just back from mashad

[reza+]

hi all,

just arrived back from mashad a couple of hours ago, after a 2 week break ... could not access isp from there ... but missed all of u guys/your comments/update

of course the food (and kharboze mashadi) was great ... otherwise this was basically a family visit

as some of u guys know, i was there just over a year ago but i'd have to say nothing significant has changed but:

the poor are still poor & will remain poor regardless of which gov is in power

though i did not meet many people but i got the impression some of those who were hoping for a better "economic" life under ahmadiN are now disappointed with him though not enough to want to change things

i was in mashad the whole time ... mashad was very quiet and life went on as normal ... no sign of any political/social tension

lots of new building (eg, hotels/roads/restaurants and so on) being built/opened ... "on the surface", i did not observe any effects the recent sanctions may have had on the economy of mashad but i know some business people/friends in certain businesses are observing things carefully..... there are some extremely wealthy people of all political persuasions ... many new foreign-made cars, foreign travel to places like thailand/turkey etc ... but also many poor people (just like last year)

young people still want to leave iran, if they can afford it or find a way to get out, coz many of them think they 'll have a better life abroad ... my own feeling is those with clever business ideas/hard work (who are apolitical) can do very well in iran itself, and in a lot cases, maybe better than those who go abroad ... however, political uncertainty makes things unpredictable

but iran is sort of a hell for anyone with idealistic political/social ideas cos iran is not a normal/modern/western society with/without iri

ramazan: as expected, those with religious (and sometimes not very strong religious backgrounds) seemed to observer ramazan .... the rest did not ... i wud say the majority (in mashad at least) tend to be religious tho not necessarily iri supporters

iri's tv is still boring .... those who r not too religious ~(and can afford) satellite tv wud watch foregin tv programs .... internet is slow/filtered (tho u can get around it) ...but there's also fast internet available but expensive

 

[keyvan_pars]

pas all is well on the home front.

 

[parham79]

Mashad has allways been an overwhelmingly supporter of the islamic system due to the majority of mazhabi population.So it's not a major suprise that they still have there support there

 

[keyvan_pars]

I am thinking maybe we all might be a bit in the err, thinking the majority of people in Iran really want change !

In addition, do they really deserve any change if they are happy with a bokhor o namir zendegi.

It has been imposed upon them that 'THIS IS IT', it won't get any better and it will get slowly worse and after three decades the whole philosophy of we can be anyone we want that shah embedded in the minds of Iranians has died off !

I guess they are happy with the occasional party and some drugs and a visit to dubai or shomal a year.

I give you an example of my own personal life:

a few years ago i was forced into a dead end marriage and i had to leave my studies to move to fucking california and live a life of misery without any sort of hope for the future for details i won't get into here. one morning i woke up i said fuck this, i got a ticket i came back to canada and at the age of 37 i went back to school studying and working up to 20 hours of day at times.

i got my second degree and a job and got my life back on track.

I know it is gross simplification to compare the situations but the motivation i am talking about. When a few hundred thousand people put their minds to it they can change the fucking world. but i guess not under this kesafat akhounds. We have completely lost our balls as a nation.

 

[parham79]

Unfortunately there are alot of Mazhabi people in Iran who still believe in khorafat and believe in this corrupt system. Cities like Mashad and isfahan probaly have huge bases that still believe in this regime. It's unfortunate, but thats the sad truth.It's not the mollah,s but this islam is root of all our problems and unfortunately it's something that is deeply rooted in the populace there. Mollah's are smart enough to exploite this.

 

[masoudA]

KP Jaan
I am surprised at you - by now you must know what propagandists do. I don't know who this Reza+ guy is and don't recall his past stances (no disrespect intended) - but when I read this:

i wud say the majority (in mashad at least) tend to be religious tho not necessarily iri supporters

I can tell the whole post is either propaganda or observations of a kid from a religious family and surrounding in Mashad. As you know most sane Iranians who live outside Iran try not to travel to Iran during Mah Ramezoon. What I am saying is don't let IR propaganda turn off the fire who was set off by millions of Iranians who risked their lives coming out into the streets - and remember for every one Iranian who dared, hundreds did not dare but still pray for the end of IR.

