"The most important misapprehension that people have about Iran is that it's like every other country in the region and it's not. People are better educated there, they're more sophisticated, they are more middle class, there aren't very many truly poor people and in the upper class the women are much better educated and much more active than in any other society in the region."
Hey I wish the Iranian people the best too, at least the best that they can possibly get out of the situation they're in right now(though as anyone who has even the most superficial knowledge of Iranian history knows, they have an incredible capacity to deal with crappy governments.) But why is it when so many liberals and leftists feel the need to convince the right wingers that Iranians are human beings, it's a portrait they paint as a contrast to all those "special" people that they are surrounded by? Not that I didn't already know that that was how they felt, cause believe me, this is not the first time I ran into this sentiment and it won't be the last.
This really wasn't what I wanted my first post on the aftermath of the Iranian elections to be about, but there it is. If anyone cares though I concur with this guy.
Friday, June 26, 2009
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6 comments:
I thought the Jews sans frontieres post was good too. I'm not surprised at that Time garbage, it's Time after all, and they have been putting out some of the most execrable reporting on Iran since the election. Sorry they gotta use my people to denigrate yours though. Yesterday I saw an article on how Iranian TV has been running lots of Hollywood blockbusters, ostensibly to distract young people from protesting. I guess they showed Lord of the Rings yesterday:
Lots of people, adults and kids, are watching in the room with me. On the screen, Gandalf the Grey returns to the Fellowship as Gandalf the White. He casts a blinding white light, his face hidden behind a halo. Someone blurts out, "Imam zaman e?!" (Is it the Imam?!) It is a reference, of course, to the white-bearded Ayatullah Khomeini, who is respectfully called Imam Khomeini.
Unbelievable. "Imam Zaman" refers to the Mahdi, not Khomeini. It's like if they asked of someone onscreen was Jesus Christ, and Time translated it as "is that Mexican actor Jesus Ochoa?"
Yeah there has been a lot of extroardinarily stupid reporting going on.
The thing I posted though is the kind of rhetoric I've noticed a lot over the past couple of years in 'don't bomb Iran' articles. It's frustrating not just cause of that but because these people were nowhere when it was Iraq on the table.
The JSF thing is important, and it's not just an Iran thing, this lazy and oversimplified kind of class analysis of middle eastern countries done by people who don't know what they're talking about.
I'm pretty glad, though, that I have seen a lot more diversity of opinion around the Arab/lefty blogosphere than you have. And the few people I've seen kneejerk defend Ah-jad are people I thought were morons anyways.
For sure. The rhetoric of "don't bomb Iran because it's Persian and Iranians are all middle-class Western-loving secular humanists" is as insulting to Iran as it is to its neighbors. You know better than I how unique Iraq is, and that didn't stop them from invading.
I have wanted to write more about the lazy, essentialist reporting from both the mainstream media and supposedly leftist blogs. And I don't mean to imply that it's all been bad. Out of all people in the region, I could understand best if Palestinians were a little resentful right now, but many of the Palestinian blogs I've kept up with have done a great job of criticizing the Western media's fascination with Iran (while they get ignored) and at the same time sympathizing with the people of Iran. I just wish Iranians would stop using that "people why are you sitting down, Iran has become Palestine" chant, but I tend to hate all protest chants anyway.
Yeah I definitely can understand why anyone would get irritated by the coverage, Arab or not, there is a lot of stupid going around. And you know the middle east isn't the only place in the world contrary to popular belief in the MSM-have you been following what's going on in Peru lately?
There has been some talk lately about jealousy among Arabs of Iran's current sitch and that I really get. Especially in Iraq for the last few decades, being apolitical was a survival tactic and in the last 20 years or so people really learned how much they could tolerate. It's apparent to me when I read posts like this one.
I unfortunately haven't been following the situation in Peru very closely. I am completely guilty of having Iran goggles on right now. I honestly can't think of another event that has so grabbed my attention or that I've felt so emotionally invested in throughout my lifetime. Even during the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq (the first issues I really cared about when I started becoming active in organizing) didn't affect me as deeply because at the end of the day, it wasn't my country or my cousins I was worried about.
I can see that too. Let's hope that those Arabs who are jealous of Iran become inspired to do something in their own countries. It's funny because it feels like the dynamics are reversed in diaspora. In college I always saw Arabs doing great work organizing against racism here and in solidarity with their home countries, whereas whenever I got involved with Iranian organizations they were never much more than Persian frats whose main purpose was to raise funds for "hookah parties" and maybe do a cultural event once a year. I know that tendency exists amongst Arab student orgs too, but it doesn't seem to define them as much as it does with the Iranian ones.
That's totally understandable, and I hope everyone you know is allright, but I'm just saying it's fascinating in and of itself. Hey I couldn't help it myself that the two countries I happened to know anything about were in the world's spotlight for the last ten years or so either.
re: diaspora; There's variations within diasporas themselves, and you can catch some of the bickering in Kabobfest comments sometimes. But I think the Arab diaspora has been around here longer, and were in the CNN spotlight longer too-roughly since 67 as opposed to 79, so I can see why that would be.
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