[FREE IRAN Project] In The Spirit Of Cyrus The Great

[Spenta]

There are certain Iranian writers who make all of us proud because of their insights and their remarkable ability to bypass western and eastern illusions alongside right wing or left wing propoganda in order to get to the heart of the matter. Writers like Amir Taheri, Reza Bayegan, Ramin Parham and of course Fereydun Hoveyda.

These gentlemen truly make me proud of my origins!

Here's another important insight from Fereydun Hoveyda:
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Media mirage
American journalists and Iranian elections

March 5, 2004
iranian.com

A recent Harvard book (1) reminds the public about the controversy provoked by New York Times' Walter Duranty reports from the Soviet Union and the Pulitzer prize he won in 1932 . Like many other journalists and intellectuals he was soft on Stalin's terrible suppression of peasants opposed to the forced "collectivization" of agriculture . Duranty and other Western reporters found many excuses for the bloodshed and repression accompanying the so-called Communist "experiment".

Reading about Iran in the past seven years in the New York Times , the Washington Post, the Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, Le Monde and many other Western papers, reminded me of the Soviet "enthusiasts" of the 1930s and 1940s in the West.

Indeed a majority of the Middle East reporters and specialists saluted the "landslide" election of Mr Khatami as president of the Iranian Khomeinist theocracy as a sign of democratization. They created their own out of whole cloth analysis of Iranian politics in presenting Khatami and his minions as "reformists" if not totally "liberals".

According to Western journalists these so-called "moderates" opposed the "conservatives" harsh liners and the supreme leader ayatollah Khamenei who had to compromise with them because of the popular support they enjoyed . This fictious explanation of Iranian politics perdured for seven years even in Western governmental circles .

The British, French and German officials, in turn, invented the so-called "constructive dialogue" with Tehran. They even boasted recently that they had persuaded Tehran's mullahs to make a clean breast of their nuclear programs and ambitions.

Not only did Khatami and his group of so-called reformists produce no reforms and were consequently rebuffed often by the hardliners, but it appears now that the mullahs, including Khatami and his ministers, deceived the UN atomic agency.

In that context, last month's elections, came as a clarifying "nostrum". Tired by the inefficiency and inaction of Khatami and his group, a majority of Iranians shunned the ballot box despite pressures and even menaces. The limited turnout of voters deprieves the theocratic regime of the few shreds of legitimacy it claimed. The conservatives impeached Khatami's parliamentary supporters before the vote and are therefore assured of a legislature at their entire devotion.

During the past seven years they had already muzzled the press and the media without facing any real reaction from Khatami. They also had unleashed their organized thugs against the students and other opponents. It seems that the general population, living in hardship, has lost hope for any peaceful reform and even turned its back to politics altogether. Only the students and a few liberal, democratic or leftist minded small groups pursue their opposition inside and outside the country.

Will finally journalists and other observers in the West come to a realistic assessment of Iranian politics? It took the so-called Soviet "enthusiasts" of the thirties and fourties almost half a century to revise their opinion. I don't think that Iranians can wait that long.

A quarter of century has already passed since the so-called Islamic revolution. Iranians seem totally disappointed by the attitude of the West. Some official declarations by the president about Iran and the Middle East in the past two and a half years kindled some hope. But they were quelled by contradictory actions and comments by cabinet members.

One can understand governmental fickleness: Indeed, Iran's Shiite theocratic regime can indirectly manipulate Iraq's 60% Shiite population and create problems for the Bush administration, especially in an electoral year.

But what about the press and the media? What about the Pulitzer Prize comittee? Are they going to help the mullahs gain another lease on life, as they did with the Soviet leaders in the thirties and fourties?

(1) Modernization From the Other Shore, by Daniel C. Egerman.

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Author
Fereydoun Hoveyda was Iran's ambassador to the United Nations from 1971 to 1978. To learn more about the Hoveydas, visit their web sites.
www.iranian.com's archive of Fereydun Hoveyda articles

[Spenta]

More Dirt on the NY Times

It wasn't just the Stalinist h.e.l.l. on Earth that the old Grey Lady painted out as a veritable utopia. But there is much of the same involving Iran in this century.

