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Bravo My Proud Iranian Fellows

Hiva — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 19:38:54 PDT

I'm following the news from Iran like so many other of my Iranian friends everyday. God knows how proud I am. I am proud of you guys, for your mature act and behavior in response to savageness , darkness and cruelty . I am proud of your sincerity and braveness.
Despite all those limitations, how this mature, wise, brave, open minded, aware generation formed? Guys I am so proud of you!!!
Democracy can't be given to any nation as a gift. Democracy is a goal to be reached to. every nation has to pass the path to democracy on their own feet. There is no free ride. If we don't feel the necessity of having a freedom of speech/act with our skin, democracy won't come or if it comes easy through outsiders interference it will go easy and won't last.
I remember my math teacher back in high school used to say: "If I solve 100 problems for you; you won't learn as much as you solve 1 problem by yourself"
My people are solving a hard problem of "how to reach to real democracy" these days. God Bless you All
Be safe and sound

Now it is our Turn

pedestrian — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 19:09:40 PDT

[I was at the Firday prayers yesterday]. Two old mullahs came and set in front of us, out on the street, amongst the people. We insisted that they come and sit on the throw rug we had put on the ground, but they declined and sat on the pavement. I generally despise mullahs, but these two seemed so kind. They would chant exactly like the people, and one of them even got so emotional during the prayer that he started clapping like the rest of us. One time when we were criticizing the government, he turned around and called the government something that is just not suitable for print. One of my friends asked him: “Old man, you ousted the Shah for this shit?”

He turned around and smiled at us. “Back then, throwing out the shah was in our best interests. Now, it is up to you, the young, to determine our path. Now you will be the ones to choose our best interests.”

——————

An account of yesterday by the wonderful blog Rain at Midday.

And with thanks to my friend

Congratulations

pedestrian — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 19:09:07 PDT

Rafsanjani has gotten a new green [sign of the opposition, pro-Mousavi movement] aba and the tailor is saying: “congratulations”

Please go read the rest of Rafsanjani’s speech at Naj’s blog.

Now it is our Turn

pedestrian — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 16:33:24 PDT

——————

An account of yesterday by the wonderful blog Rain at Midday.

And with thanks to my friend

Please go read the rest of Rafsanjani’s speech at Naj’s blog.

an account on this week Friday prayers

Persia — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 15:02:13 PDT

a Friday prayers to remember: Shrewd plan to dominate this week prayers, plus Musavi and Karrubi's nod, gave reformists' supporters the majority in a ceremony which has been traditionally at hands of the Islamic establishment loyalists (during the past 12 years this has been equal to supporters of right/conservative/principlist groups, largely from lower and lower-middle class) bussed every week

Ablaze on Supreme leaders’ photo

Fariborz Shamshiri — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 10:11:40 PDT

Angry protesters setting fire on photos of former supreme leader ayatollah Khomeini and current one, ayatollah Khamenei. Exact date of this event is unspecified.

Translated transcript of Part 5 of Hashemi's Friday Prayer speech July 17 2009

Naj — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 08:34:24 PDT

Original YouTube

(first 52 seconds of this clip he is talking about China and ending his sentence by wishing that the rational government of China and other governments do not oppress the Muslims around the world)

Now I am going to return to our own issue. As I said in the second and third parts of the sermon we want to discuss matters that relate to ourselves. Well ... thank god, in the election process that we started and ended, we began very nicely. There was a good competition. It was organized well. It was a competition between four individuals whose qualifications were approved by The Guardian Council. They competed and competed well and people were hopeful that they could participate in election with full freedom, and really, the turnout was unprecedented. And in a situation that everything was heading in the direction of gaining our country an epics pride, whose credit should be given to the people, because it was they who came forward and broke the voting records. We have to be grateful to people that in a time that no country has such a level of participation, they freely came forward and took part in the election. This is very valuable. I wish the same condition had prevailed till today and that today we had the highest achievements irrespective of the result. But it didn't turn out that way. SO the principle issue here is "what do we need?"

What I want to express in essence is "what does the revolution need?" These things that you are hearing, you are hearing from someone who has been accompanying every second of this movement since the inception of this revolution by our late Imam [khomeini]. We are talking about 60 years now. We knew what Imam wanted.