Agha Reza+
Majority of Iranians are not religious - they don't practice the religion and when necessary fake. Just like you (I am guessing) nobody really practices ISlam, especially the younger generation. To be honest woith you at times I wished Iranians did believe in something and did truely practice a religion so we would not have so much lies, crimes, and caos.

 

[parham79]

Are you calling him a liar? He just came from there so he would know the wsituation better then you and i.

 

[footballeirani]

ok, I grew up in Mashad. I still have relatives who go back and forth. Are there religious people in Mashad? You bet. How many? I do not know.

If you had to ask me personally and rely on my experiences then I would say the majority of Mashadi people are not religious. Now why do I say that?

When I was in Mashad I grew up in the more well off part but we would go to Haram at least once or twice a month to pray. Haram is usually filled with those who are coming from other cities. I also went to the Friday prayers and it was not that crowded as you may imagine.

When the azadari days would come, Torghabe and Shandiz would be a whole lot busier than Mashad and Haram.

We as students even took part in these government rallies and even there it was mostly us and not too many people from the city itself. When I went to school I can not recall a single teacher who struck me as religious. I went to all three types of schools, dolati, nemooneh, and gheyre entefayi.

In fact when I look back I feel like I was probably devoted to praying and doing those other things more than them. Also, when they had elections, for shoraye shahr or Majles, the eslah talabs would do better. (That is if they did not mess with the end results)

I remember for the Khobregan elections Vaez Tabasi really did horrible and everyone was making all sorts of jokes about it.

 

[masoudA]

Parham
I am not calling anybody a liar. Taking a trip to Mashhad does not entitle anyone to make statements like: Majority of Iranians are religious. Majority of Iranians are not religious - especially not majority of Educated Iranians , and certainly not majority of the youth.

 

[deerouz]

I give you an example of my own personal life:

a few years ago i was forced into a dead end marriage and i had to leave my studies to move to fucking california and live a life of misery without any sort of hope for the future for details i won't get into here. one morning i woke up i said fuck this, i got a ticket i came back to canada and at the age of 37 i went back to school studying and working up to 20 hours of day at times.

i got my second degree and a job and got my life back on track.

I know it is gross simplification to compare the situations but the motivation i am talking about. When a few hundred thousand people put their minds to it they can change the fucking world. but i guess not under this kesafat akhounds. We have completely lost our balls as a nation.

Good for you Keyvan! But note that for Iranian people it is a little bit more difficult. For you all it took was the decision that "I want to change it" and then buying a ticket. no outside force was involved.

For Iranians it will take a LOT more than a collective decision. It means blood, jail, torture and such. The people reached that decision several times and were stopped by a regime that is armed to teeth and is not shy of spilling blood. Even with that, the fact that it was attempted several times is something to be really proud of.

Many people have faced difficult situations in life and had to make hard choice and sacrifices. But how many of those choices involved risk of near certain death?

 

[deerouz]

Mashad has allways been an overwhelmingly supporter of the islamic system due to the majority of mazhabi population.So it's not a major suprise that they still have there support there

Not quite from my experience. on average people of mashhad are less religious than people of Qum-Kashan-Isfahan (which was always considered a strongly conservative city). I don't want to generalize, but it seems to me that proximity to the Imam Reza shrine has made them into people who make money out of religion, but don't really believe in it.

 

[reza+]

masoud, i invite you to visit iran to find out for yourself ... i simply made my own personal (and hopefully unbiased and limited) observations ... i met/spoke to a few people... i'm not claiming to be making scientific observations about society/life/politics and so on in iran

i accept i could be wrong but i certainly observed a lot of new hotels/roads etc being built... did u guys know mashad has 20 millions (religious?) visitors a year ... there are a lot people making a good life for themselves .... and i would still say there many many religious mashadis (tho not necessarily iri supporters or ones who would go to friday prayers)

if i had to bet my life on the percentage of iri supporters in mashad i'd say the majority of mashadis are "unhappy" with iri (especially with hard economic conditions) but they don't care/want a change of government or unwilling to risk their livelihood etc to change things...they are basically indifferent ...

