From Teheran

We got to Teheran. Never made it to Mashhad for reasons I’ll explain later. Today we had a great tour round the bazaars here. We’re being hosted by an extraordinarily kind and very religious Iranian family, after the plans for Mashhad fell through. More later.

21 thoughts on “From Teheran”

  2. Helena Cobban,
    Tell us about your travels. Can you see out of your veil? How many women have you interviewed?
    Can women there drive? Are their welts from being beaten by their husbands visible? Has female genital mutilation reached 50% in Iran yet?
    Tell us Ms. Cobban, do people do anything in the Muslim world other than chant “death to America, Death to Israel?” How many suicide bomb factories have you visited? Did you provide your monthly donation to Hamas and Hezbollah yet?
    When you finally do get to Iran, be sure and check out their nuclear reactors, which are of course for “peaceful purposes,” notwithstanding that Iran has the third largest oil reserves in the world.
    As our ambassador of hate, I’m sure you’ll waste no time in visiting the Mullahs. Being a feminist, I’m sure you approve of the liberal values they espouse. Please say hi to Khameini and tell him that if he keeps on building nukes he’s bound to get bombed.

  5. Typical radical leftists. Anyone with views who differ from the party line deserves the “old “heave ho.” This just prove my point. The radical left is intolerant. This board should not be operated like media outlets in the Muslim world. Dissenting voices deserve to be heard without fear of the “old heave ho”, which in most Muslim countries means prison time or execution. The hatred and fascism present throughout the Muslim world must be challenged at every opportunity. Homophobia, violence against women, intolerance of other relions, and xenophobia are problems too long ignored in the Middle East. Ms. Cobban should address them in her travels to the region, instead of simply critizing the United States and Israel.

  6. Dear Mr. Patton,
    I don’t understand how you can tall about “intolerance of other relions, and xenophobia” while your comment above is full of it?!
    You wrote: “Tell us Ms. Cobban, do people do anything in the Muslim world other than chant “death to America, Death to Israel?”
    &
    “Can women there drive? Are their welts from being beaten by their husbands visible? Has female genital mutilation reached 50% in Iran yet?”

  7. I’m sorry the first sentence should be: “I don’t understand how you can talk about “intolerance of other relions, and xenophobia” while your comment above is full of it?!”

  9. Dear Helena,
    I just linked to your very interesting blog. Please do share with us as many Iranian views on democracy and modernity that you find/see/hear while there. Based on texts, democracy and Islam should be inherently compatible, so please share with us your observations about the current interpretations and practices of democracy in Iran. Please also share in as much detail as possible your observations of contemporary Iranian political life.
    Thank you.

  10. Typical radical leftists . . . Dissenting voices deserve to be heard . . .
    You’re not a dissenting voice, Patton, you’re a jerk.

  11. Arjan,
    Point taken. I brought up the stereotypes because I believe Ms. Cobban has an unrealistic view of the Islamic world. She should take some time to investigate what life is like for married women and gays in Iran and in Arab countries. She should question the Mullah’s about their views on global jihad. Ms. Cobban writes about the region like she’s under some kind of spell, like a female Lawrence of Arabia. Its just so ironic that a person who claims to be working for social justice is so silent regarding the oppression of women, gays and minorities in the Arab and Islamic world. She also ignores the violence and hate preached by so many religious leaders there. She claims to be a “progressive” but in fact is in love with some of the most reactionary societies on the planet.
    -Mr. Patton

  12. I brought up the stereotypes because I believe Ms. Cobban has an unrealistic view of the Islamic world.
    Right. I suppose that’s why you called her a “slut”. If you want your arguments to be listened to, you should apologize for that and refrain from doing it again.

  13. My Dear Mr. Patton,
    I thought you had revealed a spectacular level of ignorance, bigotry, sexism, and gall in your first post on this page. Little did I know it was only the tip of the iceberg. I strongly suspect we still haven’t begun to see the full depth and breadth of it.
    I will refrain from speaking for Helena, since she is present and more than capable of speaking for herself. I will, however, speak for myself and could ever hope to know about what life is like for both married and unmarried women in the Muslim and Arab world, and I know it based on decades of first hand personal experience. Therefore I can state with absolute certainty that your knowledge of the subjects you have addressed here is in the negative numbers.
    You would do yourself a great favour, my good fellow, if you would cease attempting to lecture your betters and quietly ooze back under the scum-covered rock you emerged from. I beg you for your own sake not to compound your self-humiliation by dropping yet another gigantic steaming stinking pile of processed bull food onto this page.

