberate her

She doesn't need to be "liberated" by any woman's nude photos. She is a liberator herself. Thus, mainstream media by portraying her as passive, as the burden of another woman's nude photos supposed to liberate her, ignores her agency practiced in daily acts, either with or without veil, wearing veil either for the sake of community values or individual values.

P.S. : My friend, A.M., pointed to me that the woman who publishes nude photos (or other similar acts) also do not need to be "liberated"or righted by the veiled woman as religious right-wingers might assume. I agree. I equally find it problematic when liberal feminists assume that the "modernized and liberated" women bear the burden of liberating or breaking taboos for the veiled women by exposing body or similar acts.  

Tahrir Square, Egypt,  November 19, 2011

My Father Is Still A Communist

The movie is the story of  the parents of the director,  Ahmad Ghossein. It happens in south of Lebanon when it was invaded and occupied by Israel.  Ahmad Ghossein's mother (Maream Hamade) records her voice on tapes and sends them to her husband (Rachid Ghossein) who was working in Saudi Arabia (or one of the Gulf countries) to make the ends meet. At the time, to the young  Rachid Ghossein, his father was a communist hero fighting the invaders. So he used to imagine heroic stories about his father while in fact his father was working abroad for him and his family to survive the poor economic conditions. In a scene, Maream Hamade is recording her voice describing her child labor to her husband. It goes something like: “I walked to the midwife around midnight and was back home around 3 AM. Our son asked me when I will deliver, I told him I have already delivered. He couldn't believe it so he touched my belly and excitedly said oh yeah your belly is smaller. I asked him to be quiet as the baby was sleeping.” The recordings were the real voice of  Ahmad Ghossein's mother that he had found them in the basement of their house.

The recordings are all the daily realities of Maream's life under occupation and invasion while living alone and being responsible for her children. Through the expressions of longing for her husband and the "wasted time under occupation" we get to hear the story. The tapes were not recorded for the audiences of a future movie, in fact, they were the love letters of Maryam to her husband. Yet, the recordings are put together as a fiction for the audiences of the movie. One would find oneself getting arrested in the fictional narration and dreamy images of the movie while the realness of the voice and story would force you back on the ground.    

In the middle of Israel’s bombs, death and destruction, Maream Hamade records the most affectionate messages to her husband. Right when the south of Lebanon is occupied and one would think that the meaning of the borders and nationalities must have been intensified, Maream often asks her husband in the records to come back home and that she is going to tear up his passport so that he never leaves again.

The title of the movie “My Father Is Still A Communist” is also neatly picked as the father turned out to be laboring in Gulf countries and not a hero communist fighter, nonetheless he continues to stay a hero in Ahmad Ghosseini’s mind.

The songs in the movie are by the Egyptian singer Abdul-Halim Hafez, one of the best Arabic singers.

Roseanne Barr Speaks to Wall Street Protesters

Let's listen to Palestinian young people regarding the statehood

Video from here.

More videos of Oroumieh, Iran (August 27, 2011)

You can read more about these protests here. Many activists and protesters from Oroumieh and Tabriz have been arrested after these protests.

Kurdish people of Qandil are attacked, killed and displaced

The governments of Turkey and Iran started a joint campaign of killing and displacing the Kurds of Qandil under the "justification" of attacking the Kurdish P.K.K. and Pjak forces there. The US government has claimed that the government of Turkey has the right to defend itself from the P.K.K. terrorists.  A familiar affair, as we have heard such "justifications" from Israel's government and "the right of imperialist governments to defend themselves" repetitively.

In response to the atrocities of Iran's and Turkey's governments, the world (most of the progressives, radicals, conservatives and liberals alike) have been standing by silently and showing absolutely zero concern toward the pain of the invaded Kurdish people. The Kurdish opposition groups are mostly Marxists with much more promising progressive potential than most of the other oppositional groups in the region. Yet, they receive little to no attention from the world's progressives. All parts of the political spectrum are mind-blowingly susceptible to mass media's hype and fashion. Thus those parts of the events that are unprofitable to the corporate media tend to get no attention even from those who consider themselves skeptical of mainstream media.

