In memory of the fallen (Neda and others)

I thought you had forgotten, heart,

Your ability to suffer pain.

That easy gift would come, I thought,

No more again! No more again!

Gone were the raptures and the griefs

And the dreams you half-believed. . .

But now I know, while beauty lives

so long will live my power to grieve.

(By Alexandre Pushkin)

A footnote from a historic apology and a strategic guideline by Mostafa Tajzadeh

On the anniversary of the election rigging; Tajzadeh has written a long letter entitled: "Father, mother, we are AGAIN accused" (title borrowed from Ali Shariati's short book "Father, mother, we are accused", in which Shariati explained why his generation had abandoned the stale and superstitious version of their parents Islam and taken up Marxist ideologies instead.).

Who is Mostafa Tajzadeh? A political scientist, who has worked as deputy to ministries of culture (when Mohammad Khatamy was the minister) and Interior (during Khatami's presidency). Hence, he is a "reformist".

Tajzadeh was one of the first to be arrested in the aftermath of the IRGC coup d'etat; he was one of the last to be given a break from prison on bail; a reformist who did not "confess", nor apologize for his involvement in "velvet revolution" as alleged by Ahmadinejadist and militia-controlled judiciary.

His wife, Fakhorssadat Mohtashami (in beige scarf lower right), relentless, brave and rhetorically poetic, was the first of the "political prisoner spouses" to write public love letters to her husband, highlighting the cause for which he and his colleagues were subjected to torturous imprisonment; she was also the one who ignored all threats and spoke publicly to the Iranian media inside and outside Iran about the injustices served by the judiciary.

With this very long and elaborate letter Tajzadeh is the first of the IRI (once) ruling elite to apologize for the actions of IRI. I accept his apology; and I welcome this moment of truth and reconciliation. (ALTHOUGH, I do not like these reformists myth of Khomeini. Khomeini was the first to cheat and to lie and order killings. In fact, Khomeini behaved very similarly to how Khamenei is conducting himself today--except that Khomeini had religious credentials that his dude doesn't; except that Khomeini was the leader chosen by people and Khamenei the leader chosen by Hashemi. But I understand that to split from Khomeini for the reformists is not only political, but also biological suicide; and I do not wish any of them death.)

Despite some "oh khomeini" lamentations, in the largest portion of his letter, Tajzadeh reflects on how he and his generation let the Iranian revolution go awry; and how he and his reformist believers of the Islamic Republic bear a responsibility to have stayed silent when they watched fascism take root under their watch. He apologizes to my generation and younger ones for having been part of the system that stripped us of our human, social and civic rights and enforced, by guns and intimidation, an ideological version of righteousness on our private lives.

Besides apologizing, he is also hinting to the green movement where the ideological soft spots of the regime are. Like a good football coach, he speaks of how he has argumentatively disarmed his interrogators by asking them: "if you accuse us of a velvet colored revolution, then do you admit to your regime being a despotic communist-like one?"

The letter is very long and I don't think any of my english readers will care to read all of it; it is a private national conversation for us Persian-reader folks. But, because Iran is on your mind--whether you are a Pro-Israeli who thinks Iran is a threat or an Anti-Israeli who think Iran is the messiah; I found this footnote relevant to your interest (Persian text follows):

"Last year, the propagandist machine of the Milita party (referring to Ahmadinejadist IRGC gangs) has directed many accusations towards the green movement and its leaders. Some of these accusations are that they act in cahoot or in concordance with Americans, Zionists, Monarchists and MKO Marxists. These accusations are made despite the Islamic and Nationalist history and background of these leaders, despite the republican nature and goals of the movement, and despite its insistence on dialogue and non-violence and the fact that the movement has clearly expressed its separation from and rejection of any totalitarian, separatist, oppressive and terrorist agenda; and dismissed those who do not acknowledge Iran's independence and unity, and who are not bound by the Iranian Constitution.

