In other news:

Stock in burkini's has plummeted in recent weeks, but sales of Hefty bags has quadrupled!

/What a bunch of A-Holes!

Posted by: SexyKafira1 at April 23, 2007 6:49 AM

Do I feel sorry for these once upon a time westernized Muslem-Iranians? Not just no, but hell no. They are getting paid back for 1979. They deserve it, and they should have more of it.

Sheep, they are.

Posted by: Pelayo at April 23, 2007 7:07 AM

The Iranians will not be free until they start stringing up mullahs

Posted by: PapaBear at April 23, 2007 7:21 AM

Nancy Pelosi will comply on all future visits.

chsw

Posted by: chsw at April 23, 2007 7:45 AM

Dear Pelayo and Papabear, I understand your points, but you are a bit too quick to judge the Iranian people. First of all I must say that the so-called Islamic revolution was more like a coup d’etat than anything else, and the people got absolutely surprised by the eventual take over of Khomeinists! They had no idea that after Shah these barbarians would take over and commit such acts of barbarity. They simply got caught off guard. Shari’a was enforced in Iran much the same way that communism was imposed on many countries in the world. A bullying minority of bloodthirsty and power-hungry sadistic thugs suddenly hijacked a popular movement and enforced their rules on others. It is a big mistake to think that all, or the majority, or even a big minority of the Iranian people were on the side of Islamists during the 1978 revolution. They wanted change but not any Shari’a imposing Islamic regime. The regime was imposed on them and thousands of people got killed and imprisoned before the regime managed to stabilize itself. It was not an easy surrender as you might think!

Besides Iran is a very young country with the vast majority of its population under 30, which means that the vast majority of its population weren’t even born in 1979. They are just paying for the naiveté and mistake of their parents and grandparents who weren’t vigilant enough against the Islamists.

Now do you know how this Hijab enforcement started in Iran in the first place? As you might know Iran before 1978 was very westernized and the vast majority of its women were without any sort of Hijab and were actually very, very fashionable and luxurious. But then the revolution happened and suddenly the women were told by the new government that they should wear Hijab and of course in the beginning they just laughed off and didn’t take it seriously at all. But then the regime decided to impose by causing a reign of terror. Within a few months elements of the moral police (basically made up of sadistic thugs) were sent out to the streets. They used to sit on motorbikes to be fast and mobile and their tactic was that they would carry bottles of acid and they would throw it in the faces of any woman who isn’t wearing the Hijab. After several women got injured and disfigured by acid, Iranian women were terrorized enough to give in and wear the Hijab. I know this because I am an Iranian and I was there in those years. My mother had to give up working and stay at home from the fear of these thugs who called themselves “Basiji” (meaning the volunteers, and that was the religious police thugs who threw acid on women and were in general the guardian dogs of the Khomeinist regime). So I beg you not to be too quick to judge. The Iranian people have paid a disproportionately high price for their naiveté in 1978 and 79. It would be really sad if people in the West would also add salt to their wounds by their lack of sympathy.

Posted by: ritamalik at April 23, 2007 9:39 AM

Are there special Iranian veggie police checking grocery bags to insure that housewives aren't carrying tomatoes and cucumbers in the same bag? (re: the story from Iraq about warnings of female and male veggies laying side by side in food markets) To Ritamalik: I am truly sorry that your family has suffered so much from the mullah regime. However, in view of how Islamic societies are run, even if the social contract is only agreed upon by a small number of willing Islamists, can you see why many of us in the West don't want any Muslim immigration to our countries? Muslim societies, for whatever reasons, give their tacit, if not overt, consent to rules and conditions that I, as a Westerner, do not want to live under, nor do I want my grandchildren to live under either.

Posted by: maryrose at April 23, 2007 10:49 AM

I would like to know the definition of "Islamic guidance" ...

Posted by: HoosierGal at April 23, 2007 10:51 AM

Such drivel, thank God the western world is not locked into this kind of pettiness.

Imagine walking into a market and being told not to put the tomatoes next to the cucumbers because they represents male and female sexes (how utterly consuming). All this pettiness suppresses any natural creativity in the human spirit.

"The Sky is blue and roses are red but in Iran the human spirit is all but dead".

Posted by: Mackie at April 23, 2007 10:51 AM

Interesting post "ritamalik"

May I ask where is the dissent in Iran? You are portraying a situation where perhaps 20-30% of the people favor the government that is controling the state.

Why don't we hear from the likes of you all the time from more Iranians? Instead we hear "death to America, the great Satan!" What, is that all a publicity stunt?

Posted by: BB at April 23, 2007 11:27 AM

To Maryrose, Mackie, and BB, my dear friends, those “Death to America” scenes that you see on TV are part of the State propaganda programs. This Islamic regime is really unpopular and who ever tells you otherwise is either ignorant or a liar. Those “Death to America” chants are compulsory for most of the people who are there chanting. So much like the 1st of May (International Labors Day) rallies were for those who grew up under the communist regimes in the USSR and elsewhere. To illustrate my point I will give you a live example from my own experience growing up in Iran. In our schools our classes used to start at 7:30 a.m., but we had to gather in school on 7 sharp. Why? Because we had to stand in line (each class stood in a separate line, much like an army parade) in the school yard for half an hour and the schoolmasters would assign some student to recite the Qur’an and a prayer first and then the schoolmaster would shout in the loudspeakers some slogans such as “Death to America”, “Death to Saddam”, “Death to Israel”, and we had to loudly repeat them while waving our feasts in the air much like punching someone. After this ceremony we had to line by line and in order marsh to the classroom, and right in front of the doors to the school building there was an American flag painted on the floor, so that all the students had to step on it before they could enter the school building. Now I have chanted many a “Death to America” in my life and hundreds of times had to step on the American flag, but did I have a choice? No! Did I hate America? Not one bit! But had I refused to say the slogans or step on the flag my parents would have been called to the school and they would have been asked if I am getting any of my pro-American idea at home, and they basically would have been in a lot of trouble. With regards to Muslim immigrants I agree with Mackie and if you have read my previous posts I have read extensively that I am puzzled why Europeans and Americans accept so many of them. But they seem to accept the worst kind of them too. I also live in Europe and I am anything but the kind of immigrant that everyone fears. Besides I am an ex-Muslim. Had I been a real Muslim I would have stayed in Iran.

