This blog has been silent for a while, and there’s a good reason: I’ve left the Middle East, gone back to my country (Italy).

Without talking to Iranians and going frequently to the country, it’s near impossible for me to keep updated on what’s going on in Tehran.

During the course of this blog I have posted 95 short articles. That’s the equivalent of a medium-sized book. I’m not sure whether I’ll publish it or not one day, but so far I’ll leave the material on my site for the enjoyment of those few readers that still lurk around.

Iran has recently gone through much more unrest and change than even I could have predicted. It’s very difficult to say where the country is going (the relative current calm should not lead to think that all protest is over). The history of Iran is one of continuous changes, uprising waves, disillusion and quest for more change. I believe 2009 (Moussavi) has been very much like 1953 (Mossadeq), 1979 (Khomeini) and 1997 (Khatami).

Only time will tell where Iran will go from here. But for me, it’s time to say goodbye. Khodafez.

There have been several examples that point towards this direction, some of them truly remarkable, some almost absurd to the point of being comic.

Recently, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has hosted a meeting of the leaders of the five countries that celebrate No-rooz, the Persian New Year. They look great, don’t they? but seriously, the event is very symbolic as the No-rooz is a tradition that originates way earlier than Islam, and therefore is considered to be almost pagan. In fact it is Zoroastrian: the great city of Takht-e-Jamshid, or Persepolis in Greek, was built exactly to celebrate this festival.

A little more on the propaganda side is the award of a prize for promotion of human rights to an Italian researcher, Anna Contadini, for her studies on Islamic Art. While the intentions of this prize may be good, I’m not sure it was such a good idea to accept it, given the less than crystal clear record that Iran has in terms of violations of the above-mentioned human rights.

And perhaps the most comic effort of all is the organization of a Nuclear Disarmament Conference in Tehran (yes!). It’s a bit hard to keep serious in front of this blatant provocation, but one should also remember that countries like Pakistan and China have nuclear weapons, and they are not exactly champions of democracy.

And all this in spite of a not-very-conciliatory speech by opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi, where he talked about grim economic prospects for Iran, as well as unjustified use of violence.

Could it be that some sort of agreement looms in the horizon? after all, Mousavi held a portrait of Ayatollah Khomeini on the table behind him during his speech.

1388 has been a very tumultuous year, from the elections in June, which saw the uprising of the so-called Green Movement, to the dispute on nuclear power plants (and weapons), which saw Western diplomacy prove once again its ineptitude towards such delicate issues.

How did the year end for Iran? while most people were busy celebrating New Year in the traditional way (which precedes Islam, being a Zoroastrian festival), the words “Allahu Akbar” again resonated across the crowded Tehran streets (see for instance this video taken on 20 March, on Iranian New Year’s eve.

Another interesting topic has been the Iraqi elections. They could be seen as a far distant issue compared to the Iranian internal turmoil, but the influence of Tehran’s government is very wide in neighbouring Iraq, and this article describes that the government of the Ayatollahs has once again been defeated.

Sal-e-no mobarak, Iran. We all wish that 1389 will bring the peace, prosperity and freedom that this amazing country deserves.

Che emozione che dev’essere stata vivere quelle notti insieme al popolo iraniano!

Un’interessante commento di Masturzo sui fatti di contorno alla foto premiata si può leggere qui.

A mio parere, la foto è notevole soprattutto perché ritrae l’ordinarietà: persone qualsiasi, da un tetto di una casa qualsiasi, che urlano la loro rabbia al cielo.

The black and white photo, showed below, depicts women shouting slogans against the regime from the rooftop of a house in Tehran. This mode of protesting is reminiscent of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, when, in the days before the fall of the Shah, people used to shout “Allahu Akbar” from the rooftops of their houses in order to express dissatisfaction about the regime.

The other winners of the contest can be found here. Note the second prize for stories, also depicting scenes from the street protests that followed the June 2009 election.

Not many people know that Italy owns the largest private piece of land in Tehran (and probably in the whole Iran): the ambassador’s residence in Farmanieh, with its flourishing garden of rare trees and its Qajar-style buildings, is a joy to see and be in (especially on 2 June, Italian National Day, when they tend to serve reasonable wine).

The relationship between Italy and Iran was so tight that this piece of land was among the few owned by foreign institutions not to be sequestered after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. It remained the property of Italy and its people.