We know what was the principle of his fights. When in those days people came with proposals of using arms or forming coalition parties,Imam said that "what I need is the people; do all you can to acquaint the hearts of the people with our struggles." To us, students, he said that as religious students your role is to go to mosques and podiums and explain to people what we want. If people are with us will have every thing. {Imam] didn't disagree with party activities, but what he followed was the prophet's path; which was to bring people to the scene based on their own will and their own beliefs. This was Imam's art which led to success. It took 20 years until people became aware, of course we paid a price, we gave martyrs, prisoners, Imam was exiled and many of these things. But our gain was much higher. People became so aware that those who are older remember how they flooded the streets in the last two years [of Shah's regime]. And these very streets full of Imam supporters broke the back of the arrogant regime of Pahlavi who in those days was supported by the East and the West and had coffers full of cash because of the high prices of oil; and could do anything he wished. But these people came and intimidated them [Pahlavi's] such that hey abandoned all and left and we became victorious.

And after revolution, we worked with Imam on a daily basis and his principle was that Islamic governance without people's participation is not possible. If people are not satisfied, that government is not doable. And I heard an anecdote in those years. I didn't know it's source and didn't ask but looked for it later myself. It is an interesting anecdote [ravayat is anecdotes about Prophet's actions and paroles] which was the principle of Imam's reasoning --of course Imam's sources were plenty, they were both Koranic and Figh'hi but this was a very poignant one expressing the role Imam considered for the people. I have jotted this anecdote down. It's from the book Kashf El Na'ajjam, from Seyyed Bin Tavous, who is one of our most invaluable teachers of or 7th century (~ 12 century AD). Please listen to this, this is one of the most clear principles of Imam's thinking:

'this is a story told by Imam Ali in the last years of Prophet Mohammad's life when he was worried about the future; this is what prophet Mohammad has told Imam Ali: [it's Arabic, I only translate what Hashemi translates:] Ali, you are the leader of this Ummah (people), if you see these people are happy and come and accept you and give you majority of support--of course majority is always proportional and it is never absolute--if they did, then accept this position, become their leader and sort out their affairs. But if you see they disagree, and did not once to you in majority, leave them alone and let them do what they want. Let them do it themselves, and god will find you a way to reach your goals. This is a credible ravayat, and it is cited by one of the most credible of our teachers. This is not the only Ravayat; we have many, we have books, many books, this is just one anecdote. This has been the principle of prophet's government and we based the Islamic government on that. We put the basis on people's accompaniment and they have come along really well.

And it was based on this thinking that when Imam chose Mohandes Bazargan as the head of the temporary government post revolution, we had not over taken the government of Shah. Bakhtiyar was still here, he was the head of the government. But Imam was in rush to pass on the government to people and in the memo that he gave to Mohandes Bazargan, the first objective is set on shortening the period of temporary government and forming the parliament and the assembly of Revolution (Shoraye Enghelab) to write the new constitution so that after that people can live on the new Islamic constitution. And when we were preparing the new constitution before passing it on to the Assembly of Experts, Imam reviewed it and emphasized parts that were related to people and conceded the work [power] to people. Later on, when we saw countries like Algeria, they were surprised and were telling us that it took them 20 years to write their constitution. They thought we were not thinking this through. We responded that we have come to power on people's power and we know that this people will support their revolution and their religion so we are not worried. And we were right. You know that from the perspective of the constitution, everything in our country depends on people's vote. Everything from Leadership ... [See next part]

Iran News Roundup

David Elliott — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 10:18:09 PDT

NY Times Analysis: Rafsanjani seeking the mantle of Khomeini

He was also essentially usurping the institutional role of Ayatollah Khamenei.

“This was a speech Khamenei should have given,” said Farideh Farhi, a political scientist at the University of Hawaii. “That’s his designated role as the spiritual and political guide, to be above the fray. But Khamenei is probably too insecure and has too much to lose. He took sides. Rafsanjani rose to the occasion.”

The NY Times also reports that Ahmadinejad has selected Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei as his first deputy. The Times describes the pick as controversial but doesn’t mention that last year Mashaei found himself in hot water with conservatives for saying, “No nation in the world is our enemy, Iran is a friend of the nation in the United States and in Israel, and this is an honor. We view the American nation as one with the greatest nations of the world.”

Press TV reports on the conservative criticism of the appointment:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s choice of vice president has met with a hail of criticism, provoking calls from his Principlist supporters for the resignation of the newly appointed veep.

The hardline Ayatollah Yazdi, who strongly supports Ahmadinejad, attacked Rafsanjani for focusing on will of the people (AFP):

“The legitimacy of the government is given by God,” the ISNA news agency quoted Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi as saying.

