Mahmoud, Massoud & Maryam

Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the National Council for the Resistance of Iran, and her husband Massoud, the Chairman, hosted a rally yesterday opposite the UN to oppose the presence of President Ahmadinejad at the General Assembly. I was there to give you the full, unbiased scoop!

First of all, demonstrations outside the United Nations are worth seeing in themselves. You can imagine the various grievances all the peoples of the world have, so it's organised in a very orderly fashion. Everyone is allocated a strip of the Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, and the Iranian rally took place in between two simultaneous Pakistani protests, one branding Pervez Musharraf a "dictator" and demanding his resignation (which was packed) and another saying that the Pakistani leader was in fact a "clever" man, a swell guy who represented the final front against terrorism (which contained about twelve people, ten of whom were security guards).

I chatted to a few Iranian demonstrators before the rally kicked off. I am always struck by how kind and friendly Iranian people are, considering they've often had the shittiest and most tragic past. They carried banners attacking Ahmadinejad and the mullahs, and held up photographs of the Rajavis. I purposely asked about Jacques Chirac's comments the day before, about the ineffectiveness of sanctions, in the hope of getting a juicy quote. Javad Maliki was on hand to give me one: "President Chirac would sell his OWN MOTHER!" But when I asked them whether they would ever support a military attack on Iran, they said no. A spokesman for the rally said that the regime would welcome it, and would use it to further suppress the Iranian people.

So now that we've established how normal and sweet these supporters of democracy are, why the hell are they forced to support the NCRI? It is listed as a terrorist organisation by the US and EU, mainly because it's the more acceptable face of the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq. Maryam Rajavi spoke to the crowd in Farsi, and one person who was translating her words told me how she disagreed with her aggressive rhetoric about intervention in Iran. Anyway, at least the music was good.

I also spoke to an elderly lady known as 'Mother Yahyavi' - though I think mother just means Maryam, so it could have been her first name - and felt helpless as she sobbed her way through her family tragedies. She showed me her mangled foot, where three bullets from the Revolutionary Guard had broken it, and told me of her sons' deaths at the hands of the RG. I just felt bad because instead of writing this up for the New York Times, I returned to the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism and handed the story in effectively as homework.

That night, Ayub told me of his experiences as a reporter in Iraq trailing the Mujahedeen. After the fall of Saddam Hussein, he and a group of Iranian families who hadn't seen their Mujahedeen sons for 25 years decided to find Camp Ashraf and bring their children home. Apparently when they arrived, a burly guard told them that they were all agents of the Iranian regime and were not allowed to pass. The families went mental, showering the guard and his organisation in expletives, but nothing worked.

Ayub then told me of his interviews with mujahedeen when he finally gained access to Camp Ashraf with a reporter from the New York Times. Apparently the men and women are never allowed contact, and there is a rule that orders a stop to all sexual intercourse until the Islamic Republic has fallen. One recruit explained that he had been lured to the camp with promises of money and all-expenses-paid relaxation, and only when it was too late had he found out that there was no way out once he got in. They are banned from leaving! The bizarre ideological strictures also mean that if they ever have doubts, or even a wet dream (!), they must go and see the camp commander immediately.

It all sounded very strange, but I don't think Ayub would make any of it up. I just don't know who I'd choose to lead Iran, crazy revolutionary cultists or crazy reactionary cultists.

The Impossible Dream

I'm being sent out to the UN today to cover a protest by Iranian-Americans against Ahmadinejad's appearance. They want a democratic, nuclear-free Iran. How bloody tedious, I was hoping for a riotous round of Pope-burning and Jew-baiting.

Positively Cretinous

Oscar Wilde, in Intentions, spoke of "the crude commercialism of America, its materialising spirit, its indifference to the poetical side of things, and its lack of imagination and of high unattainable ideals". He attributed this to the country's "national hero", George Washington, whose "cherry-tree has done more harm, and in a shorter space of time, than any other moral tale in the whole of literature."

