Hossein Derakhshan is an interesting man. If the Islamic Republic were to survive, it must make room for contradictions like his ideas. --Yoshie
<http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/objects/pages/PrintArticleEn.jhtml?itemNo=812597> Last update - 11:56 12/01/2007 King of the Iranian bloggers By Meron Rapoport Hossein Derakhshan's T-shirt is the only thing that gives him away. "I love Tehran," it says. Actually the shirt is the only thing that would lead one to guess that the affable, young-and-restless technology aficionado is not from here. He's from Iran, and proud of it. He was born in Tehran, grew up there and thinks it's the most fantastic city in the world. Even today, even now. Because even though Derakhshan cannot live in Iran at present, he is still an Iranian patriot. He despises Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but admires Khomeini; he's a total atheist, but thinks that an Islamic republic is the solution for the future; he's a friend of Israel, who thinks that Ahmadinejad's anti-Israeli policy is the leader's stupidest mistake, but he's also an enthusiastic supporter of the Iranian nuclear program and believes it would be very good for Iran to have an atom bomb. Good for Iran - and good for Israel. Based on all we think we know about Iran, Canada-based Derakhshan ought to be totally out of the ordinary, an endangered species. He's a journalist who never misses an opportunity to say that his president is stupid, a well-known blogger who preaches to a cyberspace that is free of censorship and oversight. But these two qualities, explains Derakhshan, are not unusual in Iran. The Iranian press slaughters Ahmadinejad on a daily basis, and blogs are a big hit. Some 700,000 bloggers are active in Iran today, he estimates, from radicals who curse spiritual leader Ali Khamenei to madrasa students in the holy city of Qum. Even Ahmadinejad himself started his own blog a little while ago. It's not by chance that Derakhshan speaks about blogs as if he were talking about religion. Dr. Michael Dahan of Sapir Academic College, who studies the phenomenon of blogs in general and of those in the Middle East in particular, says that Derakhshan could be considered the spiritual father of the bloggers in Iran. This is the man who also found a technological solution to writing blogs in Farsi and also gave the blogger movement its ideological cast - promoting a free space for discussions about everything that's happening in Iranian society. Thus, it was not surprising to find him as a guest at the conference held this week at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Be'er Sheva, entitled "Reform, Opposition and Conflicts in the Middle East." Derakhshan spoke during the session led by Prof. Yoram Meital about "Blogging as a Realm of Opposition in the Middle East." Derakhshan's visit to Israel, his second within a year, had two purposes: to show his Iranian readers that Israel is not an enemy, and to explain to Israelis that the terrible image they have of Iran is distorted and without connection to reality. Two freest countries Hossein Derakhshan was born into the Islamic Revolution. He is 31, meaning he was four years old when millions of Iranians toppled the shah's regime and eagerly welcomed Khomeini upon his return from exile. Derakhshan grew up in a religious family and received a religious education, though this did not stop him from working at one of the popular liberal newspapers, Asr-e Azadegan (Hour of Liberation). The newspaper was closed under the reformist president Mohammed Khatami, but Derakhshan easily found work at another paper. In 2000, his wife received a visa to emigrate to Canada and Derakhshan emigrated with her (they have since divorced). Even though the newspaper where he worked closed, Derakhshan describes the press in Iran in a surprisingly positive light. "During the time of President Khatami, the conservatives feared that the reformists were really America's emissaries, who wanted to topple the regime without a battle, and therefore they closed down newspapers then," he explains. "Today, this fear has passed. Except for criticism of the spiritual leader Khamenei, you can write criticism of anyone. The press is so rough on Ahmadinejad that not long ago, he went to Khamenei and complained to him about the criticism. Khamenei told him that it was true that he was getting some harsh criticism, but that there was nothing to be done about it, that that's how the game works." With the exception of Israel, asserts Derakhshan, Iran is the freest country in the Middle East. He cites a recent event at Tehran University, where the students greeted President Ahmadinejad with boos, and one student even burned a picture of the president right in front of him. Not a single student was arrested. "You couldn't do that in any other Middle Eastern country," he says. His description of life in Tehran is surprising, too. "I