Editor: Myself

Internet subaltern: Fatemeh Rajabi's case

I'm reading a lot of Derrida and Spivak these days for my dissertation, which would be about voice and silence on the internet, based on my own personal experience in the past few years and the shift in my status in the Iranian diaspora blogosphere from the 'Blogfather' to the 'Public Enemy'. I also have this sketchy idea of defining the subaltern on the Internet.

But I haven't given up the temptation to wrote a separate essay with this very sketchy idea of internet subaltern, based on the case of Fatemeh Rajabi, who is a pious woman, a pro-Ahmadinejad commentator and a persistent blogger with an unusually sharp language. She who also happens to be the wife of Gholam-Hossein Elham, the current government's spokesperson and the minister of Justice.

My mains interest in her derives from the fact the because o f her sharp prose against Rafsanjani and Khatami, her blog has been filtered (her older filtered blog), her website attacked by 'hackers', and her Iranian web hosting provider has also kicked her out. She has also been the subject of terribly sexist and vicious personal attacks by the supporters of Rafsanjani in the from of serious or satirical comments, including the persistent erotic and sexist flow of bad jokes by Ebrahim (Ibrahim) Nabavi. All this, while she has totally been ignored by the loud advocates of free speech or even women's rights.

Radio Zamaneh commissions Abdee Kalantari's Orientalist prose, Kargozaaran republishes it

Looking deeper at the Dutch government-funded Radio Zamaneh's 'Andisheh' (or Ideas) section reveals an uncomfortable truth about what this project actually pursues.

Abdee Kalantari, a U.S.-based regular contributor to this section (and his friend Mehdi Khalaji) has for over the past year consistently recycled Bernard Lewis' arguments. He explicitly dismisses the entire idea of colonialism and advocates such a Eurocentric and Universalist inquiry that, if translated into English, could even be shockingly racist. (Example: Why is the West Afraid of the "Islamic Bomb"?)

The most interesting aspect of all this is that his shallow, racist, and Orientalist articles are not only being handsomely paid by Radio Zamaneh, but they are sadly republished in a reformist daily newspaper in Iran, called Kargozaran, which is run by allies of Hashemi Rafsanjani and is named after their political party, Hezb-e Kargozaran. They probably pay Kalantari for them too. (For instance, in September 2007, eight articles were published in Radio Zamaneh and Kargozaran in a series titled ''A critque of new-nativism'.)

This basically means that the Dutch government is directly funding and advocating a certain line of thinking in the mainstream Iran-based media, and yet it is being tolerated by the Iranian government.

But let's imagine if one wants to challenge Kalantari's prose, given that Radio Zamaneh has never commissioned any critique or counter view to these pieces, who could spend so much time and energy to continuously writing criticism of Zamaneh's articles without being compensated? And if one produces such critiques, how could he or she give it the same exposure that Kalantari's pieces get thanks to the wealthy publishers of his stuff in Amsterdam or in Tehran?

No wonder why Edward Said and other post-colonial thinkers are virtually unknown within Iranian intellectual circles in Iran. From the one hand, writings of the likes of Kalantari are being commissioned and published in Iran by the Euro-American public diplomacy machine, from the other hand the government in Iran doesn't get the necessity of challenging these ideas.

State Department funded Freedom House's new research on iranian textbooks by Saeed Paivandi

The Freedom House last year commissioned a research, led by a Paris-based 'leftist' sociologist named Saeed Paivandi, on the Iranian school textbooks. I'm sure you don't even need to read the report to guess what the conclusions are: Iran is systematically teaching all its children and youth to basically be mysogonists, racists and Islamist militants. But what else?

