In Iran, the Despots Grow Desperate
All dictators are killjoys. We know that dictators the world over will do anything it takes to keep the reins of control, and the sheer absurdity of the lengths they go to merely highlights their desperation.
One of the wittiest chronicles of such desperation is Ben Lewis’ documentary film Hammer and Tickle, which documents the Communist jokes that landed people of the USSR and Soviet satellite countries in prison behind the Iron Curtain. The citizens of every society living under tyranny quickly learn their specific regime’s pet peeves and find ways to exasperate and pester their resident despots.
Iranians are no different.
The Iranian New Year, Norooz, is almost upon us. Celebrated on March 21, the vernal equinox, Norooz predates Islam by a couple of thousand years. It is a most beloved and sacred Zoroastrian celebration that Iranians of all ethnicities and religions observe.
The first leg of celebrations kicks off on the last Tuesday night of the year with Chaharshanbeh Souri. Literally translated as “Wednesday eve festival,” it’s also called the Festival of Fire. This year, it’s observed on Tuesday, March 15th. People gather in the streets to set bushes and brambles alight, leaping over the bonfires to purge their spirit of all the impurity and blight of the passing year. Adding to the celebration are sparklers, fireworks, and a sort of trick or treating done to collect food for the poor.
Since the beginning of the Khomeinist revolution, in an attempt to eradicate all venerable Persian things, the regime’s head honchos have cracked down on the festivities every year, going all out to discredit and quash the “pagan” celebrations. But, of course, the harder the regime fights, the more vehemently the people resist.
Now here’s the clincher: People who live in urban areas often buy the bonfire bushes (like Christmas trees) from salesmen. This year, one of the regime’s “czars” has decided to go after these poor merchants, who just want to earn a living. Revolutionary Guard member Taghi Yiervani heads up the Bureau of Protection of Forests and Grasslands (this in itself is laughable: since the advent of the Khomeinist regime, Iran’s environment has been systematically destroyed). Because the ban on bush sales aims at the “prevention of fire hazards,” he has announced, anyone seen selling bushes on the street of Iran will be arrested for destroying Iranian natural resources.
Then there’s the issue of pets — especially dogs, which are considered unclean according to Sharia law (I won’t speak of how unclean you’d consider its adherents, given how infrequently they wash themselves). The mullahs’ view is simple: pets are simply another form of Western corruption.
In 1999, the then-head of the judiciary, Mullah Mohammad Yazdi, ruled that dogs must not be taken to public places. At the time, he conceded that they could be kept in people’s homes. But in June 2010, the senior hardline mullah Nasser Makarem-Shirazi issued an edict eradicating that privilege. When asked to clarify the position of Islamic religious law on the growing number of dogs kept as pets in Iran’s big cities, the senior cleric postulated that keeping pet dogs was an irrational imitation of Westerners, who often love their dogs more than their husbands, wives, and children. Makarem Shirazi also claimed that there are many references to dogs being unclean in Islam, though the Quran itself does not specifically address the topic.
Noruz unites all the people in Iran, including the fanatics. Enough said.
Your comment is odd and vague Ali Mostofi. Norooz only unites the fanatics in that they are against it and that they try to quash it. If by that you mean ‘united’ then yes they are. But if you claim that the regime LOVES Norooz and doesn’t try to put a damper on it every chance they get, then I suggest you read the news more often.
Ba Dorood Banafsheh
Yes they were against Noruz, but in fact they have succumbed to it.
A modest proposal:
Iranian government authorities should import pigs to clean up the mess the dogs make on the streets of their cities. Everyone knows that pigs are the most voracious comsumers of shiite waste, and therefore the moolahs are missing out on a golden opportunity for cleanliness in their city streets and byways. The importation and deployment of approximately 1,000,000 pigs should do the job adequately. The meat from those pigs, fattened on shiite waste, could then be used to feed the masses that have been so cruelly impoverished by the sanctions imposed recently by the evil-doers of the crusader nations. Iran might then achieve a level of cleanliness and health that is now enjoyed by other major pig-consuming nations of the developed world, such as Germany, the cleanest nation known to man, whose favorite snack is a sausage made of the blood and fat of pigs. The moolahs of Iran might then enjoy the support of their impoverished masses.
It appears the dog ban is based, in some twisted way, on religious grounds, which makes the law foolish and abhorrent. However, is it possible that the dog-walkers don’t clean up their animals’ poop and some grumpy mullah slipped on a pile and fell on his butt? That would probably make him mad enough to go on a political crusade. Maybe the answer is Ziplok plastic bags.
Or is that too “Western?”
It has nothing to do with cleaning up after the dogs; it’s a purely Sharia-based argument that is vague and out of date anyhow. The day and age when this was an issue is long gone…there was no such knowledge of alcohol, disinfecting, etc. etc. The point is that these idiots use modern methods to fight modernity. They just want to continue to make life as unpleasant as possible.
I suspect the bagging of all mullahs would go a long way toward easing the whole world’s misery.
We need thousands of sniffing dogs who can sniff the stench left behind by the fascist mullahs, then follow their tracks, arrest and bag them and dump the filthy bodies in the waters of Persian Gulf. To us the Persians they do not belong. They must swim back to Mecca!!!
please check out http://www.islamicsolutions.com/liberty-and-stolen-identity-in-the-middle-east/
And what do you think the site you have linked to would offer Lisa? I hope you don’t think of me challenging you here but it does comes across as a bit proselytizing. I just want to have a better understanding of what you’re trying to convey, because the link does not speak for itself.
I don’t agree that all dictators are killjoys. Some of them, the corrupt ones like King Farouk, are rather fun. Religious fanatics are killjoys.
That is precisely why there is a distinctive title for them; they are called BENEVOLENT dictators…it’s qualified.
How ironic that, terrified of suicide bombers, ‘Islamic president’ Ahmadi-Nejad spent about $600,000 EACH a few years ago to buy two explosives sniffing dogs from Germany with some inane justification for having these outside his office.