Iranian TV Show Scrapped After Child Calls Toy Monkey Ahmedinejad, Live

Sometimes things happen that make you bang your head on a table laughing. This was one. Apparently there was a show on state television where a child was rewarded for behaving himself (perhaps learning to curse Jews in boisterous fashion) with a toy monkey. When asked what he called the monkey the boy replied; "Well, my father calls him Ahmedinejad".

My guess is there is a large stain in the dad's shorts right about now. It could be an extra offense because Iranian sponsored Hezbollah repeatedly refers to Jews as monkeys and swine. The TV show was promptly canceled.

The reason for cancellation?... the high "spiritual" and "financial" costs of airing the show. Indeed.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/4972554/Iranian-TV-show-scrapped-after-child-calls-toy--monkey-Ahmadinejad-live-on-air.html

Double Take, Iranian Solipsism

Not long ago I had dinner with a Muslim scholar for whom I have great respect despite our grossly divergent views. He said that the problem with the Iranian government is that it consistently overestimates the role of theology in American political and social life. He really hit the nail on the head as anyone who listened to Mahmoud Ahmedinejad's rambling Columbia speech would know. I'm-a-dinner-jacket rambled incessantly about the "prophets" and other ridiculous detritus thinking this would endear him to his audience and he could slip in the homosexual denialist opinions (the first homosexual denialist I have ever heard speak). Apparently they just don't exist in Iran.

Anyhow, this is simply a result of solipsism. The Iranians treat Islam as a foregone conclusion of all societies. They are of course first to demand Shariah be shielded from criticism at the UN, because, of course, this is a divine issue above thought or reproach. It is also evident in a comment I shall detail below from Ahmad Khatami in DEFENSE of the genocidal Sundanese regime of Omar al-Bashir. When queried, the Ayatollah gave a contemptible defense saying that instead of concerning themselves with the 300,000 dead Africans (killed by those professing the religion of peace) the International Criminal Court should judge the heads of the 'Zionist regime' (Israel) and "execute them because they are seditious on the land and are fighting against God and the Prophet."

I would like to take a moment and deal with this flat earth cretin who seems to think the world revolves around his mephitic theocracy. First of all this clumsy term "seditious on the land" refers to either the Islamic concept of fasad fi'l-ard (corruption in the land) or fitna (meaning a societal strife), either way it has absolutely no value for an international court made up of non-Muslims. This is like a Hassidic Rabbi asking the ICC to try the Chinese for eating pork, it makes no sense accept that it details an advanced state of delusion about one's own importance.

The Ayatollah (one could possibly site senility for his ramblings if it weren't ubiquitous to every Iranian official) says the Israelis should be executed for fighting "God and the Prophet". Again, he wants an international court to execute the heads of a multi-party, multi-ethnic, multi-religious democracy because they are fighting against his "God" and the prophet of that god. Is it an international offense to fight against an Arabian desert god, and a pedophile prophet? Only when you think you are the center of the universe.

Muslims are behaving like spoiled children, it's time to stop listening.

Orientosis, Also a Plague from the West

In 1952 in Iran a book was published by Jalal Al-e Ahmed, the son of a cleric, entitled "Occidentosis: A Plague from the West". The term used in Persian was Gharbzadegi, a term coined by Ahmad Fardid at the University of Tehran in the 1940's. Indeed there was a degree of this in the muddled post-colonial mess in the Middle East. In fact we see such sentiments in Iran, when the Pahlavi Hat was instituted by Reza Shah (1925-1941). {More can be read on this transitional period here}. The hat was of western design and had a brim which made it quite difficult to perform the obligatory prayers of Islam. The hat was declared the official hat of all Iranian men in 1927 (see Houchang Chehabi for more).

Another watershed event was the Tanzimat in Turkey (1839-1876) which was a reorganization of the Ottoman Empire, and concluded with the First Constitutional Era. This included financial reorganization based on the French system. However the Turkish contribution to colonial sycophancy did not end here, there was a period of "The Young Turks" which saw further reforms, and the famous Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk). These periods saw the end of the Ottoman empire and the institution of a secular state in what had previously been the seat of the Islamic Caliphate. Indeed there were more than a few instances of this gharbzadegi.

I would like to take this as a point of departure to comment on another "plague" I see, and if I may coin the term, Sharqzadegi (Orientosis). Yes indeed, there is a growing fetish in the western world, particularly in centers of academia, which takes as its raison d'etre, the inversion of perceptions of Islam and the Middle East. The publication of Edward Said's "Orientalism" in 1978, was essentially the start of this self flagellating movement. Said coined the term Orientalism, which was the 'skewed' depiction of Arabs and Muslims in writing and art in the west. {This theory appears to be on its way out as the inestimable Ibn Warraq has published a rebuttal}. And indeed there had long been an obsession with certain things Middle Eastern, many of which was concocted. For instance the 'belly dance', which was taken from some form of traditional dance, and transformed into a night club performance. So alien was this that in Arabic the belly dance is referred to as raqs sharqi (Eastern Dance). The obvious problem here is the Arabs referring to the dance as "eastern" which wouldn't make much sense if it were a cultural practice they themselves created and performed.

Today we see a large crowd of 'academics' and a potpouri of apologists running about telling us how Islam isn't barbaric (which it clearly is) but that it is a light unto the world, a religion that gave us everything from the number zero (a lie) to capri pants. This rehabilitation is an intellectual exercise. And what an exercise for the mental masturbationists... a complete inversion of perceivable reality, take the mephitic cesspools of Islam and dig for diamonds in the rough to show us all we were so wrong to think that a culture that stones women for adultery isn't actually the pinnacle of civilization. {I have commented on this kind of laudatory commentary on Islam HERE}.

The field is littered with these types, one as bad as the next, whether it be Karen Armstrong, who doesn't bother to engage with facts when dealing with the Muslim world issuing idiotic statement after idiotic statement. She has been given a good smack now and again for her obsequious apologetics, but largely continues on, unencumbered by facts. The list continues, John Esposito, Juan Cole, Noah Feldman, ad nauseum (I can't emphasize the 'nauseum' part enough). Needless to say the rehabilitation of a conquesting, Jew hating, violent, misogynistic cult, is not hard to find.

But this Orientosis should not come as a shock, this kind of behavior is quite common amongst the privileged liberals of the west who wish they had never been born. Oh yes, Buddhism was all the rage, with young privileged, middle class children becoming Buddhists. Spending their parents' money for trips to "holy sites" across the globe. And it isn't just the kids, adults have the same problem. Delusion isn't just for children. Disdain for one's own culture has drawn more than a few to Islam, several names come to mind.... John Walker Lindh and Adam Gadahn. Of course when a young man like Lindh becomes a Muslim in Marin, California and jets off to Afghanistan to fight with al-Qaeda, people speculate that he suffers from some mental illness, and rightly so. Why is it that no one makes such speculation when a so-called 'academic' does the intellectual equivalent? Well fear not, Dr. Al is on the case, ready with a diagnosis for the Islamophiles and useful idiots.... Orientosis.