The accidental activist
Recently Hossein Derakhshan wrote a piece at “Comments is Free called Cut the Bias. It’s central point was that the Iranian regime has no policy of jailing or harassing bloggers. He makes some valid points: certainly Iran is under a microscope. Events that would go unnoticed in other countries are marched out on to the world stage when they happen in Iran. (Iran isn’t the only country under a microscope, just the one I am discussing.)
In addition, the human rights community does indeed make claims that cannot be verified by independent (and non-Iranian) investigators within Iran. This does not mean that violations do not happen. They do. Regularly. It means that many are hard to verify. Teachers are arrested every time they show up to march to demand their rights. Bus drivers are arrested for demanding living wages. The co-director of the Woodrow Wilson Center for Mideast studies was formally arrested yesterday after four months of unpublicized house arrest. (Not even at her own house: at her 93-year old mother’s).
What HD seems to have forgotten is the uncertainty of life in Iran. The law is invasive and vague, which is why it is so easy to break. As one friend says, “The law is so arbitrary that you can become an activist quite by accident.” The very ease of breaking the law in Iran means that nearly all adults are guilty of something. Imagine that. Granted, most people who will find themselves under scrutiny are public intellectuals, labor leaders, minority rights leaders, fallen government employees, and self-proclaimed activists, but the message is clear: life is insecure.
While blogging may not make you a target of scrutiny in Iran, it may be used against you at any time. The fact that bloggers here choose to remain anonymous is not necessarily to protect their identities (which would be extremely easy to discover), but to provide an illusion of protection for all parties. (I wrote a bit about this a long time ago in Reconstruction. Look at paragraph 10)
Freedom of speech is part of the law in Iran: the other part is that any speech that harms Islam is illegal. What harms Islam is open to endless interpretation. Unfortunately for people living in the smaller towns in Iran, scrutiny is more intense and the effects of unjust legal practice, corruption, and/or outright demagoguery more severe. This is not unique to Iran, of course. People in small towns often find themselves the victims of corruption and ruthlessness.
I would love to provide you with links to everything I have stated in this post, but my Internet Provider follows the government’s lead and keeps the bandwidth artificially low. It took me 20 minutes just to access the admin panel for Mideast Youth. Yesterday it took hours before I could log into blogger. I cannot tell you why: just that from time to time this is what happens.
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Well, I don’t think no one is more biased than Derakhshan himself. And I understand it. As he recently said he wants to return t Iran after two years of hardship and homelessness and he has to try his best to persuade the iranian authorities that he is reliable and loyal.
That’s allright. I hope The government shows green light before Derakhshan has to accuse more human right activists and put their lives in danger. That’s no surprise he is so popular amongst foundamentalists like kayhan. The recent accusations against feminist women activists were all based on his writings. Whatever Derakhshan writes in his persian blog, after at most two days, appears on the front pages of those newspapers.
Now he has started another dirty game. While claiming no one would be jailed because of his/her blog, he tries to reveal true identities of some bloggers. He is fully aware it is unmoral and knows very well what can be consequences, s he has to fake.
http://kamangir.net/2007/05/06/the-enemy-and-the-idiot/
I liked Samira’s take on Hossein too.
Good work Esther.
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In addition, there is a huge asymmetry for braking the law between the pro-government people (not even government agents) and ordinary people (not even opposing people). Masih Alinejad has a very nice piece in her blog comparing her situation (in parliament) and Salimi Namin’s niece (in art school).
I too understand HD’s self serving motives to promote the Islamic Republic, but it is the idiots in the West, like Isabel Hilton of Open Democracy and Washington Post and Institute of War and Peace etc. who are so stupid that actually think he is an Iranian dissident
) and give him a platform as well as funding. That is truly hard to understand for me.
The accidental activist reminds me of an experience during the Shah’s regime. During one strike by Poly Technique students a friend of mine and I who used to go to a high school near by got caught up in the mayhem. I slipped away (being shor has its own advantages) and he was picked up along with real strikers and detained for several hours.
In the room next to him they had detained an Akhund who was complaining loudly: “what am I supposed to preach? Even if I mention a bee you are telling me that bees have queen and I am offending the royal familyâ€. Sounds like the only thing changed is that we have a new royal family and even talking of lizards can get you in real trouble.
Our first demand in the upcoming peaceful revolution should be for an independent judiciary whose performance will have appropriate benchmarks and would be answerable to the people, meaning people can replace them when they lose their integrity.