I wonder how can Radio Farda claim to be an unbiased radio or new website, while they are now featuring a section dedicated to four non-violent revolutions?
And how do they expect them from the Islamic Republic to deal with them, when they are so openly advocating for regime-change in Iran?
The problem I have with people like Akbar Ganji is that, while they clearly reject the military option for regime change in Iran, the alternative approach they are advocating, i.e. the human rights argument, still ultimately falls into the same agenda of regime change. It serves the same people with the same aim.
They fail to see that their human rights discourse has always been used by the Americans to press countries they don't feel comfortable with, such as Cuba, Iran, China, Syria, Venezualla, etc. -- and very recently Russia.
You can never attack a state before de-humanizing it and this is what the Americans did in before invading Iraq Iraq and it is what they are doing with Iran these days. Look how many totally false and exaggerated anti-Iranian stories are flying around by the Anglosaxon media:
What is the purpose of this nasty anti-Iranian campaign, run by watchdogs and the media, which is mostly constructed within the human rights discourse, simply because the democracy discourse doesn't really work in Iran with all these elections and high turnout and surprising results.
What Ganji et al fail to understand (or maybe they do, in which case they are total traitors) is that they are still indirectly helping the required buildup for a military attack, by pushing for more money and more resources for such nasty campaign to even have a higher impact on the public.
No matter what you feed the American human rights discourse, the output usually benefits the Americans more than the real victims.
This also has a philosophical aspect which has to do with the idea of universality of human rights or democracy that I don't want to get into now.
And also there is a business side to it, especially for the large community of exiled Iranians that I also want to get into either. Maybe later.
If the secular women rights activists wanted to guarantee that the Islamic Republic sees their great "One Million Signatures" campaign as a covert Amercian project to destabilize Iran through organizing and mobilizing women, being promoted by Gozaar, a Freedom House project with the Dutch government's money, was exactly what they should have done.
The project (whose website is already filtered in Iran) now is definitely seen by the intelligence service as a security threat, despite the good intention of many genuine activists involved in it. What a huge mistake.
Gozaar single-handedly has put the entire group of Dutch-funded projects in jeopardy. Having any association with them, in the eyes of the Islamic Republic, means trouble. Avoid it if you believe in genuine change from within, as opposed to nonviolent regime change.
For over a year, I've been saying that Khamanei is not very happy with Ahmadinejad's style and performance.
Now this great story by the mostly amazing Robert Tait from Tehran for The Guardian is probably the first substantial reporting on this topic. Few people have seen it, so please link to it and spread it around.
Read it:
President's future in doubt as MPs rebel and economic crisis grows (The Guardian)
My favorite paragraphs:
MPs also criticised Mr Ahmadinejad's role in the UN security council dispute over Iran's nuclear programme amid growing evidence that the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has ordered him to stay silent on the issue.
The supreme leader, who was hitherto loyal to the president, is said to blame Mr Ahmadinejad for last month's UN resolution imposing sanctions over Iran's refusal to suspend its uranium enrichment.
Ayatollah Khamenei has ultimate authority on foreign policy, and is rumoured to be so disillusioned with Mr Ahmadinejad's performance that he has refused to meet him on occasion.
In a further indicator, Mohammad Reza Bahonar, the leader of parliament's fundamentalists and a former lieutenant who helped the president choose his cabinet, denounced Mr Ahmadinejad's economic policies as "wrong" and told him to stop blaming others.
[...]
Pragmatists within the Islamic leadership claim that Mr Ahmadinejad's inflammatory rhetoric, including a declaration that Iran would not suspend uranium enrichment for "even one day", sank any chance of a deal.
Two recent newspaper articles suggested that this is now the official view.
Jomhouri Islami, which has previously carried unsigned articles by the ayatollah, accused Mr Ahmadinejad of endangering public support for the nuclear programme by hijacking it as a personal cause to disguise his government's economic failings.
