The Tree That Remembers

In 1992 a young Iranian student hanged himself on the outskirts of a small Ontario town.

Having escaped the Ayatollah's regime and found a new home in Canada, he could not escape his past. News of the young stranger's death hit home with Masoud Raouf. He too was part of the generation who fought for democracy during the reign of the Shah.

With The Tree that Remembers, Raouf assembled a group of Iranians - all former political prisoners like himself, who were active in the democratic movement. Blending their testimony with historical footage and original artwork, he honours the memory of the dead and celebrates the resilience of the living.

Watch the Video by clicking here.

h/t to Potkin

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Middle East Madness

Victor Davis Hanson has another excellent column today on Middle East madness -- and the appropriate response. Here's some highlights:

Here's why much of the region is so unhinged — and it's not because of our policy in the Palestinian territories or our efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq.
First, thanks to Western inventions and Chinese manufactured goods, Middle Easterners can now access the non-Muslim world cheaply and vicariously. To millions of Muslims, the planet appears — on the Internet, DVDs and satellite television — to be growing rich as most of their world stays poor.
Second, the Middle East either will not or cannot make the changes necessary to catch up with what they see in the rest of the world. Tribalism — loyalty only to kin rather than to society at large — impedes merit and thus progress. So does gender apartheid. Who knows how many would-be Margaret Thatchers or Sandra Day O'Connors remain veiled in the kitchen?
Religious fundamentalism translates into rote prayers in madrassas while those outside the Middle East master science and engineering. Without a transparent capitalist system — antithetical to both sharia (Muslim law) and state-run economies — initiative is never rewarded. Corruption is.
Meanwhile, mere discussion in much of the region of what is wrong can mean execution by a militia, government thug or religious vigilante.
So, Middle Easterners are left with the old frustration of wanting the good life of Western society but lacking either the ability or willingness to change the status quo to get it.
Instead, we get monotonous scapegoating. Blaming America or Israel — "Those sneaky Jews did it!" — has become a regional pastime.

Please read it in full.

Hanson accurately highlights that capitalism is antithetical to Muslim law. Democracy is also antithetical to Islam. To have economic prosperity and security there needs to be a democratic infrastructure and understanding of the role of responsible democratic citizenry. Why do you think Russia with all of its Industrial and technological know-how (some Russian industries were superior than Americans) collapsed? There will never be peace in the Middle East because there will never be prosperity, however, Taquiya, stoning, murder, pedophilia, acid throwing, corruption, killing and raping to subjugate subjects in the name of Allah are the norms.

What keeps much of the Middle East going is oil money. But that source of wealth will dry up at some point as the world, stung by soaring oil prices, switches to alternative fuel sources.
Hanson is right, too, about the fact that Muslim nations in the Middle East do themselves no favors when they respond to non-violent internal dissent with harsh treatment, including executions. In this, too, the Middle East thugocracies sow the seeds of their own eventual destruction.


Arabs/Islamist are uniformly and reflexively anti-American. Democracy to Islamist is an affront to their Islamist/Ummah Honor and sense of tribalism. Islam concedes tribalism as the only acceptible Arab/Islamo social form, at the village level. It does not concede fascism, which is village tribalism taken to the national level.

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Luttwak: "Middle East Less Relevant Than Ever"

Edward Luttwak, author of "The Grand Strategy of Roman Empire", has an intriguing and counter-intuitive piece in this month’s Prospect on why the Middle East is “less relevant than ever” and the rest of the world should learn to ignore it. Here are some excerpted paragraphs:

Strategically, the Arab-Israeli conflict has been almost irrelevant since the end of the cold war. And as for the impact of the conflict on oil prices, it was powerful in 1973 when the Saudis declared embargoes and cut production, but that was the first and last time that the "oil weapon" was wielded. For decades now, the largest Arab oil producers have publicly foresworn any linkage between politics and pricing, and an embargo would be a disaster for their oil-revenue dependent economies.