Posted by: ritamalik at April 23, 2007 11:54 AM

Thanks ritamalik,
If only it is true what you say--we sure wish we'd see some evidence that more Iranians are like you and fed up.

Congrats on being an ex-muslim!! Are you a Christian now or some other faith (or atheist)?

Posted by: BB at April 23, 2007 12:07 PM

ritamalik,
Keep posting. Your experiences are invaluable to JW/DW.

Posted by: interestinconundrum at April 23, 2007 12:14 PM

ritamalik

I see the POV where you're coming from. Maybe you can see ours. The point being that Iran is not going to progress as long as it stays Islamic. A mere ouster of this regime ain't gonna be enough. The Iranian people who you describe need to openly jettison Islam - Shia, Sunni, Bahai, whatever... and either embrace a real religion - be it Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Mitraism or Christianity, or become documented Athiests.

In such an Iran, Islam should be legally banned, given its history in reducing Persia from a leading civilization in the world under even the Sassanids to simply one of several Islamic hellholes from the time of Ali to Ahmadinejad. Other than that, all faiths (and no faith) should be legal. An Islamic country cannot be tolerant. Iran is no exception.

Posted by: Infidel Pride at April 23, 2007 12:48 PM

"They had no idea that after Shah these barbarians would take over and commit such acts of barbarity. They simply got caught off guard. Shari’a was enforced in Iran much the same way that communism was imposed on many countries in the world. "

HELLO RITA? communism fell. Why? because russian people/eastern people are not brain dead zombies following a demented religion.

HELLO 2? even china is not as communist as it used to be, what's iran excuse, beside the religion of the zombies?

Posted by: FedUpagain at April 23, 2007 12:58 PM

Ritamalik: I wish you well in your new life and I am sorry that you had such a traumatic childhood. I have also spoken to many Iranians living in the USA who disavow the Iranian regime and suffered under it. A question I have, like some others, is a guess on the percentage of Iranians who support the mullahs and, by extension, take the Islamic faith seriously? If so many Iranians are unhappy, and so many are in their teens and 20's, why isn't there a major guerrilla war going on inside of Iran to get rid of the Islamic regime? Old people don't fight those kind of wars, but young people can....if they want to do so...Thanks for any insight that you can give on this matter.

Posted by: maryrose at April 23, 2007 1:31 PM

Ritamalik:

Thanks for your posts. I always suspected that these mass demonstrations of support for the current regime are about as spontaneous and genuine as those we saw shortly before the Shah was deposed and sent into exile, with seemingly huge crowds marching with enormous images of the Shah.

Fedupagain:

How long did it take for the Russian people to do anything about their oppressive regime and how long has it lasted? Putin is very popular with 70% of the Russian population.

No, I believe Rita speaks the truth. Nobody fully appreciated the deadly consequences of the liberal and more radically left factions in Iranian society making common cause with the forces of Khomeinism.

It's very easy for us to sit in the relative safety, political stability and freedoms to criticize the victims of Islamic reactionary forces as though the west hasn't fought its own battles with fascism with Christian overtones such as the regimes in Spain and Portugal.

Posted by: waterdragon52 at April 23, 2007 1:37 PM

Sometimes you just have to think:

Why don't meddlesome Muslims get a life?

Clearly an idle mind is The Devil's Workshop.

(A functional synonym for Islam.)

Posted by: profitsbeard at April 23, 2007 3:05 PM

Dear posters, first of all let me tell to you that of course I don’t have all the answers. To Maryrose, I can’t tell what percentage of the population is against the regime because simply nobody can have such accurate statistics about such a dangerous issue in a dictatorship, but I can tell you about my observation. In Iran people can easily guess each other’s politics just by a glance at what the person in front of them is wearing. If a woman is wearing tight Hijab and no makeup or Chador (a black sheet that women wrap around their whole body which pretty much covers everything except their face) or if a man is not shaven and wears his shirt on top of his pants and closes all of his shirt’s buttons till the very highest one out of piety then you can be pretty much sure that you are in the presence of a “Hezbollahi” (note that Hezbollah was not invented in Lebanon, but they are just an unofficial branch of Iranian Hezbollah! Khomeinists coined the term “Hezbollah” which means “the party of God”) A Hezbollahi is someone who is not only a zealot Muslim, but is also faithful to the regime. Some of them are just very pious Muslims, but the worst kinds are those who through working for the regime have found an outlet for their sadistic tendencies. They do anything for this regime, either out of ideology or simply for money. They kill, bully, beat up, assassinate, terrorize, etc…

Other people (the normal Iranian citizens) are usually those who would be the target for “Operation Cover-Up”! They are dressed normally. Men wear T-shirts and jeans and suits, and mostly men are shaven or have only mustache. Women wear short and tight coats and their hair shows from the front of their scarves. So now, when one looks around in for example the streets of most of Iranian big cities you mostly see these people with normal cloths and once some Hezbollahi passes by people get weary. Besides despite the totalitarian system and all the terrorization, people are so openly disgusted with this regime and especially with Ahamadinezhad in particular that they openly curse them and tell jokes about them, even with the people they meet for the first time. I remember one of the jokes that was circulating about Ahmadinezhad a couple of years ago was this: We had a cholera epidemic two summers back in Tehran region. So people made up this joke: “Why did the cholera epidemic start in Tehran region? Because Ahmadinezhad washed his dirty socks in the Karaj water reservoir! (That is the reservoir that supplies the water for Tehran and suburbs)” Jokes like this are heard everywhere, even when you just sit in a taxi and meet the driver for the first time, he would not hesitate to tell you these jokes even though he doesn’t know you. This goes to show the unpopularity of the regime. Nobody is afraid that someone might report him to the police.

