Author: Fatemeh Fakhraie

Founder of Muslimah Media Watch. Content marketing nerd who likes figuring out how stuff works and writing about it. I learned everything about being an adult from The Golden Girls.

When Stereotypes Collide!

Over at Racialicious, I give my thoughts on W magazine’s July 2009 article, “The Persian Conquest of Beverly Hills.” Check it!:

Knowing the history of glossies and their historic portrayal of racial ethnicities more as props than as cover stories, I was simultaneously worried and intrigued—how would W fare as documenters rather than voyeurs?

The Dos and Don’ts

I’ve written a list of “dos & don’ts” about the difficulties with non-Muslim interaction with Muslim women. Check it:

Being an ally is the same as being a true friend: respecting my wishes, even if you may want something different for me; helping me when I need it, without thinking me helpless; and viewing me as an entire person.

Neda Agha-Soltan 1982-2009

Neda Agha-Soltani was fatally shot during a protest in Iran on Saturday, June 20, 2009.

May God give her peace and justice.

Several news outlets have reported on her death, and several opinion-makers have heralded her tragic end as a martyrdom for Iran’s opposition movement.

While I understand that every movement needs its martyr (this is Shi’a Iran we’re talking about–Time explains it for those of you not familiar with the importance of martyrdom in the Shi’a sect), I don’t understand the necessity for the image of her last moments to be splashed across news outlets.

Her last moments were filled with shock and drama, as onlookers attempted to stop the bleeding from the fatal gunshot wound in her chest. They realized they could not help as she began to hemorrhage, and blood ran from her nose, ears, and mouth.

But she is dead now.

And instead of being put to rest, her final, bloody image is being strewn across blogs and Twitter.

The cruelty and horror of Neda’s death may be a call to action, but her death mask shouldn’t.

I’ve written more at Muslimah Media Watch.

#IranRevolution?

I talk more about the Iranian election aftermath more on ReligionDispatches:

During the weekend, there was almost no coverage of the protests and riots. Some news agencies, including Al Arabiya, had their offices closed, and state networks in Iran didn’t report on any of the civil unrest. So we turned to Twitter. Thanks to Twitterers from Iran, we’re getting a picture. But how complete is it? A majority of those Twittering seem to be Mousavi supporters. I kept getting a gnawing feeling, like I couldn’t see the forest for the trees.

Thoughts on the Election

In the U.S., several university commencements were held today. Outside my window, college graduates and their families are celebrating and looking forward to their futures.

Iran is not celebrating tonight. Iranians are participating in protests and riots. Iranians are waiting for the police to search their homes, looking for satellites to seize. Iranians are trying to get their Facebook and cell phone access to work. Iranians are going to bed tonight hoping that tomorrow will bring change.

Living outside of Iran carries varying degrees of “diaspora guilt” for many Iranians. Guilt that we don’t have to go through the perennial annoyances, inconveniences, and fears that Iranians in Iran deal with all the time. Guilt that we’re fairly powerless to do anything about the Iranian government, which we all seem to hate so much. Guilt that we don’t get our papers in order to vote during the biggest elections since Khatami’s in 1997.

There is a lot of guilt tonight, but that guilt is overshadowed by larger feelings of fear and worry. Though the mainstream media in the U.S. isn’t covering it, you can bet Twitter’s #IranElections thread is buzzing with news of Mousavi’s house arrest, internet shutoffs, cell phone and SMS blocking, police seizures, riots, and rumors of a coup d’ etat by Ahmadinejad.

Seventy percent of Iran’s population will turn 30 this year, and have no memories of the Islamic revolution during or after which they were born. To this 70%, revolution may not seem like such a bad idea after growing up in a system that dictates their public behavior and regulates their private lives. Mousavi (and his wife Dr. Zahra Rahnavard) spoke to the under-30s; despite the fact that he was Iran’s prime minister in the newly-formed Islamic Republic, his platform was one of economic and social reform, with welcomed calls for expanded women’s rights from his wife.

Before officials shut down internet access and declared Ahmadinejad the winner, Mousavi had taken a large lead in the ballots. Iran’s masses wanted change. Yesterday, they attempted to take it with their ballots. Now they will take it with their protests on the streets and on the web.

Iran is not celebrating tonight, but here’s hoping it is in the process of graduating from an unjust system to a brighter future. May God watch over Iran.

Dateline Does Tehran

Ann Curry’s report for Dateline, titled Inside Iran, debuted tonight. I didn’t catch the whole thing, so I watch it in parts on the NBC website.

I couldn’t decide how I felt about it, so I had to make a list:

I liked:

  • the Irani technopop in the soundtrack! They had some of my favorites, like Rezaya (included below).
  • the focus on similarities between the U.S. and Iran.
  • the amount of high-profile women highlighted and interviewd in the program: Dr. Minoo Moraz, Nasrine Sotoudeh, Tahmineh Milani, Dr. Zahra Rahnavard, etc.
  • Ann Curry’s Tehrani-style roosari (headscarf).

I hated:

  • the predictable focus on the scary people shouting “Death to America”, the ubiquitous shots of anti-American murals from the Revolutionary period.
  • how Curry kept saying, “Tay-ran.”
  • who is this guy translating for Khatami?!
  • how the report played up the differences between Iran and the U.S. in a way to make them seem insurmountable and morally-reprehensible (“Look! Rafsanjani is holding a gun while he preaches at Friday prayer! How unlike us and how awful!”)

Despite the many positives in the program, the tried-and-true formula for reporting on Iran left a long-lasting bad taste in my mouth. For all the talk of change in Iran and hope for the future, the report kept going back to suspicions that have remained the same for decades: the Iranians are not like us, they hate us [insert footage of flag-burning], they want to hurt us [insert footage of crowd shouting, “Death to America”], they want nuclear weapons, they make women wear things on their heads [insert footage of women walking in chadors]. Dateline, it’s been done. Over and over.

Like Khamenei said, “If you change, we too will change.” So put up or shut up, Dateline.