The textbooks criticize the West (Europe, North America, and Russia) from four main angles:

1. Europe and the United States are portrayed as enemies of Iran's political independence;
2. the West conspires against the current Islamic regime and against Islamist movements generally;
3. colonial rule by Europeans was unjust to the Islamic countries of the Middle East, and the interests of Islamic countries conflict with those of Western countries; and
4. the Islamist discourse of the textbooks expresses opposition to the West as the birthplace of modern society and sees a clash of civilizations between the West and the Islamic world,

Obviously the Freedom House doesn't agree. But what has outraged the Jerusalem Post about the textbooks are not much different from the above paragraph in its refreshing truthfulness that I'm sure you can't find in any other country:

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict also appears in the textbooks as a major issue for Muslim countries, with Israel portrayed as an enemy, and an agent of the US.

"The textbooks view Israel as an 'enemy' of Islamic countries and Muslims and an 'agent' of the US and other Western countries. In the textbooks, Israel is 'The regime occupying the Holy Land,' its land is 'occupied Palestine,' and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the most important concern of Islamic countries.

For example, 'God willing, the day will come when Muslims will all be united and free Palestine and rescue the Holy Land from the clutches of the enemies of Islam.' (Grade 3 Social Studies textbook, p. 57),' the report states.

But if you wonder who has funded the research, I quote from the first pages of the full report (PDF Format):

We are grateful to the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL) for their commitment to this project. Producing this report would not have been possible without their generous funding and unwavering support.

Here are the rest of the research team, just in case:

Freedom House also wishes to thank the project’s Advisory Board for their valuable editorial comments and feedback on the report, which improved the quality of the text. The Advisory Board was comprised of the following individuals:

• Antonia Cortese, Executive Vice President, American Federation of Teachers
• Hormoz Hekmat, Managing Editor, Iran Nameh, Foundation for Iranian Studies
• Sanam Vakil, Visiting scholar of Middle East Studies, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Bologna, Italy

Ahmadinejad made Bush show respect to Iran, people say

So the White House has officially celebrated Nowrooz, the Iranian new year, by setting up a Haft Sin table in the State Dining Room. Another example of public diplomacy? Maybe. Does it fool Iranians to understand how much the U.S. government cares for them? Mmm, I'm not sure.

A random comment I found the other day on an Iranian website would give the White House an idea about how their attempt is being read in Iran.

The commentator basically said when Khatami was appeasing the Americans and talked of dialogue with the U.S., Bush called Iran evil and put it in an axis along with North Korea and Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Now that Ahmadinejad is aggressively standing up against the Americans, the same Bush has started to finally show some respect for the Iranian culture and Nowrooz and have even set up a Haft Sin table -- and even explicitly acknowledges Iran's right for civil use of nuclear energy.

If Iran continues to be defiant and doesn't give up its rights, an average Iranian would argue, the next step would be for the U.S. to acknowledge the right of the Iranian state to exist and accept that the Islamic Republic is a government that a strong majority of Iranians (Not of the type Bush usually gets to meet or get advice from) have chosen and have given legitimacy.

Another term for Ahmadinejad will convince the Americans that the Islamic Republic is Iran is here to stay.

Eshaghian's 'Be Like Others' is so dishonest and unfair that it looks like propaganda

If you are a Jewish Iranian, living in the U.S. from the age of 6, it is very likely you don't like Ahmadinejad. So of course you would like to show how you hate him and how he is such a liar and how evil the entire government he represents is, in any way you can.

So you decide to attack one of the only positive angles Iran has been reported: Sex-change. And why not connect it to Ahmadinejad's speech in your city's university, Columbia, where he said in Iran homosexuality doesn't exist the same way it does in the U.S. (We all know the united Republican/Democrat anti-Iran front translated that to a denial of homosexuals in Iran.)

Tannaz Eshaghian's 'Be Like Others' (or 'Transsexual in Iran,' as BBC titled it) is a well-made documentary, but it is dishonest and unfair.(Watch it on iPlayer) It basically try to say being gay in Iran is so hard that forces gay men to go through the brutal process of sex-change. So even though the Islamic Republic look surprisingly cool with transsexuality on the surface, it is actually killing scores of gay men by separating them from their family, forcing them into a constant struggle of identity, inflicting physical and psychological pain on them -- and turning them into prostitutes, in the end.

