[lbo-talk] Persian Primer (Re: Qaeda at Work)

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

On 11/21/06, Daniel Davies <d_squared_2002 at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> > > > Neither you nor Lenin nor anyone here is part of "the resistance," nor
> > > > can we be.  We are out of the picture.  Let Iran, Syria, and the Mahdi
> > > > Army solve the problem, for it is _their_ problem.
> > >
> > > Nothing human is alien to me, the man said.
> >
> > Don't be a surrealist.  The international jihadists of the Al Qaeda
> > tendency are alien to you, me, Lenin, all of us here, and vice versa.
> > If we went to Iraq -- which we won't! -- we'd be lucky if one of them
> > didn't catch us and behead us, or if slightly less demented Islamists
> > than Qaeda types didn't kidnap us and demand huge ransoms for us, so
> > they could go on fighting, who knows whom.  We are too soft for Iraq
> > -- that is clear.
>
> if only we could be so sure.  Maybe even as recently as ten years ago this
> would be more or less true, but the internet really has changed things.  I
> found out to my unbelievable surprise a month or two ago that a flamewar that I
> was having about Darfur on the Guardian website was being followed in Sudan, by
> people who were actually in a position to influence real events.  You really
> can't assume any more that you are totally without influence; it's pretty
> frightening.  I don't know whether either Yoshie, Carroll or Doug has a
> material fanbase in Iran or Iraq, but (scary as this is for those of us brought
> up on left wing politics, and therefore on the assumption that we can basically
> say what we like as it has no consequences at all), it really isn't the sort of
> thing that you can act as if it was an absolutely zero probability event.

The problem is I can only write at the first grade level in Persian.
But perhaps I may be able to reach six year olds in Iran.  :->  Here's
my first composition in Farsi.  I'd say it might not be out of place
in a Persian Primer.  :->

بوش خیلی بد است.

من یک نقشه دارم.  این نقشه خاورمیانه است.  شوهر من این نقشه را به من
داد.  من چه میبینم؟  من ایران را میبینم.  ایران کجا است؟  ایران شرق
عراق و غرب افغانستان است.  سربازان امریکایي در عراق و افغانستان هستند.

 آنها ششصد و پنجاه هزار نفر عراقی کشتند.  آنها چند نفر افغانی کشتند؟
بلد نیستم، اما یقین دارم که آنها خیلی از مردم کشتند.  تقصیر کی است؟
تقصیر از بوش است.  لبنان شمال ایسراعیل است.  سرباز اسراعیلی بر لبنان
اخیراً حمله کردند.  آنها بر غزه، که شمال مصر است، هم حمله کردند.
اولمرت و بوش خیلی بد هستند.  چوس گفتد که بوش شیظان است.

Bush is very bad.

I have a map.  It's a map of the Middle East.  My husband gave me this
map.  What do I see?  I see Iran.  Where is Iran?  Iran is to the east
of Iraq and to the west of Afghanistan.  American soldiers are in Iraq
and Afghanistan.  They have killed 650,000 Iraqis.  How many Afghans
have they killed?  I don't know, but I'm sure they have killed many
people.  Whose fault is that?  It's Bush's fault.  Lebanon is to the
north of Israel.  The Israeli Army recently attacked Lebanon.  They
also attacked Gaza, which is to the north of Egypt.  Olmert and Bush
are very bad.  Chavez said that Bush is the devil.

-- 
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://mrzine.org>
<http://monthlyreview.org/>