love Tehran," says Derakhshan, who has made his home in Toronto in recent years, but also travels frequently in Europe. "It's a huge, lively and varied city that's alive 24 hours a day. The restaurants are open until four in the morning." In fact, it's rather similar to Tel Aviv, he says, in terms of both architecture and character. "Young people in Tel Aviv and Tehran are listening to the same music and using the same drugs." But don't get the wrong idea. Derakhshan does not think that Iran is a paradise. And he has plenty of reason for feeling this way. Before he left Tehran, he was summoned for questioning by the security forces and forced to sign a document of apology for things he'd written against the regime. In 2001, shortly after he immigrated to Canada, he began writing his blog, entitled "Editor: Myself" (at www.hoder.com). For several years, it was the most popular blog in Iran, until the authorities decided to block access to it two years ago. This happened after he violated one of the iron rules of the Iranian press: It is forbidden to express criticism of spiritual leader Khamenei. "I wrote a post entitled 'Khamenei: A Well-Meaning Dictator,'" Derakhshan recounts. "I actually wrote pretty good things about Khamenei, but ever since then they've blocked my blog." Expanding space What matters most to Derakhshan is that bloggers have managed to create a steadily expanding space for public discussion. A space where supporters of reforms can exchange views, but also argue with conservative bloggers, who are also very active on the Web. And all of this space, which has no center and no hierarchy, says Derakhshan, is protected by the government. Despite all the problems, Derakhshan believes in the Iranian revolution, in Khomeini and the Islamic republic. It's odd to hear such things coming from a young man who looks thoroughly Western, sitting on the lawn at Ben-Gurion University on a warm afternoon, but this is what he says. "Khomeini's revolution is as important as the French Revolution," he maintains. "The central ideas of Khomeini were equality and independence. I believe in them. I used to be more critical of the idea of an Islamic republic. Today I think that this is a post-modernist idea, that it's a correct idea. I'm an atheist, I don't care at all about Mohammed and about religion, but it's impossible to disqualify religion like they did in Turkey. It doesn't work, and it leads to counter-reactions. Religion is an organic part of our society. It needs to be given a new interpretation. This is what Iran is offering the Muslim world." What about equality? I wouldn't imagine that women in Tehran often use that word to describe the regime. Derakhshan: "True, women are forced to wear a hijab, but that's only an external matter, it's only part of the story. Women in Iran have a much greater presence in society than women in other Middle Eastern countries. In Parliament, for example, in public positions. The marriage laws have also changed a lot in women's favor in the past 15 years, as a result of the ceaseless efforts of the women's organizations." As for Ahmadinejad, Derakhshan says that he, like many Iranians, is embarrassed by the president "the way a lot of Americans are embarrassed by Bush." Ahmadinejad was elected on the basis of promises to improve the standard of living, Derakhshan explains, but instead all he does is talk from morning till night about Israel, about Holocaust denial and nuclear capabilities. Derakhshan is convinced that the Iranian public is either put off by these things or simply not interested in them. He says that the Iranian public is not hostile toward Israel. Perhaps even the opposite. "The Iranians remember that the Palestinians supported Saddam Hussein when he fought against Iran," he says. "And some also remember that Israel tried to transfer arms to Iran in the Iran-Contra episode, and that's something in Israel's favor." He adds: "You have to distinguish between rhetoric and actions. Iran has no desire to destroy Israel. If it did, Tehran would have permitted Hezbollah to use long-range rockets against Tel Aviv in the last war. Ahmadinejad is not Hitler. The one who controls the army is Khamenei, and he is not pleased by Ahmadinejad's declarations. Iran and Israel have a common interest: They live in a region controlled by Sunni Muslims." And Derakhshan has yet another surprise up his sleeve: His opposition to Ahmadinejad's policy doesn't mean that he's opposed to the Iranian nuclear project. On the contrary, he believes that it would be good for Iran to have nuclear arms. Only with them can it protect itself from its threatening neighbors: nuclear Pakistan, Iraq and the whole Sunni Middle East. And Israel, too, will benefit from an Iran that is strong and secure, he says. And what if Israel attacks the Iranian nuclear facilities? "Then it will be seen as the long arm of America, and the attitude toward it will