Today I want to talk about cultural differences concerning the customs for New Year. In Europe people celebrate in many different ways but most of them drink champagne, dance, we shoot with rockets, wasting a lot of money, and jump from sofas, into the New Year. This custom might not sound very smart but it can be a lot of fun. In most Muslim countries the older generations pray and thank Allah for the year. For the joy they had and for the challenges that they mastered. In China people gather dressed in red, dance in the streets with dragons that prevent evil to go down on the people.
There are many customs that might seem odd to us and then there is this old traditional custom in Iran. Hip hip hurray! They don’t get drunk, the don’t shoot rockets in the air; they don’t throw confetti, no they have a custom that is all theirs. Government opponents are released from prison. Mohsen Miramadi, the leader of the reforming party IIPF, who was imprisoned, on the 13th of July , the day after the controversial re-election by the securities of Mahmud Ahmadineschad. Good that the year has 365 days so there is some time to lock them up again when they think loud and next New Year there are some people to release. This is a very effective way of celebrating. It is not cost intensive nor is it softening your brain like alcohol does and it is a lot of fun obviously; at least for some of them.
The independent press association of the Iranian Democracy, two lies in one sentence, IRNA reported that, movie producer Mohammed Rasulof, the journalist Ali Akbar and the activist for women’s rights Farzaneh Kazemi were set free too. The New Years celebrations will last from the 21st of March to the 4th of April. The head of Iran, obviously thinks that intellectuals can only develop when they are set free for 2 weeks, breathe some fresh air in order to bring a fresh wind to the cells. Ahmadineschad has his own way of protecting the society; he protects them from the intellectual terror of thought-provoking impulses. This most likely has it source in the most interesting way of defining democracy, which is equal to Putin’s and many other politicians’ definition. In order to understand it you have to have a very clear and strong overestimation of yourself.
Our definition of democracy sound according to the dictionary like this:
Democracy is a political government carried out either directly by the people (direct democracy) or by means of elected representatives of the people (Representative democracy). The term is derived from the Greek: (dēmokratía) “rule of the people”, which was coined from (dêmos) “people” and (krátos) “power”, in the middle of the fifth-fourth century BC to denote the political systems then existing in some Greek city-states, notably Athens following a popular uprising in. Even though there is no specific, universally accepted definition of ‘democracy’, there are two principles that any definition of democracyincludes: equality and freedom.
Their definition of democracy:
Democracy is political government carried out by an illegitimately elected representative, his belief and the equal right to hold the representatives view by all means, shut-up or breathe screened air through the prison bars.
Probably those politicians, if you can call them, have a different version of dictionaries? Who is writing these dictionaries, which print house is printing them so secret that you can’t find them in the bookshops?
The biggest mystery to me though is that these people even dare to celebrate their own mercy! Their what??? Is this also a part of THEIR dictionary? Lock those up that oppose you, lock those up that might become more powerful then you and set them free when the world looks at you? Let it run over all the news? What about you guys from the press: how come you eat that crap? How come you write about that in a leaned back position as if the released ones are supposed to be happy? Where are your voices, where is your sense of justice? Are you already that satisfied with the fact that, they are still alive? Are you scared of the criticism? Did you forget about those people in the jails and your researches just brought them back to your weak memory? You forgot the circumstances; you forgot the cause why they were imprisoned? Guess what; NOBODY but each head of these “democratic” states understands it! Don’t search for answers, you won’t find them! Don’t celebrate temporary Human Rights; fight the fact that they are not permanent. Why do you have such power if you don’t use it when it is needed? Like that, you help to look at Human Rights as luxury- it is NOT. It is supposed to be a basic value! You are there to point this iniquitousness out. That is your duty!
You can’t be a butcher if you can’t see blood!
Hırpıt