In any case, the relationship between turmoil in the middle east and oil prices is far from straightforward. As Philip Auerswald recently noted in the American Interest, between 1981 and 1999—a period when a fundamentalist regime consolidated power in Iran, Iran and Iraq fought an eight-year war within view of oil and gas installations, the Gulf war came and went and the first Palestinian intifada raged—oil prices, adjusted for inflation, actually fell. And global dependence on middle eastern oil is declining: today the region produces under 30 per cent of the world's crude oil, compared to almost 40 per cent in 1974-75. In 2005 17 per cent of American oil imports came from the Gulf, compared to 28 per cent in 1975, and President Bush used his 2006 state of the union address to announce his intention of cutting US oil imports from the middle east by three quarters by 2025. [...]Western analysts are forever bleating about the strategic importance of the middle east. But despite its oil, this backward region is less relevant than ever, and it would be better for everyone if the rest of the world learned to ignore it.

He then goes on to describe Iran as a modern day Mussolini’s Italy (I tend to agree with him somewhat), which is to say all the trappings of power, except, as the old saying, “never fired, and only dropped once." What he fails to comprehend is the power of an ideology wrapped in deception as a spiritual and religious dogma. He makes some interesting deductions:

Now the Mussolini syndrome is at work over Iran. All the symptoms are present, including tabulated lists of Iran’s warships, despite the fact that most are over 30 years old; of combat aircraft, many of which (F-4s, Mirages, F-5s, F-14s) have not flown in years for lack of spare parts; and of divisions and brigades that are so only in name.

Whilst, Luttwak enumerates Litany of Islam’s history bloody borders, yet still manages to contradict himself by doing exactly what he accuses the West of doing, namely ignoring the Cradel of Civilization's (Iran, Iraq) 7000-years history of Empires and religious wars in the region:

With neither invasions nor friendly engagements, the peoples of the middle east should finally be allowed to have their own history—the one thing that middle east experts of all stripes seem determined to deny them.

Luttwalk is not only unmindful of the long history of the Middle East, but also completely in denial about certain genocidal maniac and his ilk who want to repeat this history and are quite vocal and perilously honest about it since Khomeini took power in 1979 and embeded his 'Islamic manifest destiny' (Khomeini's Doctrine) into the Constitution of the country itself. This includes even our best Arab allies in the region who wouldn't mind to establish an Islamic Empire again.

Take a look at the map of the Islamic Caliphate below:
source

Lutwwak, apologists, and those navigating in the circles of denial in foggy bottom, tend to forget that Iran, India and all other "Arab" states - including Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia, and Algeria, as well as the entity under the Palestinian Authority - were originally non-Arab nations that were conquered by the Muslim Arabs when they spread out from the Arabian peninsula in the first great wave of jihad in the 7th century, defeating, killing, enslaving, dispossessing, converting, or reducing to the lowly status of dhimmitude millions of Christians and Jews, Zoroastrian exodus to India, and destroying their language (Phoenicians in Lebanon didn't speak Arabic)(Iran is the only country that was able to sustain its own language thanks to our brave poet, Ferdowsi) ancient and flourishing civilizations. (Prior to being Christian, of course, these lands had even more ancient histories. Phraonic Egypt, for example, was not an Arab country through its 3,000-year history.)

It is precisely this history that Khamanei and Ben Ladanite want to repeat if we allow them to have their "own history". Islamic Republic's ambitions are not just repressive and incendiary; they are nuclear (their nuclear programs started 20 some years ago secretly and we just found out about it 4 years ago) and global (See the Islamic Republic's Constitution and Read Khomeini's book, "The Islamic Government" and not just for Iran) and to this end they have formulated and continue to implement all of their foreign policies since 1979.

H/t to Vigilant Freedom

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What we Learned in the Halls of Berkeley!

Bradley Braston:

...Muslims should be able to worship without other Muslims blowing them to mist. Muslim children should be able to go to school and back without other Muslims shattering their bodies with automatic gun fire. Muslim women should be able to live life without worrying that their husbands are within their rights if they beat and threaten to kill them.

