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.
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.
posted by L.R.A. Laurent at 10:11 AM
2 Comments:
Your counter-revolutionary attitude has been noted. While in New York, I left orders with our local Ministry of Intelligence operatives to find a final solution to the "Lionel question". Thanks to reading your blog, I knew where to direct them: the 'Black/Jewish' areas.
Hello Lionel it is Immanuel of the Prussian parentage from your London days. Leonardo the Great directed me to your blog, which I have been reading with pleasure and interest for the last month. It is, in a phrase I do not like to use frequently because of its philistine connotations, terrific. Looking forward to more!
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