Though Washington's inability to tell a lie may have cast a long shadow over morality in the US, I would say that there is now an abundance, not a lack, of high unattainable ideals floating around North America. Ironically, it has commingled with the homely wisdom of George Washington's cherry tree, creating a truly hideous beast that leads all self-respecting Englishmen to break out into a rash.

In a similar manner to their French cousins, Americans have a very republican notion of civic pride and attach a lofty importance to virtue and morality. But this is not the kind of dedicated intellectual delusion that you will find in France's past. Louis St-Just once said, "Between the people and their enemies there can be nothing in common but the sword; we must govern by iron those who cannot be governed by justice; we must oppress the tyrant". Though America has its fair share of revolutionary firebrands, they would all willingly cast away their tomes in favour of George Washington's innocent, schmaltzy announcement to his father: "I cannot tell a lie."

Starry-eyed morality is just not the British way of doing things. There's an excellent piece in today's Financial Times about the 'positively cretinous' oath that all students of the Thunderbird Business School in Arizona must take. "As a Thunderbird and a global citizen," the fresh-faced magnates of the future declare, "I will strive to act with honesty and integrity. I will respect the rights and dignity of all people, I will strive to create sustainable prosperity worldwide . . ." Lucy Kellaway dismisses this as 'so vague as to amount to nothing'. The underlying problem is that these vague aspirations are positive and idealistic, rather than stern admonishments explaining what NOT to do.

Last week, one of the professors here embarked on yet another of his deeply pretentious rambles about ethics in journalism, which could simply be summed up as "don't make stuff up." But he just would not stop talking in inflated tones about the importance of morality in journalism, at one point saying that journalists should take the Ancient Egyptian god Thoth as their example, weighing up good and evil before putting pen to paper. But he didn't fool me. I could tell that in fact he saw HIMSELF as Thoth, who was not just a moral scribe but in fact a crucial part of the universe and creator of all forms of knowledge. Only a psychotic with a God complex could imagine that journalists have such a crucial place in the moral universe.

We in Britain know better. We know that journalism is a grubby profession, which involves lying, stealing and bribing your way into a story so that you don't get fired by your exacting editor. The rest is common sense: whoever decided to doctor those photos of the bombardment of Lebanon earlier this year was not doing so because of a lack of Aristotelian direction, but simply because he was an idiot. Or because he was under pressure from his boss at Reuters. Or both. Either way, just try not to make stuff up.

In class after the speech, we were all asked to explain where our own morality comes from. I think it says something that only the international students - myself, Lorenzo and Claire - had real problems explaining ourselves. The American students had clearly fretted a lot about how to be Good, but only in a permanently unattainable way. It would make far more sense to create a simple list of what NOT to do, rather than to pore over Martin Luther King's writing as some sort of magical codex that might unlock the ethereal power of Good. Following in the footsteps of Milton, De Sade and William Blake, I think it would be much better to throw yourself into Evil in order to truly understand what Good is.

Do You Want More!?

Well, as expected, my new update after weeks of silence is not an incredible tapestry of gun violence, cocaine binges and Jewish princesses. It is instead a half-hearted, apologetic mish-mash of various barely-remembered quips and dull descriptions of what I did during my weekend. Here is the update in question:

I've spent the past two weeks exploring Borough Park a bit more. I realised that I actually have very little time for Hassidic Jews, and most extremists of any religion. Most people don't give a shit one way or the other about these men who walk around like gangly Pollyannas, with their sidelocks wafting in the breeze and their thoughts on what rules they must not break. Nor do they spare more than a cursory thought for their wives, who push wide prams containing twelve babies at a time and stare with suspicious anger at anyone who crosses their path. Only reform, secular or lapsed Jews are fascinated by these bizarre caricatures. They suddenly realise that the notion that all Jews have some abstract, metaphysical bond is pure horseshit, and either they feel contempt for these arch-religionists or they are filled with guilt and try desperately to become accepted as 'proper' Jews.