"Turning the nuclear issue into a propaganda slogan gives the impression that you, to cover up flaws in the government, are exaggerating its importance. If people get the impression that the government is exaggerating the nuclear case to divert attention from their demands, you will cause this national issue to lose public support," the newspaper wrote.
The newspaper, Hamshari, whose director, Hossein Entezami, is a member of Iran's nuclear negotiating team, was more blunt: "At the very moment when the nuclear issue was about to move away from the UN security council, the fiery speeches of the president have resulted in the adoption of two resolutions [against Iran]."
Thanks to vpot.tv a recorded video version of my presentation in Paris last December in Le Web 3 conference is now online. In it I've tried to provide a broader and more fair definition of Internet censorship in the world, focusing on Iran.
Other presentations are available at the same website. Just search for leweb3 and you'll find them. I can't link to them, since everything is in bloody Flash!
After my last year visit to Israel, a few individuals started to run an ugly and personal smear campaign against me. This includes some Iranians and their friends in Canada and Israel.
I always had the suspicion that given my clear and eclectic political positions, the only way for the Iranian intelligence service to discredit what I’ve started both in terms of blogging movement and also the Iran-Israel friendship project, would be something very cheap and very personal.
They started with spreading rumors that I’m either gay or bisexual, that I’ve been terribly unfaithful to my ex-wife, that I steal money from my friends, that I work for the Islamic Republic and they pay for my travels, that I’ve lied about being googled at the US border and banned from entering, that I’ve lied about being detained and questioned and forced to sign apology during my last visit in Iran in Summer 2005, etc.
Before my recent visit to Israel, one of these former-friends, for example, had started calling various security and academic contacts in Israel to stop me from entering Israel for the second time and speak at Ben Gurion University. On the basis that she knows through her Iranian friends that I work for the Islamic Republic.
A mix of jealousy, sexual tension, rivalry, and repressions have connected these former-friends to do something that people who’ve blocked my website for almost two years now and detained and harassed me last time in Iran wish to do. They’re being used by them to damage my credibility.
Another former-friend, Nikahang Kowsar, has gone as far to write for a disgraceful neo-conservative news website that pushes for military action against Iran to bring a monarchist government headed by Reza Pahlavi. (An older article published by the same website calling for my arrest) A long piece on how and why he thinks I work for the Islamic Republic, based on my writings, biography and history.
But few know these facts about Mr. Kowsar, the writer of that article:
Now after my second successful trip to Israel, I’m sure you would soon hear more rumors like what I mentioned earlier. Be prepared. The Iranian intelligence service is very good in using this kind of methods to discredit people it doesn’t like or trust.
The interview with Jerusalem Post is also online now. The title is "Iran-Israel Interface" and it's written by Abraham Rabinovich. The piece requires some minor corrections though that I hope to correct later.
But I also put it here, in case they remove it from their website.
Abraham Rabinovich
THE JERUSALEM POST
Jan. 18, 2007
The threats of mutual destruction wafting between Israel and Iran were drowned out this week by an Iranian Shi'ite, Hossein Derakhshan, walking the streets of Tel Aviv with "I love you Teheran" emblazoned on his T-shirt.
The 32-year-old former journalist, now resident in Canada, has undertaken a campaign to show Israelis and Iranians the human face of the people they may be contemplating nuking.
Derakhshan, who addressed a conference on "Reform and Resistance in the Middle East" at Ben-Gurion University last week, is credited with having popularized the concept of the Weblog in Iran, a phenomenon which reached an astonishing scale. During his recent visit, he established contact with Israelis willing to reach out via the Web to counterparts in Iran and break through the crust of governmental hostility separating them.
According to speakers at the Ben-Gurion conference, some Israelis and Lebanese used blogs to communicate with each other even as the bombs fell during last summer's war, apparently the first such use of blogs between enemy populations in wartime. Derakhshan's aim is to establish a dialogue between Iranians and Israelis to prevent the bombs from falling.
