Policemen from Venezuela and Lebanon?
There are lots of rumors about what’s going on in Iran now. I just heard that Ahmadinejad’s government is preparing for the use of guards from Lebanon and Venezuela. It seems that the Iranian police is not going to do whatever they are asked to do. I hope this stays just a rumor. Iran’s police is not a professional one and most of the people we see in the streets as policemen are poor soldiers who spend their mandatory military service. They are just like the other people. Many of them probably do now support the government, and Ahmadinejad in particular.
June 14, 2009 Leave a Comment
IRAN: Ahmadinejad Victory Sparks Protests and Claims of Fraud
SAN FRANCISCO, Jun 13 (IPS) - Just a few months after a right-wing government gained power in Israel, Iran’s hardliner president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was declared the winner in Friday’s election, although his main rival has not accepted defeat and reformist supporters were skirmishing with security forces in the capital Tehran Saturday.
According to Iran’s Interior Ministry, Ahmadinejad took 62.6 percent of the vote, with leading reformist candidate Mir Hossein Moussavi receiving 33.7 percent – thus averting a widely anticipated run-off. The ministry says turnout was a record 85 percent of eligible voters. Read more
June 13, 2009 5 Comments
AP: Election Battles Turn Into Street Fights in Iran
A video by AP on Tehran’s protests:
June 13, 2009 Leave a Comment
“It was the result of an organized fraud”
Here is the like to a ABC7 show on Iran’s election. On this show, I said that, “it’ a result of an organized fraud. You can watch the video here.
“This is the result of an organized and engineered fraud,” said Omid Memarian.
Memarian worked as a journalist in Iran and just graduated from U.C. Berkeley’s journalism school. He’s been perusing the web all day and bloggers are crying foul.
“Iran’s electoral system is not that fast to be able to announce the results that fast. It’s a big country, tons of different villages and small cities which are not computerized,” said Memarian.
June 12, 2009 Leave a Comment
The Head Assembly Of Experts’ Wife: “Protest in the streets!”
“If people see that [the government] has cheated, they should protest in the streets,” said Effat Marashi, the wife of Hashemi Rafsanjani, Iran’s former president and the head of Assembly of Experts, which officially monitors the Supreme Leader’s performance. (Also read my story about the result of the election here)
June 12, 2009 Leave a Comment
Iran on the move
OpenDemocracy.org-Iran has experienced of one of the most exciting presidential elections since the Islamic revolution of 1979. All of the four candidates who appear on the ballot-paper in the first round of voting on 12 June 2009 may be handpicked by Iran’s Guardian Council, and each can be considered either a father or a child of the revolution. But two are reformists who embrace progressive agendas, and whose popular campaigns suggest that millions of Iranians - 70% of whom are under 30 years old - believe that Iran needs reform.
For Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, it wasn’t supposed to be like this. The leader elected in June 2005 expected an easy contest from opposition candidates who could be easily discredited for past failures or outflanked on nationalist rhetoric. Instead, he has been forced to grapple with harsh criticism of his economic policy, foreign policy and human-rights record - and is resorting to extreme denunciation of his rivals as a way of shoring up his core support. Read more
June 11, 2009 1 Comment
IRAN: Reformist Candidates Complain of Too Many Ballots
SAN FRANCISCO, U.S., Jun 9 (IPS) - Fears that the state apparatus controlled by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is laying the groundwork for possible fraud in Friday’s presidential election appear to be growing among his two reformist challengers and their supporters.
While an incumbent has never lost a re-election bid since the creation of the Islamic Republic in 1979, many analysts believe Ahmadinejad will at least be forced into a run-off with his closest rival, former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, who is supported by Ahmadinejad’s popular predecessor, former President Mohammad Khatami.
The poll is being closely watched around the world, since the results could have a major impact on Iran’s relations both with its neighbours and the West, where Ahmadinejad’s more provocative statements, notably his repeated questioning of the Nazi Holocaust, have made him an easy target for rallying public opinion against Iran. Read more
June 9, 2009 Leave a Comment
Q&A: Notes From Iran’s Underground Music Scene
BERKELEY, California, Jun 4 (IPS) - As Iran’s conservative president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad fights for his political future against two reformist challengers in the June elections, Arash Sobhani, a lead figure in the country’s underground music scene, says it’s a very tough time to be an artist in Iran.
“At the beginning of his [Ahmadinejad’s] first term [in 2005] there were still a few notable musicians who thought they should stay and try to work inside Iran and try to make things better little by little, like they had done for the past 26 years, but Ahmadinejad proved them wrong,” Sobhani told IPS.
Sobhani is the lead singer and songwriter of Kiosk, a band that is widely popular among Iranians inside and outside of the country. With its Mark Knopfler musical style and politically sharp and ironic lyrics, Kiosk is considered one of the most influential underground rock bands to emerge since the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
“We grew up listening to [Bob] Dylan, [Leonard] Cohen, Dire Straits and Pink Floyd, and you can see how our music is influenced by these guys,” explained Sobhani. “Our roots are blues and rock but there has been a growing influence on our music from the gypsy tradition.”
Kiosk is one of the few Iranian underground bands to tour North America, Europe and Australia. Most of its members left Iran within three months after Ahmadinejad’s 2005 election.
“We were tired of trying to work with authorities who would cancel our concerts or refuse to give us permits to produce an album, and on the eve of the election, when Ahmadinejad came to power I knew that things were changing for worse,” Sobhani said.
In an interview with IPS, Arash Sobhani talked about Iran’s underground music scene, how it’s been received in the western media, and the obstacles and challenges for young musicians in Iran.
Excerpts from the interview follow.
IPS: Why your music is considered underground?
