alwaysperfectlywrite

It’s said that the USA’s late 20th century wars in the Far East were the first to be fought on domestic television.

Those in the 21st century are being waged over the blogosphere. Certainly, the Twitter campaign for Iran is without precedent. Let’s hope the fight for freedom and democracy there will begin to be won. But judging by these clips,  it’ll be a long, hard and bloody fight.

Again, my apologies for posting them somewhat late!

msniw

Last week, The UK Foundation for Missing In Action Israeli Soldiers together with the Israeli organisations in Manchester held a vigil to mark the third anniversary of the kidnapping by Hamas of Israeli soldier, GILAD SHALIT.

From what I understand, Manchester was the only city at which such a vigil was made.

The video above includes an appeal by the missing soldier’s father who speaks against a background of text urging that US aid to Gaza be made conditional on Shalit’s release.

This is not the first time that the Zionist Federation in London has posted important material very late in what is probably a vain attempt to increase its rankings on Youtube. I think it will succeed only when it posts such items with very great speed. However, I’m sure it’s more ‘chicken soup’ - a few more clicks via this site won’t harm even if they don’t help! Please watch it if you can.

msniw

Below I post a first-hand account of what it’s like to be detained by the Iranian authorities. The writer recounts what happened to him 10 years ago. Nothing has since changed. Perhaps - if it’s possible - matters have become worse. Surely any right-minded person must agree there will be a radical shift throughout the region only when  the  clerics with their  medieval mindset no longer hold all the power in what are supposed to be modern countries.

‘What Will Happen To Those Arrested In Iran? I Can Tell You’

“By an official count, some 450 people have been arrested in opposition protests against Iran’s presidential election results. Many sources inside Iran put the count in the thousands. To those arrested 10 years ago, in Iran’s last great wave of student demonstrations, what the new detainees face next is already clear. Ali Fathi (a pseudonym) was one of those students arrested in 1999. This is his story.
What will happen to the people who have been arrested in the protest rallies in Iran? I can tell you.I was arrested during the 1999 student demonstrations in Tehran, exactly 10 years ago.

What I did was as trivial in terms of real crime as what the protesters in Iran have done now by expressing rage over the presidential election results.

But the punishment I received was so out of proportion to my actions – and so truly criminal – that I had to flee my homeland and seek political asylum in Europe.

In 1999, Mohammad Khatami was president and reformist hopes were high that the Islamic republic’s oppressive ideological atmosphere was lifting slightly.

I was a university student and we were enjoying an unprecedented amount of freedom to speak our minds in class. That included the compulsory class all students have to take in the roots of the Islamic Revolution.

‘Change Was In The Air’

At that time, even the presence of the Basij among the students – 50 percent of all university places are reserved for the members of the militia – did not have its usual chilling effect. Change was in the air.

Then came the sparks that ignited the demonstrations that swept campuses across Tehran and spread to other cities in the summer of 1999.

Some students at Tehran University protested the closure of one of the most popular reformist newspapers. Their small demonstration was attacked by vigilantes armed with clubs who beat at least one student to death as police did nothing.

Our rage boiled over. Tens of thousands of students took to the streets demanding the dismissal of police officials. We also called on Khatami to speed up reforms and give us a more open society.

I was with a group of about 50 students on my campus which tore down a poster of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that hung in one of the buildings. Someone set fire to the picture. The riot police took the simplest course. They locked the campus gates and arrested everyone found inside.

But they did not take us to a police station. Instead, we were blindfolded and taken outside of the legal system to a place where our parents could never find us.

‘Stripped Us Naked’

The place was one of the semi-abandoned military camps outside Tehran that date back to the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. There we were shoved into metal freight containers – the kind used for shipping. They stripped us naked and gave us two blankets each.

Inside there was nothing to sleep on and no electric light. There was no way to tell the time except by the daylight when it shone through the watchman’s peephole at one end and a ventilation vent at the other.

I was in the container with four other boys. We were all barely 20. And we were inside for two weeks — naked, powerless, and face-to-face with the fear of being totally at the mercy of our captors.

Food was thrown in once a day. From time to time, we were taken out for questioning. And both those processes helped to destroy whatever shreds of our dignity remained.

The first interrogation sessions were simply beatings. Men who were clearly convinced that we had violated all laws of God and man kicked us until we fell down. Then they kicked our faces. As they did, they shouted “Allahu Akbar,” calling on God to be pleased with them. They were skinheads, but with hair and beards.