I am straddling both options at the moment. For every Hassid that scowls at me and refuses to treat me like a member of the human race, there is another kindly one who chats for ages and rekindles my faith in society. One such godsend was a stereotypical Ashkenazi tailor, with a long grey beard and little yarmulke teetering on his head. He was full of great quips as he fitted me out for my suit: "Oy, you look like a million dollars!...Green and wrinkly." He wanted to invite me to his family's house for dinner. Mr Zeiger, you are a true mensch.

Anyway, to entertain you guys who are bored at work and are tired of hearing my weekly column that really is starting to sound like Will Self writing for Home & Garden, here are some assignments from the journalism school. I had to research and write a profile on my friend Pete Holley, and he had to research and write one on me.

Enjoy!

PETE HOLLEY'S PROFILE ON ME (he unbelievably said my father was British!?!? And I want to work for the FT, not the Economist. But he did a pretty funny piece)

In many ways, Lionel Laurent had the idyllic British upbringing. He grew up in Knight’s Bridge, one of London’s most upscale and exclusive neighborhoods. He attended Westminster School, a highly competitive private school where London’s young upper class is groomed for spots at the country’s top universities. And he was promised by his father, a successful British businessman, any number of coveted job interviews upon graduation. Like many kids in his crowd, it would have been easy for the young Brit to remain satisfied, if not altogether complacent.

And yet, Laurent, 23, wanted more. He disliked his school’s antiquated customs and brash insularity. Questioning the way his quiet, upper class community sealed itself off from the rest of the city, he often found himself scouring distant neighborhoods in search of contrast, new friends or the latest undiscovered band. And over time he grew weary of the precarious predictability that he felt would accompany a life in business or law.

Although he would later find himself immersed in journalism, as a sullen teen trying to make sense of his posh surroundings, it was the transcendent intensity of music that initially captured his imagination.

“I was a huge Metallica fan,” Laurent said, adding that he never saw the heavy metal band as an outlet for the brooding or depressed. “Surely, at some deep level it is a catharsis for young sweaty boys.”

It was the first of many transient obsessions for Laurent, who could easily be called a drifter, but is more accurately defined by his restless curiosity and his desire for new experiences. That curiosity, coupled with an under-dog’s sense of self-deprecation, have created what is arguably the perfect template for a journalist: An inquisitive individual with a keen intellect and a wry sense of humility.

"His interests have always been pretty fluid," said Joe Lewin, a childhood friend who has remained close to Laurent over the years. "Generally being based on whoever he feels he is at that moment in time."

At this moment in time Laurent finds himself thousands of miles from home, embarking on his latest obsession: Journalism. For Laurent, who studied English at Oxford, followed by a Masters in History and International Relations at the London School of Economics, journalism is fundamentally an exercise in ideas and analysis. It's one reason, he says, that he revels in the idea of one day writing for The Economist.

"I think there should be more journalists who have one area of expertise," said Laurent, noting his disdain for American journalists who hop from one international conflict to the next. "I think the industry should move away from people like Tom Friedman."

MY PROFILE ON PETE HOLLEY

After picking up whatever news was left on the 450-year-old city streets of Annapolis, Maryland, Peter Holley left The Capitol newspaper’s headquarters just after midnight and made his way home. With the September rain seeping through his coat, he unlocked the front door and cursed inwardly when he saw his housemate, Amy, on the living room couch, cozying up to the latest in a long line of sexagenarian lovers. “She was unquestionably unattractive,” he later recalled. Muttering a brief ‘hello’, Peter trudged up the antiquated staircase and down the landing, catching the whiff of hay and excrement emanating from Amy’s bedroom, which housed six unruly rabbits and was rarely clean. He held his breath and entered his bedroom, collapsed on the bed and thought, “I can’t do this anymore.”