“Acceptance by the people doesn’t bring legitimacy to (an Islamic) government. Mr Hashemi Rafsanjani ignored this important Islamic point and talked in both parts of his sermon yesterday as if governments are assigned only by the people.”

Kayhan newspaper slams Rafsanjani (AFP):

The Kayhan daily, whose editor is appointed by Khamenei, accused Rafsanjani of backing lawbreaking through his implicit support for the demonstrators who have clashed repeatedly with riot police and militiamen since the June 12 vote.

“Mr. Rafsanjani says a great number of people cast doubt on the election. But he doesn’t say why,” the newspaper said.

“If people have a suspicion, it is about… what’s behind the riots,” it added, in an allusion to accusations by regime hardliners that foreign hands have been behind the wave of protests that saw thousands take to the streets again on Friday after Rafsanjani’s sermon at the main weekly Muslim prayers. [...]

But Kayhan took issue with the former president’s description of the situation as a “crisis.”

“Mr Hashemi knows what crisis means… but plot is the best word to describe the current situation,” the paper said.

The family of Iranian-American Kian Tajbakhsh fears show trial (AP):

“We are concerned that Kian is being held in an attempt by the Iranian authorities to obtain forced statements from him to use in a televised show trial,” the statement says. “Such statements are repeatedly extracted under conditions of torture for the sole purpose of staging televised show trials in an attempt to deceive the Iranian public.”

The statement was also posted on a Web site the family and associates have organized to draw attention to his captivity.

NIAC has called for Tajbakhsh’s release.

West must close Iran nuclear file: new atomic chief (AFP):

Iran’s new atomic chief Ali Akbar Salehi said on Saturday that the West should close the Islamic republic’s nuclear file and cease its hostility towards Tehran.

“Legal and technical discussions about Iran’s nuclear case have finished … and there is no room left to keep this case open,” Salehi said in his first remarks since being appointed Friday to head Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation. [...]

“We hope that more efforts be made (by the West) in order to obtain mutual confidence instead of the past six year’s hostile era and this case… will be closed as soon as possible,” Salehi said. [...]

Salehi is known as an open minded administrator and he was the one who signed the protocol with the IAEA in December 2003 which gave the UN agency a freer hand in inspecting Iran’s nuclear sites.

Experts debate the significance of Rafsanjani’s speech

Reza Aslan:

For a man who has made a career out of mediating from the middle and playing both sides, Rafsanjani delivered an unusually pointed criticism of the Iranian regime’s handling of the election crisis.

Hooman Madj:

It was about as good as one could expect, if one is with the opposition, in terms of the kind of speech that someone like he would make. And there also must be remembered that the Ahmadinejad supporters in Iran despise Rafsanjani.

Afshin Molavi:

Rafsanjani did not take the wind out of the sails of the protestors. He did not offer a conciliatory speech, as some thought, and he said that this political fight will last another day.

Trita Parsi:

Rafsanjani very cleverly positioned himself as a unifying figure, emphasizing the need to bring everyone together. That was an indirect attack on the Supreme Leader, who has been widely accused of abusing his position by being so partisan in backing the Ahmadinejad faction. When the Supreme Leader is incapable of bringing about unity within the system, then anyone else who is capable of achieving that will strengthen his position relative to the Supreme Leader.

Posted in Diplomacy, Events in Iran, Human Rights in Iran, Iran Election 2009, Uncategorized Tagged: Diplomacy, Friday prayer, Iran election, NIAC, NIAC insight, Obama, Rafsanjani

(Untitled) [Flickr]

J!mbo — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 08:45:26 PDT

J!mbo posted a photo:

(Untitled)

J!mbo — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 08:38:43 PDT

J!mbo posted a photo:

(Untitled) [Flickr]

J!mbo — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 08:38:36 PDT

J!mbo posted a photo:

(Untitled) [Flickr]

J!mbo — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 08:37:19 PDT

J!mbo posted a photo:

(Untitled) [Flickr]

J!mbo — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 08:35:55 PDT

J!mbo posted a photo:

reader, listener

(author unknown) — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 23:27:21 PDT

Queen street, at Nathan Phillips Square.

Naj's Picks of Iran, the grand paradox ...