He first visited Israel last year and subsequently posted photographs and videos of Israel on his Farsi-language blog, which is seen by some 20,000 Iranians - those with the know-how to bypass the filter Iran has placed on his blog (hoder@hoder.com) and those to whom he sends the blog content in the form of e-mail.
"Those were the first videos any Iranian has been able to see about ordinary daily life in Israel," he said in an interview. "I want to humanize Israel for Iranians and tell them it's not what the Islamic propaganda machine is saying - that Israelis are thirsty for Muslim blood. And I want to show Israel that the average Iranian isn't even thinking about doing harm to Israel. I want them to see Iranians who don't look like [President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad."
For all his good intentions, Derakhshan is not your run-of-the-mill peacenik. He opposes, for environmental reasons, Iran's public drive for nuclear energy. But he supports, for strategic reasons, Iran's secret drive for nuclear weapons. "We need it as a deterrent." Not against Israel, he says, but against the United States, which in 1953 organized a coup in Teheran and whose military presence is amply visible all around Iran today.
In addition, says Derakhshan, Iran is surrounded by other potentially hostile entities. Iranian diplomats have been killed in recent years by Sunni extremists in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and Iranians harbor deep hostility towards the Sunni regime in Saudi Arabia which has acted brutally towards Shi'ite pilgrims during the haj.
ALTHOUGH HE admits in his blog to being an atheist, drinking liquor and enjoying an occasional joint, Derakshan surprisingly favors continuation of the Islamic republic in Iran, although in more enlightened form. "I support any government that attempts to marry democracy and religion." In a deeply religious region like the Middle East, he says, attempts such as Turkey's to subjugate religion result in its forcing its way to the surface in contentious ways.
He views Israel as an example of a democracy that has successfully integrated religion into its national fabric.
According to Derakshan, Iran is seeking to adapt Islam to modern ways. Blogging, as it happens, is one example. In the seminaries in the holy city of Qom, he says, clerical students are taught how to create Web pages.
Although a reformist, he is opposed even to non-violent resistance. "The system in Iran is democratic enough to permit change through elections." Former president Muhammad Khatami was brought to power by reformists, but they grew impatient at the slow pace of change and boycotted the last presidential elections in an attempt to deny the government legitimacy. However, this only brought Ahmadinejad to power. The reformers learned their bitter lesson, as shown in last month's elections in which Ahmadinejad supporters were savaged by a large turnout. "We can gradually change Iran. We are already doing it."
Ahmadinejad, notes Derakhshan, was elected on a platform that was entirely domestic. "He made no mention of Israel or nuclear weapons. Nothing. It is because of his failure to cut unemployment and improve the standard of living, which he promised to do, that he has lost his popularity, even among the uneducated, even among the religious. The government is simply mismanaged. The people he brought in have little experience, and he himself never had a major managerial position."
The president, he said, has limited powers and must defer to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on the most important decisions. "He has no control over the army, no control over the state media. And it is Khamenei who chooses the three key ministers - foreign, intelligence and oil."
Derakhshan denies that Ahmadinejad is intelligent, even though he ran rings around a 60 Minutes interviewer on American television last year and fenced ably with members of the Council on Foreign Relations during his visit to New York. "He's street smart and has good social communication skills," says Derakhshan, who trained as a sociologist in Iran. "He relates easily to people on a personal level. But he doesn't have the intellect to convince people who can think. He can't respond to sophisticated questions."
Because of his blogs, Derakhshan has been marked by Iran's intelligence service for arrest if he returns, but he remains an Iranian patriot. "Iran is deliberately misrepresented by the Western media." If there is a war between Iran and the United States, he says, he would fly home to fight for his country.