follow accordingly." <http://themedialine.org/news/news_detail.asp?NewsID=16438> Defying the Image - Iran Through the Eyes of a Blogger Written by The Media Line Staff Published Wednesday, January 17, 2007 Hossein Derakhshan challenges the image most Westerners have of the average Iranian guy. The famous Iranian blogger, who describes himself as "anti-Khamanai and anti-Bush," was born and raised in Iran, but moved to Canada five years ago. His popular bilingual blog, hoder.com, reaches out to Iranians and Westerners, shattering stereotypes and altering misconceptions about his homeland. Derakhshan made a publicized trip to Israel in January - the second within in a year - where he was a guest of BenGurionUniversity. He shares his thoughts on the Iranian blogosphere, Iran's image in the West, the nuclear program, and his unusual impressions of Iran's sworn archenemy - Israel. TML: Hossein Darakhshan is an Iranian blogger based in Toronto. Hossein, welcome to the program. Hossein: Thank you very much for having me. TML: Tell us about your blog. Hossein: I have two blogs, one in Persian and one in English. The Persian is more… I try to do activism in it, to break stereotypes, to talk about things in more innovative ways for Iranians, to bring new ideas and those sorts of things. The English one everyone can read. But it's not even closely as popular as the Persian one. I try to feel the gap between the local media and the international media which has always a very biased and simplistic point of view towards Iran, especially the Anglo-Saxon media. So there are lots of things you can find in my English blog that are reported widely in Iran, but no one knows about them because there are not reported in English, for example. TML: Who is your audience in terms of the Persian blog? Are you trying to reach out to Iranians in exile or Iranians in Iran? Hossein: The whole culture is created from inside Iran and Tehran, and there's no point to try to reach the exiles if you want to have any kind of influence inside Iran from within, and this is what I'm trying to do. There are problems; for example, both my blogs are filtered and blocked by the Iranian government, because of some, they say, violations of press laws, which actually in a way is true. I have violated those press laws, but those press laws are kind of silly because some of them are very undemocratic and against some of the principles of free speech. So I'm focusing on the people who live in Tehran. Despite all these problems I'm using different technologies, different ways to reach them. And I think the most successful one was using emails. I have a very big email list [to which] I send my blog every day. TML: What kind of things do you tell them? Can you give us some examples? Hossein: Actually, for example, something I specifically did because I thought my blogging audience and the influence of blog could allow me to do this was the trip to Israel. I came to Israel because I wanted to show the Iranians a more realistic image of this country and its people. And without my Persian blog, I would have not been able to do this. So I posted lots of entries about the ordinary memories and the ordinary things that were happening. I posted lots of pictures and videos, or used my blog by linking to other resources like "YouTube" and "Flicker" and these kinds of websites. So it kind of has become a personal platform or a personal newspaper in a way for me. It's not supposed to inform people all the time like a newspaper. But I try to; sometimes I do something very journalistic in it, sometimes not very journalistic; it's more about diaries and those sorts of things. It's very political, the Persian one, and both are very political. You can't really afford not being political these days. TML: In one of your last entries in your blog you spoke about the fact that since you have arrived in Israel you have been explaining incessantly why Mahmoud Ahmadi Nejad isn't considered a threat. Why do you think that? Hossein: Because his power is very limited. All presidents in Iran, first of all, [constitutionally] have no control over the army and the military, and this is something that the media always ignore, because Ahmadi Nejad is supposed to be a Hitler by the right-wing Israelis and the right-wing Americans. And this is simply not true. There are so many fragmentations in the political system in Iran that prevent Ahmadi Nejad from being the most powerful person in Iran. The most powerful person in Iran has not changed for 15 years, and he is the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamanai. If Iran was a threat to any country it has been a threat for the past 15 years. So it has not all of a sudden become a threat because Ahmadi Nejad was elected, especially because he is so limited. Also his popularity is going down, and the best evidence was the recent elections, municipality elections or city councils elections