Inside the Iranian Crackdown
The Wall Street Journal / Farnaz Fassihi
11-Jul-2009 (7 comments)

The story of Mr. Moradani, a midranking Basij member, offers a rare glimpse into one of the most mysterious and feared arms of Iran's regime.  Mr. Moradani is the son of a former commander of the Guard, who fought against Israel in Lebanon in the 1980s and helped train the armed militia of Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite group. For Mr. Moradani, the biggest shock during the election turmoil came in his personal life. A week into the protests, he says, his fiancée called him with an ultimatum. If he didn't leave the Basij and stop supporting Mr. Ahmadinejad, he recalls her saying, she wouldn't marry him. He told her that was impossible. "I suffered a real emotional blow," he says. "She said to me, 'Go beat other people's children then,' and 'I don't want to have anything to do with you,' and hung up on me."

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rosie is roxy is roshan

No,

by rosie is roxy is roshan on Sat Jul 11, 2009 05:18 PM PDT

Jahanshah ate up all the goldfish, not me.

I had saved the graphic when i was planning on writing a blog about how more stringent standards of moderation should be applied to goldfish than to registered users. So for example you or I could call each other a pompous ignorant fool but a goldfish couldn't call either of us that.Those kinds of goldfish I called piranhas and I was going to start with the dictionary definiton of piranha. Well anyway there'll never be a need for that blog now...thank god.

As far as the first article goes, well..we'll just never know.

Well, on to 'greener' pastures.

lol


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javaneh29

I did wonder ...

by javaneh29 on Sat Jul 11, 2009 05:09 PM PDT

Rosie I wondered about your new image !!! Yep better not to take ourselves too seriously or anything else for that matter .... its all transitional :)

Re the observers24 article. You may be right but I thought about it like this: If I knew someone who was a baseej and had the chance to interview them, I would have gotten some psychological insights, challenged his statements a little, questioned his motives etc ... the journalist did none of this. If the journalist isn't a professional, he or she would have definately asked those sorts of questions of a friend, I doubt a baseej would talk to someone outside of Iran unless they were friends. Is the journalist protecting the friend by not making it too personal? This then led me wonder about where his or her loyalities lay???? So I came to the conclusion that a more likely truth is that is a piece of fabricated journalism to gain provoke reaction .... which it did.

Well my thinking is all warped anyway so Im probably wrong. I keep looking at your fish and thinking maybe you ate up all the goldfish as I dont see so many here nowa days :)

Javaneh


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rosie is roxy is roshan

Well, maybe. I dunno, it's hard to say..

by rosie is roxy is roshan on Sat Jul 11, 2009 04:35 PM PDT

when you're dealing with these kinds of first-hand accounts you really never do know, do you? I kinda thought that the fact that it was so scanty and evasive made it more likely that it was real.

But one never knows.

In any case, I am celebrating the extinction of the goldfish as of yesterday with this temporary avatar, just in case you were wondering. But I am finding it very hard to be serious about anything with it. Now I know how Marge feels.

take care.


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javaneh29

Rosie

by javaneh29 on Sat Jul 11, 2009 04:26 PM PDT

Hi ... I read the article you refer to and think it was partly confabulated. The article was pretty empty and the journalist  could have taken that opportunity to develop his conversation with his friend into something more news worthy. I think it was simply about journalistic attention seeking.

Javaneh


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rosie is roxy is roshan

You wanna see brainwashing in action?

by rosie is roxy is roshan on Sat Jul 11, 2009 04:25 PM PDT

Read my short analysis of the comments by a Bassiji under the item in the link I posted below. There you see the nuts and bolts of the psychological mechanism in action.


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javaneh29

Talk about brainwashed

by javaneh29 on Sat Jul 11, 2009 04:13 PM PDT

Im staggered that Mr Moradini seems to have no insight or perspective on the events in Iran since the election results other than those handed down to him from the regime he seeks to protect , or why his fiance dumped him!

I totally get there is no access to the world reactions etc, and that  baseeji are spoon feed thier ideology from infancy. Baseeji appear without doubt to have psychopathic personalities or are mercenaries but really, if Mr Moradini is a typical example of a home grown baseeji, they clearly aren't capable of questioning or thinking independently at all. It doesnt occur to him that there is another explanation for the peoples uprising ...

If he is a typical example of baseeji interlect then what option is there other than fighting violence with violence? Peaceful demonstration is only going to mean ongoing loss of life and casualties.

Azadi Iran

Javaneh


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rosie is roxy is roshan

Related

by rosie is roxy is roshan on Sat Jul 11, 2009 04:00 PM PDT


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