Daniel Lubetzky

Nazila Fathi reported in the New York Times that Iran recently executed a man it claimed was a "spy" and has arrested another one also for "spying." 

This second man, Hossein Derakhshan, is among the most famous Persian bloggers.  Hossein is jailed & threatened with the same fate of execution by the Iranian government.

His crime? Trying to humanize Iranians and Israelis towards each other.

A couple years ago, he apparently defied a ban on travel by Iranians to Israel in order to explode stereotypes about Iranians to Israelis, and to report from his blog about ordinary Israelis to Iranians.  As a Canadian-Iranian, presumably he figured he could get away with it – and visited twice, then dared to return to Iran.

According to Abraham Rabinovich who wrote for IHT:

The object of his visit, Derakhshan said, was to show his countrymen Israel’s human face and to detoxify relations between the two peoples after Ahmadinejad called for Israel’s elimination.

"I want to humanize Israel for Iranians and tell them it’s not what the Islamic propaganda machine is saying – that Israelis are thirsty for Muslim blood," he said. "And I want to show Israel that the average Iranian isn’t even thinking about doing harm to Israel. I want them to see Iranians who don’t look like Ahmadinejad."

The Iranian regime accused him of spying, as it conveniently does of any humanist who threatens the Iranian regime.

I felt a lot of anxiety when I first read about this story.  After all, if Hossein indeed took such risks for the sake of humanity (and particularly for the sake of Iranians and Israelis who are turned against each other by divisive politicians), shouldn’t we all (regardless of religion or political orientation) demand his release and stand behind him?

I read Hossein’s blog and was struck at how much it pandered to Ahmadinejad.  It has a weirdly pro-Ayatollah and pro-Ahmadinejad slant lately.

His last post, on October 6th, for example, states:

Ahmadinejad’s brilliant strategy of dismissing Israel and smiling to the U.S. has divided the the U.S. in all levels and that’s a big achievement comparing to Khatami’s weak anf failed U.S. strategy that led to Iran being part of the ‘axis of evil’. Now the same Bush administration has officially opened the diplomatic line. Please get over Ahmadinejad’s scruffy look, prayers, and plain language and see these achievements.

So I am a bit perplexed, with four possible explanations for this:

a) He knew he was visiting Teheran and wanted to ingratiate himself with the Iranian rulers before his arrival;

b) These posts were written under duress by him, or totally fabricated;

c) He is a complex individual who really admires Ahmadinejad and is certainly recognized as an Iranian nationalist, even if he also is a humanist;

d) Nothing is as it seems and there is something else going on.

Initially I thought it my duty (and that of anyone who believes in freedom and justice) to try to bring attention to Hossein’s plight.  To contact every Muslim, Arab as well as Western and non-aligned politician, dignitary, academic, and business leader who has any possible sway over the Iranian government and urge them to release him.  To reach out to Obama to ask him to ask the Iranian rulers for an act of good faith.  To prod the Canadian government to seek the release of their citizen.  To encourage human rights and peace groups to get behind a campaign which could not only achieve freedom for Hossain but also use his story to inspire others to disavow blind hatred of the other.

Does anyone have any thoughts or information?

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Years ago, terrorist attacks by pseudo-Islamic terrorists were not aggressively condemned by Muslim leaders.  Their position was, "why should we have to take a stance on this? We didn’t do it and do not need to go out of our way to deny such vicious acts."  Plus significant portions of the Muslim population did not feel ire against those acts, distant as they seemed.  Everyone remembers the tragic support that Osama Bin Laden used to have in Arab and Muslim countries. 

That has long changed, as the tide against terrorism has turned, moderate voices have exerted leadership, and Muslim leaders have learned to react swiftly against those who claim to speak in the name of Islam through violence.  Ordinary Arab and Muslim citizens increasingly recognize that vicious acts of murder against innocent civilians by terrorists who claim to speak in the name of Islam tarnish their religion and the image of its people and must be assertively countered.  They also realize that "creating a monster" comes back to haunt them, as has been exemplified by the brutal acts of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.