in the nation-wide elections. And his supporters absolutely lost these elections. They are not elected. Not even one member of them was elected in many big cities in Iran. And they did terribly also in rural areas where everyone thought they were the constituency of Ahmadi Nejad. TML: If blogs are so important for democracy, why aren't we seeing more signs of rebellion from inside Iran against the regime? Hossein: There are so many different opinions in blogs if you can read the Persian language, because the ones in English are not really presenting anything. There are very few of them, first of all, and they are not representing people who live in Iran – most of them are people who live outside. The Persian ones, if you can take the time and read the language, you can read so many diverse and different opinions, and many of them are very harshly critical of the Islamic Republic. There are some taboos, actually, that bloggers are kind of complying with. Abiding by those taboos, one can accept not breaking these taboos, but at the same time say whatever you want to say with lots of ways of using different words, different ways of saying something, and this is something that Iranians and the whole Middle East have always been doing. You couldn't even criticize your father, for example, in that direct language. So how can you expect people to criticize the Supreme Leader? So they use other ways to do that by using ambiguous language or more general words. But they do make criticism at the same time, and ultimately, that's the important thing. TML: Do you think they have a lot of influence, the bloggers? Hossein: The bloggers in Iran are limited to a certain group of people, the urban educated middle class. They have that limited influence on this constituency. But their influence is not beyond that constituency. So they can't really affect, for example, the presidential elections, because these are Iranian nation-wide elections, they can't really do anything about them. But they can be very influential in some local elections, for the parliament, for example, especially in smaller cities where there is a university or a place that has attracted a lot of these Internet-connected people; or city council elections for example, again in small and medium-sized cities. TML: Apart from some of the problems that you mentioned earlier, about some of the blogs being filtered, what kind of challenges and limitation do the bloggers face in Iran? Hossein: It's only censorship, I think. Because it has been said for the past, maybe two years, many times that bloggers in Iran are arrested, they are harassed all of the time by the government, and all that kind of thing. It's not true. Many of these people, many of these watchdogs are saying they are arrested because of their blogs; they are not arrested for their blogs, they are arrested for something else. I'm not trying to justify that. I just want to be very specific. Blogging in Iran is not something that gets you into trouble now. It's a mainstream thing, because religious people, pro-government people have blogs and secular, totally rationalistic people also have blogs. You know, people from politics have blogs – Ahmadi Nejad himself, the reformist politicians. So it becomes a totally localized [thing]; it's not a Western phenomenon any more. So blogging doesn't mean you are an opposition which is very different from satellite TV, for example. Satellite TV as a medium is seen by the Iranian government as a Western, basically bad thing. But blogging is a good thing because all of them are doing that. TML: Could you write your blog the way it is at the moment if you were in Tehran? Hossein: Probably the English blog, yes. I could do the same thing. I could continue writing the same way. In the Persian blog I could write about the same topics, but I would have to use different language. I could easily talk about many of these things that I'm writing, criticizing the leader, even talking about Israel in a way. But I would have to use a different language, much more conservative language, without having those edges that provoke people. TML: Can you tell us a bit about yourself? Hossein: I moved to Canada at the beginning of 2001. I was born and raised my whole life in Tehran, and as you can see I love it even in Tel Aviv. But I think it's an amazing place to be, in Iran, but the image is so much destroyed now, mainly by the Anglo-Saxon media. Everyone has a totally distorted image. But that is one of the most interesting things; Iran is one of the most interesting countries, because they have managed to mix these two elements of religion and the new concept of governance, which is in a way a bit similar to Israel. They also have the same struggle between religion and democracy and human rights and those kinds of things. When I left, I didn't leave because of political reasons. I left because I wanted to see the West and I wanted to