On the other hand, the flag-loving activists who attached the flag of Turkey to Palestine's on May 2010 (in response to the massacre of peace activists at the Gaza Freedom Flotilla) and became delusional about the Turkish government's phony support of Palestinians, have shown no interest in explaining how the government of Turkey is killing and oppressing Kurdish people somewhat similar to Israel's government does against Palestinians. The lack of such explanations maybe stems from the fact that it's not fashionable to express concerns over the suffering of Kurds or it would make it harder to celebrate and romanticize the rise of new governments, similar to the Turkish government, in the region. Similar to the Turkish government means friendly toward the US and Israel government policies with expressions of phony support for Palestinians, and some minor cosmetic surgery.

The security forces of Turkey's government attacked the Kurdish protesters who were moving to Qandil (as human shields) to protect the people there from the attacks. One of the protesters, Yildirim Han, was severely injured and he consequently died in the hospital.

The letter below is written by Leyla Zana. It was originally published here first.

  

Leyla Zana:

"While the world is going through a very fast process of change and transformation and the Middle East is witnessing new developments, our people who are deprived of the fairness of the history still continue their struggle for “existence” at the cost of their lives.

When it comes to the Kurds and their political status, the world opinion keeps remaining silent and condoning the right and boundary violations, bombings on villages, houses and people, regardless of women, men and children, cross-border operations and the ongoing aerial operations. This situation is greeted with great astonishment by our people and considered difficult to understand.

The constant attack position of these powers and their intention to destroy all the values of Kurds do not comply with the character of the 21st century and the principles of fairness in the world. 

The latest aerial attacks on Qandil, which have killed a civilian family in the region, are defended by Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey which is currently trying to set an example of a “model country” to the Middle East and conducting negotiations to be a member of the EU. In a statement to a national newspaper, the Turkish Deputy Prime Minister, saying that “the operations are legitimate and true”, didn’t abstain from defending the attacks which target civilians. (Bülent Arınç/Cihan News Agency/22.08.2011)

I would like to express my regret that the Prime Minister of the Republic of Turkey is increasing the policy of violence against Kurds as the Western world is holding up him as an example to the Middle East. I am greatly worried that we may face a modern dictatorship while the dictatorial regimes in the Middle East are falling down. The state’s attitude which forces the whole society to think the same with itself and the closure cases against the worldwide multilingual Roj TV need to be accepted as a sign in this regard. 

In brief, the military, political, diplomatic attacks launched against the Kurds and most importantly, the boundless attacks on our civilian people are in front of the eyes of the world public opinion. It is possible to foresee how the destruction of an oppressed people’s children will deepen the deadlock. 

All efforts of the Kurdish side are intended for finding a democratic and political solution to this problem. Although Mr. Ocalan has many times silenced the weapons since 1993 and created opportunities for obtaining the rights of the Kurdish people on a democratic ground as well as convincing his public that the problem can be solved in this way,www.ekurd.netthe state has negated all these processes with a negative attitude and turned a blind eye to these opportunities. Resisting extraordinarily about defining the problem, the state has at every turn considered and applied violence as the single method of solving the Kurdish problem. 

Mr. President,
In the testimony of the whole world’s humanity, the geography which has been in a conflict environment for two hundred years is now expecting peace and quiet.
Kurdistan's geography should not be a second Paletsine and the Sri Lanka simulation shouldn’t even be associated with the situation in Turkey. Otherwise, a social chaos and an ethnic war among the peoples will be unavoidable, which will no doubt drag the world peace and humanity into more disaster. 

I expect and wish that you will meet the requirements of your both conscience and position.'' 

Leyla Zana: Who in 1995 won the European Parliament's Sakharov human rights award, and several other Kurds were elected to parliament in 1991, but lost their seats in 1994 after their party was outlawed for links with the PKK. In March 2003, Zana and her co-defendants were allowed a retrial after their original conviction was condemned as unfair by the European Court of Human Rights in 2001. Zana and three colleagues spent 10 years behind bars for speaking Kurdish in the Turkish Parliament and for collaborating with the rebels. She was the first Kurdish woman to be elected to Turkey's parliament. They were released in June 2004."

By Mana Neyestani, for Ali Farzat

By Mana Neyestani. (Source)
Title: "For Ali Farzat, the Syrian Cartoonist"