'Just World News' with Helena Cobban

Iranian VP's interesting new blog

I've been having Iran on my mind. Thinking of "survivors" of the terrible earth-quake in Bam who have lost so much-- sometimes ALL the other members of their families as well as their homes, their community... Let's hope not their faith in whatever it is that at times like this can make a person's life worth hanging onto.

(I have always been very moved by the parts in Victor Frankl's book Mankind's Search for Meaning where he writes about his time in the Nazi death camps; and how it was the people there who, despite everything, were able to keep or create some structure of meaning in their lives who were the ones with the most resilience to survive... It's a great book.)

Anyway: Iran. I've just learned about, and visited, a great new blog being written in English, Arabic, and Farsi by Iranian Vice-President Mohammad Ali Abtahi.

The blog's called "Webnevesht". It has a really engaging tone. (MAA used to be a journalist: maybe that has something to do with it?)

In the blog, he writes mainly about politics, culture, and religion. The best page to start at is this one, which is like a "Main Index" page for the blog. (Would he do better to get hold of a Movable Type system, I wonder?)

The two posts he has about Bam are really moving. In this one, he writes a poem. It could use a bit of polishing on the translation-- but even the way it is it's achingly bittersweet and poignant.

This post is also really poignant. (I'm a sucker for the narratives of war veterans.)

In this post, MAA recounts picking up a disabled war veteran in his vice-presidential car and hearing his story. The veteran had been badly disabled during the "Eight-Year Imposed War"-- that is, the war that Saddam had forced into the Iranians, 1980-88. Later he joined a search team looking for the mortal remains of a buddy who had been killed in the same incident, and while doing that he triggered a landmine that blinded him... More recently he lost his toe-nails by walking ten hours from his home-town in western Iran to the holy city of Karbala, in Iraq...

He also has a number of interesting posts about the Iranian Nobel Peace Laureate Shirin Ebadi. In this one from November 23, he writes about the trip he made out to the airport to greet Mrs E-- on behalf of his beloved boss, President Khatami, I believe--on the occasion of her "triumphal" return to Teheran.

He recounts how hard it was for him to get through to the airport, among the crush of all the traffic going out there to welcome the newly designated Laureate. But he made it, eventually, and managed to catch up with her...

I said hi and congratulation. She thanked me for my interviews [some press interviews he had given earlier about the award of the prize to her] and also for being there to welcome her. Went to a room and talked together for a while. Regulating everything for her to be able to go out of the airport took an hour and during that time we stayed together and then did farewell.

Satarifar who knew Mrs. Ebadi since his university period, took her mother home. The correspondent of our TV and radio came to me and asked what are the common points between you and Mrs. Ebadi that you have came to welcome her? I said being Iranian is our common point and this is Iran?s glory that a Muslim, Iranian lady has won the Nobel Prize for the first time...

In the way heading back towards home one of my friends called me letting me listen to the slogans of people especially against president Khatami. I felt happy and delighted that people can chant slogans against their president anywhere for any occasion freely with no sense of fear.

He has a nice little post about Christmas. In his bio page, by the way, he tells of having spent some time in Lebanon, in the 1990s, as the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting representative there-- and he says that while there he, "learned the art of reciprocity, mercifulness and coexistence between Christians and Moslems." On returning to Iran, he his wife founded an inter-religious dialogue organization...

Anyway, go to his blog, and check it out! Who knows what it will lead to?

By the way, "Iranian Girl", whose blog I have been linking to for quite a while now, reports she's giving up blogging:

somehow I feel like this weblog isn't on the way of its purposes anymore & recently I can't find the motivation that used to make me write before...

Well, thanks, IG, for the window you did give us into your life and times for all those months. Thanks too for the gift you gave in your third-to-last post, by telling me about Seyed Muhammad Ali Abtahi's blog.