Woman - Life - Freedom Movement in Iran 2.0

[Leonardo17]

   There is one element on this whole movement that I should have said from the very beginning that I didn’t realize until it happened to me.
 
   When you talk about political Islam you talk about a group of people that are very earthly in character. People may think that they don’t value human life because they are spiritual etc. But this is simply not true. Yes, they readily send young men to die for non-sense issue. Yes, they readily subvert ordinary people to think that life in this earth is worthless and that the only reason why they are here is to live up their “destiny”, do whatever they are told to do an than die hoping for some reward in the afterlife. But they themselves are not like that.
 
   A very good comparison to political Islam in the Catholic (or byzantine) church in the middle ages. Here are some common points they have:
 
1) They love wealth and luxury. You cannot find one Mullah / Sect leader / Leader of an Islamic Community / Baron / Sheik / King who does not like material riches and is not completely addicted to displaying his wealth and material influence. In fact, this might be the origin of anti-Semitism in the middle ages.  The Ego has the tendency of seeing itself in other people. Because they themselves are so addicted to material riches, they may have created this (completely false) image of Jews who were seen as very wealthy, greedy people who do nothing but conspire against their masters etc…
 
2) They value their own lives a lot. While almost anything is forbidden to the ordinary people, they themselves + their children are allowed to do absolutely anything. Anything. One good local example is their obsession with alcohol. They have religious book claiming that alcohol should not even be used as a method of disinfection (truly). Yet many of them are being caught having immoral sexual relations (of any kind) + sniffing cocaine + doing almost anything that is (in theory) against any code of moral conduct.
 
3) They are master conspirators. I’ve heard on TV that it has not been seen until now, that a political İslamist party simply accepts election results in a country and leave. They simply won’t do that. While there is nothing spiritual about them (again think of the church in the Middle Ages) they know how politics work and they know it very well. So there is no getting rid of them. They will, for instance, take 90% of the media and make it talk for them. They will take over institutions and make them work for them (Ex: the taking over of the US supreme Court to cancel the 1973 Roe-Wade Law). And these guys are very good at that. They are total Pros in these issues.
So what’s completely new with the Iranian people in September 2022 is this: They saw that resisting is useless. Truly, these people know how things do. They will work thing out, they will find a way so they always end up on top no matter what happens to the economy, the state, the population, international politics etc…
 
So what the İranians did was this: They started to react on an individual level. They dared to challenge religion + the regime by simply not wearing that God damn Hijab (that had been made mandatory by the regime).  They said “I know there is absolutely nothing I can do to get rid of you (this is really almost impossible / I know that very well too) / But I’m no longer following your rules. I’m not playing by your rules, and F. you if you arrest me, torture me or kill me for that”.
 
And: I think that’s what we have to start doing here (I mean in Turkey). Because truly. There is simply no getting rid of them. This Political İslamist push in Turkey started in the mid 90’s. I remember discussing our fears on that when I was a 13 year old boy. Now I’m a 43 year old and they will not go. 30 years later, I don’t know what will happens, where I will be, yet they will still be here in some way still messing with my grandchildren or whatever.
 
And that’s why the French have this principle of “Laicité”. In France you cannot wear any religious sign or symbol in the public domain (including in schools).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_law...%20schools.
 
It’s not that the founders of the French republic were pure atheists (most free-masons are not atheists). It’s just that given these picture here, you cannot let the clergy or other religious leaders do whatever they want. I’m not saying that this is the state of all religious leaders. I’m saying that all religious leaders have this potential within them. So we simply have to be vigilant.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Boru

[Leonardo17]

   I had added a short video on the fall of the Shah and the emergence of the Islamic republic in one of the other topics on Iran. I can’t seem to find it now so I’m going to refer to the BBC’ documentary series on the foundation and downfall of the Iranian Monarchy and their switching to this “Islamic” Republic.
 https://youtu.be/0s5pRsCWW9k?list=PLcWY4...lq9fpB&t=2
 