THE SON of a rug manufacturer in Teheran, Derakhshan began playing with video games as a teenager and was among the first generation in his country to take up computers. He began writing a weekly computer column for a widely read reformist newspaper. It was so popular that it became a daily column. It was the attack on the World Trade Center in 2001 that alerted him to a dimension he had not considered before.
"Two weeks after 9/11, I discovered the New York-based blogs describing people's feelings there. I started my blog to show the amazing potential of this new media."
He was flooded with e-mails from Iranians asking how to start their own blogs. He explained how to find free on-line services for making English-language blogs and how to adapt them to the Farsi language. Since then, an astonishing 700,000 blogs have appeared in Farsi, of which an estimated 40,000-110,000 are still active.
Unlike satellite television, which is officially banned in Iran, blogging is encouraged by the government. Even Ahmadinejad has a blog. "It's trendy," says Derakhshan. Only about 100 high-profile Farsi blogs are filtered by the authorities, who cannot possibly cope with the mass of blogs on the Web. There is no attempt to block Western blogs, he says. Even Hebrew-language newspapers and The Jerusalem Post can be read on Teheran screens.
When not traveling, Derakhshan produces two blogs a day - one in Farsi and one in English. "I'm more of an activist in my Persian blog - I push a reformist agenda - and more of an observer in English."
Five years ago, he moved to Canada where he married an Iranian woman, whom he subsequently divorced. He earned a living as a journalist and by creating Web sites. His blog is written from there.
During his two-week stay here, Derakhshan pursued a number of ideas with people who expressed readiness to join in his project. These include:
DERAKHSHAN ENVISIONS such activities carried out at the expense of those involved or with small-scale donations. "I've had so much positive reaction since my last trip to the idea of connecting Iranians and Israelis."
He recently set up a Web site as a focus for these activities. Called Teheraviv.com, it is still empty, but he hopes to begin filling it with content shortly.
The average Iranian student, says Derakhshan, sees no threat from Israel and does not take seriously statements about a possible Israeli attack on Iran. "They know that Iran is not a real threat to Israel and that Ahmadinejad has limited power. If Israel attacks Iran, I think people would see it as done at America's behest."
That average Iranian student, he said, is not very sympathetic toward the Palestinians and the Arab world in general, which supported Saddam Hussein during the eight-year-long Iraq-Iran war. The older generation of Iranians still remembers normal relations with Israel during the time of the shah. There may still be some who remember Israel's extensive aid in reconstructing Iranian villages destroyed in massive earthquakes. There is even pride in a native-born Iranian having been chosen as Israel's president. The one black mark against Israel is its alleged training of the shah's secret police in torture techniques.
Before departing Israel in midweek, Darakhshan celebrated his 32nd birthday in what he described as "the coolest bar in Tel Aviv," on Rehov Lilienblum, where he had a haircut in a side room at 10 p.m.
Said the Iranian activist: "Tel Aviv is a city I could live in. It's a mix of Middle East and European values and lifestyle. If Iran opens up a bit more and could have public bars, Teheran would beat Tel Aviv."
Does he think he will see peace between Israel and Iran in his lifetime?
"In five years," he says.
Meron Rapoport from Haaretz interviewed my after the conference in Beer Sheva and today the piece he has written is published in the newspaper.
The title is "King of the Iranian bloggers (English version)," but I had no role in choosing this title. I know some people would soon start blaming me for this. But I repeat that, like the title Blogfather, these titles are given by journalists, not me. Please don't hold it against me.
For those who speak Hebrew, this is the Hebrew version, with a horrible photo on it.
King of the Iranian bloggers
By Meron Rapoport
Last Update: 12/01/2007 11:56
Hossein Derakhshan's T-shirt is the only thing that gives him away. "I love Tehran," it says. Actually the shirt is the only thing that would lead one to guess that the affable, young-and-restless technology aficionado is not from here. He's from Iran, and proud of it. He was born in Tehran, grew up there and thinks it's the most fantastic city in the world. Even today, even now. Because even though Derakhshan cannot live in Iran at present, he is still an Iranian patriot. He despises Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but admires Khomeini; he's a total atheist, but thinks that an Islamic republic is the solution for the future; he's a friend of Israel, who thinks that Ahmadinejad's anti-Israeli policy is the leader's stupidest mistake, but he's also an enthusiastic supporter of the Iranian nuclear program and believes it would be very good for Iran to have an atom bomb. Good for Iran - and good for Israel.