In more recent times, ties between the two countries remained close. Italy, together with Germany, is still one of the largest commercial partners of Iran, as reported recently by Israeli magazine Y-Net. Italian politicians and businessmen have worked actively around the sanctions to actively sustain, if not expand, their business with Iran. The deal is good for both Italy and Iran, especially in the energy sector: Italy is an avid consumer of oil and natural gas, and Iran must import fuel (mostly, petrol) due to lack of refining capacity and growing internal consumption.

So Italy gets the crude very cheap, refines it and sells back the lower-quality fuels to Iran. Not a bad deal, heh?

Many more less public and slightly less ethical business deals have taken place in the past, but they have been largely ignored by the public and the press. Italy’s lead politicians from the current centre-right and the previous centre-left government have also downplayed the issue of sanctions, if not openly opposed it.

The game has lasted until one of Italy’s most audacious journalists, Il Foglio’s Giulio Meotti, has published an article in the Wall Street Journal, outlining in detail everything that is going on behind the scenes. And it’s not a pretty picture.

Unfortunately, around about the same time Italy’s Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was about to depart on one of the largest missions abroad that this government has undertaken in recent years: he and 8 other ministers: Economic Development Minister Claudio Scajola, Transport Minister Altero Matteoli, Labour and Social Politics Minister Giuliano Sacconi, Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, EU Politics Minister Andrea Ronchi, Environment Minister Stefania Prestigiacomo and Health Minister Ferruccio Fazio.

Who was almost half of our government going to visit? the other great friend of Italy in the Middle East, the country we’re helping protect from Hezbollah’s rockets with our largest military contingent abroad: Israel.

There is a problem with this double-faced approach, though: Israel and Iran aren’t exactly in good terms, and especially these days one could think that a war is going to be declared soon (by which of the two parties remains the biggest question). And the timing of Meotti’s article could not be more ill-fated.

Something had to be done in order not to spoil the visit to Israel. And given the choice, I believe Berlusconi decided to displease Iran. Just as the Iranian opposition seemed to favour thaws with the government and even Karroubi made conciliatory statements, the punch in the face was delivered straight by Italy’s main man.

First, he delivered a speech to the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament, saying “We cannot accept the nuclearization of a country whose leaders have explicitly expressed their desire to destroy Israel, have denied the Holocaust and delegitimized the Jewish state“. The country in question was not specifically named, but it does not take a genius to guess it’s Iran he was talking about. He went on to call Israel’s last-year war in Gaza against Hamas “justified self-defence“.

The consequences were immediate: Italy’s ENI, which according to Meotti’s report is the largest single European investor in Iran, announced that it would pull out of Iran. And even though there are still around 22 large Italian companies that operate in Iran, the retreat is a low blow for Iran’s ambitions to further exploit its massive gas reserves.

Tehran’s reaction was immediate: its state TV called Berlusconi “a servant of the Zionist regime“, and even bothered to translate its statements into Italian.

To which our foreign minister Franco Frattini replied that “Italy is a servant of its values, and our values say that Israel is a free and democratic country, and as such must be defended“. Frattini went on later to state in an interview (in Italian) that “Iran’s reactions are a symptom of its weakness“.

The latest statement (also in Italian) of our Minister of Defense, Ignazio La Russa, is quite clear: “it is necessary to contrast Iran’s aggression“.

So is our long love relationship with Iran going to end? I won’t put my money on it. Many believe that this, like many others, is an attempt of the Italian government to save its face, especially at a time when most of our ministers were about to leave to Israel. But ENI pulling out of Iran is a warning: Italy can get serious if Iran gets over the top (the same message could be translated in German when Siemens, only a few days ago, announced its own pull-out of the Islamic Republic).

In any case, we need to see what will happen next Thursday, when the 22 Bahman celebrations are likely to become another stage for a large opposition gathering and demonstration. While opposition leaders such as Mohammed Khatami are publicly urging people to go out on the street and demonstrate, recent statements by Khamenei announcing “a punch in the face” of Tehran’s enemy make for a very uncertain future. This is likely to be another bloodshed, and amidst all this international pressure could be the event that really signals the end of Iran’s leadership.

Update

Just while I was busy writing the below article, the Italian embassy in Tehran was targeted by a group of Basiji militia. They threw some stones and shouted phrases like “death to Italy” and “death to Berlusconi“. More information on the attack here (in English) and here (in Italian). A video of the event is available here and some pictures can be found here.

As a gesture of retaliation, the Italian foreign minister has ordered Italy’s Ambassador in Tehran not to attend tomorrow’s celebration for the thirty-first anniversary of the Islamic Revolution. Tension is on the rise!

The Basiji remove the Rome alley sign from a street adjacent to the Italian embassy in Tehran (Reuters)

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

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!

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