   The Turkish issue also needs some explanation. So I am going to add my version of the events so we can try to understand where exactly we are standing in this “Islamic Republic of Turkey” project of The Man who has been designated President for Life. / In fact I’m going to refer to him as Dictator Erdogan. I’m not doing this simply because I don’t like him. It’s because in Democracies a president cannot be systematically reelected for decades. Yes there is still Mrs. Merkel who was the chancellor between 2005-2021 (16 years), People like Macron or even Barrack Obama who because they are successful are able to be reelected. But remember in 2015 Obama simply did not run for presidency. There are practical reasons to that. That’s not how democracy works. Even if you are a good leader, democratic presidents do not run for presidency like that even they are successful and popular. And 2) The elections are not fair. The state apparatus, the media (of which 90% belongs to the party) are entirely working in favor of the current “president” and his party. Yes, the elections in Turkey are free, but no they are not fair. Anyone who opposes him is like a boxer on the ring facing someone with a baseball bat. It’s not impossible to beat him (in fact we almost did that) but it’s simply not fair. And that’s not how democratic presidents are elected. So that’s a hoax.
 
   So back to History. Atatürk (1881-1938) was a great leader who put this country on the path of modernization, secularism and democracy. You may simply want to browse Wikipedia on that. His follower Ismet Inonu (1884-1973) was also a man of great caliber (like Mr. Winston Churchill for instance). Both of them were military geniuses who worked hard to take a backward and primitive feudal society and turn it into a 20th century democracy. Yet both of them did (especially Inonu) did not really understand socialism a lot. In fact it would not be an exaggeration to say that they simply hated the idea. And this became a government legacy. Old school military leaders until the purge carried out by Dictator Erdogan also hate socialism for many reason. And the Americans liked that a lot (in a way that is very similar to their policies in Iran). So the CIA seems to have backed this approach starting from the 1950’s. I don’t blame anyone for that. It was the cold war era and the US did not want a Soviet-Friendly middle-east nor did the Europeans. Still this became a problem and I will come to that.
 
 
   The problem with feudal societies is that they rely on cheap labor provided by people who got used to selfdom. For such people there is no democracy / human rights / environmentalism you name it. Life if seen as a process full of suffering at the end of which they will all get to heaven if they are pious and obedient to God (and the State). And that’s where Both Ataturk and Inonu failed to see the potential of socialism. See: After the American invasion in Japan, US general did not repress socialist propagandists coming from Russia + China. Because they knew that these people would work in their favor. What Inonu did (and he was still a great man), was the opposite. We have a worldwide famous poet called Nazım Hikmet (1902-1963) who spent half of his life in prison before dying in exile in Moscow in 1963. Russians today think he was Russian.
 
   Also, after switching to a multiple party system in 1946, right wing politicians started to do everything they could to oppress all forms of left wing ideology. Why? – Culture. Many of these rich / male individuals saw themselves as feudal landlords and perceived the ordinary people as medieval mobs. And the army backed them in this ideology because of the rising influence of some ultra nationalist ideologies typical of the 20th century.
 
   So what happened to the ordinary man? Just like Iran, they did what they always did. They carried out a minimalist life while relying on religion as a mean of finding comfort (as they are still doing today). That’s where political Islam started to kick in more and more visibly starting from the 60’s and the 70’s. The death sentence of the Modern Turkish republic was signed by Mr. Kenan Evren the commander of the Armed forces in 1980 (a year before I was born), when he made concessions to political Islamists. He allowed them to build schools where they were able to raise brainwashed fanatical followers and allowed them to hold newspapers, TV channels, businesses etc.
 
   And in the same era, especially in the 70’s left wing people were arrested, tortured, imprisoned, and prosecuted. In fact, before the putsch of 1980, left wing youth were fighting ultra-nationalists and political Islamists in the streets (and this was the alleged cause of the third military intervention in Turkish history). The Pro-Kurdish para-military organization was founded after that. Many left wing ideologists saw no issue but armed conflict against the government. We lost 6500 soldier, 12,000 civilians and also 32,000 PKK militants (mostly peasant boys and girls) during that conflicts.
 