Based on all we think we know about Iran, Canada-based Derakhshan ought to be totally out of the ordinary, an endangered species. He's a journalist who never misses an opportunity to say that his president is stupid, a well-known blogger who preaches to a cyberspace that is free of censorship and oversight. But these two qualities, explains Derakhshan, are not unusual in Iran. The Iranian press slaughters Ahmadinejad on a daily basis, and blogs are a big hit. Some 700,000 bloggers are active in Iran today, he estimates, from radicals who curse spiritual leader Ali Khamenei to madrasa students in the holy city of Qum. Even Ahmadinejad himself started his own blog a little while ago.
It's not by chance that Derakhshan speaks about blogs as if he were talking about religion. Dr. Michael Dahan of Sapir Academic College, who studies the phenomenon of blogs in general and of those in the Middle East in particular, says that Derakhshan could be considered the spiritual father of the bloggers in Iran. This is the man who also found a technological solution to writing blogs in Farsi and also gave the blogger movement its ideological cast - promoting a free space for discussions about everything that's happening in Iranian society.
Thus, it was not surprising to find him as a guest at the conference held this week at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Be'er Sheva, entitled "Reform, Opposition and Conflicts in the Middle East." Derakhshan spoke during the session led by Prof. Yoram Meital about "Blogging as a Realm of Opposition in the Middle East." Derakhshan's visit to Israel, his second within a year, had two purposes: to show his Iranian readers that Israel is not an enemy, and to explain to Israelis that the terrible image they have of Iran is distorted and without connection to reality.
Two freest countries
Hossein Derakhshan was born into the Islamic Revolution. He is 31, meaning he was four years old when millions of Iranians toppled the shah's regime and eagerly welcomed Khomeini upon his return from exile. Derakhshan grew up in a religious family and received a religious education, though this did not stop him from working at one of the popular liberal newspapers, Asr-e Azadegan (Hour of Liberation). The newspaper was closed under the reformist president Mohammed Khatami, but Derakhshan easily found work at another paper. In 2000, his wife received a visa to emigrate to Canada and Derakhshan emigrated with her (they have since divorced).
Even though the newspaper where he worked closed, Derakhshan describes the press in Iran in a surprisingly positive light. "During the time of President Khatami, the conservatives feared that the reformists were really America's emissaries, who wanted to topple the regime without a battle, and therefore they closed down newspapers then," he explains. "Today, this fear has passed. Except for criticism of the spiritual leader Khamenei, you can write criticism of anyone. The press is so rough on Ahmadinejad that not long ago, he went to Khamenei and complained to him about the criticism. Khamenei told him that it was true that he was getting some harsh criticism, but that there was nothing to be done about it, that that's how the game works."
With the exception of Israel, asserts Derakhshan, Iran is the freest country in the Middle East. He cites a recent event at Tehran University, where the students greeted President Ahmadinejad with boos, and one student even burned a picture of the president right in front of him. Not a single student was arrested. "You couldn't do that in any other Middle Eastern country," he says.
His description of life in Tehran is surprising, too. "I love Tehran," says Derakhshan, who has made his home in Toronto in recent years, but also travels frequently in Europe. "It's a huge, lively and varied city that's alive 24 hours a day. The restaurants are open until four in the morning." In fact, it's rather similar to Tel Aviv, he says, in terms of both architecture and character. "Young people in Tel Aviv and Tehran are listening to the same music and using the same drugs."
