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The topic of this post is: Iran.
For the past two years now it seems that the International Community, in the form of the United States, has been hounding Iran about its nuclear program. Apparently, it isn't ok for Iran to have their own nuclear reactor(s). But, many of my friends and people that I know think that I'm not looking at this from the correct angle.
So I asked them: what am I missing?
Basically, the popular thought is that Iran's government is crazy. The moment they get nuclear weapons, they will use them against Israel. Hold on a second. The Iranian government aren't what they are because they're stupid. I think that Iran has a shrewd government. Let's say they do get nuclear weapons. There is no way in hell that they will use them on Israel knowing the Death shall rain down on them from the heavens AKA Lots of Minuteman and Peacekeeper ICBMs launched from Wyoming, the Dakotas, and other bases throughout the United States, will level the country into oblivion... and beyond.
I sincerely doubt that Iranians, including members of the government and people in power, are suicidal enough to do something like that. Futhermore, Iran has a right to develop its nuclear technology peacefully. The NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty), of which they - and the US but not Israel - are a signatory, assures them this right. [Extra information about NPT and the additional protocol from Wikipedia here. IAEA Board of Governers Report on Iran's Nuclear Situation in September 2005.]
Admittedly, the report mentions that Iran was late declaring certain important things. But, the report also mentions that Iran has taken steps to rectify the situation and the steps were acceptable by the IAEA.
Iran, as do other nations around the world, believe that they are being targeted for the possiblity of them developing Nuclear Weapons. Israel is already in possession of Nuclear Weapons. I don't blame them for possibly believing that this is a wee bit unfair.
The obvious issue then, is that the United States (and allies) do not want an enemy state (Iran in this case) gaining such a "card" in the international game of "power" relations. Having nuclear weapons will mean that iran will pose a threat, however miniscule (though a nuclear weapon - if only one bomb - is not a small nor trivial matter at all) some might believe it would be.
With all the links that are in this post, I won't go on any more about the issue... what I will do is give you access to even more links that I came across while researching the matter in more detail:
Another Blogger', Ramblefish, view on the matter.
Some of the IRNA's (Islamic Republic News Agency), Iran's official news agency, stories:
The IAEA has an Iran file timeline on their website which might be useful to those that which to know more details about the whole issue (since 2004).
Of interest: CNN's bumbles and blunders. Pathetic, but expected.
Finally, and because this is a blog... the following are links to Iranian Blogs which may, or may not have more information on the matter. Most interesting is the Iranian Vice-President's Blog.
An Iranian news blog.
Iranian Blog (Iran-based).
Iranian Blog (Los Angeles based).
Another Iranian Blog. All in Farsi, but check out the photos.
And that's the way I see it.
About a month-and-a-half ago, I wrote a post about certain things in Egypt that I found amusing.Here's the picture, or one of the two pictures, that should have come with that post; I only recently bought a digital cam. though... so it came a bit late.
You probably won't be able to see the text on the blue sign. Click and maximize or download and maximize.Enjoy!
The following are two Op-Ed articles, published in the Egyptian Daily Star, that I found interesting:The First is about political parties in Egypt. The writer takes to the street and asks Egyptians what they think.The Second is about the Hijab, or veil, in Egyptian Society.
If you've managed to read this far, here are my views on the Hijab:
First of all, I am strongly opposed to the view that the Islamic Hijab is a fard, or religious tenet, for Muslim women (all the time of course - they do have to wear it when praying). None of the verses put forward from the Quran conclusively support this view, in fact, many scholars say there are no verses from the Quran that supports this view at all.
That said, my general outlook on society follows the code: To each his own. You do whatever you want to do as long as you do not cause harm to someone else. When mentioning harm here, I am most certainly not referring to the psychological and mental anguish some claim to feel when confronted with a non-veiled female.
As is obvious, anyone can wear the Hijab in my book. Still, if it so happens that a girl, or guy for that matter, mentions that all girls should wear the Hijab because it is an Islamic fard, they drop down many rungs on my ladder of respect. Usually, they fall right off. Generally speaking, most of the girls that I personally have dealt with that chose to wear the Hijab have turned out to have voluntarily surrenderred the use of their brain and mental faculties for any kind of thinking.
The aforementioned category of girls have said to me:
1. Amr Khaled said we shoud wear the Hijab.
2. It is written in the Quran. (Me: Which verse exactly? What does it say?) I'm not sure, but it's written in the Quran.
3. A pure Muslim woman has to wear the Hijab.
There were, of course, many other reasons. First though, I want to comment on the three mentioned above.
So Amr Khaled said you should, huh? And if Amr Khaled told you to go jump off the top of a building, wearing your Hijab, I suppose you would? Too sarcastic? Well, what if Amr khaled mentioned that killing all non-muslims (he hasn't) was the only way to make it to heaven? Would you stop and think about what he says then? Or maybe not. I keep getting the feeling that Amr Khaled is our prophet in disguise... It's amazing how people follow him this blindly!