Why there is no guerrilla war? Because Iranian people are tired of violence. We had three revolutions in the last 150 years or so. Most people don’t know that but in the end of 19th and beginning of 20th century Iranian people were the first in the region to demand a constitution and a parliamentary monarchy. People rose up twice because soon after getting the permission to assemble a parliament for the first time the next king decided to close it down and with the help of Russian Cossack army shut cannons at the parliament and killed many. Then again people rose up and demanded to send representatives to the parliament and after lots of sacrifices they opened the parliament again and drafted a constitution which was very similar to that of the countries like Belgium and France; even though even then the Mullahs of the time where boiling in anger and ripping their shirt because they didn’t get to include Shari’a in there. The intelligencia was completely against it! But of course the Mullahs waited for their moment! And after again people rose up in 70s against tyranny of the Shah and demanded more freedom and democracy and sacrificed their lives for it, at the very last moment the Mullahs grabbed everything and even persecuted many who have sacrificed the most for the revolution. And then the 8 year war with Saddam started! So after all of these bloodsheds and violence people don’t want any of that anymore. They are protesting peacefully all the time. The prisons are full of political prisoners and journalists who dared to speak their mind. But the consensus seams to be that people are not going to support violence. Because the prices will be simply too high. This regime outdoes every one of us civilized people in barbarity and cruelty. We are simply no match for them. I am personally pretty open to the possibility of having the coalition forces liberate Iran. Not only Iran will never become like Iraq, but Iraq also will be in much better order once this Iran is liberated. But this is a huge sacrifice on the part of the US and UK and we Iranians have no right to demand that from anyone. Meanwhile everyone is waiting for a solution. Sorry that my message became to long, but I had to clarify many things here.

Posted by: ritamalik at April 23, 2007 3:56 PM

waterdragon

"How long did it take for the Russian people to do anything about their oppressive regime and how long has it lasted? Putin is very popular with 70% of the Russian population."

Russian communism started in 1917. It fell in 1989. Total = 72 years.

Islam braiwashing people = successful for 1400 years.

What's your bet on who's got the smartest genes?

Secondly, communism in russia, as much as it damaged, but it was never that backward or idiotic like the zobie religion called islam.

Don't even compare.

See Eastern europe after communism? beaten down but still working people.

See muslim countries after the fall of their dictatorships? Still cesspool countries.

If you don't see the difference that's a problem.

Russia had scientist, poets and a history before communism. Those countries had only flourishing pasts BEFORE islam, since islam came, no matter the shah or caliph, it was pure SHIT ever since

Posted by: FedUpagain at April 23, 2007 4:26 PM

Instead of worrying about what an Iranian woman is wearing, the Iranian government should be more concern about high inflation, high unemployment, insufficient housing, etc.

The Iranian people are only getting what they asked for in 1979.

Posted by: callmeinfidel at April 23, 2007 4:42 PM

Getting hot thinking about those "skimpy hijabs".

How do you say hubba-hubba in Persian?

(Or does that get your head cut off, too?)

Posted by: profitsbeard at April 23, 2007 4:55 PM

Getting hot thinking about those "skimpy hijabs".

How do you say hubba-hubba in Persian?

(Or does that get your head cut off, too?)

Posted by: profitsbeard at April 23, 2007 4:55 PM

FedUpagain, I have good news for you though. After the Islamic revolution in Iran most Iranian people who due to the fact that aren't Arabic speakers didn't know much about Qur'anic teachings and Islam and all they new about Islam was praying and fasting on the certain times, have become so well acquainted with the true face of Islam that they have become totally disillusioned. I know of many many people personally that before the revolution were a bit religious and prayed regularly and fasted in Ramadan, etc. but now after 29 years under Islamic regime they stopped praying altogether and they curse Muhammad and all the 12 Imams in private! Most young people who have been born after the revolution are indeed so fed up with Islam that they have no respect left for it at all. The Islamic regime's pushing of the religion in people’s face indeed has backfired badly! The day this regime goes down to the trash bin of history I guarantee you, we will see a mass exodus of many many Muslim-born Iranians out of their ancestral religion of Islam and we will witness their entrance into other more civilized religions, or pure secularism. I promise you that!

Posted by: ritamalik at April 23, 2007 4:55 PM

(Was correcting "hijab" to "hejab" and must've gotten too excited... Naked napes!)

Posted by: profitsbeard at April 23, 2007 4:57 PM

callmeinfidel says The Iranian people are only getting what they asked for in 1979.

Exactly. They made their bed 28 years ago, and they've had to lie in it ever since. I remember the Iranian Revolution back in 1979 as an 18-year-old, and watching and listening to young Iranian men and women featured on television, some of the women hijabbed, telling us how much they wanted to live under Islamic law, how they worshipped Ayatollah Khomeini, and how glad they were to see the back of the Shah. Those images I will never forget, nor will I ever forget the attitudes of Iranian students at the college I went to back then, when the attempt to rescue those US Embassy hostages failed miserably. I witnessed and listened to Iranian students dancing and cheering when the televised news showed the charred remains of those helicopters, just a few feet away from where I was stood playing a Space Invaders machine. I couldn't describe how sickened I felt just listening to them. Looking back at it all, I personally don't feel sorry for those same Iranians if they have suffered, because they were so willing to embrace evil, open the gates of Hell, and march straight through them, and for the last 28 years, they've called for our death and destruction, and financed all manner of terrorist outfits devoted to killing us Westerners with hardly a murmur of protest. Amongst their calling cards were the US Embassy blasts and the murder of 241 US peacekeepers in Beirut through their Hizbollah proxies, the launching of 4,000 rockets at Israel last year through those same proxies, and the aiding and abetting of murderous thugs who have been killing our troops in Iraq since 2003, and latterly Afghanistan. I have had my fill of that country, its leaders and its sheeple, and now it is long past time to avenge over a quarter of a century of murder and sin, not to mention preventing them getting the means to kill on a much more massive scale and presiding over yet another Holocaust.

Posted by: Spirit Of 1683 at April 23, 2007 5:07 PM

Rita Malik,

Thanks for your candid comments. I believe you because I've met many Iranians in the U.S. who are just sick about the takeover of their country and can't go back because they will be killed if they set foot on Iranian soil. It also makes no sense to me that EVERY muslim is brainwashed, like Abdullah and Naseem. I don't see how they could function with that much hate coming out of them on a daily basis. It seems that to be that hateful the poison would turn on them and destroy their insides in some physical manifestation.

If some Iranians hate Islam that's a good sign. But when you look at the terror that seems to be second nature to some of your countrymen, like throwing acid on a woman's face and destroying her looks for the rest of her life, just because the opinion of the day was that she should be wearing whatever it is some pro-Muslim man thought up when he got up on the wrong side of the bed that morning, is very unpredictable and dangerous. It's kind of like going camping in a rattlesnake infested area and hoping that when you get up to use the restroom in the middle of the night, you'll make it to and from without getting bitten. It would be much easier to hold it all night long and keep the tent zipped tightly. I suppose when enought people end up with bladder, kidney and sleep deprivation problems, some people will get together and overthrow it. But they'll have to overcome a lot of fear before that happens. And unfortunately, we in the west don't help matters by continuing to buy oil from our true enemies.