But don't get the wrong idea. Derakhshan does not think that Iran is a paradise. And he has plenty of reason for feeling this way. Before he left Tehran, he was summoned for questioning by the security forces and forced to sign a document of apology for things he'd written against the regime. In 2001, shortly after he immigrated to Canada, he began writing his blog, entitled "Editor: Myself" (at www.hoder.com).
For several years, it was the most popular blog in Iran, until the authorities decided to block access to it two years ago. This happened after he violated one of the iron rules of the Iranian press: It is forbidden to express criticism of spiritual leader Khamenei. "I wrote a post entitled 'Khamenei: A Well-Meaning Dictator,'" Derakhshan recounts. "I actually wrote pretty good things about Khamenei, but ever since then they've blocked my blog."
Expanding space
What matters most to Derakhshan is that bloggers have managed to create a steadily expanding space for public discussion. A space where supporters of reforms can exchange views, but also argue with conservative bloggers, who are also very active on the Web. And all of this space, which has no center and no hierarchy, says Derakhshan, is protected by the government.
Despite all the problems, Derakhshan believes in the Iranian revolution, in Khomeini and the Islamic republic. It's odd to hear such things coming from a young man who looks thoroughly Western, sitting on the lawn at Ben-Gurion University on a warm afternoon, but this is what he says.
"Khomeini's revolution is as important as the French Revolution," he maintains. "The central ideas of Khomeini were equality and independence. I believe in them. I used to be more critical of the idea of an Islamic republic. Today I think that this is a post-modernist idea, that it's a correct idea. I'm an atheist, I don't care at all about Mohammed and about religion, but it's impossible to disqualify religion like they did in Turkey. It doesn't work, and it leads to counter-reactions. Religion is an organic part of our society. It needs to be given a new interpretation. This is what Iran is offering the Muslim world."
What about equality? I wouldn't imagine that women in Tehran often use that word to describe the regime.
Derakhshan: "True, women are forced to wear a hijab, but that's only an external matter, it's only part of the story. Women in Iran have a much greater presence in society than women in other Middle Eastern countries. In Parliament, for example, in public positions. The marriage laws have also changed a lot in women's favor in the past 15 years, as a result of the ceaseless efforts of the women's organizations."
As for Ahmadinejad, Derakhshan says that he, like many Iranians, is embarrassed by the president "the way a lot of Americans are embarrassed by Bush." Ahmadinejad was elected on the basis of promises to improve the standard of living, Derakhshan explains, but instead all he does is talk from morning till night about Israel, about Holocaust denial and nuclear capabilities.
Derakhshan is convinced that the Iranian public is either put off by these things or simply not interested in them. He says that the Iranian public is not hostile toward Israel. Perhaps even the opposite. "The Iranians remember that the Palestinians supported Saddam Hussein when he fought against Iran," he says. "And some also remember that Israel tried to transfer arms to Iran in the Iran-Contra episode, and that's something in Israel's favor."
He adds: "You have to distinguish between rhetoric and actions. Iran has no desire to destroy Israel. If it did, Tehran would have permitted Hezbollah to use long-range rockets against Tel Aviv in the last war. Ahmadinejad is not Hitler. The one who controls the army is Khamenei, and he is not pleased by Ahmadinejad's declarations. Iran and Israel have a common interest: They live in a region controlled by Sunni Muslims."
And Derakhshan has yet another surprise up his sleeve: His opposition to Ahmadinejad's policy doesn't mean that he's opposed to the Iranian nuclear project. On the contrary, he believes that it would be good for Iran to have nuclear arms. Only with them can it protect itself from its threatening neighbors: nuclear Pakistan, Iraq and the whole Sunni Middle East. And Israel, too, will benefit from an Iran that is strong and secure, he says.
And what if Israel attacks the Iranian nuclear facilities?
"Then it will be seen as the long arm of America, and the attitude toward it will follow accordingly."
