Interview with an Iranian Blogger (Part III of IV)
May 15, 2008
This is Part III of IV of my conversation with fellow blogger, writer and journalist from Iran – Kourosh Ziabari. Parts I and II of the interview are available for your review. Comments and feed back are welcome. - RHM
RHM: National perceptions are partly shaped by the media. The only footage Americans see of Iran are usually large crowds screaming “Death to America!”. This does not sit well for obvious reasons. If you asked the average American what the biggest threat to the world is right now, they would likely say “terrorism”, “Iran’s nuclear program”, and “global warming” (not necessarily in that order). How do you think Persians would answer the same question?
Yes, craving or not, the reality is that mainstream media are offering the west with a really altered and spurious view of Iran. All the pictures you see about Iran in CNN, BBC, Euronews and Foxnews are the pictures of Afghan Niqab-wearing women being introduced as Persians, showing suicide bombers while casting the voice of Holy Quran being recited, dry and spacious deserts with camels running in them, and as you said, large demonstrating crowds while shouting “Death to US.”
Regretfully, this is the entire black propaganda project being accomplished by a united group of western media, managed and guided by American media cartels. While the American media and TV stations are showing themselves independent and non-governmental controlled off, the global public opinions trusts it and believes its conspicuous lies about Iran and its people.
As you know, Iran is a land of 7500 years of civilization when there were just two major monarchies on the earth (Greek and Persia), with due respect to American nation, your country is at most 300 years old and a simple compare reveals that how peaceful, conciliator and compromising the Iranian nation was.
Iranians have never blamed a battle or war as the commencers while nobody forgets the Persian Gulf War where my parents clearly remember President Ronald Reagan and Saddam Hussein had a secret meeting and a few days later, the Iraqi imposed war on Iran started.
With American weapons, Saddam killed more than 350,000 Iranian youth and my dear uncle was among them…
Anyhow, every awake and equitable person will judge on the history and if the mainstream media are really divulging the truth and facts.
- Why don’t the western media speak out about the Persian culture and arts and thousands of globally known Iranian writers, poets, painters, dancers, filmmakers, actors and journalists?
- Why don’t they retell the story of American Prof. Richard Nelson Frye whose Persian passion caused him to request of President Ahmadinejad to be buried in Isfahan after his death?
- Why they don’t say anything about the national poet of Iran, Mevlana and the UNESCO international year of Mevlana?
- Why they conceal the international congress on Avicenna hold in Tehran for commemoration of this everlasting Iranian scientist?
- Why they don’t tell anything about thousands of Persian beauty queens and pageant contestants?
- Why they don’t tell anything about Abbas Kiarostami, Niki Karimi and other international celebrities of Persian cinema?
- Why they don’t tell anything about Shahram Nazeri (Iranian Pavarotti) who received the worthy Legionne de’hunor of France?
- Why they don’t broadcast any pictures from the international registration of Nowruz (Ancient Persian New Year celebration) in Persepolis?
- Why they don’t comment on Iranian investment for reconstruction in Afghanistan and repairing the detriments of American war?
However, these are the questions that have to be answered by these media, newspapers and their headquarters. Maybe there are several other examples of interesting facts about Iran that your media cloak from you and don’t allow you to be informed about them, in the other side aggrandize any inadequacy and problem inside Iran with their best.
RHM: I think the same happens to the United States in the Middle Eastern media. They tend to focus on two issues: (1) The Israel/American connection and (2) the West’s “Crusade against Islam”. Both issues get distorted and I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that there is a lot more to the United States and Americans than those two issues.
You mentioned before that Muslims are awaiting trial and punishment for Danish cartoonists. Which crime would you like to see them formally charged with and what do you think an appropriate punishment would be?
Most western democracies disagree with your assessment and maintain that the cartoons are protected under free speech and that restricting free speech is a dangerous thing for true democracies. How would you respond to those governments and especially the citizens who feel that way? Is it possible that Islam is not compatible with western-style democracy for reasons like this?
Dear friend, what is your definition of freedom? Isn’t it a little different with chaos and being unrestrained? Excuse me, but what happens if I punch on your face and then claim shamefully that I am free and nobody could restrict me? Or what if I steal your personal letters, pictures and publish them without permission with the pretend of freedom? In my view, freedom and democracy are very esteemed and respected concepts and not to be confused with our personal viewpoints and interests.