 
  And (naturally) communism is seen as a huge “demon” by the ordinary citizens and “Islam” is seen as the absolute good and salvation by the ordinary people. We are talking about people still living in a feudal state of mind. So the way I see it, we did create a modern state, but we made mistakes and handed it over to political islamists on a silver plate. If you go to poor neighborhoods, it was simply too easy, especially since the 1970’s for political islamist propagandists to reach them. The man is poor, he is suffering, has no access to education, cannot even afford healthcare, cannot even heat himself properly during winter and what the government did was to forbid any left-wing ideology to reach them and start getting organized to demand more rights, more freedom, more welfare as they do in modern societies. So they did this social engineering going to preserve their own interest despite the needs of the ordinary man and ended up (not yet but it’s coming) in exile like the Iranian elites living in Los-Angeles / London / Oslo etc…
 
   As a conclusion: I think western policies toward the Middle East from 1945 to 1973 were very aggressive. Yes it was the end of the colonial era, yes it was the Cold-War era but still: There could have been efforts to try to “maintain” the civilized nature of this entire geography. One less known example is the Example of King Faisal who ruled Iraq between 1935 and 1958 or the Syrian Republic (1946-1963) or even General Naser in Egypt (1954-1970) or the Afghan king Zahir Shah (1933-1973) were all people who were not dictators, who looked at the West and asked themselves “Can my people become like that at some point?”. I knew such an Iraqi family as a child who were very nationalistic but had to flee to Turkey when Saddam came to power in 1979.
 
   So back to my own place: A democratic state cannot be repressive yet it cannot indulge to non-democratic tendencies either. On a path to modernization you have to allow the expression of left-wing tendencies within a democratic social framework while being very vigilant on religious movements who are willing to politicize the spiritual faith of ordinary citizens as well as right wing extremism and ultra-nationalism (See: Germany in the 1930’s and the rise of the NSDAP). In fact. You are not allowed to have a copy of Mein-Kampf in Germany. You also cannot possess any swastika or other national-socialist sign or emblem.
 
   Back to today / to this geography: No one is giving anything to anyone. Yet Political Islam is often described as a pressure cooker. When society is over heated, they remove the lid for a while and shut down the fire. When is seem to have cooled down a little, they put society back on the oven and start cooking it again? So who are the potatoes? – not the women with their headscarves of course. Even if the government is completely medieval in nature, we are still here. If I flee to Germany today, there are still kids being born here today. Once they are 14-15 they will (inevitably) want to know why they can’t have a boy-friend / girl-friend like any one else. So again, they will cook it, than they will cool a little, cook a little, cool a little. In their logic they are (in theory) getting us to a point of (their understanding of) a pious society.
 
   So the man above and the man bellows were both great – Great leader. But even they did not truly realize the importance of being more open-minded on some issues, and that’s where they failed. I mean we will tame these political Islamists one way or the other. But what about the economy? What about the dreams of so many generations? What about (today) the energy transition? All this energy and several decades, is lost just to explain that there is no such thing as “mandatory Hijab” in Islam and the Holy Book wants us to “work to create valuable things” instead of wasting our energy on Ego-based power struggles.
 
Sometimes, societies can be really stupid

Here is a Picture of Mr. İsmet Inonu who is also buried in Ataturk's Mausoleum in Ankara:

[The Grand Nudger]

Islamism isn't going anywhere so long as islam exists. Big Mo was an islamist, as were the empires of the islamic golden age. Islams god, is an islamist.

People's faiths do not need to be politicized, as they are inherently political to begin with.

[Leonardo17]

At this point it might have become exactly as you said (We were the very last secular Muslim country in the world).
 
But my issue will be different. I may seem a little stoic doing that, but that is not my point. You know a Persian Mystic called Mevlana Jellaleddin Rumi (1207 / Afghanistan-1273 / Konya) had malaria once and about his illness he simply said “It is welcome to stay in body as long as it wants to). Meaning: There are (can be) important teachings or benefits in seemingly “bad” event.
 
So what I see here is philosophy talking in a very loud voice.
 
a) On the theory of Plato: In “The Republic” he describe a “Philosopher King” who does not care about power but leads it’s primitive people toward enlightenment. Well, who is this person if it’s not the Pahlawi dynasty of Iran. So this Idea of Plato died in the Islamic Revolution of 1979.
 
   In Montesquieu’s “Persian Letters” (1729 / France) the philosopher of enlightenment explains that any type of oppressive regime will perpetuate itself while creating more of this “primitive” or “masochistic” that is the foundation of the oppressive regime in the first place. So the way out of an oppressive regime is to completely leave the oppressive regime and turn to something new.
 
b) Second question humanity should be asking: - “What if I turn to democracy, but try to maintain some of those thing the way they were in past (because my people are so ignorant, primitive and stuff)”. And that’s what’s happening here. The answer is: “It will work for a while, but it will ultimately implode within itself”.
 