And we, as non-Muslims, should be able to say something about it.

Not a simple issue. Especially for those of us Jews and leftists who were educated at places like Berkeley, where we received our degrees in Selective Blindness, with a minor in Understanding the Roots of Violence When Practiced by Muslims.

We were taught to sniff out, publicize and condemn every instance of racism, violence, injustice and humiliation practiced by Israeli Jews against Palestinian Muslims. And that was as it should be. But we were also taught that it was racist to impose our Western values on the acts of Muslims - even, or especially, when it came to the most extreme of Muslims. We can, with facility, therefore, comprehend all Muslim atrocities against Muslims in Iraq as the direct, understandable and legitimate response to the American-British occupation.

We were taught wrong.

We can understand terrorism in Bali, in London, against the Twin Towers, as an outgrowth of anger over American expansionism and Israeli military repression.

We were taught wrong.

There are, of course, many Jews whose selective blindness works in the other direction, condemning Muslims at every opportunity, as though that makes wrongdoing by Jews eminently forgivable and forgettable. As though we are somehow made moral by the moral failings of our neighbors.

This is what we should have been taught: Violations of human rights are violations of human rights, regardless of the cultural background of the perpetrator, regardless of the background of the victim.

This is what we should have retained: One way to demonstrate compassion for victims is to stop showing sensitivity to their tormentors. Even if both are Muslims. Because it's our business to cry out. Because the victims are human beings. Because villains deserve to be denounced.

We were taught to feel guilt, when we should have been taught that wrongdoing is the work of the wrongdoer.


...In the end, those of us who excuse Muslim fanatics their outrages against their own, those of us who explain away their crimes by blaming them on the West, or on ourselves, are guilty of racism as well. We are saying, in effect, that they cannot be considered responsible for their actions, as would any other human being.

We are saying, in effect, that we made them who they are.

We are saying, in effect, that the suicide bomber who kills his own lacks the ability to discern right and wrong. We are also saying, in effect, that they can do what they like, to their own.

There is racism in our view, and megalomania, and arrogance, and cowardice, and weakness. Terrorists know this. They feed on it.

They were taught well.

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Cyrus Kar: 'In Search of Cyrus The Great' , A Doucmentary

Spenta Productions - Work in Progress

In a time of mounting hostility between East and West, few figures of history offer the unifying effect Cyrus The Great does. A factual film about this eastern conqueror, who founded the Persian Empire, will give the West a better understanding of Middle-Eastern history.

Long before the advent of Christianity and Islam, the rift between West and East was first shaped in opposition to the Persian Empire, by Herodotus, the 5th-century BCE Greek author who lived in Persian-occupied Halicarnassus. Despite the apparent conflict of interest, he is still considered the "Father of history."

But Cyrus The Great may be just the figure to dislodge this age-old wedge dividing East and West. Admiration for Cyrus is virtually uncontested. The Hebrew Bible hails him as a "Messiah," Greek Hellenes knew him as the "Law Giver," and the Babylonians welcomed him as Marduk's elect.

The empire he founded ruled the world for over 200 years and the people he conquered enjoyed more freedom and prosperity under Persian supremacy than they ever had under their own, native leadership. In his book, 'History Of The World,' John Roberts writes:

“Large areas knew longer periods of peace under the Persian Empire than for centuries and it was in many ways a beautiful and gentle civilization.”

For many Westerners, this may come as something of a revelation. The Persian Empire has long been vilified by Hollywood in films like Oliver Stone's 'Alexander' and the soon-to-be-released '300' - yet another movie based on Herodotus' "Battle of Thermopylae." But casting ancient Persia as a ruthless villain is a relatively new phenomenon.

Until the mid 19th century, the West knew ancient Persia as the paragon of "benevolent power," not just through the Old Testament but also through the 'Cyropaedia,' written by another Greek author, Xenophon. 'Cyropaedia' literally means, "The Teaching of Cyrus" and was as much a part of the political library as Machiavelli's 'The Prince.' In fact, it was the only alternative to Machiavelli's theory that "It is Better To Be Feared Than Loved."

