The View from Behind the Hijab (Iran)--Der Spiegel

[Gloria]

What's on the minds of Iranians......


SPIEGEL ONLINE - January 21, 2005, 03:28 PM
URL: http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,337884,00.html

SPIEGEL's Daily Take

The View from Behind the Hijab

With Bush on the offensive against Iran's mullahs, SPIEGEL ONLINE sends a reporter back to her homeland to blog the opinions of locals. Their message to Washington: We won't give up our independence at any price -- not even for more freedom.

Blogging From Iran

While Bush talks about democracy, Iranians say they put independence above freedom.

AFP
While Bush talks about democracy, Iranians say they put independence above freedom.
With the world holding its breath and looking toward Iran as America's next front in the war on terror, journalist Nahid Siamdoust is in Teheran, trying to gauge the feeling of the people there first hand. Her take: Even among critics of the mullahs, no one there is thrilled by the prospect of a US attack -- nor are they shocked by the news that appeared in the recent New Yorker article that America has already been secretly operating in the county.

Siamdoust recently returned to her homeland as a journalist. She and her family left Iran after her elementary school was bombed during the Iran-Iraq war. She grew up in Germany, Australia and the United States, where she got a master's degree in international relations from Columbia University. SPIEGEL ONLINE has set up a special Web site for her, from which she'll be blogging about the situation in Iran. (Here's the link for those of you can read German).

Her most recent entry is about the current feeling about the US in Iran. Even the most politically apathetic are skeptical of the Americans' intentions. She quotes 22 year-old student Maryam Fardi, who like many young people in Iran is not interested in politics, as saying, "America has been wanting to march in here for two years. So it doesn't come as a surprise that they've been working here undercover, does it?"

Visiting Tehran's Hosseinieh Ershad mosque, a favorite meeting place of reformists, Siamdoust finds an unusual level agreement with the mullahs among their usually-vocal critics. "In the history of the Islamic Republic, there has rarely been such political and ideological agreement as on the nuclear question," Sadeq Zibakalam, a professor of politics at the University of Tehran, tells her. Siavash Babai, a 25-year-old decked out in Pumas and Hugo Boss, tells her the US is being unfair. "Are research and development only the rights of the first world?" One of the well-known regulars at the mosque, Iranian journalist Issa Saharkhiz, says the US should stop dreaming about trying to help the Iranian people. "The history of Iranians shows that they will not give up their independence for anything, not even for more freedom."

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[plasticsundance]

1. Thanks Gloria

I think I'll post this at other forums I visit that are discussing the topic of Iran/US relations.

[Gloria]

2. Thank you.......

eom

[Ms. Clio]

3. I wish I read German so I could read her blog

Very interesting article, thanks.