Yet the Western media gives scant attention to these condemnations. Showcasing the voices of moderates just doesn’t garner as high ratings.

For years OneVoice has been tracking and trying to publicize stances against violent extremism from mainstream leaders across religious, ethnic, and national spectrums.  More and more organizations and governments are taking a strong stance.  But the "other" audiences continue to miss the news, underreported as they are.

Below is a sample (by no means exhaustive) compilation of some of the Arab and Muslim nations and organizations across the world – from Saudi Arabia to the Arab League – who condemned the tragic and barbaric terrorist acts in Mumbai.  Everyone can always do better, but the below can be shared whenever you are asked "Why are Muslims not condemning terrorism?"

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Michael Lewis (from "Liar’s Poker") wrote a piece in Portfolio Magazine that is a must reading (this earlier piece is also very good).  It is at once nauseating, chilling, and fascinating to see how our financial system is a house of cards.

A couple years ago I got into a passionate debate with friends from the financial sector about the growing disintermediation between actual products we make in the "real" economy and the derivative products that get packaged and re-packaged and sold – always generating a fee for the financial firms that hawk them – without really creating value.

Michael Lewis explains better than anyone how this came about in the 80′s and how it came about with the current credit crisis.

The saddest thing is that, while there will be some short fixes and a lot of chest-thumping in Congress, by the media, and in the executive corridors, the system is so sick and so rigged by those that benefit from it, that it is unlikely to be structurally fixed.

As Lewis concludes in his piece, it would require that Wall Street firms go back to operating as private partnerships with skin on the game rather than become publicly traded firms where management can pass on long-term risks to shareholders, benefiting from short-term profits even if they are risking the fate of their institutions.  Or it would require enough regulation that really tracks and connects compensation to long-term value creation.

Yet greed and ingenuity are potent combinations.  And the "smart" guys will always find a way to game the system – with your money.

Even as we witness calamitous losses on the market, many insiders are doing quite well for themselves.  They find the way.  They are survivors.  Several of my friends are in this industry.  They are not bad people.  They are just playing by the rules of the system, which banks on our own greed as investors to sustain and legitimate itself.

It is hard not to be tempted to participate in the market once it has been so depressed that it should have nowhere to go but up.  And yet Lewis points out that someone who would have invested in the 80s in the predecessor to Citigroup would have lost more than half the value of the investment – rather accrue growth over a 22 year period!

Buyer beware.

And for the young people out there thinking what to do with their careers – many of whom Lewis laments having misread his book as an alluring tale for an exciting career – find something you can truly CREATE.  There are sooo many opportunities to make this a better world through concrete businesses that truly improve life and society.  There are so many opportunities to make money and do something truly good. To build something that adds value.  Find one that is real.

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Read the entire article pasted below or in this link about Hezbollah’s Boy Scouts – to appreciate the challenge before society: the institutionalized hatred and seriousness of the threat posed by Hezbollah, its backers, and other movements with such nihilistic visions.  It is chilling.  We have no alternative but to counteract this in a smart and tenacious way.

To defeat absolutism and terrorism, force is only a partial answer.  Far more important than force is a better ideology that can trump and expose dark movements as unworthy of the young people they prey upon.   It is not easy, but it can be done.

Like we are doing through OneVoice for millions of Israelis and Palestinians to reframe the conflict and understand the enemy is not each other but violent extremism and militant absolutism that denies the rights of both peoples to a State and Freedom and Security, we need to also build a countervailing movement and philosophy that moves the Mideast (and other regions) away from the us-vs-them hatreds and into the post-Obama world of globally shared human values.

If we are to tackle the challenges that the 21^st century will present to humanity – from climate change to nuclear proliferation, from resource scarcity to nihilism and militant absolutism – we need to ensure that new generations worldwide share this recognition that they have to work together – realizing their shared humanity. 