I guess if you look at it we're all kind of in the same boat. Iranians are afraid to stand up to the regime because they risk physical and personal destruction if they do, and if we Americans stop using Middle Eastern oil with no alternative, our jobs, economy and consequently, physical and personal well-being will also risk destruction.

So what do we need to do, to solve the problem for you and for me?

Posted by: Isabellathecrusader at April 23, 2007 5:22 PM

Spirit Of 1683, I don't know who those students were who openly rejoiced at US' failed attempt to rescue the hostages, but I am ashamed of them as an Iranian and I denounce them. My guess is that they might have been some leftists. Leftists in Iran (also like elsewhere) had a notorious love affair with the Islamists for a brief period in history due to their common hatred for Shah and the West, and they ended up paying very dearly with their lives for this unbecoming love affair once Islamists came to power. But people like them were not in the majority ever, not then not now! I never met anyone around me who wasn’t embarrassed of the hostage-taking scandal. If you go to the Middle East you probably won't find a more pro-American group of people than Iranians. They have learned their lesson. Believe me! And you would be more accurate if you would separate the actions of a totalitarian regime and those of their people. But I also blame the Iranian government for all the crimes that you mentioned and I would be happy to see them pay for it.

Posted by: ritamalik at April 23, 2007 5:42 PM

ritamalik,

My understading is that before Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi (king of Iran 1941-1979) and before his father Reza Shah's reign, Muslim Iran had been steeped in centuries of Islamic backwardness after the early conquest of the non-Islamic Persians in the 7th century A.D. (.

It was only with the Reza Shah and his son -- inspired by the modern West -- that in the 20th century Iran began to modernize. Before that, in the 19th century (and going back for over 1,000 years), Iran was deeply regressive and thoroughly Islamicized and out of touch with the modern world. I read the French travelogue Pierre Loti's book about his journey thorugh Persia (mostly riding on horses, mules and camels) in about 1900 (Vers Ispahan) and the picture he paints is of a land lost in the early middle ages and where most of the ordinary people were mired in backward Islamic practices.

So I think that regressive Islamic culture is more deeply entrenched in Iran than you might think, and people like the Ayatollahs are tapping into deep currents in Iranian society.

The mass slaughters and terror the Muslim conquests wrought 1,200 years ago in Persia, and the ensuing oppressive rule of centuries upon centuries must have taken their toll on the Persian psyche, and I seriously doubt that most of today's Iranians are modernized moderates just waiting to be freed from superficial tyranny: no, perhaps most of them have profoundly internalized their tyrannical abuse of yore at the hands of their ancient Muslim masters.

Posted by: remote_control at April 23, 2007 7:01 PM

Ritamalik

What % of the Iranian population do you think will cast off Islam once this regime goes? 20%? 50%? 80%? Care to hazard a guess?

I think it's a fair litmus test of where your country would be headed should that happen.

Posted by: Infidel Pride at April 23, 2007 7:45 PM

Thanks ritamalik, for your candid insights into the true feelings of the Iranian people.
That clinches it for me.
We must never, under any circumstances, go to war with Iran or make life uncomfortable for the Iranian people with sanctions etc.

We should wait for the inevitable Iranian revolution.
Any day now.
Just wait.
Any day now.

/end sarcasm

Come on people, stop being so naive.
Perhaps ritamalik is genuine, then again perhaps not.
If you were in Ahmadinejad's place, wouldn't you be putting someone on Jihadwatch and similar discussion boards worldwide to speak in exactly the way ritamalik has done.
This type of talk could buy Ahmadinejad all the time he needs as the West remonstrates about,
"oh, the humanity", "oh the poor, unrepresented Iranian people", etc., etc.

Right up until the West gets nuked and ritamalik reappears on JW laughing at our gullibilty.

Posted by: Mike_W at April 23, 2007 7:53 PM

Not long ago the New York Times had an extensive article on the way Iranians speak, to each other and to foreigners. The essence of the article was, once you tossed out all the political correctness, evasion, and doublespeak, was that Iranians lie. Constantly, unashamedly, and as a cultural policy.

The title of the article is "Iranian 101: A Lesson For Americans; The Fine Art of Hiding What You Mean To Say." It was published on August 6, 2006. The introductory paragraph is as follows:

"IT is certainly unfair to accuse all Iranians of being liars. The label is judgmental and reeks of stereotype. The more appropriate way to phrase the Iranian view toward honesty, the way many Iranians themselves describe it, is to say that being direct and telling the truth are not prized principles in Iran.

Often, just the opposite is true. People are expected to give false praise and insincere promise. They are expected to tell you what you want to hear to avoid conflict, or to offer hope when there is none."

You might keep this in mind while reading Ms. Malik, and indeed anything else that comes out of Iran.

Posted by: Marwan'sDaughter at April 23, 2007 8:17 PM

where is the outrage andcounter protests in teh west by the likes of sherly crow and nancy pelosi, and wheres hollywood complaining about human rights abuses in iran.

Posted by: leonthepigfarmer at April 23, 2007 9:18 PM

http://publiuspundit.com/2007/04/the_islamic_regime_intensifies.php

Posted by: interestinconundrum at April 23, 2007 9:54 PM

Iran will not change from within; most of the Iranian Muslims who could produce change are living in California, driving their Mercedes Benzes and living the good life.

Posted by: Pelayo at April 23, 2007 10:45 PM

Good point Marwan'sDaughter--
I guess we always have to keep that in mind-- but I guess I am picking up a better vibe than that on this new ritamalik poster. Internet blogs--who knows what is what--the best we can do is try....

Posted by: BB at April 24, 2007 12:07 AM

"Anything but Islam. By Infidel Pride"

Just because we agree on “anything but Islam’, it does not necessarily mean that we agree on everything else. If you want to eradicate Islam, you have to make changes in the minor faults you have in your religion, and then you can attack Islam with more qualification.

As a Hindu, I admit my religion has many faults, and with the exception of the traditional ultra Hindu fools in India, most of us are willing to change for the better. In fact Hinduism has always appreciated the best that Zoroastrianism, Christianity and Judaism have to offer. Infidel Pride, I don’t know where you belong, but if you belong to Christianity, start with some serious soul searching.