The NY Times' Non-Stop Support of Iran's Islamist Bad Boys for the Last 25 Years

The NY Times was one of the Shah's staunchest critics, devoting much space to anti Shah demonstrators in the US. As I mentioned once I had a Journalism Professor who once told me that he always questioned how 20 guys with paper bags over their heads shouting "Death to Shah" managed to get so much press, when considerably greater demonstrations on campus back then were totally ignored.

Of course the NY Times embraced the mass murdering Khomeini as whom the French unveiled under an apple tree (cute), as members of Carter's administration called him a "saint" and French philosophers like Michel Foucault hailed Khomeini and the Islamic Republic (later apolosied for it publicly) alongside the likes of Jean Paul Sartre and Simone De Bauvoir (never apologised for their gaffe and embarressing embrace of a tyrannical despot).

The NY Times spent much time hailing Khomeini and embracing this mass murdering tyrannical despot. After the hostage crisis they backed off. However, they continued to celebrate the new 'intellectuals' of the Islamic Republic, by running regular features celebrating the writers of propoganda for this genocidal regime! They celebrated the works of Islamists who wrote books defending the all black shroud (chador) as the traditional attire of Iranian women. Funny a culture known for thousands of years for its vibrant colors in all of its tribal costumes had a black shroud as its traditional attire?! Anyone who has ever seen the bright reds (banned for the last 25 years in Iran) of Qashghai and Lor tribes, the colors of Baluchi and Kurdish attire, Mazandarani costumes etc.would laugh at such a ludicrous proposition. The Black chador was the attire of the pampered wives of the clergy, not the rest of Iranian women, but the clueless PC idiots fawning over these unshaven anti US Islamist bad boy intellectuals writing propoganda in defense of a tyrannical regime had no clue!

After Khomeini's death the NY Times picked up its Iranian Islamist/Mullah loving activities by hailing Rafsanjani as the 'great pragmatist' who would open up Iran and liberalise it. Rafsanjani of course did open up Iran for himself, his family and the rest of the Mullah mafia as promised, just not for the people. Gee, thanks again NY Times.

Once support of Rafsanjani came to embarrass the NY Times yet again, mercifully the Reforms sham got under way and once again the NY Times hailed another Mullah as a savior and great leader that would usher in Democracy, namely Khatami. So for 7 years the NY Times ran nothing but pro-IRI articles desgined to create the illusion of Reforms under Khatami with no regard for the fact that there were more stonings and amputations under Khatami than before, that Iran headed the international charts for the highest number of public executions, dissidents and jouranlists were routinely killed, wave after wave of peaceful protests were brutally smashed resulting in many deaths and arrests, thousands were jailed and tortured every month! So much for Reforms, eh? These Reforms must have been like the great Socialist accomplishments of Stalin, right?!

But shamefully the NY Times ignored all of this and continued to pretend the IRI h.e.l.l. was a utopia under the Reforms just like they did with Stalin and the USSR! Every 6 year old in Iran could tell their western readers (if ever given a chance) that the Reformists were part of the same regime and Islamist system, that there really was no fundemental difference between the so called 'conservatives' vs the 'Reformists' except for their attire of course, one group wears turbans and smiles and has a carefully groomed unshaven look (Islamists have their metrosexuals too), while the other group wears turbans and has longer beards.

The Reformsits were simply an illusion designed to make trade with Iran more palatable for public opinion in the west, so the European public could think that their governments were helping democracy in Iran, instead of raping it blind while sponsoring a genocidal regime! And the NY Times went along for the ride alongside the Euroepans and Clintonites eager to apologise for America's past discretions, thinking their Leftist embrace of Islamist intellectuals (more like fascist thugs) fit their liberal academic standing better, a leftover from their Editortial policies from the 1970s which was never revised after the world continued to change and move on! Now you know why Progressives hate the NY Times!