More on this soon – but in the meantime read this article…

Generation Faithful

Hezbollah Seeks to Marshal the Piety of the Young

New York Times, November 21, 2008, By ROBERT F. WORTH

RIYAQ, Lebanon — On a Bekaa Valley playing field gilded by late-afternoon sun, hundreds of young men wearing Boy Scout-style uniforms and kerchiefs stand rigidly at attention as a military band plays, its marchers bearing aloft the distinctive yellow banner of Hezbollah, the militant Shiite movement.

They are adolescents — 17 or 18 years old — but they have the stern faces of adult men, lightly bearded, some of them with dark spots in the center of their foreheads from bowing down in prayer. Each of them wears a tiny picture of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Shiite cleric who led the Iranian revolution, on his chest.

“You are our leader!” the boys chant in unison, as a Hezbollah official walks to a podium and addresses them with a Koranic invocation. “We are your men!”

This is the vanguard of Hezbollah’s youth movement, the Mahdi Scouts. Some of the graduates gathered at this ceremony will go on to join Hezbollah’s guerrilla army, fighting Israel in the hills of southern Lebanon. Others will work in the party’s bureaucracy. The rest will probably join the fast-growing and passionately loyal base of support that has made Hezbollah the most powerful political, military and social force in Lebanon.

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After all of Sean Hannity’s admonitions about how an Obama Administration would cave into the Iranian regime, guess who is scared of Obama?! The Iranian "revolutionary" leaders – who apparently recognize that Obama’s nuanced approach and integrationist vision is a threat to their divisive vision.

Facing Obama, Iran Suddenly Hedges on Talks

By Thomas Erdbrink
Washington Post
Thursday, November 13, 2008; A01

TEHRAN, Nov. 12 — Since 2006, Iran’s leaders have called for direct, unconditional talks with the United States to resolve international concerns over their nuclear program. But as an American administration open to such negotiations prepares to take power, Iran’s political and military leaders are sounding suddenly wary of President-elect Barack Obama.

"People who put on a mask of friendship, but with the objective of betrayal, and who enter from the angle of negotiations without preconditions, are more dangerous," Hossein Taeb, deputy commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, said Wednesday, according to the semiofficial Mehr News Agency.

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CNN had a very touching story about Michelle Obama’s Mom, Mary Robinson.  She may come live in the White House to take care of Barack and Michelle’s young daughters, Sasha and Malia.  It’s heart-warming.  The American family structure tends to be two-generational, unlike the three-generational structures commonly found in Latin America, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East.  How nice if the White House would come to symbolize such close family values.

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It feels so frustrating to see so much abuse from insiders getting bailed out by taxpayers. It is true that the US government is providing terms to AIG that require high interest payments and a stake in the company.  But that is besides the point.  The main problem is that the damage has already been done by executives who took out billions of dollars over the last few years, even though the recent losses already accumulated far exceed the gains of AIG over many years.

The company has reported $38 billion in losses this year, wiping out the company’s total reported earnings for the preceding three years. -NYT

And that is not even taking into account what would be without the $150 bailout from US taxpayers, who are plugging in the hole, while executives got compensated ridiculous amounts for digging that hole!

Same story across Wall Street.

In Liar’s poker, Michael Lewis once wrote that if you don’t know who is the fool, it’s probably you. Here it is all of us as taxpayers.

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I’ve commented on how struck I was at the partisan bias against President-elect Obama by Fox News, and in particular by Sean Hannity.

But extreme bias is not exclusive to the right-wing.

Rachel Maddow is to Sarah Palin what Sean Hannity is to Barack Obama.

I also had big problems with Palin’s divisive meanness and lack of preparedness to be Vice-President.  But there is such thing as decency in allowing someone who is defeated to move on.  The opposite of a sore loser is an arrogant winner, and even more off-putting is an ungracious fan of a winning team.