    This is a well known phenomenon in sports: You can’t learn yoga by looking at the mat. In my first-aid course my teacher had told me: “Are you going to keep walking around this poor person or are you finally going to do something?”.
 
    So either you are in (fully) or either you are out (fully). There is no hybrid democracy. Just show me an example. It doesn’t exist (anymore). And I don’t think it will ever be attempted again by anyone (outside place like Sub-Saharan Africa or whatever)
c) Third Question: “Is there a God”. This is one of the fundamental principles of Islam, you have to accept there is something called “Kadr” which means (if I’m correct) “The will of God”. I understand this as “The Secret Hand” mentioned by Adam Smith. And in the coming days (or years I don’t know), we might get a “sign” that points to a positive or negative answer to this question.
 
Meaning: In a purely material world: There is no way this country is ever getting back on its feet. Right? Iran wants to export its regime or its going to collapse within itself very soon. Russia needs us + Victor Orban + Serbia as Agents serving it’s whatever it is megalomaniac program. China has only some economic expectation but they would be said to have another dictatorship in their league either. The Arab League (meaning MBS) is eager to add Istanbul to it’s New Muslim Caliphate (Which is a new empire based on the Wahhabi interpretation of Islam = IRI).
 
   So that’s where the planets are if you believe in Astrology. If you don’t, than you are like me and “wait for a sign”. And I don’t know if I’m fooling myself but I sort of turned this into an experiment. As I said: Technically, there is no way this country is ever getting back on its feet

[The Grand Nudger]

a) On the theory of Plato: In “The Republic” he describe a “Philosopher King” who does not care about power but leads it’s primitive people toward enlightenment. Well, who is this person if it’s not the Pahlawi dynasty of Iran. So this Idea of Plato died in the Islamic Revolution of 1979.
 
   In Montesquieu’s “Persian Letters” (1729 / France) the philosopher of enlightenment explains that any type of oppressive regime will perpetuate itself while creating more of this “primitive” or “masochistic” that is the foundation of the oppressive regime in the first place. So the way out of an oppressive regime is to completely leave the oppressive regime and turn to something new.

I like the reference, and I'd say that it's an especially good context for question b.  Philosopher kings are still kings..and, if we assume the most beneficent possible rule, their kingship itself will still be an obstacle or liability to the (again, hypothetically maximally beneficent) philosophy they espouse, in the end.  
 

b) Second question humanity should be asking: - “What if I turn to democracy, but try to maintain some of those thing the way they were in past (because my people are so ignorant, primitive and stuff)”. And that’s what’s happening here. The answer is: “It will work for a while, but it will ultimately implode within itself”.
 
    This is a well known phenomenon in sports: You can’t learn yoga by looking at the mat. In my first-aid course my teacher had told me: “Are you going to keep walking around this poor person or are you finally going to do something?”.
 
    So either you are in (fully) or either you are out (fully). There is no hybrid democracy. Just show me an example. It doesn’t exist (anymore). And I don’t think it will ever be attempted again by anyone (outside place like Sub-Saharan Africa or whatever)

The us is a hybrid democracy of exactly that traditionalist appeasing sort.  

 

c) Third Question: “Is there a God”. This is one of the fundamental principles of Islam, you have to accept there is something called “Kadr” which means (if I’m correct) “The will of God”. I understand this as “The Secret Hand” mentioned by Adam Smith. And in the coming days (or years I don’t know), we might get a “sign” that points to a positive or negative answer to this question.
 
Meaning: In a purely material world: There is no way this country is ever getting back on its feet. Right? Iran wants to export its regime or its going to collapse within itself very soon. Russia needs us + Victor Orban + Serbia as Agents serving it’s whatever it is megalomaniac program. China has only some economic expectation but they would be said to have another dictatorship in their league either. The Arab League (meaning MBS) is eager to add Istanbul to it’s New Muslim Caliphate (Which is a new empire based on the Wahhabi interpretation of Islam = IRI).
 