But this is not exactly what every viewer would see in the film. They might ask, for instance, if being gay is so hard, how come Ali (Anoush's boyfriend) doesn't feel marginalized, isolated, or even under any kind of pressure?

Ali likes Anoush even before Anoush does the sex-change operation and while he still has male sexual organs. So if Iran is so cruel to homosexuals and hangs them, how come Ali is still not only walking, but working as a hairdresser and even is so comfortable with his name, face and identity be revealed by the film?

Ali's character, in my mind, is the most important one in the film and he is the one that undoes the main message of them film. He is a living evidence of how homosexuality exists in Iran and how and why it is tolerated, and Eshaghian fails to bring it into her core message of the film.

He shows how homosexuality, as a social phenomenon, doesn't exist in Iran because the lines between being straight and gay has historically been blurred in the Iranian culture. Sexuality has never been forced into strict categories in Iran and this could be quite related to what Judith Butler argues in her work.

But the film is also dishonest in details. The most important part, which is also central to the core of the message, is when she shamelessly mistranslates the young cleric who defends sex-change operations. He says transsexuality has nothing to do with homosexuality which is "immoral and irreligious". But guess how it is translated by Eshaghian to twist his logic: "something unnatural and against religion." Wow!

I don't want to get into the list of funders and producers of the film. But I can't resist the temptation of raising two questions. Especially given the continuous anti-Iran propaganda the BBC Two has produced and showed in the past few years.

a) Why Alexandra Kerry's name (Yes, John Kerry's daughter), as a co-producer is missing from the BBC credits?

b) Why the name of another co-producer, Ilan Ziv, an Israeli film-maker and producers with such films as Human Weapon (on the history of suicide bombing traced back to Iran), People Power (on 'non-violent revolutions around the world' with insight from Gene Sharp, 'a leading expert on non-violent struggles') is also removed from the BBC credits?

Roger Hardy's dillema: Working for Foreign Office or the British public

Roger Hardy was at SOAS last week. He has been a Middle East expert and analyst for the BBC for the past two decades. (So either he has started with the BBC when he was a teenager, or he is actually older than what appears.)

I wanted to ask a question that I didn't get a chance for and I'm raising it here now.

A lot of stuff that Hardy and many other journalists at the BBC doing is also being used by the BBC World Service. In other words, their salary must come from both entities as their service is used by the both.

Now, given that the BBC World Service is wholly funded by the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office, unlike the rest of the BBC that is funded directly by the British citizen's license fees, How can Roger Hardy and other journalists in the same situation reconcile these two sources of funding and thereby control? What are their mechanisms to guarantee their indepndence, while they are actually on the payroll of the UK government?

The other side of the question, which is even more important, would be that how this question of independence from the government is perceived by the world wide BBC audiences? What effect such perception, right or wrong, would have on they way the people see the BBC journalists?

I would suggest to rethink and review the kidnapping of Alan Johnston a while ago in this light. Maybe things would look a bit differently.

What is censorship

I have come up with my own definition of censorship lately and I have used in my recent presentations in Ottawa and in New York City. Let me know what you think about it:

Censorship is controlling the reality by constructing various versions of it.

I think this could provide a start for a different way of analysing and talking about censorship in the media. Especially because it is inclusive enough to cover sophisticated form of censorship such as embedded journalism and disinformation campaign as well as the more primitive forms such as banning publications etc.

Gary Sick: Ahmadinejad emerged unscathed.

Here is Gary Sick's take on Ahmadinejad's Columbia performance and its surrounding events:

Ahmadinejad gave mostly his usual exposition. He did make several points that have been made before but are always ignored or lost in the noise: (1) The way Israel is to be "wiped off the map" is by a referendum in Palestine, not a nuclear holocaust; and (2) Iran is not interested in, and is not producing, nuclear weapons.