But, what is least paid attention to is the similarity of the Militia party (i.e. Ahmadinejadists) to the four mentioned groups (Monarchist, Marxist, Zionist, Imperialist), especially in relation to obstruction of democracy, and violation of civic, political and cultural rights of the Iranians. My main criticism of the totalitarian regime is that by behaving similarly to these four groups, the Iranian government (totalitarians) disarm the (green) people in confronting these groups.

For example, the Militia Party (Ahmadinejadists) competes with America in hypocrisy; races with the Shah's regime in cracking down political opposition and in nepotism; surpasses the (Marxist/terrorist) MKO in militaristic rigidity and hateful rhetoric; and has borrowed from the communist Russia the solitary cells, forced confessions and televised courts!

I suggest that while the greens delineate their difference with these groups, they also ask what is the regime's difference with those! The boundaries of the greens with the violators of the human rights are clear, but are the differences between the Iranian totalitarians and those groups clear?!"

[65] دستگاه تبليغاتي حزب پادگاني در يكسال گذشته اتهامات زيادي متوجه جنبش سبز و رهبرانش كرده است؛ از جمله این كه آنها با آمريكايي‌ها و صهيونيست‌ها، سلطنت‌طلب‌ها، مجاهدين خلق و ماركسيست‌ها هماهنگ عمل مي‌كنند يا همسو سخن مي‌گويند. اين در حالي است كه سوابق اسلامي و ملي رهبران جنبش سبز، اهداف و ماهيت مردمي اين حركت،‌ گفتمان مسالمت‌آميز و خشونت‌‌پرهيز آن و فاصله‌گيري آشكار جنبش از انديشه‌هاي تمامیت‌خواه، جدايي‌خواه‌، سركوبگر و تروريستي را همگان مي‌دانند و مرز آنان با همه كساني كه استقلال و يكپارچگي سرزميني ايران را به رسميت نمي‌شناسند و حاضر به فعاليت در چارچوب قانون نيستند، مشخص است؛ اما چيزي كه كمتر به آن توجه مي‌شود، اين است كه رفتار و گفتار حزب پادگاني بيشترين شباهت را با چهار گروه فوق، بهویژه در ايجاد انسداد،‌ مبارزه با دموكراسي و نقض حقوق مدني، سياسي و فرهنگي ايرانيان دارد. اساساً يكي از انتقادهاي جدي من به بينش، روش و منش اقتدارگراها اين است كه با ارائه عملكرد مشابه و گاه يكسان با گروه‌هاي مذكور، ملت را در برابر آنان خلع سلاح مي‌كنند و در موضع ضعيف قرار مي‌دهند. براي مثال، حزب پادگاني در كاربرد معيارهاي دوگانه با دولت آمريكا رقابت مي‌كند، در ايجاد انسداد سياسي و سركوب مخالفان و احياي مناسبات شاهنشاهي با سلطنت‌طلب‌ها كورس رقابت گذاشته است، عملكرد پادگاني و ادبيات خشن و كينه‌توزانه مجاهدين خلق را الگو قرار داده‌ و از كمونيسم روسي، سلول انفرادي، اعتراف‌گيري و دادگاه‌هاي نمايشي را وام گرفته است. من معتقدم سبزها ضمن دادن جواب به اين سؤال كه «مرز» شما با گروه‌هاي سابق‌الذكر چيست، بايد از اقتدارگراها بپرسند كه «فرق» رفتار و گفتار حزب پادگاني با جريان‌هاي مذكور چيست؟ «مرز» سبزها با ناقضان حقوق ايرانيان روشن است، اما آيا «فرق» اقتدارگراها با آنان معلوم است؟

72 Iranian Intellectuals in Exile condemn Israel's recent actions

What this list confirms is this : the signatories are not AIPAC/AEI subsidiaries.

Not all, but many of these individuals are ardent opponents of the IRI.