The year was 2005, and Peter Holley had been working close to four months for the Annapolis Capitol, covering the night shift from Tuesday to Saturday, 3 p.m. to midnight, every week. His beat was small town banality, the daily grind of fires, robberies and whatever else the local readership was told to care about. “I was disillusioned by the profession,” he said. His lack of a social life also contributed to his winter depression. He said that “the late nights were the worst, especially on Saturdays.” But now, the 23-year-old journalist looks back on that period as one of the most important in his young career. It marked the moment when he decided to apply to the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.

Thousands of budding journalists and more experienced reporters make the decision to apply to journalism school every year, but this does nothing to stem the heated debate over its merits. For some, the cost of tuition alone is enough to settle the matter, as a one-year Master of Science course at Columbia’s J-School typically costs around $35,000. For others, it is the very principle of a journalism degree that is repellent, as it attempts to teach the principles of a profession that are usually learnt through hard graft and practical experience. Some critics have even suggested that journalism is a last resort for indecisive college graduates who simply don’t know what to do with their lives.

Peter Holley, however, knew exactly what he wanted to achieve at journalism school. “I felt like Columbia was the only way to reflect on my writing, improve and advance my career,” he said. Though he had become a journalist almost by accident, Peter had developed a passion for storytelling, something that The Capitol’s news pages were not ready for. His first article, written during his college days as a petty-cab driver trying to make ends meet, was inspired by his customers and their curious stories. “To me, journalism is an art form,” he said, adding that he liked “compelling” tales rather than hard news.

Peter’s father, Joe Holley, a 60-year-old journalist, remembered his son’s mixed feelings upon starting work at The Capitol. “Peter was apprehensive of getting into journalism,” he said. Though Peter was excited about the possibilities of covering the lives of real people, his father said that “he was afraid of getting caught up in the minutiae of small town journalism.” But Joe Holley knew better than to be worried about his son’s fears, as this was not the first time that a new situation had unnerved Peter. Whether starting a new school or encountering unfamiliar territory, Peter would always begin by stressing his inability to cope. “His mom and I have learned that it’s just a phase,” said his father.

After his first two weeks at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, Peter admitted that he was having doubts as to whether he had made the right choice. For some reason, after that fateful night in September 2005 when he decided to apply to the school, his job at The Capitol had taken a turn for the better. After six months of the graveyard shift, he was promoted to City Reporter and started to cover local government. “Everything changed,” he said. He worked more reasonable hours, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and relished the challenge of the political beat. “I finally got a grasp of how to do basic stories,” he said.

Peter said that his articles were telling stories that “had meaning”. He threw himself into investigative journalism, exposing a landlord in town who was cheating his tenants by refusing to maintain their apartments. When immigration became a hot topic, he wrote a story on the immigrant workers of Annapolis, without whom the city would shut down. His most prized work is a profile he wrote in early 2006 about a crack-addicted prostitute named Beth, who ended up on ‘The Dr. Phil Show’ because of the article. “We still keep in touch,” said Peter.

Having fun was also a possibility for Peter after his promotion. He started a local kickball team for singles, which he described as “goofy” but relaxing. He also enjoyed an intimate relationship with Beth Piccarillo, the only one of his Capitol colleagues that he was able to confide in. But just as things were finally getting better, Peter had to leave in order to prepare for his year at journalism school. “When I left, the newspaper’s publisher committed suicide,” he said.

It remains to be seen whether Peter Holley’s experience at the Columbia Journalism School turns out to be more valuable than climbing the greasy pole of the Annapolis Capitol. He said yesterday that he was “feeling better” after his initial regrets. One of his new friends at the J-school, Roopa Gona, 26, said that “he sounds confused about what he wants to do.” She said she was surprised at how honest he was about his fears, and that Peter seemed to have opinions on everything and everyone. “But his heart’s in the right place,” she quickly added, with a smile.