The Persian (pre-Muslim) New Year, Norooz, has always stuck in the craw of the Islamic Republic, especially the fire festival, featuring people leaping through bonfires to ritually cleanse themselves of the physical and spiritual aches and pains of the winter. The festival is officially banned, both because of the Zoroastrian heresy it represents and because it brings together large numbers of people, which the regime of course fears, lest it take on political overtones.
So they forbid it, thereby automatically giving political significance to any celebration.
So the enemies of the regime turn out for the celebration, and tonight there was a lot of action all over the country, as you can see from these videos. These are the early reports, and some of them may turn out to be from past years, but I have received first-hand testimony that jibes with the pictures. The regime cannot feel good about tonight, and for two reasons:
–First, a lot of people sneered at the ban;
–Second, there were new people in the streets, workers from, for example, southern neighborhoods of Tehran. The regime had deployed its thugs in the northern and western (middle class) areas of the capital–that is where most of the demonstrators have come from ever since the phony elections of June, 2009–but they were not expecting trouble from the workers.
This is further evidence that the Greens’ base is larger than the regime imagines, and you can be sure the leaders of the Revolutionary Guards, the Basij, and the various intelligence organizations are looking for workable countermeasures. But the more territory they have to cover, the more difficult it becomes for them to use the “Chinese” method of trying to drown the protesters in a sea of security forces. They have already had to deploy young boys in the streets, and there are some reports today that female prisoners were armed and in the streets.
It’s tough being the supreme leader of a country that hates you.
The videos you have alluded to are interesting. But here is my favorite Chaharshanbehsoori (Fire Festival) video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wlri8KFOfGA&feature=player_embedded
only a pagan minority is celebrating ‘fire festival’ in iran. none of you ever been to this country.
and surveys and polls show that khamenei is the most popular individual in iranian politics. you should educate yourself before you talk.
I am more Iranian than you are. In fact, you are a sad excuse for an Iranian as you have surrendered your glorious history to a savage and un-Iranian lot who belong in the same fecal retinue that holds the malignant souls of Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot.
Worse yet, amongst couple of dozens grand Ayatollas there and in Iraq, khamenei was backed by only one, Makarem Shirazi.
-The regime has completely lost the Shia establishment.
Iran’s center is where Mousavi and Karubi are and call the Zoroastrain ritual “the bringing of light into the night”. The shias that do so combine the power of two mythologies, and that combination is where the center has been since the Savafids empire. The opposition has now managed to firmly occupy the center.
2-Kurdestan was on fire and hence twice in a row, the uprising has been backed by Kurds now in large scale. Orumiyeh and Tbriz as well. When Azerbayjan moves in with full force too, the regime days will be numbered. There were also demonstration in the deep south.
3-those brave kids in the south and east of Tehran, they have sent dozens of Khameni’s thugs to hospital (not so nice as the polite kids up north)
The geographic, ethnic and class expansion of the movement; the occupation of the ideological center and keeping the nationalist-shia coalition from fracturing all bode well for the movement. (regime has worked hard to turn Iranian nationalists against the religious elements; the gimmicks of Ahmadinejad to celebrate nourouz in the sacred Zoroastrain grounds of parse being the other side of that failed strategy)
Meanwhile the impotent regime so good at beating girls in Tehran, has merely issued statements as Bahrain comes under foreign occupation, hundreds of thousands of people of Mana left to their own devices by a regime that for so long claimed the mantle of minority and oppressed Shias while the Salfais have gone freely slaughtering them by the thousands as heretics all over the middle east. (I bet Shah would have done a bit more than empty talk)
It is important not to let the regime fracture the emerging coalition. Tonight was a great night for the revolution. Khamenie could hear the explosions in jami within hearing distance of his housing complex.
Has there been any word of the fate of the opposition leaders?
they are being held in “private villas” in Tehran. Mousavi’s children have seen him and Zahra Rahnavard, Karroubi’s children have not yet seen him so far as I know.
Michal, just now there is reliable word that Kerubi and his wife are in good health (his son’s second hand account from a “trusted clergy” who has seen them.
Wasn’t it in “The Crisis” by Thomas Paine that we see the line about the more difficult the struggle, the more glorious the victory.
I guess some things do not change.
The festival is officially banned, both because of the Zoroastrian heresy it represents…
Since Zoroastrianism antedates Christianity and Islam, and conceivably even Judaism, IMO it is not a heresy in the conventional sense.
I take trouble to make this point only because our language is being deliberately undermined by our premodern and postmodern enemies.
that is the sort of pedantry up with which I cannot put, as Churchill once remarked.
Note to self regarding advocacy: here’s how not to respond to a well-intentioned sympathizer.
You say “It’s tough being the supreme leader of a country that hates you.”
Well……. It’s not all that bad. You can always play a round or ten of golf; you can have weekly parties in your palace with celebrities; you can jet off to Rio for some sun on Copacabana; and you can force your subjects to listen to you droning on about the most banal and irrelevant subjects while your state-controlled media drool over your leg-tingling magnificence.
Norooz is indeed one dividing factor that this regime has been fighting for a long time.
And at the same time, Farsi news sources like Radio Farda are also imposing their own censorship on their readers. Frankly, I feel Manchurian Candidate agents sent by Iran are running Radio Farda, and no one sees the 800 Lb. elephant in the room! And not to mention the poorly written articles in Farsi, which makes some of their wording and translation reading a funny joke at the 3rd grade level, and not even 5th grade!
Similar to inside Iran sites like Tabnak.com and Alef.ir, Radio Farda allows outrageous comments to be posted on its site—like pretending that they truly allow anyone to make their point! Yet, when readers like myself make comments with zero insulting statement NONE of them get posted! If this is not censorship, then what should it be called? U.S. needs a brand new Farsi language organization with new people and ideas.