As for the Quran, I have yet to be told the verses. I await that patiently.
Pure women has to wear the Hijab? So... my mother and grandmother aren't pure Muslim women? They probably went out whoring in their younger days, did they? Invited all the guys over to their homes and had regular sexual orgies, eh? What kind of pathetic argument is this? Your purity is defined by what you choose to do in life! Let me just tell you that all prostitutes in Sudan were veiled (and I've lived there).
Now, I think the main reason why women and girls wear Hijab in Egypt is because of Social pressure. Wearing the Hijab in this country has become a social custom, especially amongst the poor. This helps explain a phenomenon that many men do not understand, especially those that come from the wealtheir upper class; you know all those girls and women that you see wearing the Hijab yet still wearing pants so tight that it is difficult to imagine them being able to move? Well, that's why. The Hijab has become a social necessity, but they do not necessarily represent the religious views of the woman wearing them. Most of the time, she doesn't consider if she should wear it or not... there is no question. There is no debate on the issue.
Oh, and by the way, there are many poorer mothers who still believe that dressing their daughters in tight pants will discourage any possiblity of sexually-motivated attack as it would be difficult to get inside her clothes. (I've asked about this! Many, many times!)
Finally, I feel it needs to be said that while I believe that prejudiced generalizations made about a certain group of people because of creed, ethnicity or social class is abhorrent and wrong, one has to keep in mind that sometimes priorities are different for different people.
For example, in the school where I work, I happen to be in an office with the headmistress, her secretary and the assistant headmistress. All three of them are veiled. Sometimes it gets to be a pain... for example, I have to make sure I censor myself lest I mention something that they think is wrong. It's not that that they are annoying; to date, none of them have even asked me why I don't get up to pray, it's just that I don't want to get into that kind of discussion because I don't know how to tell people that I don't want to talk about it without sounding annoyed or rude.
And hey! What if I want to exclaim: "Oh, shit!" or "God damn it!" whenever I'm annoyed or something goes wrong? I don't. I don't because I don't want them giving me "the look" and possibly a couple of words on how I shouldn't say things like that... because when I do say things like that, those couple of words are definitely the last thing I want to hear (now that I think about it, it's probably the last thing they want to hear as well... *shrug*).
i find myself wanting to talk about how most girls in Egypt shudder and shake if a guy swears next to them, but that's another story for another post.
And that's basically the way I see it.
I came across this news item posted on the International Herald Tribune's website.
So, I guess this means that the Palestinian government now has a little bit of money with which to function. Though it is supposedly far less than the amount they need to pay the salaries and debts that they own. You might remember that most major donors chose to halt all aid to the Palestinian government as soon as the democratically elected Hamas came to power. This, of course, was disastrous.
This is a compilation of the Palestinian government's sources of aid by donor countries. My thanks to Sandmonkey for posting it.
I also came across this transcript of a PBS show, NewsHour, that discussed the issue of Hamas being voted in as the Palestinian government.
The whole discussion is interesting, but it is one statement in particular that I wish to comment upon (I have not heard it being said often);
ROBERT SATLOFF: No, I think this is a moment for clarity. A large plurality of the Palestinian people elected a terrorist organization as its leadership. This is a moment where the world needs to respond to that very clear statement. I respect their vote. They should respect the world's response to this vote.
Mr. Satloff is faultless when making this comment. The Palestinians should respect the world's response to this vote. If not respect, then at least accept. It is in my belief that they have actually done that. Barring any proclamations they might have made upon winning, most news items either carry opinions on the issue as a whole or interviews with members of the Hamas government.
Furthermore, I am proud that an Arab country (as ironic as it may seem, the only "un-recognized" Arab country) had a free and fair elections (to a large extent, anyways).
Now then, to get to the "respect the world's response to this vote" part. Lots of Arab media and thinkers would tell you: An Arab state finally has a democratically elected government and the West is still bitching about it. Nothing satisfies them. What do they want? To choose who comes to power personally? To put their men as Prime Ministers or Presidents if they don't like the ones there?
Of course, they were quite fiery when making these remarks.
The answer is, of course, Yes! Who wouldn't you fools? What government would not want to choose who has the power in places which might affect its people and its well-being, politically and economically, as a state. It's called realism.
Maybe Political Science, as a major, wasn't so stupid after all. You see, as my professor in POLS 320: International Relations informed us, there are two major schools of thought when it comes to international relations between states; the realists and the liberals. Of course, now we have the neo-realists and the neo-liberals. Now, to the realists, power is everything. You have the power, you use the power. You can get what you want with your power... go on ahead and do it. That's the way of life. The state is the largest entity when it comes to International Relations and one's level of analysis should not extended beyond that.