With Neil McFarquhar filing stories from Tehran which are nothing but an English tranlsation of official Islamic Republic of Iran press releases, and articles by Elaine Scoliono who dated members of Khomeini's entourage back in the '79 revolution and has remained the most active supporter of Islamist Iranians in her post Khomeinist groupie days, the old grey lady has entered this new century with more of the same when it comes to turning a blind eye to tyrannical despotic regimes that it supports for simply being anti-American, a longstanding Editorial preference.

There is one exception to the usual crap on Iran from the NY Times, and that is Tim Juda's excellent piece on Iran's youth and undergraoud which ran as a feature in the Sunday Times Magazine section last year. Tim also sold the same story (with some changes of course) to the Guardian. Now that article showed the Third Force complete with their secret undergraound Rock 'n Roll studios, and it did not paint a rosy picture of IRI or the Reforms, and showed the true desire of the people for secularity, not Reforms of a Theocracy. Of course keep in mind that the Sunday Times magazine is ran as an almost separate operation from the rest of the NY Times and treated almost as a separate publication, and has a different editorial staff altogether, and some would claim that it is more 'fluff'. But the way I see it, the fluff here is more real than the so called 'real news' of the NY Times!

As a result of recent scandals at the NY Times, they now have a public editor whose job is to monitor the NY Times on behalf of the public. You can write to him at publiceditor@NYTimes.com with any complaints you have about their coverage, and he picks specific complaints and brings it up in his columns. So write him day and night everyone, and groups like SMCCDI and Activistchat should even complain officially to him, with a link to the public letter on their sites. Its best to cite specific articles, general claims without specific articles don't give him much to deal with as he stated recently.

[stefania]

I stop reading European newspapers and media..

They make me nervous..
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Referendum AFTER Regime Change

"I'm ready to die for you to be able to say your own opinions, even if i strongly disagree with you" (Voltaire)

[Khorshid]

Dearest Spenta,

Thank you so very much for that e-mail address. The NYtimes has always been notorious for ignoring reader comments and feedbacks. It has a 25 year record of providing a platform for the Islamic Republic's supporters, either via editorials by the regime's lackeys (Reza Aslan, etc.) or "journalists" in pay of the Islamic Republic.

Readers here familiar with the number of journalists and politicians in the west, including EU and US, discovered to have been in Saddam's payroll, can only imagine how far the bloody arms of the Islamic Republic are extended, given the additional fact that many governments themselves have not been secretive about the support of the IRI as a state policy. The Islamist Republic has some very good friends even in Israel.

With your permission I will post your commentary, along with the excellent essay by Mr. Hoveyda, on other forums.

Thank you again.

Dear Stefania,

If you stop reading European newspapers and media, then you will deprive me of some very important information which you provided previously on SMCCDI. You know which ones I mean.

BTW, on another topic, I'm with you on Chechnya. I support the people of Chechnya and their struggle for independence. I'm not persuaded by Russian propaganda that it is just another 'Islamist movement.' They say it to justify their bloody repression.

.

[stefania]

Thanks Khorshid. But i always read those newspapers, since i surf on the internet..What i meant was that i don't care about their "reports" about Iran. I know that all they write is false.

I'm so sorry for the people that believe those lies.

I feel pity for them.
_________________
Referendum AFTER Regime Change

"I'm ready to die for you to be able to say your own opinions, even if i strongly disagree with you" (Voltaire)

[stefania]

Dear Khorshid, who are the Israeli friends of the Islamic Regime?

Sorry, but i can't understand what you say, since Israel is the main target of the Islamic Republic.

Maybe you meant that the Arab-Israelis in Israel are good friends of the Islamic Republic. That is true.
_________________
Referendum AFTER Regime Change

"I'm ready to die for you to be able to say your own opinions, even if i strongly disagree with you" (Voltaire)

[abaucero]

I saw today on BBC's website the report of yesterday's demonstration of women in Tehran, which was broken up by regime thugs. It's the first time this year that I see reports of Iranian demonstrations on western media, it looks like they only report them when the event is too big not to report...by the way, happy birthday Stefania!
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Andrea Baucero

[redemption]

Still - BBC must to much more to get on my good side..
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