It Happened!

It Happened! What I was afraid of. Look who is leaving, Khatami, the intellectual that we were proud of, and see who is coming, a hard line conservative, who makes it humiliating to be Iranian. If Khatami had a landslide victory as a result of youth and student supports eight years ago, now with a huge poor population, Ahmadi Nejad is surfing on the sear of poverty and in absence of many of reform supporters.

The most radical portion of the population with the most dangerous Islamic fundamentalist ideas are now in charge. Bad days to come. I do not want to see myself as war blogger. But these guys will make it easier to happen if they insist in having this nasty nuclear technology the way they want. I think those who like US to attack Iran are loving this most. The stupid ideas of these conservatives will make it easy to justify it. What I should do? I am going to keep breathing. Because tomorrow the sun will rise and who knows what the next tide can bring? Well, this time it has brought something very nasty! But anyway, Shit happens!

Comments

I'm very sorry to hear that. Do you believe that Ahmadinejad was truly elected or that he was appointed by the hard-liners by a rigged election? The landslide seems hard to justify considering the earlier tight race between him and Rafsanjani.

I had hoped the Iranian people were trending more towards pushing for individual freedoms. Why would you want to chain yourselves further?

Good luck.

[P. Campbell]

I have been reading comments that the voting turnout was not nearly as high as wht the offical reports would indicate and I noticed that you said you where the only person at your voting place. I've also seen pictures on the internet of empty streets (where they would normally be quite busy). What is your impression of the number of people voting?
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Mr. Behi says: I respect all those who did not vote. They had the right to do so. There were 47 million who could vote. Till now, the numbers show that 22 million did. The supporters of Ahmadi nejad voted but many of those who were against the fundametalism did not vote. many of them say that they did not like Hashemi either. But finaly, see the result: This strategy acted in favor of Ahadi Nejad and his radical supporters. Considering all the reasons for boycotting -and I find many of them logical in principal- the result was not what we wanted. sorry

Maybe is not as bad, maybe then instead of dying a long brutal slow death like what we have had for the past 8 years, what I am talking about for the past 26 years, we have it once and get it over with. And just maybe instead of the big bad wolf, the US of A, people of Iran do away with these morons without any need to ask for Uncle Sam's help.
I am sure it would be bloody in any case, but at least some of the blood on the street would be the mullah's.
So, there could be good coming out of this.
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Mr.Behi says: Against this idea! This will bring another radical ideas into power and will leave us behind. What I liked was moderate change without bloodshed. pity!

[Behrooz]

When ~20+ million come out to vote, you consider that a failure of democracy? How can you consider people in lower socioeconomic classes to be the most radical portion of the population when in fact they were the majority? Unless of course you consider most of the people who turned out to vote as being radical elements of the population? That sounds rather biased to me.

Instead, what is clear is that the "reformist" movement is either in the minority, or clearly extremely disorganized. Because if they were as wishful about potential change, Mr. Moeen would be President and not Mr. Ahmadinejad.

Perhaps you ougt to visit some of the poorer places in Iran and then tell us how the "reformist" movement has helped it. Tell us how you expect people in the lower socioeconomic classes that their primary concern ought to be about this "intellectualization" about "freedom", when they have to worry about putting food on the table.

The gap between the rich and the poor in Iran is increasing daily, and the main concern should be to improve the well-being of the Iranian population. "Freedom" will follow only when the majority of people become capable of excercising and demanding their rights.
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Mr.Behi says: I agree. Reform failed to help them. I do not believe that being poor is syn to being conservative. But the conservatives appeared with a big campaign alleging that all of the poverty is because of the current management. Ahmadi nejad himself was a governor of a province in Hashemi's time. The thing is that the non-elected conservatives are in depth related with the corrupted economy but tried to use poverty as a tool against the current reformists and technocrates. Mean while, the threat of their primitive economic ideas is clear and present and people soon realize that with them, no flourishing in economy can materialize

[ahmad payam]

Let me understand " .. Khatami had a landslide victory as a result of youth and student supports eight years ago, now with a huge poor population, Ahmadi Nejad is surfing on the sear of poverty.." After eight years of Khatami ..... we have "..a huge poor population" ?!
And we have also jails full of political prisoners, we also have the dead body of Zahra Kazemi. All that under Mr. Khatami's watch. Oh! he was not responsible [sic] for crackdowns on intellectuals and journalists. OK.
Was he not for 8 years responsible for this ".. huge poor population"? What a shame.
Ba Omide in keh gardoun magardad magar bar Behi.
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Mr.Behi says: :-) yes he was. If it was not for his silince, many of the reformists would have not lost their hope for reform. Reform in the form Khatami introduced was beloved by many including me but he made the hope demolished. Pity!

[Behrooz]

Mr. Khatami was simply a man ahead of his time. Although he came to power during a fairly opportune time, his ideas of reform, although correct (e.g., rule of law, etc.), were ahead of their time. The current unelected institutions were, and and still are afraid of a pluralistic interpretation of Islamic Government.

Today, many people are unfortunately disappointed in Mr. Khatami because they forget that he was constrained and people wanted far too much, far too fast. The reformist movement failed to appease the majority of the population, and spent far too much time and energy with the intellectual debate rather than the practical debate.

Mr. Ahmadinejad decided to take on the practical debate (and at the same time, appeased people in lower socioeconomic classes), and ultimately, that's where the reformers including Mr. Moeen likely failed.

[Alborz]

The election turn out was very low, apparently many iranians got the message of disobidience (spelling). Ahamdinejad's legitmicay as president is heavily damaged, and believe me the turn out is much lower that %47. vote rigging by the basij and hizbollahis made a lot of difference.
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Mr.Behi says: Yes, there are news about their influence. But the truth that in out there in the ground is that people wanted to make Ahmadi nejad, lonely but they in fact could not. I was talking to BBC reporters today and they were wondering ehy I was opposing Ahmadi nejad while he has got this many votes? You see, world can not fully accept that the boycott happened and meanwhile we left our right to change this result to fly from our hands. pity. Now this is by far too late. we shall think of the days to come.

[A]

Mr Behi e gol,

Don't be too sad. Who knows, things might get so bad that people do something about the system!

Keep breathing!

Your huge fan.
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Mr.Behi: :-) Thanks for your words. In fact we were trying to do soemthing about the system but know they are gone and we have failed. Let's see what this new stream takes us. Cheers.

[BP]

Mr. Behi,

The result is a shock. But I hope that it wakes the Iranian people, especially the youth, and end the apathy that was during Khatami's period.

I appreciate your blog so much. Please keep us posted at what happens in the future after this election.

Mr Behi,
Don't feel bad, the Mullahs chose the result of this false election from the beginning. I think it's funny that they have all power in Iran, and blame their puppet/President for the predictable result (poverty and unemployment).
Khatami had years to propose and push for reform, and he did not, so now it's back to the bad old days. I hope the Majority in Iran now rises up from under the boot of these tyrants and imposes their will.
If this guy is able to impose socialist/communist economic reforms, the result will be more of the same. That economic system has proven to be a disaster to all who have attempted it, and Iran will be no different. Systems change, Individuals change, but people are the same everywhere. A "command economy" will lead to bread lines and starvation.
Good luck, I hope you are able to continue posting. I check here first to see where I am going to be travelling in the future.
Hawkpilot

[Alborz]

before criticizing khatami, remember this, he never ordered arrests against his oponents. he never tortured anybody. when the students yelled at him and harshly criticized him right into his face, Khatami took as a man. He admitted his fault, comparing to the hardliners, khatami proved more of a man than them.