It's time for Mr. Ahmadinejad to stop preaching. He may think that his military buddies in Iran love to listen to his religious rantings, but the rest of the world is not. If he is serious about love and peace and beauty, he could start at home. Since he has been president of Iran, attacks on universities, other thinkers, students, and workers have increased. Instead of increasing the love, he is increasing the angst. Even people from his own gang disagree with his economic policies.
He promised yesterday to invite professors and students at Columbia to Iran to say whatever they want to say. Why doesn't he make that same offer to Iranian professors and students? Hearing him talking about lack of democracy and human rights in the west is just another way of avoiding the realities in Iran. Mr. President, Iranians are dying for basic human rights and for basic democracy: to say what they want to say; to do what they want to do: even within the confines of Islamic law. For the past 2 years in Iran, I saw bright people leave Iran because they just could not take it Iran. Crime is not going down even with all the executions. People have given up hope for the future because they see that the government is now a military government that acts like a 1970s military junta. You said it yourself: this kind of pressure cannot be maintained forever.
If he is really for peace and love he should start that at home. Since he became a President with his military buddies, the number of ngos dropped and human rights activists have been harassed. Ahmadinejad talks about women in parliament; what about women in prison.
This government has created a situation where millions of Iranians who love the country and want to help build a nation do not even dare to step foot into the embassies, let alone the country.
I am really mad because he dares to think that the world stage is a place to lecture the rest of the world about utopian ideals that he cannot even put into place in Iran.
I will leave the political analysis of the speech to the political analysts.
Tori adds: And saying that calamities will befall God's enemies when you are from a country that is the most earthquake prone in the world seems like the ultimate in chutzpah.
10 comments:
I'm an American that has been watching the Iranian blogs for some time. I've been waiting to see what the Iranian people are going to do about your goverment. Since Ahmadinejad became president the few freedoms have withered away and things appear to be getting worse by the day. Is there not someone that can stop him? May god bless you and deliver you and your country from the opression that you suffer from
Hi Kamran and Teri,
I have been reading your blog for about 3 months now and this is my first comment. Just wanted to say thanks for keeping this going, it is a great source of information. I have gone back and read a bunch of your archives, which have then lead me to other organizations such as stop stoning forever. Anyways, after hearing Mr. Ahmadinejad speak, and also from reading the transcripts of a 60 minutes interview he did in Tehran right before he left, I was wondering the same thing that you address in this post. Does he really believe what he is saying, or does he just think that the world is ignorant to the real situation in Iran? One thing that I found really ironic was when in the interview he was suggesting that Bush is now using Iran as a platform to help his party in the upcoming US elections. He then suggests that instead he should listen to his people and stop wire tapping and other violations involved in the "patriot act." I agreed with him whole heartedly, but then I paused for a second and thought, "Wait a minute, this guy is the president of Iran...where people have to be afraid to criticize the government, where people were arrested, tortured and held without trial for years...where the government shuts down websites and newspapers and limits access to the world media." Is he really that hypocritical? Does he not know about books written by Iranians who have had to flee? I would like to see what he has to say about books such as "Prisoner of Tehran" by Marina Nemat, and "Reading Lolita in Tehran" by Azar Nafisi. In his mind is everything great in Iran for the Iranians... the everyday people?
As an Iranian i agree with you Iran has a lot of problem it is not a democracy but US with its all claims is not a real democracy too
the only mater is the degree of the dictatorship in the countries
anyway democracy and stuff like that is an internal problem in iran and we should solve it ourselves it is not related to US or other countries in any way.
some of Ahmadinejad's speech are really true and some of them are
foolish (also translation make them more worse for example in the case of homosexiual he mean only there is no homosexual problem in iran not really homosexual persons ) but i think his way(dialog eith americn people) can reduce the propagand that media try to make against IRAN
(you now that the picture they try to show from iran is not fair and
is totally wrong)
I agree with you but at the same time, I was very embarrassed by his reception here in the U.S. It would have been better all around if more Americans (specifically the president of Columbia University) had shown some class.
ok Ahmadinejad is not a clever guy but he is at least
elected (also not in a fair way) but in comparsion to Parviz Mosharaf (pakistani dictator who get the power by coup) he is not a dictator
now with this introduction see what Clumbia president said for introduction of mosharaf in 2005:
http://www.presidentofpakistan.gov.pk/PRPressReleaseDetail.aspx?nPRPressReleaseId=1406&nYear=2006&nMonth=5
America has a long record of backing the wrong people for all the wrong reasons. I am embarassed by the rudeness displayed. I wouldn't have invited him to speak in the first place, but once done he should have been treated with the respect his office demands.
rebil
Thanks for your comments! And thanks, John, for your kind words.
Clearly, as long as AN is insulted by American interviewers, etc... he gains a certain sympathy that would not be possible if we all just listened to what he has to say.
Americans who say things like Can't you rein him (Ahmadinejad) in? Can we Americans rein in the very insane and delusional Bush? We still refuse to accept our wrongdoing. Who made us boss of the world? So far, we are the only ones who have dropped atom bombs on innocent civilians, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, yet we "forbid" others from developing nukes to use as deterrence?
Americans should read "Blowback" by Chalmers Johnson (like Ron Paul suggested Rudy do). You will be shocked before you are through with the introduction at the crimes committed in our name by the CIA.
Ahmadinejad made more sense to me than Bush ever has. I don't know how he is in Iran; but he asked questions of us that we ignored so we could focus on what we thought was "silly," just so we wouldn't have to even think of his legitimate questions!