If you take a brief look at the world political history, you’ll simply find that Darius the great, the Persian king was the first who established a democratic government in his time and that is what the Greek historian Herodotus also confessed to. So Iranians are not strangers with the value of democracy and freedom, but liberty is nothing to do with insulting, violating and swearing.
If everybody is free to act anyway he desires, so then what are the laws and regulations made for? So why the police arrest drug smugglers? Was the chemical bombardment of Hiroshima and Nagasaki an American example of freedom of action?
And about the appropriate punishment, I leave it to all of the awake and justice conscience around the world. They will judge themselves what is suitable for this type of Human rights violation.
And finally, I wanna ask if freedom restricting is dangerous for the world, so why the American president goes not to accept the Iranian university invitation for a free speech here in Iran just such as what President Ahmadinejad did in Columbia University? If it is dangerous to restrict the freedom of speech, so why the UK PM doesn’t accept to contribute into Iranian TV interview? If it is dangerous to restrict the freedom of speech, so why the French government does imprisons the Holocaust denying scholar?
RHM: I don’t know why George Bush and Gordon Brown do not speak to the Persian media. You’d have to ask them. But that is not an example of somebody’s freedom of speech being suppressed. People have the right to determine who they communicate with.
Freedom certainly does not mean that you can do whatever you want. But punching someone in the face is a bit different from drawing a cartoon on the other side of the world. People in a free society do not have the right to physically abuse their neighbor – free societies protect their people from this type of unrestrained behavior. But nobody can guarantee that you will not be offended. I certainly agree with you about the holocaust denial laws in several European nations. In my opinion, those laws are unreasonable and restrict free speech.
Again, you mentioned that you are awaiting trial and punishment of the Danish cartoonists. Let me ask you again: What crime should they be charged with and what do you think would be an appropriate punishment?
In part IV, we’ll wrap up the conversation with Kourosh’s answer and his perspective on Iran’s nuclear program.
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4 Responses to “Interview with an Iranian Blogger (Part III of IV)”
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Dear Randy
I am going to applaud you and Kourosh, clap for both of you because of the fantastic converse, I enjoyed reading your peacefull ideas exchange…
But I have to add something. The borderless freedom doesn’t exist in any part of the world. Even you yourself activated comment moderation to prevent malicious comments and insulting. So maybe Kourosh is right and that type of absolute freedom must be searched in Mars of Venus!!
I don’t understand the whole political thing in the international scene but I have a big question.
Why is the U.S. so very watchful of other countries who attempt to build their military power through ways they know when in fact the U.S. has the most formidable military in the world? People from other countries are going to ask, if the US builds devastating weapons, why can’t we? If they can build military weapons for defense purposes, why can’t we?
Other countries cannot keep up with the US military technology, therefore other countries have opted to build it the way they can afford and know how. I’d have to admit nuclear weapons are out of the question. But scrutinizing military build-up of N.Korea, Iran or China is a little unfair.
Like I said I don’t know everything about everything, its just my 2 cents.
“Why is the U.S. so very watchful of other countries who attempt to build their military power through ways they know when in fact the U.S. has the most formidable military in the world?”
You would be wrong, the Israeli army is absolutely brutal and amazingly formidable. Think about this - every Israleli over the age of 18 has to join the army, therefore every Israeli civilian over the age of 18 has military training and at any time can be brought out to fight. An entire nation standing at attention to fight..insanely scary and amazing.
But that’s for another day, US doesn’t like other countries having nuclear weapons. It’s a test of their own military might. No nations should be allowed to have nuclear power, and if one can have it - then all should be able to. The only ones to drop a bomb in a war so far have been America, others have had them but never used them against another country - but America has done it twice. If Iraq had nuclear weapons (which they didn’t) they still have a better track record then America, 0:2, compare that with every other countrys track record and America comes out the clear ‘bad guy’.
I think nuclear weapons are more the Dr. Strangelove method of protecting a country, “Don’t nuke us, or We’ll Nuke You and Everyone Else” - a total war scenario where everyone loses if anyone is attacked, seems like a very good reason to use diplomacy first.
[...] and, if so, what should be their punishment? I posed these questions to an Iranian blogger.http://thecandidacy.com/2008/05/15/interview-with-an-iranian-blogger-part-iii-of-iv/List of cartoonists - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia1.1 Cartoonists in animation 1.2 Cartoonists [...]