Columbia President Lee Bollinger opened the proceedings with a bill of particulars about Iran that had its own small errors of fact but, more important, was pitched in a deliberately insulting tone, descending almost to the level of schoolyard taunts. (I hope students did not take away the lesson that this is how international politics should be conducted.) The dias was draped in black crepe, almost like a funeral, with no school emblems or names.

Ahmadinejad scored a few points. He maintained his composure. When asked what he hoped to accomplish by a visit to Columbia, he replied "I was invited here." In response to Bollinger's challenge to let a Columbia delegation visit Iran, he replied that they would be welcome, that they could visit any of Iran's more than 400 universities, that they could say whatever they liked, and "We will even be polite" to them.

He also persisted in all of his most egregious comments. Just as science never declares any subject finally closed, he intoned, so the Holocaust should remain a topic of research, i.e. Holocaust denial is legitimate. To this he added the amazing news that there are no homosexuals in Iran, which brought snorts of derision from the otherwise polite audience. In my experience, Ahmadinejad always plows ahead on the utterly mistaken notion that his audience can be persuaded by even his wildest flights of fancy. It says something about the private universe that he inhabits.

The biggest applause was for Bollinger's remarks, which were clearly aimed more at his NY audience than at Ahmadinejad. But Ahmadinejad got a pretty good round of applause as he finished up with a call for Palestinian self-determination.

In the short term, I suspect that Bollinger will have disarmed some of the virulent criticism of Columbia from the right (though I will wait and see -- they are not easily put off). Ahmadinejad, in turn, will probably improve his Third World credentials as someone who is not afraid to venture into the Lion's den (literally, since Columbia teams are the Lions and there is even a terrific statue of a lion on campus) and emerged largely unscathed.

To me, the most interesting factoid was that the CU student body fought desperately to get admitted into the auditorium (the largest on campus and totally packed), suggesting that they were at least interested in the novelty of the event -- but perhaps even the substance. Demonstrations started early in the day and were still going strong by the time I came home in the late afternoon. From my casual observation, demonstrations were primarily expressing opposition to Ahmadinejad and his visit to the campus, followed by expressions of opposition to war with Iran. There were also a few pro-Iran demonstrations.

Although I was not involved in setting up this particular event, I absolutely supported the idea and I have not changed my mind. There were a lot of different signals emanating from this event, and there was a lot of substance and symbol for students (and faculty too) to chew on. I'm not sure that free speech was the winner, but even the questions about free speech were more complicated and worthy of serious thought than one might have expected from this kind of encounter.

I'm sure that there are intense discussions underway in every campus hangout tonight, and Columbia students will not be the worse for having chewed over the larger issues that were raised here -- intentionally or inadvertently.

Source: Gulf 2000 forum

Ignatieff in Iran: Pragmatist thinkers like Rorty are favoured to radicals like Foucault

I found this article by accident. It is Michael Ignatieff's account of his last year's visit to Iran, with invitation from Ramin Jahanbegloo who was later arrested on charges of acting against the national security:

Jahanbegloo says he thinks of himself as a bridge between Iran and those universities. He invites a steady stream of philosophers like Richard Rorty from Stanford and Agnes Heller from the New School in New York to give talks to students. He sees some signs that their ideas are finding a toehold in Tehran. Three decades ago, the intellectuals du jour were Michel Foucault and fellow radical theorists. They arrived in Tehran proclaiming their solidarity with a revolution that actively despised them while persecuting its own freethinkers. Now the pendulum in Tehran has swung toward pragmatic liberals like Berlin.

It's quite interesting how Ignatieff dismisses Foucault's support for the Iranian revolution with just labelling him as radical and praises Jahanbegloo's attempts to bring the liberal, pragmatic thinkers such as Rorty and Heller.

This is of course a cheap shot at Foucault from the right, by Ignatieff, a strong supporter of the US invasion of Iraq on humanitarian grounds.

