Iran: Land of perpetual bloodshed or "milk and honey"?

In 1951, Iran rebelled against British dominance by electing a well-liked populist, Muhammad Mosaddeq, as prime minister. Mosaddeq moved quickly to end British exploitation of Iran, in which a British company, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) earned then times as much profit as it paid in royalties to Iran. Mosaddeq succeeded in nationalizing the country's oil facilities while reducing the Shah Reza Pahlavi junior to a figurehead. Only after the American and British secret services, the CIA and the MI6, interfered in 1953 with the famous covert action "Operation Ajax" and as a result replaced Mosaddeq with the Shah did the Iranian nation put its national aspirations on hold.
A great variety of ideological forces came into existence after 1953 to combat the dictatorship of the Shah and his subservience to the foreign powers, especially the Unites States. Religious influence came to a climax in 1963 with the sudden emergence into prominence of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who in early 1963 virtually launched the revolution. Within a few days at least 15,000 people were killed in the shooting ordered by the Shah. Khomeini, not for the first time, was arrested and sent into exile in Turkey, whence he moved later to Iraq and then finally to the suburbs of Paris from where he continued his mission.
Public anger about the repressing politics of the Shah came to a climax towards the end of 1978 and everybody was on the streets again, partially led by the communist Tudeh party, partially by the mullahs who through their mosque and madrassa system all over the country had the ability to reach even small and widely separated villages.
During the first days of December 1978 a large number of people started to appear in the streets of every main Iranian city to demonstrate against their ruthless tyrant king. The Shah had no other choice but to leave the country in the beginning of 1979.
Just as in 1953 the Western powers succeeded overthrowing the national movement led by Mosaddeq, the Iranian people succeeded in 1979 to overthrow one of the most powerful rulers of the 20th century hoping for better times.
But times got only worse since then. Iraq's dictator Saddam Hussein saw the window of opportunity and attacked destabilized Iran in 1980. The two countries fought a bitter war until 1988, including millions of death, especially on the Iranian side. Beside that the Iranian domestic security and intelligence service, the Savak, did not disappear, but instead fell into the hands of the Ayatollahs; women were forced to wear the chador and became second class citizens and generally no freedom of speech whatsoever was guaranteed.

Today the Iranian nation is at a crossroad again. Iranians are fed up with internal repression and global isolation and are ready once again to go into the streets, risk their lives, only for one reason, for one simple reason, to finally have the right to choose their own path.

Iranians do not want the West to teach them what is right and what is wrong. Iranians do not want a bunch of 80 year old corrupt clergymen to decide for them how to live and how to dress. Iranians do not want to be scared any more of a domestic STASI-like system of ruthless hoodlums who arrest, beat, torture and publicly hang and stone young people who do not behave as demanded by the Shiite law.

I was born in Germany in 1977, just a few months before the Shiite-Islamic revolution took place and changed Iran from the bottom up. When I grew up in Berlin I remember my parents, both born in the city of Babol (a medium sized city located in the northern Mazandaran region of Iran, right at the Caspian Sea) speaking about the country they were born and raised in a positive light despite the constant humiliation they experienced as Jews throughout their childhood. My mother used to say that the water in Iran tastes like milk and honey and that Iran is the most beautiful country on earth. Well, she could only compare Iran to Germany back in the beginning of the 80's but her sayings had a tremendous impact on me. I was sure that one day I will visit Iran, my parent's homeland and taste the water my mother dreamt about almost daily.
Meanwhile about 30 years have passed and I haven't yet had the chance to visit Iran. And to tell you the truth, I am not sure if I will ever get a chance.

The entire world is watching curiously what is happening in Iran today. I am watching, too, deep inside myself wishing that Iran will change. I am not the only one dreaming about a new Iran, ready to dump its nuclear project, ready to engage in dialogue with the rest of the world again, ready to separate religious from state affairs, ready to become the proud and free nation again it used to be not all too long ago, ready to make my childhood dream come true, visit Iran and taste the "milk and honey" leaking out of the water-tap…

Zombies!

27.6.09

Fast genau 24 Stunden sind vergangen seit uns der King of Pop verlassen hat.
Irgendwie, obwohl ich sonst nie ueber ihn, seine Hautfarbe/n, seine Ranch Neverland, oder sein Leben und Schicksal an sich nachgedacht habe, hat es mich schon ziemlich mitgenommen, dass er jetzt weg ist. So vollkommen unerwartet. Wie konnte das geschehen, er war doch erst 50??

Und ploetzlich sah ich sie wieder. Ueber viele Jahre hinweg waren sie mir aus dem Kopf gegangen, doch gestern, fast gleichzeitig mit dem "Abgang" Michael's sah ich sie wieder klar und deutlich vor mir: die Zombies im Thriller-Video.
Anfang der 80er, als das Lied rauskam und ich noch ein kleiner Hosenscheisser war, damals in Berlin Spandau lebend, bat ich "meinen grossen Bruder" Goekhan immer, das Lied wegzuschalten, wenn es im TV lief. Goekhan, der mir unter anderem das Fahrradfahren beigebracht hatte, lachte mich immer aus und meinte spoettisch: Reiss dich zusammen, das ist doch nur ein Video!
Leichter gesagt als getan. Ich war schliesslich erst 4 oder 5.

Dank Michael schwebten mir gestern Bilder meiner Kindheit im Kopf: Spandau, Goekhan, Till, Erkan, Fussball am Burgwall, Donald&Dagobert Duck, die Konkordia Grundschule, Fr. Emmrich...und vielleicht wie nie zuvor fuehlte ich gestern, wie sich mein Leben, teilweise gelenkt von anderen Menschen in meinem Umfeld, teilweise durch mich selbst, veraendert hat.

Ich koennte mein bisheriges Leben in 3 fast gleichlange Zeitabschnitte unterteilen: Kindheit in Berlin-Spandau, Jugend in Berlin-Wedding, 23+ in Israel. Jeder Abschnitt war ein Leben fuer sich: Waehrend sich meine Gedanken in Spandau fast ausschliesslich ums Fussballspielen drehten, wurde ich im Wedding zu einem Gangmitglied und bekanntem Writer, der, obwohl in Deutschland lebend, taeglich mit dem Israelisch-Arabischen Konflikt und seiner juedischen Identitaet konfrontiert wurde, die sich im dritten Abschnitt festigte, ob im Kibbutz, in der IDF oder an der Hebraeischen Universitaet...

Heute bin ich 31.

Das Leben kann hart sein und man kann tief, bzw. sehr tief fallen (Chio RIP, Spoer RIP, Buick RIP) wenn man nicht vorsichtig ist. Andererseits kann das Leben auch sehr viel Spass und Freude mit sich bringen...wahrscheinlich liegt das wahre Leben irgendwo "in between", was das ganze auch viel spannender macht...
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Ich hoffe, dass euch mein Blog gefallen wird in dem ich vorhabe 1-2 mal woechentlich zu aktuellen (oder auch nicht aktuellen) Themen meine Meinung zu schreiben. Themen, die insbesondere meine Heimat Israel und den Mittleren Osten betreffen...und wenn ich Lust habe ueber was anderes zu schreiben, von Tookie Williams ueber die Copacabana bis Nord-Korea und Dani Alvez' Freistosstor gegen Sued-Korea, dann werde ich das halt auch machen, ist ja schliesslich mein Blog, oder?

Uebrigens, auf Hot Gold lief gestern Nacht noch I Am Legend mit Will Smith, den ich mir dann natuerlich kurz vor dem schlafengehen noch reinziehen musste....diesmal mit der Gewissheit, dass die Zombies nicht echt sind!!!