Tell your pope to stop his conversion shit, and Ill tell you why. The mistake Christians do is that instead of concentrating on appealing to the Muslim to leave his killing cult, they add a rider, ‘convert to Christianity’. But you cannot expect a man to leave a belief system, and jump into another belief system. ( for now, the Muslim treats his killing cult as a belief system – until he improves ) So, - to answer your question, Irani’s will most likely be attracted to their roots. You will get quicker better converts that way.

To add another point for your benefit, 2 plus 2 equals 4. That is objective scientific thinking. God and religion are not scientific thinking, they are subjective. Here 2 plus 2 can be 3 or 5, as you like it. Therefore, if another man says, convert to my religion, it will get you THE salvation, then he is a low IQ fool. That’s where the Pope comes from.

Posted by: new0214 at April 24, 2007 12:53 AM

Stock in burkini's has plummeted in recent weeks, but sales of Hefty bags has quadrupled!

Did you know that the green jumbo size Hefty Bag, stuck to a cactus flapping in the wind, is the national flower of Morocco?

At first I thought the flapping bags were just more examples of Dar al-Islam squalor, but then was put straight on that. The fervid Moslem who told me the truth burst with pride. Islamic pride.

Posted by: Alarmed Pig Farmer at April 24, 2007 5:11 AM

Dear posters who doubt me and think that I am not genuine or I am an undercover agent of Ahmadinezhad,

Please, guys! I understand that you don't know me personally and might not trust me, I can't demand that from you! But I always wrote that I can only talk about my impressions. I am only one person and I am neither a think tank nor any polling company. I cannot give any percentages because they won't be accurate! I just can say about my environment as I observed it and give you a perspective and an insight into the Iranian society as one person who lived and grew up there sees it and you can make your own conclusions and estimate. When I comment my wish is to let you feel as a person who has lived there and traveled there and is familiar with that society inside out. That's why many times I write my memories and events which happened to me there, so you can make your own conclusions in the end. I hope I can succeed to be clear and helpful!

I don't know how my comments will help Ahmadinezhad or Islamists. I never even said that I am against sanctions against Iran or against US war against Iran. I NEVER said that and I don't think like that either! I am for any force that can bring a change to Iran. Please don't get me wrong. Of course I can speak only for myself and those whom I personally know and talked to or heard about and not for almost 70 million people who live in that big country. So a lot of my observations are´anecdotal and based on hearsay! That aught to be obvious! I am just a regular person. But I know many people (virtually anyone whom I have talked to inside and outside of Iran) who would wish for America to interfere and stop this regime from having nuclear weapons. I haven't yet talked to any Iranian who would say the opposite. I am not saying they don't exist, but they are not found so easily. I am not an expert in statistics, but since Iranians talk openly about politics to each other all the time, and since Iranians are very social and talkative people and are connected with almost everyone in their extended family on a regular basis, and have large circles of friends and those friends and relatives also have their own circle of friends and relatives whom they talk to, I can say each Iranian person knows at least 100 to 200 people personally and knows their politics too. Now I am not able to calculate statistics because it is not in my area of expertise. But I am sure someone here might be able to do that. But just knowing the people that I know and their opinions that they have expressed in my presence and onlöy on this basis I can say for sure that most Iranian people are totally against Iran's nuclear program. Because after that this regime will become untouchable just like North Korea and what then? Then not only this regime will terrorize the whole world, but also will oppress Iranians even more and the international community can do even less than it can do now to help. No sane person, Iranian or not would support Iran becoming a nuclear power!

With regards to Iranian's dishonesty I must say that there is a part of our culture unfortunately that falls short of complete honesty and I don't deny that. I have all my life been critical of it. It is called the phenomenon of "TAAROF" which basically means flattery. But this is really not so much in political conversations than in it is about personal relationships and etiquette! I disagree with it and I have never been comfortable with it even though I grew up in Iran. I give you some examples of it so that you would know what it means.For instance many times when a guest arrives to an Iranian's house (even if he is not really a welcome guest) the host would start to say such exaggerated stuff such as: "Oh you have brought blessings to our home! You have honored us! Please step on my eyes and enter my house, blah, blah, blah..." Now it sounds ridiculous in English, but in Persian is part of the ceremony of receiving guests! it is poetic and ultra-exaggerated. It is a cultural matter. I have heard that the Japanese also have a similar phenomenon in their culture. Standard phrases like this exist for many occasions in life and are pretty annoying if you are not enamored with that culture which I am not! because you have to constantly say such nonsense lest you will be perceived as a rude and unkind person! Has it had its toll on the general level of honesty of Iranian people? I would say maybe a little bit! But this doesn't discredit any Iranian who expresses his or her opinion and everything that he has to say. I understand that Westerners are a lot more careful with notions of honesty and telling the truth and being accurate. That shows in their academic achievements too. We have a lot to learn from them in this respect and I am the last person to deny that. I am married to a Finnish man myself and I can tell you I have learned a lot from him about accuracy, being more careful about the truth while speaking, and things like that and I am still learning. I know that Iranians can be a bit sloppy in such areas. But I can tell you that what I write is what I truly believe. I might be wrong or misinformed but I have no reason to lie, and I will try my best to be as accurate as possible in my statements!

Read my comments only as a way to know one Iranian's point of view. I can only represent my observations. Take it with a grain of salt if you don't trust me. But I assure you that I am not Ahmadinejad's undercover agent and I have come to live in the West because I preferred the Western way of life. I am not a Muslim and I hate that stupid religion as much as you do and I understand that it has done enormous damage to my country and culture. I am not here to defend the indefensible.

Mark_W said: "Right up until the West gets nuked and ritamalik reappears on JW laughing at our gullibility."

Mark_W, if the West gets nuked I will be dead too. I live in the West! I do not want anyone to get nuked! And as I said I hope non of my comments make the impression that I want to defend the Iranian government in anyway or make a case that Iran should not be stopped at any cost from acquiring nuclear weapons! i know freedom doesn't come without sacrifice. So please don't get me wrong! If some readers came to any different conclusion because of what I wrote it is only their own interpretation and not what I said.

Posted by: ritamalik at April 24, 2007 6:46 AM

ritamalik,

I also am wondering whether your knowledge and experience with fellow Iranians involves only the "cream of the crop" -- the upper middle class or even upper classes, highly urbanized, localized mainly in one or two of the major cities of Iran, but perhaps disconnected from the masses of more regressive "peasants" and lower classes -- just as in Turkey, the "secularized" Muslims tend to be clustered in Istanbul and Ankara but the majority of Muslims of the country remain steeped in their backward Islam (such that Turkish Muslim emigrants to Germany, for example, commit a disturbingly high rate of Islamically based honor killings).

