Window on Iran - 15

Fatemeh Kashevarz

Current Issues:

upcoming midterm elections are on the way in Iran. On December 15, a good turn out can give a credible chance to moderates to seize power. The hardliners play down the significance of this election in the hope that a boycott by the moderates will result in their victory just as it did in the election that brougth Mr. Ahmadinejad to power. My sociologist/historian friend Behrooz Ghamari warns that it is really important that Iranians don’t stay home and don’t boycott this election.  http://www.iranian.com/Ghamari/2006/December/Elections110/index.html

Perhaps to take attention away from the above election which can go very badly for the regime, the Iranian Foreign Ministry’s Institute of International Studies hosted a two day conference which it has described as “The Global Vision” on the Holocaust.  According to the organizers, people from 63 countries have participated and all sides are represented including CDs of survivors speaking about their experience. Europeans and Americans, including members of the orthodox Jewish community, have attended. The conference is supposed to be a response to the western relaxed attitude toward the cartoons about the Prophet and to demostrate that the west’s claim to freedom of speech is hypocritical and selectively applied. My heart goes out to the Iranian Jewish Community which has to witness the plight of its community as the subject of this ridiculous east/west political slanging match.

My heart also goes out to the rest of Iranians who despite having no hostility to Jews, through such political events as this conference make it to the American national news two days in a row, but their healthy and courageous opposition to Mr. Ahmadinejad’s government does not recieve the slightest publicity in the same media. I bet you have no idea that yesterday President Ahmadinejad’s presentation was interrupted by students in Amir Kabir University in Tehran. The students shouted “lier” and “dictator” and burned Mr. Ahmadinejad’s pictures as he spoke. Since you are very unlikely to see these images in American media, I have put a very small collection of them together. Click on the first attachment, then on view, and then on slide show
This opposition wishes for no outside interference but would appreciate respect and recognition.

Cultural/artistic

Time for something good to counter the discord emanating from the news and to heal hurt feelings! I attach a slide show of delightful images from the desert city of Yazd which I promised last week (images sent by my friend Bahar Bastani). Yazd is no Tehran or Isfahan in that it does not have the tall buildings and very large residential complexes. In fact, its population is only about half a million. But Yazdi’s are known for their gentle and sweet temper, and artistic abilities particularly in architecture and textile industry. Furthermore, they are nationally known for the sweets they make. Click on the second attachment, then on view, and then on slide show. Enjoy!

Iran’s graphic designer Abedini heads for Amsterdam to receive the Claus Award http://www.payvand.com/news/06/dec/1096.html