Attention: Please help.
The invitation below has been circulated by the regime of Iran and its consulate in Ottawa. We need to organize a large protest against it and write articles and letters to the National Arts Centre president and major newspapers.
Their special event is By RSVP...
The text of the invitation:
Mr. Hamid Mohammadi, the Cultural Counsellor of the Embassy of Islamic
Republic of Iran to Canada, requests the pleasure of your company to attend
a special program entitled :
Iran, Land of Glory,
a Cultural Day at the National Arts Centre,
Panorama Room, Ottawa, Ontario
This event will take place on Saturday, June 4th, 2011
from 4:00pm to 5:00 p.m.
We look forward to seeing you.
RSVP : Please confirm your attendance by May 25th, 2011
Tel : 613 695-9186
Email: mail@irancultureal.ca
Notice that the RSVP date is TODAY. Readers who are interested in attending this event to learn about Iranian culture are urged to act quickly…
14 comments:
I wonder, concerning these Iranian "dissidents" who oppose this event: 1) which Ayatollah do they support; and 2) how would they articulate a defense of their profound admiration for Mohammed and the Koran?
@Hesperado; they may be the Communist rump that was mostly destroyed in Iran after they helped Khomeini to power!
Celebrating modern Islamic Iran, or historical Persian Iran?
Juniper,
When Muslims put on a red Communist coat, it doesn't change the green Islam underneath.
As with "Nationalism", Communism is just a means to an end for those Muslims who see fit to use it.
In Iran a inner power struggle is taking place. A self asserting group around the presidency is attempting to divert Iran self understanding away from Islamic undercurrents towards the Persian legacy. On the surface Achmadenejad's chief if staffs pitted against the religious elite, the true centre of power. Playing the pieces carefully could bring a friend back to the society of states.
In your manichean perception you play into the hands of the the ones you despise. Think again.
Hesperado –
You know better than that. Come on!
————
Hesperado said…
Lorenzo et,
I of course am always on the lookout for ways to avoid playing into the hands of those I despise; however, some clarification is in order here.
1) I don't "despise" Muslims. The emotions of hating and despising I only feel for those Westerners who persist in defending Muslims. Muslims to me are approximately in the same category as hurricanes, earthquakes, various pestilences, wild jackals, scorpions, etc. It would be odd and silly to "hate" or to "despise" these deadly phenomena. The reasonable posture is to simply figure out the best ways to protect our societies from them.
Now then:
2) The Persians were conquered early by the Arab Muslims -- beginning in the 7th century. It may have taken a century or two after that (including massacres of Zoroastrians and others who resisted Islamization) for the Persians to become "true Believers" (often relenting under the cruel pressures of dhimmitude to convert). So Persians have been Muslims for well over 1,000 years. That by itself is damning evidence for anyone who knows how strangely fanatical is the psychosis of Islam.
3) A friend learned in the history of the region explained how at some point during the approximate temporal middle of those thousand years of Persians being Muslim, those Muslim Persians had an opportunity, due to a (long) temporary occupation by non-Muslims, to leave Islam, but of course did not:
When Persia was conquered by the non-Muslim Mongols and the center of the Ilkhanate empire of Hulegu Khan, the local Infidels - Zoroastrians and Christians - had full religious freedom that they didn't have under the intial Arab rule or subsequent Safavid rule. The Persians - who were by then overwhelmingly Islamized - did not revert, even though they had no Islamically driven incentives not to. For the first 8 generations of the Ilkhanate, Persia was a non-Islamic state, but the people remained Muslims. It was only after the 9th Ilkhanate ruler married a Muslimah princess and embraced Islam that the Ilkhanate too Islamized, destroying that opportunity. Luckily, that desease did not spread as far as Mongolia.
4) The popular hatred of the Pahlavis by most Iranian "reformers" is also suspicious, as, aside from the aforementioned historical example adduced in #3 above, the Pahlavis were the only breath of fresh quasi-non-Islamic air the Persians have had in the last 1200 [intensifier] years.
5) Iranian Muslims today simply touting their "Persian" pride means nothing -- unless they are willing to condemn Mohammed and the Koran. Absent that, I prudently consider them my enemy.
Actually, Zoroastrian revival is the hot thing among Mullah-hating hip young Iranians.
I think this Mullah is quite unnerved by them!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRvSmCLF7N8
Could Persia reach a condition where it's so "had enough" that it "reverts" back?
Regardless, surely it would be to the good to encourage and empower this.
Westward Ho,
Only if those so-called Zoroastrian revivalists condemn Mohammed. Otherwise, I don't trust them. However, if they do, they will likely be an insignifcant minority, not useful for us.
I.e., I don't think you guys really get how massively mesmerizing the Islamic disease is for worldwide Muslims. If you think that Iranians can just choose from their historical-cultural cafeteria like we Westerners can, you are grievously mistaken. Their psychology and culture are that alien from ours.
Think Martians, not Earthlings.
Hesperado,
they very clearly condemn Islam, at least on youtube, but they may as you say be an insignificant minority. And I don't know how we could assess their numbers.
But I have repeatedly heard that the youth of Iran includes a large contingent that detests the mullahs and their Islamic republic. And they are the ones who are open to this. I believe this impulse should and could be empowered, such as via a future "Radio Free Islam."
Baron,
Thanks, and sorry.
Westward Ho,
As I said, Diana West wrote several articles containing a wealth of data impugning the Iranian demonstrators.
Here's one.
Here's another. [Remember that Mousavi was the unrepudiated co-leader of the Demonstrators. Why didn't all those Iranian People condemn Mousavi along with the "Mullahs"? From what Diana West uncovers about him, it's telling that they didn't. And another figure prominent in the Demonstrations was Mohsen Kadivar, whose sordid position no one but Diana West seemed to be aware of.]
And another.
And there are plenty more from her archives.
Not to mention Andrew Bostom's take (and more on his blog where that came from).
Hesperado,
Those articles aren't encouraging.
I've heard that a pro-western and and anti-mullacracy movement was significant within the Iranian blogosphere, until a gov't crackdown a few years ago. Regardless, the "green revolution" may be for our purposes an inside job, and/or was strategically co-opted by Tehran before it could grow legs.
Also, those possessing the spirit behind the antimullah blogosphere and Zarath movement may also just be too few, or have too shallow a potential pool of "joiners" from Islam-infused population. Its scope is a known unknown. But it would *still* offer an opportunity to divide the Iranian subcamp of Islam, although we'd of course prefer to find an ally beneath the muck. I think there's much more chance of that from Persia than from Iraq etc, based on their (ancient) history as an productive culture, their car manufacturing, the blog trend I referenced (Gov't has since cracked down on such bloggers), etc. Also, I may be biased based on a lot of positive anecdotal experience with Iranians in the West (as contrasted with some other groups of Muslims), which doesn't actually mean anything.
Still, the West should combine placing spine against Islam with helping the spread of Zoroaster. Any success would demoralize enemy. Fear of the possibility of it already does this a bit, as the video shows. Our policy, in the course of containing and detering the enemy, should be to locate the weak points and keep up pressure.
Westward Ho,
I don't mind exploiting fissures within the Camp of Islam (however minor they may be), as long as it doesn't
1) involve trusting Muslims enough to allow them into our countries and gain positions within our institutions
or
2) involve spending inordinate amountsof money and the lives of our soldiers trying to help such Muslims in various expeditions and campaigns, military or otherwise.
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