experience living outside Iran. I also wanted a high speed Internet connection, by the way, which you couldn't have at that time. That was one of the small reasons. Before that I was writing for a reformist newspaper about digital culture and Internet and that kind of thing. I think it was very influential at that time because I was getting so many emails. It was definitely the first daily column about Internet and digital culture in any Iranian newspaper. And then, when I went to Canada, I discovered the idea of blogs and I started promoting that and it caught on, to my surprise. After a few months, there were so many bloggers, and now it is estimated that there are about 700,000 blogs or something like that in the Persian language. In a country that has about 10 million Internet users, it makes sense to have so many bloggers; kind of the same ratio as in the U.S. in terms of the number of blogs. There are instructions written in the Persian language to teach what blogs are and how you can make a blog in the Persian language with all the technical problems. That was very helpful for people to start them off; basically I kind of started off helping starting the blogging movement in Iran from Canada. TML: What's the main message about Iran that you want to get through to a Western audience? Hossein: Now I think the best message could be that Ahmadi Nejad is a joke in Iran. Ahmadi Nejad is not Hitler. He doesn't even have one percent of the power he [Hitler] had at that time. And Iran is not anything close to what Germany was in Hitler's time. It's just a distorted image of this country. This is the central problem: If the Americans acknowledge the existence of the Islamic Republic and they stop threatening it, which they have from day one of the Islamic revolution, Iran would totally change internally, and also externally. Because, whatever Iran is doing in terms of foreign policy about helping Hamas, helping Hizbullah, meddling in Iraq and all that kind of thing, it is because they want to have the maximum cards possible to be able to negotiate and to be able to defend [itself] if the Americans wanted to attack Iran. TML: Let's go the other way around. You've spent five years now outside of Iran. What kind of impression would you like to give the Iranians about the West that's perhaps a misperception in Iran? Hossein: Interestingly enough the Iranians know much more about the West and their perceptions about the West are much more realistic than the other way around. But specifically, maybe about Israel I could say one of the things that really surprised me the last time I came here last year was that first of all there are so many Iranian Jews living in Israel and they are still very Iranian. They are called "Parsi" and they speak Persian and this is something I didn't know and most Iranians don't know about that. And also there are so many similarities between these two peoples and so much common interest in a way, if you want to talk about Jewish politics and strategic alliances and those kinds of things. And specifically about Israel, that's my message. But about the West, I don't have anything to add to what people know about the West and the U.S. and Europe. TML: Are many people, young people like yourself trying to get out of Iran, if it's for studies or to live? Hossein: First of all, one of the misconceptions about Iran is that people think Iranians can't leave Iran as [it is] in Cuba or maybe North Korea or other similar countries. Anyone in Iran who wants a passport can easily get one in two weeks, and they could live anywhere they wanted. The only country that it's illegal to travel to is Israel. But except for that, you can travel anywhere you want and you can get a passport any time you want. So there are lots of people, there are millions of people from Iran, I think it's estimated about six million Iranians live outside Iran now, which is [now] probably an even bigger number because lots of them have married and have families that are probably not counted in that figure. But Iranian immigrants, or maybe immigrant communities, or people who have left Iran, have always had a very important impact on what has been happening in Iran. They are basically the reason that about a hundred years ago they started a constitutional movement by seeing Europe, and they have influence; or they are the ones who brought the idea of newspapers to Iran. So they always had this contact and this has always been helpful to the way Iran is, and this is still continuing. Lots of people are going back and forth and it's nothing unusual. I agree that lots of people have left because of lower standards of living in a way, or the limited kind of social life they can have because of these religious limitations, and things like that. TML: When most people in the West hear the word Iran, the first thing that comes to mind is the nuclear impasse and the conflict. Tell me about the