   So that’s where the planets are if you believe in Astrology. If you don’t, than you are like me and “wait for a sign”. And I don’t know if I’m fooling myself but I sort of turned this into an experiment. As I said: Technically, there is no way this country is ever getting back on its feet

Adam Smiths invisible hand of the market was absolutely not god, or the will of god.  You misunderstand.  The invisible hand is a metaphor for a merchants own purely material (and selfish) compulsions to keeping capital close at hand, and how this...explicitly unintentionally.... boosts economic and military strength.  

As for the rest, are we talking about iran or turkey when we say "this country"?  I'd never rule either out.  They're (you're) major players over deep time.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I think we need to ask ourselves, 'Are these "2.0" threads really necessary?'

Boru

[Leonardo17]

I know the topic is old. But I think in the end Iranian women “won” in the end. Many are now able to walk in the streets without a headscarf and describe this as “comfort” and “freedom”.
 
N.B.: These things are absolutely uncomfortable in the summer. That dress was designed for medieval goat-herders in times when sunscreen was not even invented. So women + men had to cover themselves in order to not die from sun-burns and dehydration. The way M.B.S. is dressed is exactly how one should be dressed in an arid desert environment. Yet in our days, not allowing women to loosen up in hot weather is a form of child abuse. + did you try not wearing a hat in winter? These things are completely inappropriate for cold climates.
 
In some districts some 70% of women are now not wearing the hijab. Many school girls are now taking it off as soon as they leave the school building and their parents are simply not forcing them to do otherwise. Here is a nice article on that:
 
https://www.yahoo.com/news/iran-hard-lin...00983.html
 
/ İnstead of creating a new thread I also want to comment on yesterdays (Thursday 29th of June) Koran burning events. I think it has become important for ordinary people like me to speak on these issues. So:
 
1) The “soul” as we call it does not have any sexuality. So the shape of your sexual organ cannot determine how you are going to live your life. It’s just a mechanism that nature invented to allow us to make new bodies. That’s the only thing it means. + in the Dark ages, society became frightened of what we call “feminine power”. So it started to designate as witches (or same word with a B) any type of female energy that did not entirely surrender to male / patriarchal energy. That’s why they put mushroom picking / herbal remedy using old-hags on the stake that’s why women are been killed in sex related violence in countries like India, that’s why the life of Mahsa Amini ended about a year ago without any logical reason.
   So from a spiritual perspective, we believe in this balance between male and female (Yin and Yang) energies. There are typically “female” and typically “male” elements in the spiritual jargon. But there is no “Cassandra’s box” or “Eve’s sin” or anything like that, that endorses some “male” cosmic personality with a female “anti-cosmic personality”. These are errors, That’s not how it works.
 
2) On the Koran burning event: As I said before this is nothing but a childish provocation that is giving an excuse to Emperor Belisarius of Constantinople to further delay the adhesion of Sweden to the NATO alliance. Scriptures are texts that need to be studied thoroughly in order to gain some spiritual understanding. So you might as well take a car and burn it. Mosques, relics, books, geographical locations, pilgrimage sites etc. I am not saying these are unimportant for a person of faith. But I won’t pay like 6000 / 12,000 euros or Dollars to go to the Haj when kids are unable to be fed properly or go to school and get an education. If I had that cash I would probably use it to plant trees. That’s the way I would use that kind of money.   
   So again. If you take a book and burn it instead of trying to learn something from it, that’s your problem / not mine.
 
3) Place of worship are supposed to be just that: Places of worship. No one needs a place to make a prayer. You can pray or meditate in a hospital, in the bus, on a spaceship, whatever. That Inner Reality being within you, you have the ability to reach it even if all the temples of the world were raised to ground in this very moment.
 
   The only benefit of temples is that ancient people (like the Hittites / ancient Indians, Egyptians, Mesopotamians etc.) knew about the earth’s magnetic fields and energies and were therefore good at locating ideal places for our own energies to become more active. I really felt that in some places in Egypt. So when you go to those places with a devotional attitude (by the way, later temples in Europe etc. were usually built on the site of ancient pagan temples) you become a little more likely to create those spiritual changes that are aimed in many spiritual traditions.
 