AS: I think what we call today “Iranian underground music”, like many other aspects of Iranian life, was forced to go “underground” in the early eighties. As the radicals started taking control over the country and imposing their values on the society, music and a lot of other cultural activities were regarded as “in contrast with Islamic morals”.
In those days, even carrying a guitar in the streets required a lot of courage. Obviously it was very difficult for the musicians to be able to get together and jam and create new music.
The Islamic Republic would reward its opposition with such brutality that thinking of a protest song, in those days, was even impossible so most of the underground bands then either did instrumental music or cover songs from favorites like Pink Floyd and the Eagles. No one dared to create music with new, original lyrics.
IPS: What are the major challenges of Iranian underground music?
AS: First is the fact that most of this music is made using western instruments, and is therefore in “form” very western and that creates a problem when the musicians try to integrate Farsi lyrics. Farsi, as a language, has its own music that may not quite fit on a 12 bar blues. So, essentially, like everything else that has come from the west, Iranian bands are still working on “Iranianising” this form of music.
The second challenge is the problem of getting exposure; there are no independent TV or radio stations to promote these bands. Therefore their music is produced, recorded and distributed underground, with no revenues and nowhere to perform and therefore most of these bands disappear after one or two albums. A few lucky ones have made their way outside Iran and of those few only two or three bands have been able to continue their work.
IPS: How many people are drawn to this music or support it? What are the major genres?
AS: There seems to be around 2,000 bands inside Iran, which is a great number for a country where the government thinks of these bands as Satanists! These bands come from variety of genres. Heavy metal, grunge, funk etc. But hip-hop is becoming more and more popular I think due to the fact that it’s cheaper to make music not using real musicians and just programming all the instruments.
IPS: Is there any research or documentaries about this music?
AS: There are a few documentaries, unfortunately none of them look at the underground music of Iran from the historical/analytical perspective, and none talk about the content or the lyrics. Like all the other cultural activities in Iran covered by the western media they have the attitude of the surprised westerner who is shocked to find out that there are people in the Middle East that play the guitar! Or make movies or publish newspapers.
On the other hand, the documentaries that have been made by the Iranians follow the same pattern, they try to capture what they think is amusing for Westerners and has a good “market”.
IPS: Recently, Bahman Ghobadi, the prominent Iranian director, released a film on Iran’s underground music titled “Nobody Knows About the Persian Cats” at the Cannes Film Festival. To what extent does this movie represent the diversity, message and depth of this music?
AS: I think “underground music” of Iran has become an interesting phenomenon for both the western media and the government of Iran.
The government is creating its own version of “underground music” like it did with the opposition parties or the cinema. Whenever they see there is an interest in something from the public they try to create a “controlled” version of it, they even pay the opposition media or create fake ones to have control over any movement, now they are doing the same thing with the music.
Having said that I think we will witness even more films that will cover this issue in the future. Will they really show the nature of the underground music in Iran? I really doubt it.
IPS: Why doesn’t the Iranian government tolerate hip-hop, rock and hard rock musicians and singers? Is it a matter of form or content?
AS: The Iranian government’s attitude towards social demands follows a pattern. They will eventually give in and I am sure we will see rock concerts in Iran. But they will make the process as slow as possible and with watered-down, harmless lyrics. Unlike what a lot of people think, they are not very persistent on their cultural agenda, they can tolerate anything, as long as they don’t lose their political power, but because of their rigid nature they make the process as painful and as slow as possible.
IPS: Has anybody gotten in trouble for following this path? As a musician or a fan?
AS: A lot of musicians have been ordered to stop playing music. A lot of bands were taken in and had to sign a piece of paper indicating that they will never play again. And in the past, a lot of people have had problems for listening to western music.
Kiosk was formed in Iran as a side project to my other band. Then, because of the restrictions imposed by the government on the lyrics, we decided not to even bother asking for permits and approvals needed for releasing an album. We recorded the entire album without any hope of ever publishing it.
(END/2009)
June 6, 2009 1 Comment
Obama Egypt Speech: Venue Choice Draws Fire
President Obama’s decision to address the Muslim World in a speech on June 4th in Cairo, Egypt — one of the most authoritarian Muslims countries in the Middle East - begs the question: is Egypt the right place to address such issues or not?
On May 8, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs called Egypt “the heart of the Arab world,” and the trip “an opportunity for the President to address and discuss our relationship with the Muslim world.”
In March 2009, Ipsos conducted a poll of 7,000 people across Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt. According to the polling outfit, Egypt has the least favorable approval rating compared to the other Arab countries in the Middle East. And President Obama received 48 percent of average favorability ratings as a whole, while Egyptians gave him a favorability rating of 35 percent. Read more
June 3, 2009 Leave a Comment
Nuclear Iran
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June 2, 2009 Leave a Comment
What Should President Obama Tell the Muslim World in Cairo?
President Obama’s decision to give a speech in Egypt on June 4th, one of the most authoritarian regimes and unpopular governments in the Middle East, was surprising, no doubt. Many thought he would choose Indonesia, the biggest moderate Muslim country. But what should the President say, and do, in Cairo to make the best of his trip?
First of all, President Obama has to show that Egypt is the right choice. Many say it’s not. On May 8, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, called Egypt “the heart of the Arab world”. That’s right. But Arabs constitute approximately 10 percent of the Muslims worldwide. Also, as Olivier Roy, the prominent French scholar of Islam told me, “Muslims belong to different nationalities and have different interests. From Indonesia, as the biggest Muslim country, to Lebanon, Afghanistan, Somalia and Muslims in the United States and Europe, they have different interests and concerns.” Plus, all Arabs are not Muslim. Obama should clarify whether he meant to address the issues of the Arab World, which Egypt is rightly the biggest and certainly the most influential country amongst them, or the Muslim world?
June 1, 2009 17 Comments