To me his message was "We are your equals; why don't you leave us alone? Who are you to tell us what to do?" I've been asking the same things. Why do some parts of America look on other parts of America and think themselves superior?
I was glad he said that Bush should respect Americans. He doesn't even like us!
I was shocked by the rudeness of that pompous Bollinger and his rudeness to Ahmadinejad, but at the same time glad. Now the world sees us as we are, arrogant blowhards telling them what to do, without realizing that nobody likes to be lectured and bossed, ESPECIALLY BY A FOREIGNER! That's not hard to understand, is it?
What kind of president, during a "fake" war on terror fights that war by illegally wiretapping his own citizens, and denying them Habeas Corpus? Women are groped in airports by TSA thugs; isn't it odd that every measure we have to fight this fake "war" is only used against Americans? We are spied upon and our e-mail is read. We are getting more lawless by the day; our police are shooting people in the back; they are tasering people every day for exercising "free speech." This is now almost a daily occurrence; they tasered a woman in a wheelchair so many times, she died. Usually the person is already helpless on the ground, and they keep tasering them. (See YouTube). Why are they doing this? Because they have a lawless lying president who has placed himself above the law and the Constitution, so why shouldn't the police do it also? They have become so brutal, and it seemed like it happened overnight.
And yet Bush wants to "spread democracy" when we ourselves live in a dictatorship.
Check the Constitution; the U.S. president has about four things to do, none of which are "police the world" and "change the world." He is NOT the leader of the "free world," he is NOT "the most powerful man in the free world" except in his own mind. It is mostly since Roosevelt that we have exalted the president to a "little god." (We didn't do it, but Roosevelt exalted himself.) Our current president, "the most powerful man in the 'free' world" can't even say two sentences before he makes a fool of himself.
And why couldn't Ahmadinejad visit our Suddenly Sacred Burial Ground of 9/11? The Japanese visit Pearl Harbor; is someone there asking them are you here to be respectful or are you reminiscing? Are we going to nurse this wound forever without mentioning that we have killed tens of thousands of Iraqis and driven them from their country, and have absolutely ruined their country?
AMERICA - let's clean up our own house and mind our own business. How many of us are more afraid of our own government than we are of terrorism? I know I am. Yet Bush sounds the alarm every day to frighten us about "terrorism," when he spreads death and destruction and misery wherever he goes.
Ahmadinejad was lectured for 15 minutes about our right to "free speech" and then Bollinger "demanded" to know if he denied the Holocaust? Why didn't everybody laugh at this contradiction unless "denying the Holocaust" is an exception to "free speech?"
Can someone tell me please what is the big deal if someone does deny the Holocaust? And then ask the same stupid question over and over, as if denying the Holocaust is the biggest crime in America? (Next to white racism and bigotry of course, for which our we are lectured and scolded daily. We are not children. We know what's going on and who is more racist (blacks) than anyone else, but even then, SO WHAT?)
As for his 60 Minutes interview, he asked the question that no American Christian has bothered to ask: "Is Mr. Bush a religious man? Is it Christian to invade another country and kill it's citizens?"
If Bush is a Christian why did he have to hire a public relations speaker to teach him how to act like one and talk like one? (not that he learned how, because he is NOT a Christian, but a warmonger.) "PBS interviews Doug Wead," http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/jesus/interviews/wead.html
Let's face up to own crimes. Please read "Blowback" and see what we've done to other countries. We should recall all our troops from everywhere. We have no business being there and they don't want us there.
And remember, other people ARE OUR EQUALS!
KEEP POSTING PLEASE!!!!!
Asalamu Aleikum Kamran and Teri and all the readers.
I think it's really telling when an academic like Lee Bollinger is so brainwashed that he can't see how twisted the conditions for free thought really are in the USA. His opening comments were obviously meant to taint Ahmadinejad's address but they backfired and simply showed a number of broad assumptions that one does not expect an academic of any serious calibre, to fall unwittingly victim to. Bollinger is living proof of the power of the propaganda machine and the lack of any freedom of thought or expression in the USA. Two important mistaken underlying assumptions he made were: that ALL humanity see homosexuality as a human right; that the demand that all research into the holocaust should always be vetted by pro-Israeli/zionist organisations, is in line with upholding of academic freedom. That he ascribes to these underlying assumptions is proof that he does not understand even the most basic principles of academic freedom. As to academic freedom in the USA, I am still recovering from having viewed the terribly gruesome taser attack on the University of Florida student at the John Kerry meeting which I viewed on You Tube recently. Mr Bollinger and your cronies, YOU should practice what you preach. Look in your own FRONT yard, before looking in someone else's back yard. Ask yourself why so few Americans actually react to the lies and teh restrictions of freedom that you yourself stood there spewing out at Mr. Ahmadinejad. Ask yourself, how come so few Americans can see that your speech was so flawed and that in fact, it is YOU who is the PETTY DICTATER. Mr. Ahmadinejad struck me as a person who did his country proud in EVERY respect and I have little doubt that MOST of the anti-Iran propaganda in the western media is totally false. I came to that conclusion when Iran treated the captured UK spies with so much respect this year, even taking the effort to show their captors on TV so that their family could witness they were in good health.
Thank you for an interesting and for the better part, unbiased and very sensitive blog. I have it on my blogroll and often visit it without commenting.
Shalom to all readers.
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