{"id":391,"date":"2009-06-19T14:07:00","date_gmt":"2009-06-19T14:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/2009\/06\/why-do-we-care-so-much-about-i.html"},"modified":"2009-06-19T14:07:00","modified_gmt":"2009-06-19T14:07:00","slug":"why-do-we-care-so-much-about-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/06\/why-do-we-care-so-much-about-i.html","title":{"rendered":"Why do we care so much about Iran?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Something that struck me about the Green Revolution in Iran is how invested the world is in it. It touches on all the right narratives: telegenic, courageous youth facing off against dour mullahs on the streets, straight out of the lyrics of Buffalo Springfield. But why not elsewhere? Why, for example, aren&#8217;t Americans and the Twitterverse abuzz about the Egyptian democratic reform movement? Is it because Egypt is under a secular autocracy rather than a religious one? Or something else?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/talkislam.info\/2009\/06\/18\/anyone-have-any-theories-why-the-world-i\/\">I posed this question at Talk Islam<\/a> and it sparked an interesting, if somewhat tangential, discussion. The best response so far though to the question has been from Willow Wilson (author of <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Cairo-G-Willow-Wilson\/dp\/1401217346\/talkislam-20\">Cairo<\/a><\/em> and <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Air-Vol-Letters-Lost-Countries\/dp\/140122153X\/talkislam-20\">AIR<\/a><\/em>), who lived in Egypt for a few years after converting to Islam. She <a href=\"http:\/\/talkislam.info\/2009\/06\/18\/anyone-have-any-theories-why-the-world-i\/#comment-7870\">responded<\/a>,<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>The Egyptian state is much cannier at repressing dissent (and the reportage on dissent) so it looks like there&#8217;s much less civil discontent in Egypt than there actually is. Hence, less global interest. They&#8217;ve been steadily rounding up bloggers for the past half-decade. Most of the first wave of Egyptian bloggers I knew are now in jail. All but the most hardened western journalists stay within the confines the regime sets for them (go here but not here; talk to these people but not those). And, it&#8217;s a military regime. The army is loyal to the army, period. If there were ever mass protests as there are in Iran, you&#8217;d have regiments of infantry firing into crowds. It&#8217;d be Tianamen Square on steroids.<\/p>\n<p>Even in the heyday of Al Ghad, the opposition was never allowed to get as organized as the opposition in Iran.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>What does this imply about the value of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2009\/05\/06\/AR2009050603752.html\">massive, unconditional foreign aid we supply to Egypt<\/a> every year, second only to Israel? Is that money to buy stability in the region, for our and Israel&#8217;s benefit alone, and blind to the freedom of the Egyptian people? Something to consider, indeed &#8211; especially since <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/2009\/06\/cairo-speech-transcript-and-wo.html\">Obama himself gave a big speech recently<\/a> about this over there&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Speaking of Buffalo Springfield, here&#8217;s That Song<\/p>\n<p><object xmlns=\"\" width=\"425\" height=\"344\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/0g9PiEgYYUU&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1&amp;\"\/><param name=\"wmode\"\/><embed xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/1999\/xhtml\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/0g9PiEgYYUU&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1&amp;\" width=\"425\" height=\"344\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\"\/><\/object><\/p>\n<p>Related &#8211; articles about the Egyptian foreign aid at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.csmonitor.com\/2004\/0412\/p07s01-wome.html\">the CS Monitor<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.forward.com\/articles\/12443\/\">the Forward<\/a>. Also, <a href=\"http:\/\/pomed.org\/blog\/2009\/06\/us-aid-to-egypt-is-barely-a-drop-in-the-bucket.html\/\">via POMED<\/a>, a reminder that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.carnegieendowment.org\/publications\/index.cfm?fa=view&#038;id=23282&#038;prog=zgp&#038;proj=zme\">most of the aid to Egypt is &#8220;security&#8221;<\/a> and does not provide any tangible economic benefit to the people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Something that struck me about the Green Revolution in Iran is how invested the world is in it. It touches on all the right narratives: telegenic, courageous youth facing off against dour mullahs on the streets, straight out of the lyrics of Buffalo Springfield. But why not elsewhere? Why, for example, aren&#8217;t Americans and the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":165,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[42,121,57,124,26],"class_list":["post-391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nation-building","tag-egypt","tag-foreign-policy","tag-iran","tag-pli","tag-politics"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Why do we care so much about Iran? - City of Brass<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why do we care so much about Iran? - City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Something that struck me about the Green Revolution in Iran is how invested the world is in it. It touches on all the right narratives: telegenic, courageous youth facing off against dour mullahs on the streets, straight out of the lyrics of Buffalo Springfield. But why not elsewhere? Why, for example, aren&#8217;t Americans and the&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/06\/why-do-we-care-so-much-about-i.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-06-19T14:07:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Aziz Poonawalla\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Why do we care so much about Iran? - City of Brass","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"follow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Why do we care so much about Iran? - City of Brass","og_description":"Something that struck me about the Green Revolution in Iran is how invested the world is in it. It touches on all the right narratives: telegenic, courageous youth facing off against dour mullahs on the streets, straight out of the lyrics of Buffalo Springfield. But why not elsewhere? Why, for example, aren&#8217;t Americans and the&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/06\/why-do-we-care-so-much-about-i.html","og_site_name":"City of Brass","article_published_time":"2009-06-19T14:07:00+00:00","author":"Aziz Poonawalla","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/06\/why-do-we-care-so-much-about-i.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/06\/why-do-we-care-so-much-about-i.html","name":"Why do we care so much about Iran? - City of Brass","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-06-19T14:07:00+00:00","dateModified":"2009-06-19T14:07:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/87dfd5533a0222456bb5ad6eaf152fbb"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/06\/why-do-we-care-so-much-about-i.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/06\/why-do-we-care-so-much-about-i.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/06\/why-do-we-care-so-much-about-i.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Why do we care so much about Iran?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/","name":"City of Brass","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Aziz Poonawalla","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/87dfd5533a0222456bb5ad6eaf152fbb","name":"Aziz Poonawalla","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a95\/a95f814e7f2984c887f3b03aed357433x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a95\/a95f814e7f2984c887f3b03aed357433x96.jpg","caption":"Aziz Poonawalla"},"description":"Aziz Poonawalla is a member of the Dawoodi Bohra Muslim community, and currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children. City of Brass is his weblog, which was founded in 2002 under the name UNMEDIA. He is a co-founder of the annual Brass Crescent Awards. The name City of Brass refers to the Story of the City of Brass in the Thousand and One Nights, and the poem by Rudyard Kipling of the same name: Here was a people whom, after their works, thou shalt see wept over for their lost dominion; And in this palace is the last information respecting lords collected in the dust. -- Thousand and One Nights, Story of the City of Brass IN A land that the sand overlays, the ways to her gates are untrod, A multitude ended their days whose fates were made splendid by God, Till they grew drunk and were smitten with madness and went to their fall, And of these is a story written: but Allah Alone knoweth all! -- Rudyard Kipling, The City of Brass (1909)"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}