And I still wonder how it could be possible for more than a small minority of Iranians to be resistant to Islamic psychology, when Islam has been so brutally, powerfully and tyrannically a part of Persian society for 1,300 years.

Posted by: remote_control at April 24, 2007 10:26 AM

Rita Malik

Your wasting your time. None of these fools have a plan. They only know how to discuss violence and violently criticize what does not agree with them.

What is neccesary is to work towards nuetralizing Islam. The best way is to start with overthrowing the regime in Iran, because thats where the best crop of 'people who are Muslim' are. Those that will start the flow out of Islam.

if anybody made any sense it was Mike W when he said - "Right up until the West gets nuked ......." This will happen if you dont act fast. The West has to deal very very harshly with the Middle eastern Sunni Muslims, Saudis, Gulf, Syria, Pakistan and Afghanistan, stop making oil deals with them, if neccesary - send strategic nukes ( hopefully to military targets ) Scare the rest. Then economically suffocate the rest - Iran, Turkey, Indonesia, Malaysia, Morroco, Central Asia who will sit up and take notice ONLY if the WEST stops vaccilating. Sanctions have to be put on all Muslims living in the West to change or leave. Let the Muslims realise the penalty in being mUSLIMS.

Do not fight with the Muslim who wants out. Help him, her. What will eventually help will only be a mass exodus from Islam. You cannot nuke them all.

Posted by: new0214 at April 24, 2007 11:12 AM

"I can tell you that what I write is what I truly believe. I might be wrong or misinformed but I have no reason to lie, and I will try my best to be as accurate as possible in my statements!"

You guys, time to give Rita Malik a break. Listen to what she says. She speaks about her observations of her memories of her life in Iran. She is not spouting Muslim propaganda and B.S. like Naseem and Abdullah. She's trying to tell us something about how the Iranians think and we need to listen, even if we don't agree, because there are insights here that we can glean which may help us to move towards a solution.

I know I have become very sensitive to anything Islamic because I detest that system with every fiber in my being, but I also realize that sometimes I need to step back and take a rest from it because it gets so intense. We need to not let our abhorrence of that system blind us to other people who are looking for a way out or looking for a solution to change things. We need to still have hope and we need to sprinkle on a little more charity. I know I have been guilty here of getting so wrapped up in a particular battle that I go for the jugular and then step back and think, what the hell was that? Is that how I want to live my life? Is that how I want to be perceived? Is it okay for me to destroy everything around me to preserve my non-destructive way of life?

It is totally okay to trust but verify, but also have some compassion for those that are truly seeking a way out or a way to distance themselves from Islam. We all didn't come to our present thinking about what we value and what we believe in overnight. For me, it came through many years of study, contemplation, discussions with others and prayer. If someone here is seeking an answer we need to not slam the door in their face, just because they used to be Muslim.

Posted by: Isabellathecrusader at April 24, 2007 11:20 AM

Many Iranians saw the writing on the wall (interesting cliche, that--comes from Omar Khayyem's "The Prophet") and left Iran well before the '79 revolution. Sometimes families were split up. The story I'm about to relate is about one of them.

The father of the 'K' family sent his wife and children to the US where they settled in the cosmopolitan outskirts of D.C. in the mid-'70s. Yearly, as they could afford it, one or the other of the young but grown kids would fly to Tehran to visit their dad.

In the fall of '79, 'M' took such a trip and was caught up in the ensuing trouble. Desperate to return to her free family, she made it to Germany but could not proceed to the US because we froze all Iranian entry. She was stuck in Germany until after RWR's Jan. 20 inauguration in '81.

That wasn't exactly the end of it. But she was able to return to the US and rejoin her family by that summer.

If I had to guess, I'd say 'M' was born c. '58. Aside from dark eyes and jet black hair and a cultured accent there was nothing particularly exotic about her. As the daughter of a Persian carpet exporter I'm sure she was of the upper-middle class in Iran.

We enjoyed a couple strenuous months together in early '82.

Rita has written nothing here to arouse my suspicions in the least (and my 'slammidar is set on the high position).

I look forward to reading more from Rita and I can only hope that others here will read with a bit more open eyes. We are fortunate to have someone such as her to post.

All that said, as I have come to learn more about the wahabbi, salafist and other fundamental forms I despise them and those that would impose such on anyone else not already suffering from that poison.

I hate communism/socialism just as much and for the same reason--they are systems to justify slavery of the masses.

But I don't hate those that have escaped such regimes (even some still embrace some left-leaning positions).

I knew a man who had swum from the New Territories across Hong Kong Bay for freedom and I know boat people. I knew a woman (Professor of Math) who had fled Ukraine with her young son, knowing that her brother would not have an easy time.

We must never let ourselves be blinded by hate but rather in the full light of truth.

Posted by: turn at April 24, 2007 11:45 AM

new0214

For some reason, both my post, and your post that I was responding to seems to be deleted. At any rate, I was responding to your above (deleted) statement that Iranians should reject any religion but Zoroastrianism. I'm fine with them becoming Zoroastrians again, but for those who want to look at other alternatives, why stop them?

I agree with your other point that there are shortcomings in all religions. That's tangential to the question of whether or not Iranians should jettison Islam. My (deleted) point was that if there are those, who while leaving Islam, choose Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism or Hinduism, they should feel free to do that as well, and not feel compelled to switch to Zoroastrianism simply because it is an ancient Persian religion.

For the record, I happen to be a Hindu, not a Christian. I don't agree with Christian missionary activity in India, particularly since it doesn't attempt to convert Muslims. That's the only thing they should be doing.

Posted by: Infidel Pride at April 24, 2007 12:01 PM

Infidel Pride:

Do the Christian missionaries in India bring medicine and nutrition aid to those they are ministering to? Some rudimentary education?

Do you think they haven't tried among muslims there and elsewhere in the world?

The difference is that present-day Hindus don't behead them for owning a Bible or proselityzing.

Posted by: turn at April 24, 2007 12:25 PM

ritamalik

the following article shows a muslim woman from iran, living and making money in wealthy america, being very proud of iran, so I guess you are misinformed. Lots of iranians abroad are not "disgusted" with what happens in their native homeland, rather pleased and here sucking off our money.