    Yet: there is no point fighting for it. Fighting for religious sites is an Ego-based political problem. Since there is but one God (and no “my God” vs. “Your God” or “My true God” vs. “Your fake God”) these are just completely un-evolved attitudes and I will not take any part in any of these attitudes.
– Does anyone define any temple as “A temple to a false deity”?
- As I said. Raise it to the ground if that will make you happy. Do you really think I need stone wall + a roof + a priest of some sort to connect with the Force that created me + the universe + is making everything function in complete perfection? That’s really absurd. So If you want to raise it to the ground and build something else instead than maybe you should try doing so just to see the final result.
 
Conclusion: As I said. In our times, no one should simply believe anyone who claims to speak “In the name of God, or the Holy book, or “The One true Religion” etc. Most of these guys are idiots who can be very smart in intellectual terms, but on a spiritual level, they are like little children. If anyone choses to listen to these people to understand something that is defined as “The Infinite” I really wish good luck to these people

[Leonardo17]

One of the most direct difference between spirituality inspired by true religious teachings and twisted ideologies that are seemingly based on religious teachings is the issue of fear.
 
Lately I’ve been studying the event of the crucifixion of Christ in the New Testament and the event of the Exodus in the Old Testament (and there are parallels to these stories in the life of the prophet Muhammad as well).
 
For instance before he was taken by Roman soldiers Jesus says “be with me in my darkest hour” meaning “Face the reality of the situation we are in right now”. Then they take him to the cross, which is the manifestation of worldly power. Then he is resurrected by the power of God which is far greater then the power of men. In Islam, he isn’t even resurrected. According to the Quran, the romans took another man instead of him and Jesus manages to escape totally unharmed.
 
Another parallel to this is the story of the Exodus in the Old Testament. In this story the pharaoh is basically everything that worldly power can be. And he is being beaten over and over by the power of God who is on the side of slaves and a completely ordinary man called Moses. Moses himself is depicted as an ordinary man who is being guided by a higher power. When he sees the burning bush in Mount Sinai for instance. God is telling him to “take off his sandals” meaning “let all world issues behind you; you are on sacred ground now” (Like Jesus saying “my Kingdom is not of this world”).
 
Another similar issue: Decisive military battles that were led by the prophet against Meccans (battle of Bedr) are also described as absolute military genius by modern military personalities like Kemal Ataturk for instance.
 
One of the positive aspects of true spirituality is that it does not really care about your worldly power, your wealth, your influence and all the other Ego-based attributes and always reminds you that no matter who or what you are you are just a person like any other person.
 
So that’s where my mind goes when I see a supposedly “Islamic” and “Republic” state taking draconian measures to enforce a certain dress code. When I Annalise that I see a state that is trying to impose it’s ideology in a way that is based on fear, the terrorizing of ordinary citizens and pure brutal power:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/iran-proposes...14579.html
 
To me that’s so typically something that goes against spirituality of all kind.
 
Another issue is the elitism of such governments. This time I will cite the life of the Buddha. As you may have heard, the Buddha was raised in a palace in which the only thing that was allowed to exist was the joy, beauty and happiness of life. That’s because his father / The King wanted to make a great General out of him instead of a great spiritual teacher. But the Buddha simply leaves the palace and discovers the more ordinary or “negative” aspects of life. And he does not decide to hate all of these ugly / old or sick people and go back to the palace and party for the rest of his life. No. He embraces this reality and he sees beauty in them. Then he turns into the sage we all know of.
 
And that’s why I’m always careful with all dogmatic / ideological approaches. I don’t like dogmas. I like studying scriptures and various stories that are related in these stories. But I like to keep a critical / alert mind. I think literary adoption of some mythologies that is supported by a very decisive past is an approach that should be gradually left behind (by all spiritual people) and replaced by a more in-depth approach to these issues.
 
I don’t have a problem with people who do this otherwise. But in that case, you must be alert against fraudulent people, politicized religious movements and/or sectarian movements that are (for the most part) institutions designed to misuse and exploit the honest faith of ordinary people.
 
+ Congratulation to the Moroccan female soccer team who are seemingly doing very well on this year’s FIFA World cup:



(They won against Columbia 1-0 and are headed for a good rank in the Championship like the male soccer team in Dubai Last year)

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

^’Football’.

Boru

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