Emily Spence

(Tuesday, 16 June 2009) By Vahab, e-mails from an Iranian

Emily,

Internet very very slow here. Almost non-existent. Yesterday it was not connected at all. Also cell-phones are faulty most of the times. SMS messages are totally off.

Last night, they started to dismount satellite dishes from the roof tops, disconnecting Iranians from satellite TV (outer world). The religious dictatorship is trying to block any effective communication path between people inside Iran and between Iran and outside world.

Nevertheless, looks like they are acting in a blind mad way. That's how dictatorship acts when it feels the grim doom of all dictators.

The parliament is also divided.

Unless they gain a little sense to roll back the election process, they will have to proceed to mass killing. (8 people killed already in Monday demonstrations, as state TV announced).They are stuck in mud. No way back, no way forth. Until now, nobody can guess what will happen.

Keep in touch. V.

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On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 12:58 PM, Vahab wrote:

Dear Emily,

The demonstrations are huge. Looks like that they are pro-Mousavi, the reformist candidate. But gradually, the slogans shift from "Mousavi we support you" to "death to dictator" and "death to Khamenei".

Apparently, people are fed up with religious government. Mousavi is just a excuse for them.

Millions of people in Tehran have satellite receiver (for now, as they are trying to dismount them). VOA TV, (VOA= Voice of America) accessed from Iran, has now become a source of news. But, as I watch the VOA listen to their news and comments, I notice that they are trying to manipulate Iranians.

Believe me, Emily, they repeat every 5 minutes, quotes from Obama, assuring Iranians that Obama and Americans will support people of Iran. They are kind of encouraging Iranians to fight with the government. It's too bad that I can't access them by phone or email, to tell them just stop manipulating Iranians.

The government of America has never been good to Iran. All they had done was damage to Iran (including overthrowing Mosaddegh, the respected national leader in 1953, replacing him with Shah, the ex-king, who was their puppet).

Iranians never forget that and don't trust American administration. With trying to highlight the role of Obama, they are apparently trying to prepare the ground for America to interfere militarily and/or other options which the American administration and their factions in my country kept on the table.

Bush, with his threats and aggressive foreign policy towards Iran did nothing but strengthening hardliners in Iran. Ahmadinejad and the supreme leader feed from hawks in US. Our leaders need them, the US hawks, to keep the theocratic government safe from being tumbled.

Besides, Iranians, believe me or not, despite the religious fanatics governing them, are politically aware. I assure you that any interference from America will make them back off, and the government here will benefit from that -- from the Iranian citizens backing off.

I bet, and I assure you that people don't want Obama to interfere. Can't we see what happened to Iraq after America attacked Iraq to save them from dictator Saddam? They, Iranian people, also know that America is after her own selfish target. Here, many use to say that "no foreign country want to save us, they care for their own malignant objectives."

So, I would like to say: "Mr Obama, No thanks. We don't want your help." "Mr Obama. None of your business, just leave us alone to solve or own problems. You did enough damage already"

How can I tell them (VOA)? By email maybe. But the connection is bad and blocked to me.

Maybe you can email them to tell them what I said. (You can sign as "Vahab".)

Every few hours, they read emails from Iranians, probably through Iranians that live in US and Europe.

If they don't stop trying to project Obama as the savior, I will stop watching the TV and listening to them. So will do many Iranians. (I had this discussion with many of my workmates today, about VOA and their real purpose. So, you can think that what I just said is the opinion of many, many Iranians.)

If you can do that for me, just to let me know. I will send you their email address.

Vahab

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Answers from inside Iran (Friday, 19 June 2009) By Vahab

Dear Emily,

About the current state of affairs in my country, Peter, your associate, asked:

"Do many Iranians sense the American hand in all this? The neocons have been barking democratic-revolution for Iran, especially Ledeen, instead of military action since the Iraq war began.

Would the majority rally around Khameini in the face of American military action?"

So here are my answers to Peter's questions:

No. Not all Iranians sense American hand in the election affair. Especially young people may not be aware of it, although it can still exert a small indirect sway over them in terms of shaping perceptions. The more prevalent influence is, of course, the Iranian people's largely negative view of our government based on our government, itself.

In response, the problem is that our government has taken a silly diplomatic stance of trying to shut up the opposition in the hope that it will be able to stifle it and, in these recent events, the action involves a considerable percentage of the Iranians, all of whom stand against our government on several grounds.

To try to maintain control over these dissenting Iranians, the government tries these methods:

- Sending militia to the streets: These are para-military people (Basij), without uniform, usually moving on motor-cycles in group, attacking small groups of demonstrators.