Then the real questioning began, and it, too, was to show there was no way out.

‘No Correct Answers’

The interrogators wanted to know who pulled down the picture of the Supreme Leader, to what organizations I belonged, and to what organizations my friends and classmates belonged.

It did not matter what I said. There were no correct answers.

“Do you know Masud Rajavi (the spiritual leader of the armed resistance group, the People’s Mujahedin of Iran)?”

“No.”

“You are lying. Everyone knows that bastard. You are lying about everything.” Sometimes they seemed to want to understand my problem.

“You were one of those who shouted,” the interrogator said.

“No, I wasn’t.”

“You were! Go ahead and shout now. Shout as much as you want.”

And they offered treatment.

“You have extreme tendencies. You just need some balancing.”

And then, turning to one of the strongmen, “Brother X, take him for balancing.” The balancing was more beating.

Nothing To Confess

The interrogations were conducted with a hood over my head. Looking down, I could see only the floor. Once I saw the hands of one of the interrogators after he cuffed my head. His hands were twice the size of mine.

After two weeks, I was transferred to a succession of other prison cells, with no idea where I was. Sometimes, the cells were pitch dark. Sometimes, they had four brilliant light bulbs shining 24 hours a day.

I was lucky I had nothing to confess. And I was lucky that made me of no real interest to my captors. After eight months, as inexplicably as the way they had treated me, they let me go.

But now I was a criminal with a history of imprisonment. And that meant all of Iran would be my lifetime prison.

With a prison record, I could not return to university. I could not get a job. My only course was to leave Tehran and return to my small provincial city. And there, where everyone knows everyone, I was an outcast.

My parents had all but given me up for dead. For months they had gone around every prison in Tehran trying to locate me. At every place, they were told there was no record of me being detained. But one official said it was likely I had been made to “disappear.”

The police sent my prison file to an old man in my home town who had lost three sons in the Iran-Iraq war. He owned a men’s shoe store next to the local bank that no one shopped in because the fashions were 10 years old. But he was powerful because he was strongly linked to the Revolutionary Guards.

This man was my parole officer. I had to appear before him each week to show I was still in town. If I wanted to visit friends in another city, I needed his permission.

His only demand of me was to pray. Not just in the mosque but in private prayer meetings as well. And eventually, I complied.

That was how I began my journey out of Iran. As he gained trust in me, I could more easily get permission for longer absences. And on one of these absences, I slipped out of the country.

Dehumanising

The escape route that people take — across the Iranian border, across Turkey, by ship to Greece, and overland to France — is well known. Some of those who are now in jail for protesting the presidential election results – if they are released — will undoubtedly take it, too. It is horrible, full of dangers, and as dehumanizing as being in prison.

I was tricked by traffickers as one group handed me off to another that claimed it had not been paid. So, I soon ran out of money.

I rode in freight containers. And I rode hanging onto the bottom of a speeding truck. That means sitting on a small metal bar a half-meter above the asphalt and hanging on with arms that become so paralyzed the muscles no longer contract. I was numb with fear.

Was it worth this to escape my home country and to leave my parents and dearest friends? Of course not.

But for me it was a question I never had to ask. The government of my country took my country away from me. And my crime was nothing more than taking part in a political demonstration.“

*This was sent to me via an email but orginated on:

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty © 2009 RFE/RL, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

msniw

 

Once in a while a new slant on Holocaust history appears that is so quietly awful it needs no further comment.

The link I’ve pasted below is one of them. Enjoy reading the ‘postcard’!

http://www.mayapro10.com/

msniw

I’m sorry to tell all those involved in setting up the new Chabad (ultra Orthodox Jewish) centre in Whitefield, Manchester - you’re on to a loser!

Director Rabbi Shmuli Jaffe told the Jewish Chronicle:

“… the centre’s greatest asset is its location. “It is opposite the Parkfield Inn pub, which is full of Jews on Thursday evenings, and its street corner is where the kids are on motzei Shabbos, being the only stretch of Jewish shops in the neighbourhood.”

Many years before I knew of Rabbi Shmuli, the North Manchester branch of the Jewish Lads Brigade and  Club opened a smart disco and restaurant next to Heaton Park Synagogue on Middleton Road, Manchester - which was also opposite a pub favoured by local Jewish youngsters.