But also from the left has been emerged attacks on Foulcault's praise for the Iran's revolution, the most famous of which, by Janet Afary and Kevin Anderson in their book (an excerpt), titled 'Foucault and the Iranian Revolution: Gender and the Seductions of Islamism.' (I have ordered it recently to read Foucault's original dispatches for Corrierre Dela Serra in his two visits before and after the 1979 revolution.)

A recurring theme these days is that the lines between the right and the left, when it comes to Iran, has become so blurry that they has almost become meaningless.

The left has started to challenge the Islamic Republic's legitimacy in a similar fashion to the right. This is what living in the American paradigm does to one's intellect, I suspect.

I know, I have to elaborate on all this...

Washington's Institute's fellow, Mehdi Khalaji, thinks he is not counselling enemies of Iran and humanity

Back to our favourite Washington Institute fellow, Mohammad Mehdi Khalaji's lawyer's threats (PDF) to shut down my website, here are the things he has found problematic in a blog post of mine. They kind of sound ironic and even funny, in a Jon Stewart way:

These defamatory statements by Hossein Derakhshan directly and by innuendo:

a) state falsely that our client is a traitor to the government and people of Iran;

b) state falsely that our client has worked for U.S. Vice-President Cheney's office; and by innuendo is a dupe or puppet of the U.S. government;

c) state falsely that our client has counselled the Vice-President of the United States of America to bomb our client's former offices in iran;

c) state falsely that our client has counselled the Vice-President of the United States of America to bomb our thousands of men, women and children;

e) state falsely that our client counsels enemies of Iran and of humanity;

f) incites others to follow the defamer Hossein Derakhshan's lead by spitting in our client's face;

g) state falsely that our client holds and publicizes the belief that political change is not possible from within Iran;

h) state falsely that our client struggles to converse and express himself in the English language;

i) state falsely that our client counsels the government of the United States of America to choose military action and economic sanctions against Iran, over and instead of diplomatic talks;

j) state falsely that our client's academic research paper are in reality thinly veiled instruction manuals on how to locate and attack the weaknesses of the legitimate government of Iran;

k) state falsely that our client is a proponent of, and openly supports, civil unrest, revolution and a regime change in Iran through the use of the military, and violence if necessary; and

l) clearly evidence a personal vendetta being waged by Hossein Derakhshan against our client, under the guise of alleged "commentary."

New arrests

Norouz, a website run by the Mosharekat party, says that the Iranians whose names were mentioned in the televised 'confessions' by Esfandiari, Jahanbegloo and Tajbakhsh are arrested by the Intelligence service.

As far as I remember, Bijan Khajehpour and Ali Afshari were the only Iranians being mentioned.

Ali Afshari, a former student leader, ironically, is now a fellow at the infamous National Endowment for Democracy in Washington, DC.

But I think Bijan Khajehpour, a business consultant, must have been back to Iran after, according to his biographies, finishing a programme at a business school in Paris.

So it's very likely he is at least one of the people who is arrested.

Guessing game

Who do you guess has said the following paragraph? Read it and I'll tell you later:

Iran today is very much like the Soviet Union in its last days. The ideology has burnt out, Iranian youngsters are disenchanted, the reform movement has failed to fulfil the popular demand and there has been practically every year spontaneous rioting and uncivil unrests in the major cities of Iran. But 25 years after the revolts that did away with the Shah and his regime, there is an absence of an organizational factor to unite the diverse inspirations of Iranians.

[..]

