BEIRUT -- Things are moving along, albeit slowly, for my Iranian trip. I've discovered that I can't just get a tourist visa and then write, although some people do that. Instead, I need to get a journalistic visa because if I go the tourist route, and I publish articles, the Iranians will likely not let me back in the country. This is unacceptable to me, as I don't think you can do very good journalism with a one-off, parachute trip. You have to get to know the place, return many times, etc.
So, going the official route, with my hands raised and showing the Iranian information ministry that I mean no harm is the best route for me.
Many of you have already been exceedingly generous, and the fund is up to almost $1,600 now. I reckon about $4,000 is needed for a good two-week excursion to the Islamic Republic, as I'll have to hire fixers, cars, hotels, etc. So if you want to contribute, please feel free to hit the tip jar, donation fund, whatever you want to call it.
Things here in Beirut, however, have entered a weird stasis. The National Reconciliation Council, which has been billed as the first time all the leaders of the various political factions have sat down together, seems intent on institutionalizing itself into a feckless club house in which Michel Aoun, the former Army general stamps his feet to become president and Hizbollah's General-Secretary backs him up on the conditions that they don't have to disarm. This is, needless to say, unacceptable to the March 14 coalition that includes Walid Jumblatt, the Druze leader, and Saad Hariri, the son of the slain former prime minister whose assassination Feb. 14, 2005 started this whole thing.
People in Beirut are pretty fed up, but at least the security forces aren't shutting down all of downtown every time the Council meets now, pissing off all the merchants there. There's a real sense of disappointment among the young people I talk to that the so-called Cedar Revolution, which looked great on television and succeeded in getting the Syrian Army out of Lebanon (mostly), has run out of steam and has been hijacked by the same old families that have run this place (some would say into the ground) for decades.
One of my friends, the scion of a powerful Shi'ite political family opposed to Syrian influence, has pretty much thrown in the towel. The Syrian Army has left, but the influence is still there, he says, and Émile Lahoud, Lebanon's president and Syrian protégé, will serve out his term and the same old politics of old will prevail. Syrian President Basher Assad will wait out the Bush administration and things will return to the bad old days of the 1990s. He does allow that it won't be quite as bad, but the days of total Lebanese sovereignty seem far away still.
Hi Chris, I hope that you’ll get your visa because I like your blog nad reporting. I’m quit sure that you’r allready reading a loot about Iran. I still would like to suggest you two titels which I find very good and useful. “Answering Only to God: Faith and Freedom in Twenty-First-Century Iran” by Geneive Abdo & Jonathan Lyons & “Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution” by Nikki R. Keddie. Also “Who Rules Iran? The Structure of Power in the Islamic Republic” by Wilfried Buchta & “Khomeini : Life of the Ayatolla” by Baqer Moin is also very good. Anyway don’t forget to visit the Center for Strategic Research, those guys are very powerful and influential. http://www.csr.ir/English.asp and try to learn some Farsi otherwise you’ll end up only talking with the Northern Theran people and it would be nice to hear from people who voted for Ahmadinejad. anyway I hope that this is some info you can use.
take care,
Arjan
sorry for the bad Englisch but I have a hangover.
Camera phone video surfaced of another female journalist beheading. Suggests the camera phone was takebn off an Iranian backed mititia man but the beheading seems to remain the MO of the one legged Z-man freedom fighter.
Guess he has exacted his revenge for the release of his recent unedited gun instruction video.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2168496,00.html
My bad. I jumped the gun on this journalist beheading story. ( guess this is my story retraction post )
Seems it has been reported the ‘journalist angle’ to the story is a hoax.
Well, thats not ( Jawa report )
[b] ” The video actually shows the gruesome murder of a Nepalese man by the Army of Ansar al-Sunna in Iraq from August of 2004. …”[/b]
http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/175675.php
In Arabic,AL Arabia also reports “the hoax” http://www.alarabiya.net/Articles/2006/05/08/23565.htm
Sorry if the story I originally found at the UK news website was inacurate…. about the identity of the victim that is.
…and since it happened 19 months ago,it can be considered a non stoy left to die.
No sense beating that dead horse report like it was an Iraqi prison story.
Are people glad they found out the video was a hoax ?
Hi Chris,
Just a bit of advice. Don’t fall into the usual trap of the foreign journalist in Iran.
There is more to Iran than (North) Tehran. If all you do is speak to English speaking North Tehrani youngsters, you’ll get a very skewed view of Iran. Get yourself a translator or pick up some Farsi yourself and move out into the less fashionable bits of the city. Head out into the villages. Be sure to go to Qum and meet students/teachers in the Hauza. Meet some of the Ayatullas there; you’ll find them quite approachable.
Maybe then you’ll get a more balanced picture of the place and I won’t have to read yet ANOTHER crappy article by some insulated pompous ass. If all you want to do is interact with English speaking, upper class, pro-monarchy types, go to LA and chill with the Iranian exiles.
Good luck.
I suggest that all of Chris’ readers (by no means excluding myself) send whatever we can to assist his trip to Iran. I think we can all afford to give something, if for no other reason than as a “thank you” for all he’s given us. How about it?
Do you mean that Bush’s Democracy Bomb didn’t really work?!
You are pretty right man, that’s not freedom of speech. But unfortunately many governments do that.
As an example, your government used journalists so they had to go with your army and could only tell their vision of the war. Yes, I know they wouldn’t forbid journalist traveling on their own, they simply shot them.
Send the man a dollar!
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/politics/story/0,,1774399,00.html
Freedom is on the march.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4768701.stm
The terrorists hate our freedoms.