The novelty of  ‘Maxims’, as it was known, soon wore off simply by virtue of being approved by the adult establishment. Crikey, its opening even included a publicity shot of the-then President of the local Jewish Representative Council on the dance floor. How uncool was that?

Sorry guys, the pub will always have more lure than Chabad, simply because it’ll be seen as vaguely naughty and very, very nice. The kids will want ‘to do Jewish’ only when - ok - they have kids of their own.

I’ve illustrated my remarks with an image of the Aroma Israeli nightclub and restaurant in Hollywood, Florida, USA - not exactly as Chabad would like things to happen.

msniw

If John Bercow, the new Speaker at the English House of Commons, continues as he began just under an hour ago,  even his worst Tory foes will eat from his hand before the present Parliamentary term is out.

Bercow has just chaired his first session of Prime Minister’s Questions with calm, confident, even avuncular authority. He spoke as a kind, authoritative headteacher, telling some of his charges to pipe down and laid firm, fair ground rules for debate. He even urged one MP - from memory it was Michael Fabricant, the Member for Brighton - to refrain from becoming too agitated as it could be bad for his health. How sweet!

Watching televised PMQs is my among favourite midday, midweek treats. I’ve got a feeling with Bercow presiding, the sessions will be better than ever.

msniw

The UK Foundation for Missing In Action Israeli Soldiers together with the Israeli organisations in Manchester are holding a vigil to mark the third anniversary of the kidnapping by Hamas of  GILAD SHALIT, who was aged only 19 when the outrage occurred. 

Date: Thursday 25^th June 2009

Time:  12.30 – 2.00pm

Venue: Pedestrian area between Marks & Spencer & Zara, Manchester City Centre

The MIA will ask members of the public to sign  petitions which  will be presented to the President of the Red Cross asking the Red Cross to intervene and assist in obtaining the release of Shalit.

Details: 0161 721 4344 or  iicmcr@clara.co.uk

Missing in Action Israeli Soldiers

142 Bury Old Road, Prestwich, Bury M8 4HE Tel: 0161 721 4344 Fax: 0161 795 3387

Website: www.miauk.org.uk

msniw

I’m musing on the real reason is for the visceral hatred borne for John Bercow by many fellow Tories.

Surely it’s not because the father of the new Speaker of the English House of Commons was a mere taxi driver?

Can it be because over a period he’s become less Tory and more ‘New Labour’ (whatever that means nowadays)?

No, not really …

Or heaven forfend, not because of his tribal heritage?  

Indeed, not!

None other than David Cameron, Conservative Party leader, congratulating him on his election said:

“I would also like to put on record an historical first that you have achieved which is to be the first person of the Jewish faith to occupy the office of speaker of the House of Commons and it is a milestone that we should mark …”

Bercow, 46, MP for Buckingham  is married to Labour sympathiser, Sally Illman. I have not yet discovered whether she - or indeed if Bercow’s own mother - are Jewish. I understand that he has a particular interest in children with special needs and that one of his own children suffers from autism.

And the internal party hatred? My  own gloss on Bercow is thus:

He seems very personable while extremely ebullient. It may be the same reason - and it’s nothing to do with antisemitism - why the likes of m’Lords Levy and Sugar are also an acquired taste - not everyone likes loud gift-wrap.

msniw

I started to pen this on Friday 19 June - a day of steel-grey skies, biting winds and occasional showers. Saturday was absolutely horrible  until late afternoon. But as I begin to write,  it’s really not bad for mid-March.  And while on Friday I heard a couple of women agree we were due for a decent weekend, yesterday, amid the sheeting rain and Manchester grime we saw an open-top tourist bus plying its trade. Where to, for Heaven’s sake?

This is the year that the men from the UK Met Office – now boasting a computer the size of Wales – used their amoeboid brains to give us a good long-range summer forecast. No wonder the weather’s gone to rack and ruin.

Nor am I surprised that the last woolly mammoth was seen round here a mere 14,000 years ago. I bet he left in a huff  only when he realised he’d been knitted by my Grandma Dora - who never followed a pattern - and he got fed up of struggling to get his chest on over his head.

Friday was also the day that still sillier boffins, using  ‘SUPER’ computers, gave us more dire warnings about the effects of global change 70 years hence. Most of them won’t be around to receive the universal derision they’ll deserve.Three score years and ten was once considered the span of an average man’s life, not the timing of a flood warning.