average person of your age in Iran. What's the main thing on their agenda, what's bothering them at the moment? Hossein: I think isolation, international isolation of Iran is really bothering everyone, although partially it's because of that new kind of aggressive foreign policy that Iran has. At the same time the Iranian people understand that if Iran wants to be independent, and this is my personal opinion too, if Iran wants to be independent there's no way to guarantee that without a nuclear weapons system. If Iran wants to maintain its independence and not be toppled by the Americans, which has been the biggest threat to Iran from the first day of the revolution, there is no other way. Iran needs this. Otherwise it would be totally losing its sovereignty. Azerbaijan would go somewhere and then Kurdistan would go to Iraq and they would totally be divided. It would be an absolute mess like in Iraq, if the Americans attacked Iran. Iran was in a way lucky that Saddam was seen as a more imminent threat at that time. But it could have easily been Iran when they attacked Iraq. And you would see the same mess in Iran. So, lots of Iranians my age, even secular like me think, and are even as anti – it's very difficult, I'm kind of anti-Khamanai and anti-Bush at the same time. People who are positioning themselves in the middle here, they are supporting this nuclear program, because they know the other choice, the other side of it would be something like what is happening in Iraq now. But then, at the same time, a big part of this argument is that Iran should stop threatening other countries, and there's no question about that. But if they stopped that I think the world community would understand Iran's reasons for [wanting to] have this nuclear program, as a kind of deterrent. And this is the same argument that the British have now when they decided to continue having nuclear weapons themselves. Tony Blair has said that we would soon need them as a deterrent. And I think it is very hypocritical of the West not to allow other countries to think about their independence and security. TML: Where do you see your future geographically, or careerwise? Hossein: I think the Iranian government is so stupid that I can't go back to Iran. Because in a way people like me are defending the country; we are defending the culture; and in a way, even the Islamic Revolution. The revolution, I totally defend that, [it was] a valuable thing that happened; we toppled a monarchy, we started a democracy, which is still struggling with all these problems. But it's still a valuable cause. But with all these limitations, these stupid, silly excuses to harass people and to stop them from what they are doing, it's not really going to help them. So I would love to have the opportunity to be able to go back to Iran again after I have been to Israel, and make this contact between Iranian and Israelis, which is my project, bypassing the governments and making this contact between the two peoples. But I don't really know. I don't want to be based in any specific place for a long time. I want to live everywhere. With a Canadian passport, thanks to the Canadians you can do that. TML: Among your peers, back in Iran, are you an odd bird? Hossein: In some ways, yes. But I think there are many people like me who have actually changed, the same way I have changed since I left Iran. Because when I left I was a bit more pro-West and anti-Iran. I was closer to the Americans in the way I was thinking about Iran. I had an American point of view towards Iran. But seeing and living and experiencing firsthand the West, the U.S. and Canada and North America, has helped me adopt an Iranian point of view by reading some different materials than I was reading before. I think this has happened to lots of Iranians who left Iran in the past six, seven years. They also had this kind of change and I was totally surprised that when I announced publicly that I support Iran's nuclear program that I found so many people exactly on the same page. TML: Just one more question. You are wearing a T-shirt that says: "I love Tehran" on it. Tell us about the T-shirt. Hossein: The T-shirt is something that a friend of mine has done in Toronto and I'm going to continue this by making two other T-shirts, because this is the project that I'm doing. The project has not started yet, but it's called "Tehraviv," a mix of Tehran and Tel Aviv, and I want to connect people from Tehran and Tel Aviv, to bypass the government and to do some kind of peace activism by using creative, innovative ways. One of these little ideas is making two T-shirts: one in Hebrew saying "Ani (I) heart Tehran," and one in Persian saying "Man (I) Tel Aviv Adustara," which is "I love Tel Aviv." So this is kind of the beginning. This was not designed for that purpose, but I'm wearing it to see people's reactions here. -- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>