The night before my birthday, I was in Tel Aviv. I had just discovered the coolest bar in Tel Aviv (Okay, one of the coolest) on Lilinblum, called The Gallery, a couple days before. They were so open and nice and we immediately became friends, with Bozi and Amir, the managers and even some regular costumers.
And all this was after I told them everything about my background as an Iranian and my TehrAviv project: to connect the two people of Iran and Israel through unconventional cultural exchanges and joint projects.
Let me give you an example: How about getting some Israeli DJs remising old Iranian pop-songs and start playing them in Tel Aviv clubs and making them available online for download; and some Iranian DJs remixing old Israeli popular songs and play them in Iranian parties in Tehran?
Anyone I've talked to so far, either in Jerusalem or in Tel Aviv, or even in the beautiful, sophisticated and cosmopolitan Beer Sheva, has liked the idea and shown interest in helping it somehow.
No wonder after I got a Spanish-style haircut at 10 PM by Amir at the back of The Gallery, which also is a hair styling shop, they got us all to drink a shot of Arak to my birthday. We smoked a joint together and submersed with Thom Yorke's Eraser, which we were all equally obsessed about.
This is the program for the conference I've come for to Israel:
8-9 January 2007
In 8-9 January 2007, The Chaim Herzog Center for Middle East Studies and Diplomacy at Ben-Gurion University in Beer Sheva will hold its third annual conference on reforms in the Middle East. The theme will be Reform, Resistance, and Conflicts in the Middle East. As in the two previous venues, distinguished scholars, journalists, and critical thinkers from Canada, Egypt, Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Turkey and the United States will participate in the conference.
The overall aim of the conference is to explore reforms, democratization, and political struggle in the context of novel sites of resistance in various Middle East societies. Three sessions are planned: (1) What is Resistance and How Should Itt be Studied?; (2) Struggle for Democratization and Domestic Crises -- Case Studies; (3) "My Blog – Your Reality": Traditional and New Spaces of Resistance.
To better describe and understand new forms of the public sphere such as blogs, conference participants will seek to link culture and politics, on the one hand, economics and society, on the other, as they address the multiple meanings of modernity and democratization in and outside Middle East. Organizers intend to publish the proceedings of the conference.
Monday – Tuesday, 8 – 9 January, 2007
The Conference will be held at:
W.A. Minkoff Senate Hall,
Bgu Marcus Family Campus,
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev,
Beer-Sheva
Monday, January 8, 2007
Chair: Fred Lazin, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Jimmy Weinblatt, Rector, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Yoram Meital, Chair, The Chaim Herzog Center for Middle East Studies & Diplomacy
Azmi Bishara, MK, and an Arab Intellectual
Resistance as a Political Alternative?
Amnon Lord, Editor, Makor Rishon
Palestinian Warfare as a Strategic Threat for Israeli Society
Chair: Fatma Kasem, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Sufian Abu Zaida, Palestinian Authority, Former Minister of Prisoners Affairs
The Meaning of Palestinian Resistance (al-Muqawama)
Neve Gordon, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Resistance as a Structural Effect: Israel's Occupation as a Case Study
Zvi Bar’el, Ha'aretz, and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
The Israeli Counter-Resistance
Chair: Pnina Motzafi-Haller, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Danny Filc, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Resistance as Counter-Hegemony
Amílcar Antonio Barreto, Northeastern University
The Logic of Irrational Resistance
Rafal Rohozinski , Cambridge University
Controlling the Internet: Policing, Public Policy or Creeping Censorship?
Chair: Tamar Golan, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Denis Sullivan, Northeastern University
American Efforts to Democratize the Middle East: Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt and Palestine
Sharif Hafez, Egyptian future Center, Cairo
The Struggle for Democracy in Egypt
Ashraf Rady, Journalist, Egypt
Peace and Democracy: The Political Discourse of Political Opposition in Egypt
Muhammad Al-Atawneh, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Can Islam and Democracy Coexist?
