Adventures of Mr.Behi

The Gaza Ghetto

These days I am using the freedom of my days off with reading and watching what I have collected in literature, art and history. I have this amazingly detailed BBC documentary series of the second world war that is both horrifying and enlightening. What really stands out is the racial discrimination and outrageous racism applied in occupied territories of Nazi Germany. The mass annihilation of Jews is so infamous. Movies are made on how they were marginalised in Ghettos and sent to labour camps and gas chambers for the "final solution" of the Nazis to get fulfilled.

For a nation rising from the ashes of that war, Israel should have known better and done better than what I see today on TV. Hundreds dead in air strikes in a densely populated area, short in medical supplies thanks to the walls surrounding it. With living memories still existing of living in Ghettos and with Israel weeing and complaining every time about people denying the Holocaust (which by itself is an outrageous inhumane thing to do), one wonders why little is learned from the event.

Hundreds of civilians are already dead and from those who survived, how many more minds you think are ready to be brainwashed to do suicide bombing? You do the math and I hope the blind, veto holding nations can do something and stop this crazy and bloody chain of events. I also wonder why Hamas and Israel ended the cease fire. Was there anything wrong in not killing each other? Maybe someone in Hamas thinks he needs war to find a meaning for its existence or someone in Israel needs to win an election!

Whatever that is, it is just ridiculous for all these people fighting for a strip of land for these many years. The dead sea will absorb all of the souls of this land if they continue sink into the bloodshed. 

Collecting Thoughts

I could not answer Mrs.Behi the other day when she asked what happened to me that my writings have become so random and infrequent that the blog is loosing its touch as being a real diary. To be honest, I have no idea! Despite the great volume of things going on in my head, the sense of belonging is still not there and by that I am not talking about place of residence. It seems that your mind sometimes needs to reside and get comfortable to produce thoughts or otherwise the footprints would result in a scrapbook of searching patterns. Or perhaps that scrapbook would be an interesting and intriguing thing to preserve and write about.

- It is been a while that I started following the works of a person who I can at least describe as a devoted man to logic. A one who is so soaked into science that can freshen the mind by his sequential way of thinking. I find listening to Richard Dawkins very thought provoking and fascinating. I am now busy reading two of his books "The God Delusion" and "The Ancestor's Tale" and I strongly recommend them. Regardless of the degree of religious belief that one may have, the beauty of the way natural selection and the story of life is presented in his works is by far more delightful than any other alternative supernatural interpretation of the world around us. Also recently found the audio of his interview at New Yorker festival that is a great listen for those who don't have time to read the books.

- I guess everyone is watching closely to see what happens in US election. We have seen many aspects of wired politics of American through the debates and appearances and some I will never forget. One very disturbing one was that in which a woman in a McCain rally grabbed a microphone and said "I don't trust Obama because he is an Arab" and it was so disturbing to see the GOP candidate to respond "No Mam, He is a decent man!". Imagine yourself an American with Arab heritage! This is utterly disgusting to see that being decent is considered by a presidential candidate as being not part of a minority group. Seems that America can never overcome the problem of making peace with minorities. The colour and language of these minorities change but the nature of the problem remains. I am sure the Japanese-American fellows had the same problem during WWII (?). On other side, Barack Obama talking on supporting main street against Wall Street. Till now, it looks nice...at least much better than the stupid Joe the Plumber argument (although it seems that plumbing is what America needs after 8 years of what Bush has been busy with...we may need Akbar the plumber next year when Ahmadinejad debates for his second term) yet I was surprised to hear Obama calling for gasoline sanction against Iran which will be the biggest slam to main street economy in the country and can hit the poor very bad when at the same time, he talks about talks with no pre-conditions! We should wait and see what happens in this election but I hope Obama wins as he appears (indeed) more decent compared to his rival.

- I finally got my iphone yesterday. It is really a piece of art like many other adorable Mac products. I am already in love with a crisp touch and the variety of applications. Typepad has a free blogging app for iphone so maybe this way I get convinced to move my lazy fingers and post more here.

- BTW, things have got very nasty in Congo and it is a shame to talk about fancy electronics and not think of people in crisis. Help these people by filling a cup! You can find the link on the left column. Cheers. Behi

The City of Peace and Justice

Maybe it is the work of the little peace dove of my blog that we ended up in The Hague, city of peace, justice and security. Everyday that I go to work, I witness press vans and TV cameras lined up -or I would better say camped- in front of the UN detention center, waiting to sweep any news about the new prisoner, Radovan Karadzic. It is at least a good thing that there is a place in the world for war criminals to end up! but the hope remains that the ideology behind such genocides would also be imprisoned, something that is proven wrong over and over through the course of history.

