Pedestrian Observer GB: A Blogger named Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

I saw this item at wrongadvice blog a blogger named Mahmoud Ahmadinejad which he described as bizarre (in case you don’t know him he is presently the president of Iran) having his own blog. I couldn’t agree more with wrong advice this is really bizarre so to satisfy my curiosity I went to the NY Times article to check it out.

Indeed there it was under the heading “From Iran’s Fiery Leader, a Slightly Tamer Blog” by Nazila Fathi describing M. Ahmadinejad as a leader known for a kind of thundering presence surprisingly having a not so tough blog. True enough the entry gives you the impression of a “pious religious” man so composed and calm a contradiction to how he is projected in the western media. Honestly I was almost transformed…. Yeah right like this is not a standard hogwash you get from leaders who say one thing while doing the opposite.

His demeanor after the incident in Columbia University where he was introduced by its president for what he is was that of a “polished” politician. Mr. Bollinger’s pointed introduction of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, as a man who exhibited “all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator” and whose denial of the Holocaust was “either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated,” became a subject of heated debate. Some say he won or scored some points but who cares about perception, what is important is........he is indeed a cruel despot making public hanging a national pastime.

I found fathi’s report hilarious and to think that this guy is desperately portraying a “tolerant” stance on the net is pathetically laughable but at the same time cruel and tragic. The blog entry is like a prose on good stewardship of a nation towards fairness and justice that seems odd owing to news report on human rights abuses. Here is what really floored me on the article which I quote:

In his most recent piece, Mr. Ahmadinejad has provided a “Guideline for Islamic Governance” and writes about how an official should consider his duties as his “responsibilities before God” to help the people. “It is in this view that the smile of an orphan is more important than the contentment of greedy rulers,” he writes.

There is a political irony to Mr. Ahmadinejad’s blogging, since other Iranian bloggers, including reporters who worked for news Web sites, came under more pressure after his election. Hundreds of Web sites and blogs that were critical of the government have been blocked. Censorship has been so wide that the president’s blog was once blocked mistakenly along with Google for a day.

Here is a blogging president so “liberal” that will put die hard liberal democrats to shame but at the same time censors Iranian bloggers while his “IT Police” accidentally had his blog blocked is just hilarious. Now I wonder what happens and how he reacted on those overzealous “IT Police”. Hope they still have their heads intact and in their proper place not separated literally from their bodies.

True enough the comment section especially the English version didn’t seem to have been censored judging from what seemed to be uncensored rants it had received such as the 2 below:

Hate you
Shut up please, would you? I get headache reading your nonsense stuff.

Xochitl
I think you are an evil leader. Freedom and tolerance are necessities in this day and age, and the fact that your country kills intellectuals, journalists, minorities, etc. is horrible and deeply disturbing. People say America is so horrible, but you can live in whatever fashion you want to, and if the government does something you dont like then we can protest. Our government is great because it is of the people, for the people and by the people Change your ways.

Of course there were more praises than those who see Ahmadinejad as a scourge and just like any blog that are controversial it gets hackers attention as Fathi reported:

The blog has been hacked several times. In August, a group called Yahoo Underground hacked his site and posted a sarcastic message saying, “We thank you on behalf of all Iranian hackers for defending the right of Iranian people against all the countries in the world.”

“We hope that you defend the irrefutable right of Iranian people to nuclear energy until your last breath,” it added.

During his visit in the US he declared with a straight face holding his nose as it may grow when he says there are no gays in Iran. What a joker this guy is, I wanted to make jokes about his lies and deception until I saw this blog complete with haunting images of public hanging and this one and another here. He is probably right when he states that there are no (more) gays in Iran because they have executed most of them. The internet being a repository of information easily pointed to the Iranian human rights campaigners, and accordingly reported that over 4,000 lesbians and gay men have been executed since the Ayatollahs seized power in 1979. Altogether, an estimated 100,000 Iranians have been put to death over the last 26 years of clerical rule.”

The executions has not eradicated gays all it did was intimidate openly gay Iranians forcing them to go underground. In a culture where aggressive violence against infidels and perceived enemies of their religion are victimized and repressed sexual preferences among the confused there are incidents considered deviant in the west but maybe socially acceptable in more backward fundamentalist Muslim neighborhoods. Incidents where men raping men do occur among those who may think they are the embodiment of machismo preying on migrants once in a while. We also hear of gang rape as a punishment such as what happened to Abdul Shakoor the 12 year old brother of Mukhtaran Mai. Will we see Samina Malik or her fans shifting their inspiration and glorification of beheading to execution by hanging?