Iranian Madness

One of the interesting side-effect of the disillusion of the Islamic Revolution in the people of Iran is the tendency to return to ancient Persian roots.

Suffocated by centuries of Islamic domination that only partially managed to change the country’s culture, Persian roots survive and in some cases thrive. By far the most celebrated public holiday is not Eid (like in most other Muslim countries), but No-Rooz, the Persian new year festival, dating back to the Safavid Kingdom times and of Zoroastrian origin.

Another (slightly more radical) Zoroastrian feast is the so called Sadeh (the Sacred Fire Fest). Fire is a holy element in Zoroastrian belief (along with Water, Air and Earth, and numerous are the temples where fire is kept burning since centuries (the most famous one, depicted below, is in the city of Yazd).

Nowadays, the people of Iran are getting back to these old traditions, regardless of their religion. They are considered part of the pre-Islamic Persian culture, and thus worth preserving and cherishing.

It may be hard to believe if you have never visited the country, but Iran is indeed a largely secular society.

The fire temple in Yazd

I really hope the world will start understanding that there is no such thing as the Great Islamic Nation. There are, instead, lots of different countries with very marked identity and extremely different cultural roots. Just like Christianity, Islam is too spread out to unify cultures (and islamists would argue that it’s not even supposed to).

It is therefore no surprise that the Islamic Solidarity Games, scheduled to take place in April 2010 in Iran, have been cancelled by the Saudi-based headquarters. The reason? the name of the Gulf between the Arabian peninsula and Iran. Is it Arabian, like the Arabs like to call it, or Persian, like the rest of the world has been referring to it for ages?

While we settle the dispute, let’s cancel the games altogether!

When looking at these pictures from Tehran and Isfahan, it’s not hard to bet that the Iranian establishment has no chance to get out of this wave of protests with their power untouched.

It may not be another revolution, but it’s certainly going to be a big setback for the mullahs.

Non manca la fantasia, in Iran: prima il quotidiano Emrooz, vicino al sindaco di Teheran Mohamed Bagher Ghalibaf, si inventa un logo che ricorda una ballerina stilizzata.

E poi, ovviamente, i bacchettoni conservatori fanno il loro dovere.

L’Iran è bello anche per questo: la battaglia si gioca su molti fronti, alcuni che fanno ridere (amaramente).

Un vero genio politico, l’Ayatollah Khamenei. Il suo fiuto gli permette di fare analisi visionarie sulla situazione politica iraniana che eludono la comprensione di qualsiasi altro essere umano.

Godetevi l’acume della sua intervista: ha addirittura compreso che la situazione in Iran è difficile.

Rimaniamo basiti davanti a cotale intuizione. Un vero leader del duemila!

Wow, I was not expecting this. No matter what the restrictions imposed by the authorities, the Iranian election affair still made it to be the most popular Twitter topic of the year 2009 – in the whole world!

No matter how the Ayatollahs try to limit the young Iranians’ expression freedom, it’s quite clear that they have blatantly failed.

The latest news from the Iranian government, apart from the endless and pointless debate about the nuclear programme, is that they have kicked off laughter classes in Tehran.

The idea may not work, as Robert Tait (perhaps the most competent journalist when it’s about Iran and Iranians) points out. Laughing during Moharram (which will start after the upcoming Eid and last 40 days) is considered inappropriate, and Iranians anyway have very little to laugh about. See for instance this video taken during the 13 Aban street protests.

The fact that most Iranians are now hiding their real identity in cyberspace (most of them have changed their last name to Irani or Iranian on Facebook and Twitter) is another reason not to laugh. These people are afraid just to speak!

It appears that the people of Iran are starting to have enough of the government and its continuous suppression of the largely peaceful protests that keep gathering a growing number of people in the streets of Tehran.

The institutions take these seriously, so much that they have now revived previous plans to relocate the capital (and spectacularly failing to say where it could be built).

Frankly, I’m surprised about the relentlessness of the Iranians in what appear to be hopeless demonstrations of desperate people to the outsider. But on an afterthought, I should not be. I know how they take things seriously, and how their rooted culture, traditions and ideals are stronger than any oppressive police force. They know that the Basij may disrupt a few gatherings, and injure or even kill a few people, but cannot stop the liberal wave that seems to have taken the hearts of the youngsters of Iran.

What will happen is anyone’s guess. But my bets on Ahmadinejad lasting until the end of his term aren’t too high at this moment.

PS: self-explanatory amateur videos from today’s events can be found here, here and here. Some pictures can be found here.

Foggy times for the Iranian institutions

Everyone who’s been long enough in the Middle East has learned how to say insh’allah (which literally translates as “God willing”).

The word is very misused: in theory it’s supposed to indicate that God is after all in control of everything we do, and although we are doing our best to achieve things He can change the course of action.

However, it’s often misused to avoid responsibilities (especially in government offices). In fact, most of the times, when you hear insh’allah as an answer to your request (which is very often), you can pretty much forget that you’ll get the thing done on time, or at all.

The strange thing is that you don’t hear the word too often in Iran – it’s very Arabic (in Farsi they prefer to say Khoda midune, which means God knows, but it’s valid in a different context).

However, Iran Aseman, one of the worst airlines of Iran (and possibly of the whole world), has definitely invented a situation where insh’allah is just the right thing to say.

It seems that some Iranians were planning a very profitable Indonesian holiday.

It’s not too late for the Iranian government to decide to tackle the enormous drug consumption issue that affects Iran’s youth. Unfortunately, in order to do this they have to change the way the country works. And they don’t seem to be too willing – at least not yet.