Naj — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 00:46:51 PDT

I chose these pictures because they illustrate the diversity of Iran, and the diversity of those who have chosen to gather under the Green umbrella. It is not about the supposed leaders of this movement. At this moment it seems leaderless to me and what unites people is their collective love and care for their country and even their religion which is being savagely tarnished by recent actions of the supreme leader.

I want you to focus on the 3rd and the 6th picture.

In the 3rd, in the 40+ celsius heat of Tehran, you see a man with a green hat and a white chefiyah. Another young guy is in heavy argument with the guards whose back is to the camera, and the rest in the back have their hands in the air.

In the 6th photo, you see a Basiji who is aiming his gun and another basiji who is running towards him from the left, with his hand raised in a gesture of "stop". Also in the same photo, notice the man in a pink shirt. He is a photographer, it seems.

These pictures, everyone of them, defy stereotype. This is Iran! The grand paradox!

Translated transcript of Part 7 of Hashemi's Friday Prayer speech July 17 2009

Naj — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 00:19:04 PDT

Previous part: http://iranfacts.blogspot.com/2009/07/translated-transcript-of-part-6-of.html

Part 7 (translation starts from minute 3:20 of this video as the early part is repeated from part 6)

"we have to sympathise with them [the families of the victims of protests] And we have to take the high road. Here we don't need to rush, and we don't need to get personally involved. We should let the media that has obtianed permit to operate freely, in the frame of law, I said before that the law is the reference, is the framework. Neither the media should expect to exceed the limits of the law nor the establishment to should expect the media to neglect their legal right . All together, let us have a calm and free atmosphere in which both criticism and approval can exist. I think if this atmosphere is created by our official by our military and security forces ... we are all member of one family, we all have paid a price for this revolution, we all have invested in this hard sacred path, we all have martyrs in the Marty's Gardens [cemetery], we have the war veterans amongst us ... why should it be that people from far places should come and prescribe for us [he is referring to russian/chinese or american/europeans or both simultaneously?] Don't we know ourselves? Aren;t we wise? Aren't we experienced in running a country for 30 years? Don't we have our elite and our "Marja'" [i.e. grand ayatollahs who can issue Fatwas] who have always supported us in the seminaries, without expecting anything in return? why do we have to upset some of them? We have to keep them by our side. We have to have their support. We have to rely on them. If we can create this unity, in sha allah [god willing], I think this Friday Sermon can be a point of departure towards future and safely cross these unfortunate troubles which we can call crisis, may we witness again a unity and cooperation and healthy competition, whoever people want, be it.

[people chant hashemi-hashemi hemayatat mikonm, i.e. hashemi we support you, but then slogans start mixing and become incomprehensible]

God keep you. God be the keeper of you. God keep you. God give you success, and you be always safe and present on the scene with this very spirit

[And then he starts reciting koran ...]

Inna a'tinaka al kowsar ... Fasalle le rabbeka va [al]nhar ... Inna shane'aka hova al abtar

[It's Arabic]

[end]

Then those in the front rows, who were allegedly basijis who could only enter the closed space if they showed their membership card stand up and chant: the blood in our vein is a gift to our Leader (suppose Khameni)

Can anyone help me find a translation for the Koran verse please? My memory's failing me and my husband's sleeping in another time zone to give me his usual help :)

Computer Based Training by K Alliance

sajshirazi@gmail.com (Shirazi) — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 23:15:00 PDT

Karez System in Balochistan

sajshirazi@gmail.com (Shirazi) — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 23:13:00 PDT

Building a House - preperations for teardown

farshid — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 19:02:01 PDT

Our house was build in early 50s and although we remodeled somewhat a few years back, many factors contributed to our decision of tearing down the house and rebuilding a new one. In this series of posts I will talk about each step as we take it and while it will be a good read 20 years from now when all the details will be long gone from the memory, hopefully it will help any readers out there in similar situation to take advantage of our learning during this process as well as maybe soliciting feedback & tips that will lead us to make better decisions.