Religion can be a pretty touchy subject nowadays, and Iranian-American relations are another sore point. So as Anousheh Ansari prepares to become the first Iranian-born Muslim woman to travel to the international space station

If the claims that U.S. officials want Ansari to strike those colors from her patch are true,

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2006/09/15/4080.aspx

she's proudly showing the colors of the country she is disgusted with?

Don't think so.

Posted by: FedUpagain at April 24, 2007 2:12 PM

Rita Malik's experience as an Iranian confirms my own observations among my may Iranian friends and students. They are, almost without exceprtion, opposed to the Islamic regime. At the same time they remain very proud to be Iranian (as they shoud). This pride is based on the greatness of ancient Persian civilization and the beauty that still permeates most of Iranian culture despite its Islamization.

Iranians were decieved by the 1979 revolution just like many Russians were decieved by the bolsheviki. Then there was the false spring under the fake Khatami just like the Soviet Union had a false spring under Krushchev. It may take another decade but change will come to Iran. The producing class has abandoned Islam and is chafing under oppression. It is this class that makes nationalist revolutions.

Ahmedinejad's sole base of support is among the uneducated rural population who are only empowered through mullah-sponsored elections. But even among them, his unfulfilled economic promises are beginning to be noticed. Once the current dictatorship is inevitably overthrown, the Iranians will continue the cultural liberation from Islam begun under the Pahlevis. The current regime will then be seen as only a short-lived reactionary backlash against the true Persian revolution against Islamic oppression.

Posted by: Provoslavni at April 24, 2007 2:38 PM

FedUpagain,

The beautiful female Iranian astronaut in the article you linked is typical of Iranians who have all but left Islam but are still patriots for their country. These are the type of people who refuse to live under Islamic oppression in their lifestyles while still loving their country. More typical was the sexy Iranian woman in skimpy European clothes photographed cheering the Iranian soccer team while waving the old Red Lion & Sun flag of the late shah. Clearly she hated the regime but cheered the national team out of patriotism. These are the kind of people who will liberate Iran!

Posted by: Provoslavni at April 24, 2007 2:44 PM

Remote control wrote: “I also am wondering whether your knowledge and experience with fellow Iranians involves only the "cream of the crop" -- the upper middle class or even upper classes,”

Well… of course most of my family is from middle class and some from upper middle class, but this doesn’t mean that I never see or hear anyone from different classes and backgrounds. For example my parents’ family comes from the provinces and we used to go there every summer and meet peasants and talk to them. They came to help my mother with house work regularly (in Iran this kind of thing is not yet a luxury) and we always chatted with them and also when you sit in a taxi (which is the most common form of transport in the cities) the drivers always are cursing the regime and they come from the lowest economical classes usually. They are very poor. I also have many relatives in the provinces. So even though I cannot claim that my sample is 100% diverse but I can say it is fairly diverse.

But now I have some important point here. We must separate two things very clearly. One is the dissatisfaction of the people with the Islamist regime and the second is the disillusionment of the people with Islam as a religion.

Now the first category (dissatisfaction of the people with the regime) is very, very, very widespread. It is hard to live in Iran and not notice it everywhere and in all levels of society. This dissatisfaction unlike many here might think, is not necessarily because of the fact that the regime pushes Islam down everyone’s throat although that is also one of the many reasons. The Islamic regime has a lot more weaknesses than you might realize. The country’s economy is in utter ruins and the income from oil is not used to build the country. Corruption in the governmental organizations is rampant. The justice system is a joke. Those who are richer can manipulate the justice system by bribing their way out of trouble. Poverty is rampant. Inflation is very, very high and a huge number people are unable to afford the bare minimum for their living. Young and even very educated people are unable to find jobs. They see nothing attractive in their future. For the same reason crimes are very common in Iran and drug addiction amongst the youth is epidemic. Prostitution is also very widespread (unofficially and secretly of course) Home ownership is an unattainable dream for most young couples. Rural life is getting destroyed. The provinces and small towns and villages are becoming more and more deprived of all opportunities and their people have to migrate to big cities in hope of finding jobs and very often they have to live in abject poverty there! The list goes on and on!

So now you can see that it is not only a matter of ideological disagreements. Life for the people of Iran is getting harder and harder everyday and everybody can easily see that and feel that. Many people have a grudge against this regime not because they hate Islam, but simply because they want to live a decent life and bring bread to their children. And meanwhile this regime instead of caring about the welfare of its people goes around the world and wastes the national income on training terrorists and supplying Hezbollah in Lebanon with weapons and making mess in Iraq and wasting loads of money on buying secondhand Chernobyl style nuclear technology from Russia and Ukraine and plot to use it for making nuclear bombs and causing more wars and bloodshed. No one wants that. It is simply against their self-interest. How fanatical do you think an average Iranian citizen could be to prefer to have his children starve in order to see Hezbollah of Lebanon shell Israel and Ahmadinejad wipe Israel off the map?! They want their government to take care of them instead of stirring up trouble in four corners of the world! They couldn’t care less about Hezbollah or Palestine. They have no time for ideology! They have enough problems of their own and you really don’t need any polling company to show this to you with percentages and statistics. It is simple human common sense and you hear people of all classes especially the poor talk about it all the time. The dissatisfaction of this regime is much higher in the poorest provinces than anywhere else! The best evidence for it is that every now and then we have armed uprisings in different provinces in Iran which usually ends up in the regime’s brutal reprisals and many, many executions. The latest ones happened in Baloochestan which is THE poorest region in Iran.

But the second is the disillusionment of people with Islam as a religion. This is of course not as widespread as just hatred of this regime. But I can say that it is very widespread amongst the educated class of Iranian society and the younger generation. The less educated and poorer class which is of course more religious hates the regime but might not blame Islam for it. They are too attached to their religion to see the connection between their misery and their religion, and might even claim that the people in the Islamic government aren’t even proper Muslims. That is of course not enough but already a great step which means they already reject militant Islam.

But of course educated classes are fed up with Islam itself and clearly see the connection between our disasters and Islam, and I can tell you for sure that if they have the freedom to safely express their beliefs we will witness the biggest exodus out of Islam, unprecedented in history. We have many educated people after all and when you talk to them they are very angry with what Islam did to their nation. After the taboo will be broken eventually by many educated people leaving Islam I am sure Islam will be so weakened in Iran that slowly by slowly less educated people also start to look elsewhere for satisfying their spiritual needs. Nothing great happens overnight. We must be patient here!