Praised by the Bible, the Cyropaedia, and John Locke - their three most influential sources - America's founding Fathers broke with tradition and adopted Cyrus's model of 'benevolent government' for their new nation. This is one of Thomas Jefferson's two personal copies of Xenophon's 'Cyropaedia.'





But Cyrus's benevolent rule did not stem from the goodness of his heart but from the values of his culture. Piecing together Cyrus's culture was by far the most difficult part of our research. What emerged was eye-opening. We know Cyrus was a Persian and that the Persians were one of several Iranian tribes, which inhabited the region known today as Iran. Though little is known about Iran's pre-Islamic culture, scholars have revealed a striking resemblance to the pagan culture of pre-Christian Europe. After all, pre-Christian Europe and pre-Islamic Iran both trace their cultural roots back to the same tribe that once roamed the Caspian steppes. Gender equality, religious freedom, and equal justice, considered "Western values" today, were protected mainstays of Persian culture. Today, many in the Middle East consider such values meddlesome tools of Western neo-imperialism. But in an age of unspeakable human misery, it was a Middle-Easterner who, for the first time in recorded history, applied such rights to all the people within his vast dominion. The writing on this baked, clay cylinder gives us a rare snapshot of Cyrus bestowing these very rights on the people of Babylonia after conquering it in October, 539 BCE.



Today this cylinder is considered the world's first universal declaration of human rights and is considered by many as the precursor to the Magna Carta and the U.S. Bill of Rights.

The purpose of this film is two fold. First, it will show the West that Middle Easterners once shared many of the same values we consider "western values" today. Second it will show Middle Easterners that gender equality, religious freedom, and due process are not trappings of western neo-imperialism, but were once celebrated by their own ancestors.

For a preview of, 'In Search Of Cyrus The Great,' please click here.

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Future of European-Iranian Relations

Joschka Fischeris, former foreign minister of Germany and a visiting professor at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University sends the Jihadist Islamic Republic occuyping Iran the most sobering warning and assessment to date:

Europe developed the balance of power system after our religious wars in 1648. And we experienced its benefits and its nightmares over the centuries and finally its definitive collapse in two world wars between 1914 and 1945. My country challenged this European system twice in the first half of the twentieth century. At the beginning of the last century, Germany was the leading power of Europe, but we made the wrong decisions and ended in a complete disaster. What was our strategic mistake? We followed hegemonial aspirations that relied on military might and prestige, and we miscalculated the anti-hegemonial instincts of Europe. And twice we underestimated the strategic potential, the power, and the political will and decisiveness of the United States. Otto von Bismarck, perhaps the greatest German statesman of the nineteenth century, defined Germany’s role in his century as either “hammer or anvil.” In the second half of the twentieth century, it turned out that he was completely wrong, because this had never been a serious alternative. A new European system based on a peaceful balance of interests, common European institutions in the framework of the EU, and guaranteed security, produced by NATO and the transatlantic alliance, completely changed the course of German and European history for the better.

Ladies and gentlemen, It seems to me that today Iran is confronted with the question of whether your country will follow hegemonial aspirations or become a driving force for peace, stability, and progress in the Middle East. Iran cooperated with the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq, based on its national interest. The result was not very promising from an Iranian point of view, I agree. But the situation has changed for the better, as the common offer reflects. And if we can move forward in the nuclear area to reach agreement, I believe that the implications of such progress will be positive and far-reaching. And I strongly believe that a “Grand Bargain” is achievable, that is, a nuclear and a regional security agreement in exchange for full economic, technological, and scientific cooperation; full political normalization; and security guaranties. But all depends now on the decision of the Islamic Republic of Iran. A policy of nuclearization, of confrontation with the UN, and of destabilization of the Middle East will lead us into a dark tunnel, in which I can see no light on the other side.

Read the whole article in full by clicking here. It's long but worth the read.

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