In Sarah Palin Annotated, Rachel Maddow was so relentless in highlighting inane and inconsequential issues as if they were newsworthy, it felt as kicking someone when they are down. It was all the more jarring because she tries to be funny about it, but, well, let’s just say she is not Jon Stewart.

President-elect Barack Obama did not just make history by being the first African-American elected to the Presidency of the United States.  He also is the first President who really utilized grassroots activism and internet tools to build a direct connection with millions of followers who identify with a vision for building the nation.

In this sense, we are entering a new chapter in history: back to true representative and participative democracy.

Some excerpts:

If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.

It’s the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen, by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different, that their voices could be that difference.

It’s the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled. Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been just a collection of individuals or a collection of red states and blue states.

We are, and always will be, the United States of America.

It’s the answer that led those who’ve been told for so long by so many to be cynical and fearful and doubtful about what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.

It’s been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this date in this election at this defining moment change has come to America.

…I look forward to working with [Senator McCain and Gov. Palin] to renew this nation’s promise in the months ahead…

…

above all, I will never forget who this victory truly belongs to. It belongs to you. It belongs to you.

Our campaign was not hatched in the halls of Washington… It was built by working men and women who dug into what little savings they had to give $5 and $10 and $20 to the cause.

It grew strength from the young people who rejected the myth of their generation’s apathy who left their homes and their families for jobs that offered little pay and less sleep.

It drew strength from the not-so-young people who braved the bitter cold and scorching heat to knock on doors of perfect strangers, and from the millions of Americans who volunteered and organized and proved that more than two centuries later a government of the people, by the people, and for the people has not perished from the Earth.

This is your victory.

And I know you didn’t do this just to win an election. And I know you didn’t do it for me.

You did it because you understand the enormity of the task that lies ahead. For even as we celebrate tonight, we know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime — two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century.

…The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even in one term. But, America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there.

…This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were.

It can’t happen without you, without a new spirit of service, a new spirit of sacrifice.

So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility, where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves but each other.

…In this country, we rise or fall as one nation, as one people. Let’s resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long.

…while the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress.

…And to all those watching tonight from beyond our shores, from parliaments and palaces, to those who are huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of the world, our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand.

To those — to those who would tear the world down: We will defeat you. To those who seek peace and security: We support you. And to all those who have wondered if America’s beacon still burns as bright: Tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity and unyielding hope.

That’s the true genius of America: that America can change. Our union can be perfected. What we’ve already achieved gives us hope for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

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I admired John McCain for years, during the Republican primary, and during his acceptance speech at the RNC.  Yet somehow during most of the general election, the John McCain many independents admired went AWOL.  In his concession speech, he came back.

McCain’s concession speech to President-elect Barack Obama was an elegant and noble exposition of the greatness of American democracy.  Some excerpts:

I’ve always believed that America offers opportunities to all who have the industry and will to seize it. Senator Obama believes that, too.

But we both recognize that, though we have come a long way from the old injustices that once stained our nation’s reputation and denied some Americans the full blessings of American citizenship, the memory of them still had the power to wound.

A century ago, President Theodore Roosevelt’s invitation of Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House was taken as an outrage in many quarters.

America today is a world away from the cruel and frightful bigotry of that time. There is no better evidence of this than the election of an African-American to the presidency of the United States…

Senator Obama has achieved a great thing for himself and for his country. I applaud him for it, and offer him my sincere sympathy that his beloved grandmother did not live to see this day. Though our faith assures us she is at rest in the presence of her creator and so very proud of the good man she helped raise.

Senator Obama and I have had and argued our differences, and he has prevailed. No doubt many of those differences remain.

These are difficult times for our country. And I pledge to him tonight to do all in my power to help him lead us through the many challenges we face.

I urge all Americans who supported me to join me in not just congratulating him, but offering our next president our good will and earnest effort to find ways to come together to find the necessary compromises to bridge our differences and help restore our prosperity, defend our security in a dangerous world, and leave our children and grandchildren a stronger, better country than we inherited.

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