- Arresting key persons of the opposition. I think you know about that, no comment needed.
You can count on the above information about the para-military people. (They carry out their roles well, along with some police, to nab the most prominent opposition leaders and disrupt crowds by violent means in some cases.)

- Hindering internet connection: The bandwidth of the internet connection is reduced considerably by State Communication Center.

- Shutting off cell phone communication: Most of the times, cell phones practically don't work. SMS service is totally prevented.

- Trying to shut off most of the anti-government satellite TV channels: Most of these so-called anti-government channels are installed in U.S.A. representing different factions of anti-government opposition, which range from supporters of Ex-Shah to laic groups.

Most of them represent groups of individuals that fled from Iran after the 1979 revolution and they are frustrated because they lost their privileges and wealth that they enjoyed under Shah. (Personally, I don't like them. IMO, they spread garbage and non-sense).

Following the same policy of stoppage, the government succeeded to shut off BBC Persian TV, causing BBC to threaten Iran government with a lawsuit because Iran media handlers, that are under government control, have put noise on BBC channel. Strangely, VOA Persian (Voice Of America satellite TV ) is still working with the program directed towards attempts to agitate the situation in Iran.

Maybe that's why the government decided to physically dismount satellite dishes from rooftops. This one is perhaps a rumor, as I have my satellite receiver still working. Perhaps, though, there are simply too many to dismantle. (FYI, having satellite receiver is illegal in Iran, but government used to ignore millions of satellite dishes on rooftops.)

From all of these measures, you can see that the government, feeling danger of losing the ground, is acting blindly because the above mentioned policies can only aggravate the situation while agitating people more and more, and unfortunately, heralding them toward unfriendly channels of communication like VOA, Twitter, Facebook and other ones.

Therefore, our government is, actually, helping US administration to benefit and is creating the easy situation with less expense for these foreign influences that are aimed at destabilization of our government. (Notice the 400 million dollars budget that is being used by outside sources to destabilize Islamic Republic. This is a country's hard earned taxpayer dollars being used not to improve conditions for the taxpayers in that country, but to cause disruptions in another country. Imagine if the tables were reverse and my government leaders tried the same ploy in the USA or elsewhere. Does the effort really help the people whose tax dollars support such schemes?)

Anyway, I thought about the above activities, attempts at manipulation that come from both my government and U.S. government, and had a phone conversation with a close relative, a VIP in government (not so famous though). In it, I asked him to warn the government leaders about the situation wherein Iranians are being whipped up into a frenzy by each other, outside groups AND our government's repressive actions.

After mentioning this, I advised him that the only way to stabilize the situation is to roll back the election process, to loosen the fanatic regulations imposed on people, etc, etc. You can guess, though, that he wouldn't be persuaded and kept repeating the government's non-sense about "agitators who are supported by foreign governments". (This is the party line and it is, obviously, a dangerously stupid view to entertain!)

Then I ended our conversation with telling him that our government officials are closing their eyes to the reality of people -- that they need more various kinds of freedoms and less religious obligations imposed on them. I said that the government is acting exactly like a dying dictatorship struggling to impose its will upon the people.

As for the second of Peter's questions:

YES, fortunately, Iranians will resist any invasion from outside. No matter what they feel about the government, they will not stand to be dominated, subdued and crushed by outside forces.

There is a saying in Persian, translating to something like "pissing on the hard ground". Iran is too hard a ground to be pissed on.

(I wish that I could say that to Mr. Obama and the hawks of US administration. They need to understand in no unqualified terms that we will fight to the last man, woman or child standing. We will not be tamed and our spirits will not be broken no matter what! We will fight for our country and our fellow citizens, just as the American people did during the U.S. Revolutionary War when repelling the British who wanted to control America for British benefits and at the expense of the newly formed nation. We have the same outlook. Foreign hegemony is impossible in Iran. It will not stand under any circumstance!)

The reason is that there is a strong and intact nationalistic instinct in Persian culture, having its root in more than 3,500 years of civilization, common outlooks, culture and a very strong sense of oneness. This orientation is made even more prevalent when our country is surrounded by other lands with sometimes hostile people having a different ethnic and cultural background than ours. Despite that our people share many of the same religious views as some of our neighbors, we are not the same.

All of these dynamics in mind, I am not sure about the way that our current conflicts will go in terms of any sort of ultimate results. However, they will not go away even if our government manages to temporarily squash dissent. So, it is a complicated (I would rather say contradictory) situation, isn't it? Do you remember me talking about the dilemma of Iranian people?

Best wishes,
Vahab

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Emily Spence is a progressive living in Massachusetts. She has spent many years involved with assorted types of human rights, environmental and social service efforts.