I remember the Bosnia ethnic war vividly. Inside Iran, the government was passionately acting for the Muslim side. TV was full of documentaries about the war and as we heard, the Iranian revolutionary guard was actually involved in supplying aids. The government just ignored to cover the fact that Russia was backing the other side of the war. Perhaps as Iran is the enemy of the US, Russia should be kept happy! Politicians have indeed an unfair/biased account of world conflicts which is very irritating.

Apart from a little bottle-neck in traffic made by the news vans, it is good to see the international criminal court doing its job. Although there would be no news crew if it had not been a genocide to trial someone for. One could feel much better then but for now, it is good that the bus passes through natural woods after the prison for some peace.

The Dutch that I know

[seems that I am keeping on breaking my record for putting big gaps between my posts. Nothing intentional.. for the record to remember my life in future I should note that it has been a rather stressful and restless period of my life..stress is not new but I would say that I have been rather restless more than often]

but after all this...

For a particular reason, I had my attention attracted to Netherlands during the past weeks and I got curious to know more than just the flowers, the sea dams and the international court. The land of the free as they may say so, appeared to have irregular and non-homogeneous details and maybe that is about the cheese :)

I know a couple of Dutch guys who live in Tripoli. I have known particularly one of them since a year ago when I started here and he soon appeared to be one of the greatest friends. The charming and amiable person with a constant smile on his face who always flattered me with all his kind gestures. I still could not make my peace with the language though as it sounds very far from the sounds that my ears can relate to. You always hear that Northern Europeans are strict and straight with low flexibility and less amiable character compared to other nations. Well, all the Dutch, Norwegians and Swedish fellows that I know are among the most fun people I ever known.

Browsing the news, I found the story about this Dutch politician Geert Wilders, a far right wing nationalist who they say has made a bad movie about the Quran. I searched him on YouTube and found a couple of his videos especially his interview with Fox News and to me he looked like just a blond version of Taliban who shaves. Taliban says there is no moderate Islam, extreme Islam is the right Islam and Wilders says exactly the same. Seems that the trap of dogma is not only in the religious schools of the Middle-East. Grown up in Iran and living now in Libya and despite the fact that I don't really connect with any aspects of any sort of religion as a whole, I should say that I have seen many moderate Muslims indeed. I have no idea why this guy wants to air such a movie. Does he think he discovered something really new there? I am sure he can find more bitter remain of bad religion in dark halls of Medieval castles in his own neighborhood.

I know that to many Muslims, Quran is special because it encourages thinking and learning the world and fights dogma in some aspects. To me, there are many detailed instructions there that do not make any sense after these years to so many people when it comes to what to wear and what to eat. Many moderate Muslims that I know consider the book as sort of a big picture and follow their everyday logic in life based on their common sense. Extreme Muslims on the other hand tend to focus on verses and paragraphs and they are indeed those who think of themselves as the true followers of the book. Same as in other religions...we still need to convince many religious people of the west that Earth is older than a couple of thousand years and evolution indeed happened.

I do not understand the aim of Wilders on this..if he wants to fight the extremism then he should stop being one and not to provoke people who are so into their own dogma already. Everyone laughed at Ahmadinejad when he said "there are no homosexuals in Iran" how about "there is no moderate Islam" of Geert Wilders?

And to the moderate Muslims, if you believe you really exist on the contrary of our Dutch politician, try to be like one and make another movie to respond. Make many movies and write many books. Condemnation ,demonstration and death threats don't go anywhere.

Just to finish, It was sad to see people were worried about reaction of Iranians to the movie...see this video a fun report from the blog of a Dutch in Iran.

The nobel peace price

Pleased to hear the news and the fact that this much attention is given to the environment. Sure it will take a while till the world really realizes that protect the environment is the biggest challenge facing all of us. I have wrote here before how I believe in democracy as a culture and why it can not be imposed by war or by negotiation, yet it shall be thought from within families. In the same way for protecting the environment, the accountability is the key and it shall be felt by everyone. When I started this blog back in 2004, amongst one of the first posts was one about the Kyoto treaty and the fact that some powerful industrial nations had not signed for it. I had some commentator who were still doubtful about the fact that human activity could have caused global warming. I hope they have changed their minds by now.

I read once in a Persian blog, a translated quote from Leo Tolstoy that said: "From all those people who go to the hills to pray for rain, only those who take their umbrellas truly believe in their words"

Don't you dare....

I am a critique of Iranian government, the way they treat human rights and freedom of speech and so many other things but at the same time, I am outraged by the way US is trying to collect means of putting pressure in Iran or attack Iranian people. In Iran we always laugh at our leaders when they appear on TV claiming something...people always say: "Do they really think we are that stupid to believe that?". This is what I am asking myself watching the acquisitions of Iranian arms in Iraq these days...what a manipulative propaganda! A country which has the biggest expenditure in arms, has the biggest amount of exportation of arms, has been in every and each major military conflict in the world since zillion years back...and came half way around the world occupied two countries that once sold arms to...is now putting the blame on Iran!