On the other hand, the liberals are believers in international institutions and organizations. They believe in collective decisions and that the state is not the largest entity when it comes to IR; the UN, WTO, WB, IMF and all those organizations are. These people do not believe in war, but they do acknowledge that it occurs. Even though I once adamantly followed this school, it reflects a highly idealistic and non-practical way of viewing things.
The U.S. (Current World Hegemon), as a government, follow the neo-realism school of thought. Meaning that everyone has to live with this. So live with it. I'm not saying don't bitch about it, O Arab countries. You should. You never know when a European (minus the UK) might be listening. For some weird reason, the Europeans are more sympathetic to this than the Americans are. It might be the two World Wars, all the deaths they suffered or that they want people to like them so that they can be the next International Hegemon, when it's time for the U.S. to step down.
It matters not. When they listen to you, they do things just to spite the U.S., just convince them that you're important to them or their people in some way (the subscribe to the neo-realist club too, you know) and then you're set... for a period of time at least.
What you should be doing, O foolish Arabs, is working like hell to gain power. I almost hope there's some Top Secret Plan for doing this and that everything that's happening now is a mere facade, until one day, 25 years from now, an Arab Leader or person will suddenly go on television and go: TA-DAAAA! We're rich!! We're Powerful!! Or some other weird thing.
Yeah, right.
And that's the way I see (or is it dream?) it.
As I have a two week break from work (working at a school helped me re-discover the joy of Spring Break as a holiday) I now randomly surf the Internet in the morning checking news or whatnot. I don't know if I'm going to do this regularly, but I will share the things I found interesting: This twenty-year old Republican's view on Bush and the Republicans.
Russian gypsies attacked.
The FBI's tips page. (I included this because I didn't know it existed).
A simple view on who will win the next House elections in the states.
Brotherhood members captured in Egypt.
[I always find this kind of news strange. The State knows who the MB's leaders are. If you're so interested in arresting people who are members, leave the stupid students alone and go get the big fish. Work your way down the hierarchy. It's almost like they want the MB to continue but they don't want them to grow or expand.]
Free Trade is not doing well. A list of the disputes filed before the WTO's Dispute Settlement Body (including the panels and Appellate body's findings and possible rejections or over-turning of decisions).
That's about it for now.
Friday, to use the words of FDR, was a "day that shall live in infamy".
Coptic Christians in Alexandria, Egypt were attacked during mass. There were injuries and a single death. For more prescise information on what happened, you can access Al-Jazeera's coverage of the issue in Arabic and English. You can also check out other bloggers' views on the matter. Antisocialite's post, Manal and Alaa's post (Arabic) and Sandmonkey's view on the matter. (Most of this information was collaborated by the Egyptian Arabic Daily: The Egyptian Today [El Masree El Yoam], which I believe is a credible newspaper.
You can also check out this post on a Blog subscribed to Manal and Alaa's Aggregator [Note: His opinions are his own. And, even though he mentions the reaction of the Christians at the scene and the congregation, please do not think that I chose to include this article to imply that Christians hate Muslims (as someone mentioned to me)]. Two things though, it's in Arabic and has one pretty graphic picture of the person killed during the events. The only reason I've included it is because this blog's owner was an actual eye witness to the events (or so he claims).
What do I think of the whole issue? (I'm going to swear, possibly frequently.)
I think it's fucking pathetic. Most of the other bloggers have covered what I will say, but I will say it again. And again. And again. I think it's fucking pathetic that the man was not stopped after entering the first church. I think it's fucking pathetic that the man, who apparently was screaming "There is no god but God", was allowed to enter the church in the first place. I cannot believe that the guards did not open fire and kill the stupid son of a bitch. They should have.
I think it's fucking pathetic that the government says that the man was mentally deranged. EVEN IF the stupid son of a bitch was fucking deranged, that excuse is so pathetic and offending that it should not have been used. I'm also "surprised" that they managed to find out that he's mentally deranged on such short notice, knowing that most of their "investigations" take weeks if not months if not years if ever to conclude.
You know, I'm generally one of those people who says: you shouldn't judge all Muslims by the actions of a few, but I know that I'd be one pissed off mother-fucker were I Christian. And I'd be completely in the right too.
Islamists are going to burn. Oh yeah. They need to.
7anshouf feekom yoam ya welad seteen kalb. 7anshouf feekom yoam entom we kol el kelab el zayekom.
That's the way I fucking see it.
I don't drive.
I should say that I don't drive because I don't own a driver's license at the moment. At the moment has been a period that has extended for almost seven years now... but who's counting. Because I don't drive my usual modes of transportation include (limited to, actually): friends' cars (friends included), cabs, the metro (not a lot nowadays) and walking.