Based on this analysis of the Iranian situation, we are left with three scenarios for the future of Iran:

1) In the first scenario the Iranian regime will weather the storm and the so -called pragmatists or centrists among the ruling elite of Iran will be the survivors. Thanks to a leadership vacuum among the opposition, the centrists will buy some time by offering a series of strategic concessions. These concessions may come in two forms: to the West on the issue of WMDs and the Middle East peace plan, and to the Iranians in the area of social controls and guardianship (which could be replaced by the Expediency Council with a sudden death of Ayatollah Khamenei). Under this formula, Iran will integrate in the market economy and there will certainly be a shift from a monopolistic, mafia-type of economy represented by the new class of property owners to a more normalized market stability and investment security. The tendency of the pragmatist political leaders such as Rafsanjani and Mohsen Rezaii and centrist religious intellectuals such as Sadegh Ziba Kalam and Shamsolvaezin towards centrist politics is, in a sense, is a reflection of this change in Iran’s capitalist class. In this first scenario Rafsanjani will have an important role as the power broker.

2) In the second scenario unlike the first one the clerical regime will not be able to stand the socio-economic and political pressures and will be left with only one option to defend itself and that is a “palace coup” by the conservatives and the security agents such as Asgaroladi (leader of the Islamic Coalition Group), Badamchian and Shariatmadari (editor in chief of the journal Kayhan) to save the Revolution and the political Islam. Unclear though is the role played in this scenario by Ayatollah Khamenei?

3) In the third scenario the regime change will be inevitable. Irrespective of tactical manoeuvres by the Islamic regime and the absence of an organized leadership by the opposition, the regime will be unable to stave off the energy of dissent and answer the demands of the Iranian youth and Iran will see a series of urban unrests. In this scenario, there is also the closing of a window of opportunity for the Iranian regime and the imminence of political chaos in Iran.

Reform, Resistance and Conflicts in the Middle East, a conference at Ben Gurion University, Beer Sheva

This is the program for the conference I've come for to Israel:

Reform, Resistance and Conflicts in the Middle East

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.

Program

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

16:15 Greetings

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

Guests Speakers

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

17:45 Coffee Break

18:15 Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Complexity of Resistance

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

Tuesday, January 9, 2007

10:00 Reception

10:15 How Should We Study 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?

11:45 Coffee Break

12:15 Struggle for Democracy

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?

14:00 Lunch

16:00 State and Resistance in Non-Arab Societies

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

17:45 Coffee Break

18:15 Weblogging as a Space of Resistance

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

Iran's women revolting

When he visited Iran a couple of years ago, the German philosopher Jurgen Habermas said the next Iranian revolution would be a women's revolution - and we are now seeing signs of that, writes Hossein Derakhshan.

While young men have become ever more apathetic, partly because of the high rate of unemployment, young women have a vital social and political cause to fight for.

The battle is for equal gender rights and opportunities, from all-encompassing issues to smaller ones such as the right to watch matches in a football stadium.

There are no laws banning women from the football stadiums, but a ban is effectively enforced - maybe because it has not been challenged by enough women over the past two decades. Now some are trying to change all that.

Please keep reading on the Guardian's News blog

Two Christmass gifts for your non-Iranian friends

I have a suggestion for all Iranians who live abroad and all others who are interested in Iran.

It might be actually a bit late, but I think if you wanted to somehow help undo the damage Ahmadinejad has done to the image of Iran in the past few weeks, there are two books which could make very good Christmas gifts to your non-Iranian friends and relatives:

1. Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi: An easy-to-read and interesting graphic novel about a young Iranian girl and how the revolution, war, etc. affected her life and her middle-class family.
2. We are Iran, by Nasrin Alavi: An essential read for anyone who is interested to know about the today's Iran and the way the young people think and live. It includes hundreds of blog posts translated into English.

These two books can totally change people's mind about Iran which ultimately, believe it or not, affects the way they see you too.

No Ahmadinejad

As much as I dislike Ahmadinejad, I don't think the guy in this picture is him. They look similar, but have differenet eyes and eybrows.

Cheney was in Tehran in 98-99?

It's a widespread rumor in Iran that Cheney has himself been in Iran in 98-99 and has even once been in a Tehran hospital for a sudden harst problem. Is there any journalist interested in this?

Can't porn censorship justify political censorship later on?