  14. Correction:
    I will, however, speak for myself and assure you that I know more than you could ever hope to know about what life is like for both married and unmarried women in the Muslim and Arab world

  15. Curious says : “I just linked to your very interesting blog. Please do share with us as many Iranian views on democracy and modernity that you find/see/hear while there. Based on texts, democracy and Islam should be inherently compatible, so please share with us your observations about the current interpretations and practices of democracy in Iran.”
    In the first place, I defy anyone to come up with a non-polemical definition of ‘democracy’ applicable to anything larger than the non slave population of a small city state (I’m thinking of the paradigmatic ‘Athenian democracy’ here, of course).
    There is in fact no such thing as ‘democracy’ in the literal sense anywhere, nor can there be, since informed consent is required for ‘the people’ to actually rule and information is not a free good but a tightly controlled plutocratic resource – everywhere, including the so-called ‘land of the free’ – the USA.
    My understanding of Islamic political theory is that it holds that all legislation stems from Qur’anic revealed law, via the schools of jurisprudence (madhhabs) traditional in the respective regions of Islamic governance.
    If we compare this with the corresponding theory in the USA, we find a dispute dating from the days of Jefferson at least. His view was that American law should derive from Anglo-Saxon common law and not from scriptural law, and he held that the English jurisprudents had misread their own sources on this matter. See Jefferson to Cartright, June 5, 1824 (scroll down past the letter to Madison)
    In sum, the US pundits who wish to impose ‘democracy’ on other countries while ignoring the delusory nature of their own ‘democracy’ are hypocrites. Given the Straussian ideal of instrumental (i.e. opportunistic) use of both religion and civic ideology, this is only to be expected.

  16. Rowan, if democracy is too elusive for you how about freedom of speech. How can you defend blasphemy laws in “Islamic Republics” where you can be condemnded to death for expressing an opinion about Islam.
    E. Bilpe

  17. Ah! Another islamophobic wannabe orientalist heard from! Bilpe, why don’t you and Patton get together and have a great, fun, soul-satisfying Islam bashing session and leave the grown ups to have real discussions about real things.

  18. HC is evidently in a temporary news blackout.
    The posing on Iran will be interesting to the extent that it is candid. That may require patience until she bids adieu to her gracious, conservative hosts.
    Conservative garb may be an advantage to HC’s work if it can mute public perception as a foreigner.
    It will be hard for any journalist to address Iran

  19. To all you self-righteous dumb “Mericans,
    You attack Iran for doing all kinds of anti-democratic, anti-feminist actions when Saudi Arabia is even more guilty of these actions, so when’s the invasion of Saudi Arabia, chickens! Come clean you don’t care about the anti-democratic, anti-feminist part at all, do you? It’s just a shtick! The Iranians have simply noticed that the US govt for all its belligerence treats North Korea with kid gloves because it has nuclear weapons and missiles capble of delivering them. So what do you expect? I guess dumb ‘Mericans cannot be expected to reason too much. Might hurt their little heads.

  20. Democracy to me is a word that captures and represents a set of ideals. It is not a form, framework or system of government, per se. I will stipulate that the use of the term democracy in public discourse serves a primarily rhetorical purpose. Democracy inspires and strikes deep chords. Democracy is “good” and desirable.
    But what does democracy mean to people in a particular (if political) context? I’m curious about “democracy” in Iran because I am curious about the extent to which Iranians see legitimacy in their government, the extent to which Iranians feel connected to their neighbors, the extent to which Iranians feel safe and empowered, the extent to which Iranians feel that they have a voice, and the extent to which they feel their government (at all levels) reflects that voice. As far as I know, all of those criteria are not incompatible with Islam.
    If democracy is “good” it is good because of the role it plays in people’s lives, not because it is a particularly aesthetic or efficient contruct worthy of deference.

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