Ervand Abrahamian (Historian)

Nasrin Almasi

Kaveh Ehsani (University Professor)

Mohammad A'zami

Fariba Amini

Bahman Amini

Ali Afshari

Abdolali Bazargan

Golbarg Bashi

Reza Barahani

Mohammad Borghe'i

Mehrzad Boroujerdi

Sohrab Behdad

Maziyar Behrouz

Asef Bayat

Shahrnoush Parsipour

Ali Porsan

Foad Taban

Kamran Talattof

Nayere Tohidi

Mehdi Jami (Writer, filmmaker)

Ramin Jahanbeglou (Political scientist)

Houshang Hasan-Yari (Economist/political scientist)

Fatemeh Haghighatjou

Mehdi Khanbaba Tehrani (Historian)

Behrouz Khaligh

Hamid Dabashi (NYU Professor)

Mostafa Rokhsefat

Sa'id Razavi-Faghih

Hossein Zahedi

Faraj Sarkouhi

Bijan Shahmoradi

Masoumeh Shafi'i

Shahla Salehpour

Ahmad Sadri

Mahmoud Sadri

Behzad Karimi

Kazem Alamdari

Reza Allamehzadeh

Reza Fani-Yazdi

Masoud Fathi

Mansour Farhang

Hadi Gha'emi

Hosein Ghaziyan

Firouz Ghoreishi

Maherangiz Kar (Human rights lawyer)

Naser Kakhsaz

Kazem Kardavani

Ali Keshtgar

Abdee Kalantari (Historian)

Hossein Kamali

Taghi Kimiyaee-Asadi

Effat Mahbaz

Akbar Mahdi

Mojtaba Mahdavi

Akbar Ganji

Majid Mohammadi

Mehrdad Mashayekhi

Ali-Akbar Mousavi Khoeeni

Rouzbeh Mirebrahimi

Ali MirSepasi

Ghafour Mirzayee

Mohsen Namjoo (Musician)

Ebrahim Nabavi

Mehdi Nourbakhsh

Shahin Najafi (Musician)

Farhad No'mani

Mohamadreza Nikfar (Philosopher)

Farzin Vahdat

Nader Hashemi

Ata Hoodashtiyan

Mohsen Yalfani

That which will go down in history books as the massacre of Flotilla

As usual, Israel responded to stones and batons, thrown in self-defense by innocent men and women under aerial siege by perhaps the best of the commando forces on the planet, with unmeasured live fire!

As usual, many died and Israel and the bitch in chief Hellirry Clinton didn't wink. In the meantime, the apologist media tried to provide "objective and unsentimental factual news"!

As usual, there were only the Iranian-Americans of my facebook friends who reacted to the event. At the same time, the Iranian-Iranians were busy with desperate calls for attention to the 6 years jail term and 74 lashes for the university professor Sara Tavassoli--the common sentence of attending a protest; or to more school teachers on death row, or to the depressive tale of children of the victims of the IRI massacre; people ending in cold blood for demanding a fair and open counting of their votes.

As usual, the Left-leaning non-Iranian "activists" started crying Murder/Massacre; started forming "action" groups and started clicking "like" buttons. Their indignation is praise-worthy especially since these same individuals have been willfully ignoring the IRI killings, 100 times in scale of brutality and unjustness and directed against the own population. (I wish to ask these enlightened activists of the pro-palestinian/pro-IRI inclination: does it have to be an Israeli act of crime to justify using the word massacre? The killing of AT LEAST 70 people for participating in a rally in Tehran is not a massacre?)

Within hours of the Flotilla massacre, Khatami, Mousavi and Karoubi, who are the leading figures of Iran's green movement condemned it, each with a personal statement of their own.

Also, Khamenei, the infamous violator of the Iranian human's right, grinned his teeth to the international "defenders of the human rights" (such as the bomb-bomb-bomber McCain and his ilk, who have desperately tried to leech on to the green movement--and have failed miserably togeher with their Iranian-American rookies) and said: "the most pressing human rights issue of the world today is Palestine." He compared Israel's actions to those of his and said: "this crime showed that Zionism is more violent than Fascism!"