Yesterday we also learned that school children are no longer to be taught standard spelling by employing useful rhymes like “’i’ before ‘e’ except after ‘c’” as the rule has so many exceptions. Of course it’s far too hard for teachers to explain the pitfalls of the English language – so let’s make it a Health and Safety issue instead:

‘Don’t run in the corridor – or God forbid in the playground – always wear goggles to pin a poster to a wall – and don’t ever, ever learn how to spell – it’ll make your brain hurt’.

So that was the past two days. On Thursday I  schlepped into Manchester, was rash enough to go without a coat and felt desperately cold the second I left home. I didn’t dare go back for one in case I missed the bus into town. So I  arrived at the Royal Exchange Theatre far too early only to discover the Press team wasn’t  absolutely sure whether to expect me.

(Next time maybe  I’ll impersonate the Jewish Chronicle’s John Nathan, although that’ll probably mean I’d receive a frosty reception from Lesley Joseph should I ever be invited to interview her . So that sounds like even more bad weather!)

After that, the only way was up – sort of.

I was at the theatre on behalf of Jewish Renaissance magazine whose lovely editor, Janet Levin, asked me to review Dr Korczak’s Example.

The job gave me an hour of  near-excruciating emotional pain as this remarkable three-hander, which had returned to the RET after a gap of barely 12 months, evoked a tiny world filled with few props and less scenery, but  laden with famished fear, unrelieved misery and knowing that certain death is near.

Dr Janusz Korczak was a popular Polish children’s writer and paediatrician, who ran an orphanage in the Warsaw Ghetto and who elected to go to Treblinka with his young charges, even though he was offered a last-minute reprieve for himself.

He was also a pioneer of children’s rights whose work became a blueprint for the United Nations’ Declaration of Children’s Rights.

The play gives us a man of enormous moral courage and physical stamina who, I believe, sustains himself by viewing the world through the eyes of a wise child.

That may have been – and may still be – the problem. The toughest lesson I’ve ever seen modern teenagers try to tackle is the hoary old standard “…with rights go responsibilities.” My generation of boring middle-agers seems to have been the last to have been weaned on this truism  - along with fearful respect for their elders.

But back to the play, one of whose early scenes stayed with me more vividly even than the finale.

 I’m thinking of brutalised, street-wise orphan ‘Adzio’ (Craig Vye) who spends forever battling with a pesky fly. Finally, he wins and gives his adversary a new life, not only by ’ennobling’ him with fine titles and high praise but by calling himself ‘Fly’.

This early 21st century – with teenage murders by the dozen - sees us living in a scenario with which William Golding would be all too familiar.

The title of Golding’s earliest and perhaps most celebrated novel  is said to be a reference to the Hebrew name Beelzebub (בעל זבוב, Ba’al-zvuv, “god of the fly”, “host of the fly” or literally “Lord of Flies”), a name sometimes used as a synonym for the Christian idea of Satan.

That’s the trouble with idealists like Korczak. They reach  reality only  to see their high-minded  theories evaporate inside the bubble where they were created. The rest is well-intentioned chaos.

As it’s 00.33 a.m. on  Sunday 21 June UK BST I’ll wish you all goodnight!

msniw

Stuart Palmer of the Israel Citizens Action Network (’ICAN’) is recovering well from his recent heart attack and has started to post messages again.

He is anxious particularly, that Israel’s humanitarian work accomplished in Gaza should be highlighted and I copy the details here:

One fact that was not known was the fact that over 145 road blocks have been removed in Judea and Samaria in the last 12 months. On June 17, 2009 the Vered Jericho crossing located south of Jericho was removed, thus making possible the free passage of vehicles and pedestrians between the city and the Jordan Valley region.

 In addition, work goes on quietly (the world media does see this as newsworthy) improving the humanitarian situation in Gaza. On June 11, 2009, an Israeli construction team finished its work on a new pipeline for the transfer of fuel and natural gas from Israel to the Gaza Strip. The decision to build the pipeline was made in accordance with decisions made by the Israeli Government, following security assessments and as a result of the coordination between the Civil Administration and the Palestinian side. The construction was performed by both Israeli and Palestinian construction crews. And what do we get in return? An attack by terrorists with bomb laden horses!! Where are the complaints of the animal rights organisations?

Where indeed? Over to my friends at the Vegetarian Society of the United Kingdom and even the International Jewish Vegetarian Society, whose H.Q. is in Israel.  

msniw