Now, if you've read any of my previous posts, you might have noticed my tendency to quote cab drivers and talk about them. I don't know why I do this. Is it because there's the variable constant in my life? Possibly. Maybe the reason is their way of thinking (definitely different from my clique)? Possibly. Is it because I find them interesting and fascinating, driving around Cairo all day long (or however long their shift may be), meeting people on every street and corner? Oh yes.
*Looks up*
Ok. I rambled again.
On my way home last night, at the very late hour of 10:30 pm (I was dead tired, honest!) I had three automobile-related near death experiences. This is the average number of near-death experiences one can have on a single thirty minute car trip in Cairo, so I was not overly-concerned. Because I was sleepy (Im guessing) all cars were trailed by a long streak of light. Much like the delightful Red Arrows' planes look during an Airshow.
In fact, the cars did look like they were performing some sort of show, albeit a land one. Drivers were twisting and turning,speeding then braking, passing and stopping, taunting and swearing and finally... crashing (witnessed a minor car accident - didn't even look twice. Too tired.) The realization came to me then that upon entering any four-wheeled vehicle in Egypt, you are automatically placing you life in the hands of your deity (should you happen to have one. Metaphorical hands for muslims and Jews.)
Egyptian drivers (and yes, I'm generalizing) have an amazing tendency to ignore the fact that there are other drivers on the road. This was made obvious yesterday by two volunteers who willingly chose to prove my point.
First Volunteer: Un-identified Egyptian male in his mid to late fifties accompanied by his family.
Car: A Lada 2106 if memory serves me correctly.
Incident: Just before going up the two-lane Malek El Saleh bridge, my cab driver and I were introduced to our first volunteer.
What happened: The man came over all the way from the right lane (three lane road) and attempted to hijack our left lane (bypassing the middle lane in the process).
Why we think he did that: We came to the conclusion that he was either absent-minded or tired and forgot that he wanted to get on the bridge, opting for the right lane exit into Manyal. Suddenly aware of the fact that he did not, in fact, wish to do that, he swerved all the way to the left to get on the bridge.
Why it was really stupid: There was a small Toyota Mini-bus parked at the bottom of the bridge. Parked at the bottom of the bridge. In the right lane. Of course, it wasn't parked per se... the driver was letting out passengers and letting in new ones... but it was there, stopped, completely immobile for a period of at least fifteen seconds. The man in the Lada must have known this; it was right in his path. It was really stupid of him to attempt to squeeze himself between the bus and us in a two lane road. Fortunately, my cab driver's nerves of steel (which manifested themselves in the fact that he did not divert an inch from his track) forced our first volunteer to drastically slow down. Thanfully.
Second Volunteer: Unknown driver of a souped-up Honda Civic.
Car: Souped-up Honda Civic.
Incident: Man almost hit by speeding car and the chaos that ensued almost caused a four car pile-up.
What happened: On the Corniche, again, approaching the Sadat Academy entrance to Maadi. This is a usual station for mini-buses and, true to that, another mini-bus was parked at the side of the road. Apparently the dude (or dudete...?) in the Civic believed that you need a minimum speed of 280 km/hr before the Civic has enough speed to achieve un-aided lift-off. It's that, or the car was being clocked for some kind of urban land speed record, because he was 'tearing up the tarmac'. What happened was, as soon as the Civic came to the entrance, a man popped up from behind the Mini-bus... obviously to cross to the other side of the road. Screeching sounds occurred and panic ensued. The civic dude hit the brakes... though realistically, had the man decided not to stop, the civic would have hit him. Hard. He stopped though.
Thing is, when the Civic driver hit the brakes, 4 cars behind him hit the brakes. For a period of two seconds, me and the cab driver watched 4 car drivers momentarily lose control of their cars; it was magnificent (I'm allowe to say this in retrospect since no accident occurred). Four cars fish-tailing for two seconds. It looked perfectly coordinated.
Why we think he did that: Young. Into cars. Reckless. Nothing new.
Why it was really stupid: Ok. There are many good drivers out there. There are many good drivers who know they're good drivers. There are many good drivers who know they're good drivers and thus the usually tend to 'push the pedal to the metal', even during traffic jams. But basically, it's like my grand-father says "You're a good driver but can you vouch for every other driver near you?" Man in the Civic (i'm convinced it's a guy, from experience) probably forgot the whole thing 4.8031 seconds later. Im guessing that's about how long it took him to get from 0-100.
What we need to do: Two things really - hope we never cross paths with these idiots and pray like hell everytime we get into a four-wheeled vehicle. You never know... you might be lucky.
*Pause*
Speaking of road incidents, next time I write on the topic, I'll have to mention the story of the guy and girl who chose to engage in *ahem* quasi-sexual activities in the back of a two-door 4x4 with the whole of Cairo watching them. Oh yes. They were like a pace-car in a Formula One race... no one attempted to pass them.
*Nod* Yup, that's just the way I see it.