Chair: Iris Agmon, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Avi Rubin, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
I'll See You in Court: Ottoman Judicial Reform, State and Resistance in the Late 19th Century
Haggai Ram, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Iran: The Multifarious Dimensions of Hegemony and Resistance
Yilmaz Akinci, Journalist, Turkey
Insight into Kurdish Resistance in Turkey
Yusuf Kanli, Journalist, Turkey
Walking on a Knife's Edge: Opposition in Turkish Media
Chair: Yoram Meital, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Michael Dahan, Sapir College, Israel
The Blogosphere in the Middle East as a Potential Space of Resistance
Laila El Haddad, Palestinian Blogger
Blogging as Alternative Resistance in Gaza
Mohamed Mosaad Abdel Aziz, Emory University
Political Weblogging in Egypt
Hossein Derakhshan, Iranian Blogger
Internet in Iran: Are Weblogs and other forms of new media helping democracy in Iran?
The vision of this two-day conference is to explore democratization, reforms and political struggle in various contexts of resistance in Middle Eastern societies. An ensemble of scholars, intellectuals, and journalists, will provide answers to crucial questions concerning the following: how should we study resistance; the complexity of struggle for democracy and domestic crises in different communities; and Weblogging as a space of resistance.
For further information: 08-6472538
hercen@bgu.ac.il, www.bgu.ac.il/chcenter
English-Hebrew simultaneous translation will be provided
One year after my first ever visit to Israel, I'm back here for a conference for a couple weeks. I think I should explain how Ahmadinejad is not a threat here almost to everyone I meet. It actually started with the first taxi driver. This little Mahmoud owes all of us Iranians a lot for the energy we should put to repair the damage he's done to the image of Iran. Bastardo!
The press deputy at the Ministry of Culture in Iran has announced that all Iranians who hold a blog or a website should register them within two month.
Based on a recently written law in Ahmadinejad's cabinet, which surprisingly has not received enough media attention, any type of online content (in Persian language, I supposed) unregistered websites or blogs are going to be filtered after the deadline.
There are many noteworthy details about this new regulations that I have to talk about later, but I think it is outrageous, unconstitutional, and impractical -- very hard to enforce. (Will elaborate later.)
The registration is to be done in a website, titled "Samandehi," which means "giving order" or "regulating" in this context and is the title of the law too. So you should fill out a form with your name, birth certificate number, address, telephone, email address and your submitted website's address. Then they send you an automatic email and give you a username and password for possible future changes.
But the funny thing is that when I did that for hoder.com they automatically sent an email to info@hoder.com which actually doesn't exist as an email address. They didn't even use my main email I'd given.
Basically, it's quite a primitive way of gathering information in a database and there is so much room for abusing the forms and filling out the forms with totally false information.
So now, since I think this is totally outrageous and unconstitutional, because it denies the basic rights of free expression, explained by the articles 23 and 24 of the Islamic Republic constitution:
Bq.. Article 23
The investigation of individuals' beliefs is forbidden, and no one may be molested or taken to task simply for holding a certain belief.
Article 24
Publications and the press have freedom of expression except when it is detrimental to the fundamental principles of Islam or the rights of the public. The details of this exception will be specified by law.
You can even use the article 22 to argue that websites are private properties, like people's homes, and the government can't regulate them pre-emotively:
Article 22
The dignity, life, property, rights, residence, and occupation of the individual are inviolate, except in cases sanctioned by law.Anyway, legal discussion aside, I think I'm not going to comply with such outrageous and blunt violation of my basic rights as an Iranian citizen and I will encourage everyone to either ignore it or disrupt it using the concept of Hacktivism.
The best way to disrupt it could be submitting valid-looking misinformation for known websites and blogs to confuse the authorities, and also to fill the database with spam.
If you've got better ideas, please share it and spread the word. We must disrupt this outrageous violation of free speech and individual rights in Iran.