A post by VP Abtahi about the desire of some open-minded Iranians to have a porn-free net access for their children, and a brief discussion about it on my Linkdooni, has created a new ethical/policy-making dillema for me. The problem is very delecate:

How can you prevent the desire of some people to keep their children off Internet porn from becoming a good-looking justification for the political censorship by the governemtn? In other words, how can you defend the freedom of speech on the Net where people are quite supportive of the censorship on erotic content?

Note that unlike the West, child pornography is not an issue yet in Iran. Instead, children's access to porn is more important.

Iranian bloggers for Dean?

Bush doesn't look unbeatable as time goes by. While Howard Dean is getting stronger by the grassroots support of young Americans who are normally out of the whole U.S. political sphere, but this time think they can make a real difference by voting for a guy called Howard Dean.

Aside from the similarities that I see in the way Dean is gaining support with how Mohammad Khatami was elected six years ago, I guess we, Iranian bloggers, should start helping Dean's campaign and instead, demand a few things about our country and its citizens around the world. After all, the U.S. President influences the whole world and it's not irrational for other nations to at least voice their views on the next U.S. President.

Iranian weblog are now a big network of educated people all around the world. I estimate that around 30%-40% of them live in the North America or Europe. Some of them have even more readership than many of the printed local papers and magazines, published in Persian. They can shape a whole new group of supporters for Dean's campaign in the U.S., because of their influence on educated, trusted, and independent people.

Therefore I believe by supporting Howard Dean, who is very likely to eventually be the Democrats' nominate for '04, we can actually help ourselves. What do you think?

Interview in BlogsCanada

Jim Elve of BlogsCanada is trying to get the attention of Canadian public and media to the phenomena of Weblogs. He has adopted a mockery design that looks like typical Canadian government websites and has been trying to collect the biggest directory of Canadian blogs.

He and his son Jesse interviewed me last week before the whole Geneva Summit, Saddam's capture and Sina's leave happened.

You can find my general view about the Iranian society these days and of course some of my ideas for the Parliament nomination campaign in this two-part interview. The second part will be online tomorrow.

Online polls are deceiving

Look how different an online poll could be with a real scientific poll:

2. In general, would you like to see George W. Bush re-elected to another term as president? (Source: Newsweek)

$20,000 for market research report per copy

Robert Brym, a sociology professor in University of Toronto write in an aricle:

In Canada, for example, most of the big public opinion firms (Angus Reid, Goldfarb, and Environics) are owned and run by sociologists. One of the tasks they have set themselves is to better understand the popular culture of North American youth. By conducting surveys and regularly organizing focus groups with young consumers in major North American cities, they identify new tastes and trends that marketers can then use to sell product. The most recent report on pop culture produced by Angus Reid is available for $20,000 a copy (Angus Reid Group, 1999).

That's the answer to those people who ask "what are you going to do as a sociologist?". But a pretty capitalistic answer though.

Babak Payami arrested

Babak Payami, Iranian film director was arrested by judiciary officials a few days ago and released after 2 days. Iran newspaper published the news. babak had been studying in Cinema studies department in university of Toronto during the early 90s.

Mainstream media's ignorance

Dan Gillmor: "It's amazing and disappointing that the major media are still failing to cover the jailing of an Iranian political blogger. Weblogs are more than soapboxes. But even if they were only soapboxes, they would be speech worth protecting -- everywhere, not just in democracies."

Digital Satelite Channels in Iran

Aslan writes about Iranian Satelite TVs in Iran now:

These days Iranians can buy digital satellite dishes, which will get the signals of around 180 channels. Most of them are from non-English speaking European countries; there are a few music channels, few movie channels, and some adult channels. Although not everyone can afford to have these dishes, and although not everyone is comfortable to keep this illegal thing in their house; however, the number of people who get it, is rising day by day. It's amazing for me to hear that my friend, back in Iran, has heard and seen Kylie Minouge's latest single sooner than me in Canada!