Lets accept that Iranian arms are in Iraq. I am not surprised! our borders can not be fully controlled...each year thousand of tons of drugs come from Afghanistan and end up in Turkey through this country by traffickers...alcoholic beverages are carried by trained mules over the untouchable mountains of Kurdistan, what do you thing they carry back?...I am sure there is a "Lord of War" within the Iranian revolutionary guard who is making money out of this...if that is right OK fine...and why poor people of Iran should deserve to fear like hell anticipating an attack....

US is attacking the minds of international community...bombing the logics...targeting sane thinking...yes you can bomb me but don't you dare imagining that I will be that stupid to make my dislike of Iranian government be the yes to militarism...don't you dare bombing our minds...these minds could not be concurred by domestic dictators...your bombs are stronger...fine...our voices can go higher!

Sadam or Sadamism..which one is gone?

As an Iranian who is very against execution by hanging, it is very controversial to look at the pictures of  Sadam being hanged! Iranian TV showed this over and over after each, showing Sadam speeches saying "He would kill thousand if necessary". I would personally imprison him for life showing him images of his outrageous actions  every day (like it would make a difference).

But what did he do for deserving death? He felt like being in the center of the world... He felt he was right and everyone else not only were wrong but deserved death...He was a cruel dictator...all these we hear in the news...
What is fearful is that his idiology is still around... Still, there are people who can kill others because they do not think the way they do, Sadam is alive! Dictatorship is a culture and as long as sectarian violence goes on, those kids whose families are killed by the death squads are potential new Sadams, saving the hatred for next generations...

I will not go down with this ship

Tomorrow is the last Friday of Ramadan and like always, there will be a governmental rally in the streets for chanting slogans against "occupation of Palestine". It should be noted that no rally is permitted here but the ones that government approves so there is no chance of having a rally for those who want Iran "not to claim any share in any conflict". To me, the conducts of both sides of the middle-east conflict are so distant from normal that as a human, I want to be as distant as any of those. I can not be free from mistakes by the way, all my life I heard biased news about middle-east conflict and I am sure over there in Israel there are people like me likeswise with distorted views of Iran.

Because of that, I am sure if we leave the governmental rallies and slogans apart, Iranians know so little about that place which is not good in a sense but I mean if the government of Iran leaves them alone, they have nothing to hate anyone for....I think my generation of Iranians do not like to hear the name of Iran in any headlines for any conflict...we are waiting for a chance for sharing what we have, to other like us...we want to be world citizens.

A few thousand years earlier...

For some days, I tried to listen to radio while driving to work and back instead of the music. When it comes to news in Iranian media, the way the war in Lebanon is pictured makes you wonder if it is Iran in fact one side of the war. They talk about demonstrations in other parts of the world in support of Hezbollah! Seems that Iran is the only country that such supporting demonstration are not organised by the body of the people. You look at them and it is easy to realise that they are member of government-fed organisations. We had an independent gathering of student in Tehran though but that was for "Stopping war" not supporting one part. I was thinking, when people get upset about other getting killed, how supporting one part of the war can help the peace? For ordinary Iranians, this is the way the government escapes from domestic flaws.

Yesterday in BBC world website, I saw a section called Israelis voices and it was just hopeless to see people calling for more war, sending more troops. The most shocking part was the final guy who says: "But I think many of the Lebanese people – the Druze and the Christians – want peace and will be happy that we’re fighting Hezbollah". This is unbelievable that some people do such discrimination based on religion and race.

I was talking to a friend the other day and he said something sad yet nice that "we humans climbed down the trees a few thousand years earlier than we should. We needed more time to understand the basics"

open war in ME? Is there any wise around?

The news coming from the conflict in the middle east are shocking. I try to rely on international news because the Iranian news are so biased supporting the Palestinian and Lebanese part of the story. I never realised what the two sides of the conflict really want? Can't they just stop killing more humans? Does it matter who is you bomb or who is you take hostage? You do this to a human. What I see is that the area is so filled with anger and selfishness. The suicide bomber says: They bomb our houses and killed our people so I kill their people and I go to heaven. Israel says: We are killing the terrorist. I believe those with more military power and in general those with guns, should consider themselves more responsible. I repeated to myself over and over again, Why? Is there any tiny possibility that they can repeat the South African model?

In Iran, the anti-Israeli slogans have been filling our ears for 27 years. We saw Palestinians supported Sadam Hussein when he attacked us. We saw they were sad when he was captured while we were happy. As humans, we see they suffer and we see they are treated in harsh way. The same happened in Russian Chechnya but Iranian government put a silence to it because it needs Russia for nuclear stuff. Even supporting humanitarianism is biased these days. I can not support anyone who says Death to another one". I can not support who bombs innocent civilians in their beach camp or the one who calls himself the party of god and blows a coffeshop.