Also historically I must say that Iranians where always one of the least fanatical Muslims within the Islamic world until maybe around 16th century. Islam didn’t get a thorough hold on Iranians until then. Even though Muslim, most Iranians still till this day hold a grudge on Arabs for their conquest of Persia. Till this day in many places in Iran people have ceremonies called “Killing Omar” (the second Khalifa) since he was the commander of Islamic army when they attacked Persia. We also remained under the Khalifa’s rule for only about 300 years. After that we had secular kings only. But of course in 16th century and during the Safavi dynasty Shi’a Islam was pushed as the national religion and Islam became more prominent in Iran and Mullahs became more powerful and I can say it was downhill from there! Besides we still uphold many of our Zoroastrian traditions such as Norooz (the Iranian New Year) and they are much dearer to the hearts of most Iranians than any Ramadan or Eidul Fitr or any other Islamic festivals. It became too long message again! Sorry!

Posted by: ritamalik at April 24, 2007 3:07 PM

Fedupagain, I don’t know about personal politics or religious views of Ms. Ansari, but I can tell you nothing in that article strike me as inappropriate. If she wore the three colored flag is out of respect for her roots. She was born and raised as an Iranian and perhaps loves her homeland. That has nothing to do with approving the Islamic regime. The three colored flag has been our flag for hundreds of years! It is not the Islamic republic’s flag only! She also wore the American flag out of respect for her new adopted country, The USA! Besides her comments about observing the moon where not as bad as you might think. I am not sure but she very well might have said those nice words about observing the moon for Muslims because she wants to be able to visit her country of birth every now and then. If she would come out to say that she doesn’t care about Muslims and their damn Ramadan what do you think would happen to her next time she goes back to Iran to visit her relatives? She would be arrested right away! She is an international celebrity and has to careful of what she says because her words will be published in the media. I am not convinced at all that she is any “Muslim woman astronaut”! She most probably is completely secular or very, very nominal Muslim and the evidence is that she is dressed like a normal person and wears no Hijab. If she was a fanatic she wouldn’t even go to space on Ramadan but she would stay here on earth to fast and pray! But she could have never objected to the title “Muslim woman astronaut” because had she insisted not to be called a Muslim she would have been known to be an apostate and would never be able to go back to Iran safely. That’s too much to expect of a person. I am not saying that she necessarily had any objection to the title “Muslim”, but I can say that we cannot know and we should not judge her for it!

Posted by: ritamalik at April 24, 2007 3:32 PM

Thanks Rita,
Keep posting. I have met some Persian folks fellows and they were very nice and echo well the sentiments that you express. I didn't want to press them too much--but they sounded very similar to your views in Iran.

Now--if you could, tell us where you are in your faith journey today unless you feel this is inappropriate. I for one am curious. Thanks.

Posted by: BB at April 24, 2007 9:30 PM

"The beautiful female Iranian astronaut in the article you linked is typical of Iranians who have all but left Islam but are still patriots for their country. These are the type of people who refuse to live under Islamic oppression in their lifestyles while still loving their country. More typical was the sexy Iranian woman in skimpy European clothes photographed cheering the Iranian soccer team while waving the old Red Lion & Sun flag of the late shah. Clearly she hated the regime but cheered the national team out of patriotism. These are the kind of people who will liberate Iran!"

you are deluded provo. Iran will be never liberated, people in russia lost their lives to have back their freedom. being Russia a christian country they know what freedom was, because christianity is about freedom of choice.

When you choose for yourself a religion that means slavery, there is nothing you can do.

"Fedupagain, I don’t know about personal politics or religious views of Ms. Ansari, but I can tell you nothing in that article strike me as inappropriate. If she wore the three colored flag is out of respect for her roots. She was born and raised as an Iranian and perhaps loves her homeland. That has nothing to do with approving the Islamic regime. "

THIS HAS VERY MUCH TO DO WITH APPROVING THE ISLAMIC REGIME!

I cannot find the article now but she was quoted as saying she was a proud iranian.

That equals for a german to be a proud german in 1945. I don't think it was such a great statement.

"She also wore the American flag out of respect for her new adopted country, The USA!"

that is called "ass kissing" rita.

"If she would come out to say that she doesn’t care about Muslims and their damn Ramadan what do you think would happen to her next time she goes back to Iran to visit her relatives? "

cowardice.

I know courage is rare, but I can still see cowardice when i see it.

Better do die standing than to live on your knees your whole life.

But what do we know? she's muslim, therefore used to live on her knees.

Posted by: FedUpagain at April 25, 2007 1:44 PM

just to let you know, rita, people like nurayev and all the other people run away form communist russia, had the guts to stand up and talk about the regime, no matter how much they risked.

Communist people were willing to kill too.

That's the difference between cowardice and courage.

Posted by: FedUpagain at April 25, 2007 1:48 PM

I'm with ritamalik. I can undertand, as it has happened right here in the U.S., where The People are ignored by the gov.

Posted by: allat at April 25, 2007 2:39 PM

"communism fell. Why? because russian people/eastern people are not brain dead zombies following a demented religion."

It took 70 years for communism to fall in Russia. Meanwhile, in 1917, the also, Russians were taken by surprise by the Communists.

How can you expect change to come so suddenly. It doesn't happen that way.

You know what it takes. As the saying goes, the "roots of the tree of freedom, is watered with the blood of tyrants." NOT Patriots, I say, but TYRANTS.

Posted by: allat at April 25, 2007 3:09 PM

"You are portraying a situation where perhaps 20-30% of the people favor the government that is controling the state. "

BB, why don't you turn that around, and admit that 70- 80% of the Iranians ARE against the present government?!

Do you see that the MAJORITY are against.

Posted by: allat at April 25, 2007 3:14 PM

"French travelogue Pierre Loti's book about his journey thorugh Persia (mostly riding on horses, mules and camels) in about 1900 "

A little Tip: In 1900, the world only rode on horses and mules.

Posted by: allat at April 25, 2007 3:19 PM

Where is the overly vocal NOW? Haven't they noticed that the only people who seem to have rules to follow in Islam are women? I guess it is that they are too busy concentrating on those dangerous radical Christians.

Posted by: RIslander at April 26, 2007 7:25 AM