So let’s get started on the steps taken so far. Here is a summary in bullet points

Custom plan vs. stock plan - after much going back and forth on this, we started by looking at stock plans sold by variuos firms and since we found a plan that had pretty much 90% of what we wanted, we decided to go with a stock plan and modify it rather than do a fully custom plan which would have cost probably 5-7X the amount for a stock plan.
Permits - once the modification was done with the stock plan and we were happy with everything which took about 3-4 months (tips: do not rush into finalizing the plan, sleep on it, then sleep some more on it as something that may sound great for a day or two a week later may sound blah) you submit it to the city and wait for request for revisions and clarifications etc. That’s all part of the process and there is no way you can get your plan approved in one shot. With the semi slow market thankfully this has gone pretty smoothly so far. and that’s where we still are to get the permit finalized. The plan itself includes multiple dimensions of the house from draining plan, structural plan, foundation plan, the house itself (layout) and a few others and each go through a review and approval through various experts within the housing department of the city.
Moving out - this is going to take a while as for some reason we humans are good at collecting junk over time and not getting rid of it, so moving once in a while a good thing as it allows to get rid of the junk.
Salvaging the house - being environmentally conscious we didn’t want to have the entire house to waste so we called several companies that salvage parts of the house (anything from light/bathroom switches/fixtures to the floors, doors, windows and some parts of the exterior of the house. Benefit of this primarly is the fact that there will be less junk produced as most of the salvaged parts get resold/reused by other people and we get some sort of tax deduction as you are donating that material. We called three companies available in our area
- Re Store - never got back to us despite several calls
- Earthwise - came and assessed and we went with them.
- Second use - came and assessed and felt it was not worth their effort.
Old appliances, computers and other stuff - our appliances were all from early 70s and worked so so, along with a couple of old desktops, laptops, cables, vases, chairs and other items that was no longer any use to us. Craigslist.org was invaluable as anything we put on there as free to be picked up, were gone in less than 24 hrs! I also put the house to be salvaged further after the company above came and there people that are interested in salvage more items from the house! This was a great surprise and since others find this useful, it’s win win as far as I am concerned.
Paying the costs - From the blogsphere I came across this credit card from Schwab that according to them : “You earn 2% cash back on all retail purchases, including purchases for services and recurring payments. This excludes transactions relating to refunds or returns, balance transfers, cash advance transactions (including the purchase of money orders or other cash equivalents), out-of-network payments made through FIA Card Services’ Bill Pay Choice® service, purchases made by or for a business or for a business purpose, fees, finance charges, unauthorized/fraudulent transactions and other charges.” Hey, that’s better than any other useless credit card out there that gives you 1% cashback on selected transactions or lots of air milage or other crap that end up never using. And while I won’t be able to pay for the entire house using this card of course, whatever I gain back can be used for other purposes at least.

Once we have the permit ready, next step will be to getting contractors to tear down the house and excavate…and that will the topic of the next post.

Iran: “Death to Russia” at Friday Prayer

Hamid Tehrani — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 15:45:06 PDT

Photo from Mehr news site in Iran

At a Friday prayer service today at Tehran University, former president Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani called for the release of the many protesters arrested since the disputed June 12 presidential election where Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the winner.

Rafsanjani is a firm supporter of Ahmadinejad's main contender Mir Hossein Mousavi. He led the Friday prayer for the first time since the election.

Members of the Iranian opposition movement took part in the prayer, some wearing green, the colour that has come to symbolize Mousavi's movement.

“Death to Russia”

Traditionally at Friday Prayer, people are encouraged to chant “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” but today, they defiantly shouted “Death to Russia”, in referring to opposition accusations that Russia has been involved in training repression forces of the regime.

In the following video, recorded from a short distance of the outdoor gathering, you can hear a male voice over the loudspeaker screaming “Death to America”, “Death to the hypocrites” and “Death to England”, while the crowd roars “Death to Russia!” in response EVERY time.

Saminejad refers [fa] to this incident, and says that new taboos were broken today.

Iraneema tweeted [fa] that protesters burned a Russian flag.

Security forces repressed green-clad protesters at the prayer by launching tear gas at them. After the prayer, protesters chanted “Allaho Akbar” (God is great) and “Down with the dictator”.

Here is a compilation of seven films from today's protest in Tehran:

Bittersweet victory

Iraneema tweeted [fa] that dozens were arrested by security forces today in Tehran.

Hadi Nili tweeted” (in response to @onlymehdi) “Police attacked the prayers! I think Iran is among very few governments who ever attacked to Prayers.”

ABC News correspondent Jim Sciutto tweeted that Rafsanjani's speech was not aired on Iranian state television.

Jomhour says Rafsanjani's speech was beyond expectations and criticized the way protesters were repressed… “Today was another victory for Iranian green movement,” he says.

Mollah Hassani writes [fa] that Rafsanjani was a little bit better than expected. “He did not praise Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, and did not say anything negative about the green movement.”