 

[reza+]

i completely agree with deeruz... mashadis are generally a lot less religious than esfahanis/ghomis/yazdis/kashanis and so on....

 

[footballeirani]

I do not think you could measure people's opposition to this regime based on their religious beliefs. The khorafat certainly helps the bad guys to a point but I think the majority of those in Iran can tell the difference between good and bad. All it will take is a spark for you to see it. I believe if Mousavi had been a bit more forceful in his stance and vocal, we would be talking in different circumstances right now.

Lets not forget the people of Najaf Abad. They are religious and are perhaps mounting some of the stiffest resistance to IR.

I am going to talk about my own family here. They live in a small city and they go to emam zadeh every other weekend. They go to masjed to pray on evenings. They cook all sorts of ash on religious days. They even pay akhoonds to come and do rozeh at their house. My grand pa lost his shoe trying to go and greet AN when he came to their city years ago. But now if there was a spark and people were on the street, they would be out there protesting with them.

 

[Zob Ahan]

i completely agree with deeruz... mashadis are generally a lot less religious than esfahanis/ghomis/yazdis/kashanis and so on....

Well if you truly believe that yet you say the majority of Mashhadis were religious I have to beg to differ because I just got back from Isfahan and most people I talked to were not only not religious but anti religion. Anti Islam/religion books are everywhere and in cabs people would swear to Imams on a regular basis. I was there for 2 months and interacted with different classes of the society.

 

[maziar95]

Parham
I am not calling anybody a liar. Taking a trip to Mashhad does not entitle anyone to make statements like: Majority of Iranians are religious. Majority of Iranians are not religious - especially not majority of Educated Iranians , and certainly not majority of the youth.

The only one who is preaching propaganda is you. When was the last time you left Florida and actually visited Iran and not Just Tehran? Your perception of reality in Iran is based on the propaganda that's been feed to you from the Iranian satellite channels. Iran is a religious country. Most of the people outside of Tehran are moderately- extremely religious. Even in Tehran a lot of people are religious. Trying going to the smaller towns and villages for once ( if you can ) and you'll see how brainwashed you've become. Plus, Just because his visiting mashad it doesn't make him religious or an IRI supporter. I have some family members in qom at of all places and I always visit them but I could careless about Islam or the IRi

 

[reza+]

if the iri gov estimate of 20 million "religious" visitors to mashad is true, then it does indicate iranians are still religious tho not necessarily pro-iri ... actually there are some people who visit the Haram who are strongly anti-iri & some who would (for example) drink and so on but they visit mashad once every so often to pray and so on & some may even fast during ramazan ... u get all kinds in iran

certainly, a lot of private individuals are building new hotels near the Haram, eg, in Tehran st (or any place near Haram) land prices are astonishingly high .... i know a guy (from london) who bought some land close to the Haram for 200 million tomans a few years ago, it's now worth 3/4/5 billion tomans & he's trying to get gov loan to build a 4-star hotel there but has not so far been successful

 

[meyti]

Thanks Reza for the post and the report.

 

[#8]

I don’t think we can equate religious beliefs with pro-IR sentiments.
Even in previous regime we had people who wouldn’t normally be considered religious, would stop drinking during months of Ramadan or mohram. Or even now out side of Iran, “sofreh abolfazl” is as widespread as ever and mostly by anti IR people. LA is good example.
1400 years of Islam couldn’t be wiped out overnight by our will or wishes.
Also we should remember that 30+ years of IR have forced our people to adopt double faces. One in public and the other one in private life. As such it is not easy to gauge public opinion on sensitive issues but there is no doubt that majority of our people consider themselves Moslem. Although their version of Islam might be different than official Islam of IR.

 

[feyenoord]

I don’t think we can equate religious beliefs with pro-IR sentiments Islam of IR.

That is the problem with many people on this site. They equate religious Iranians to pro IR supporters. I personally know many Iranians who have recently come from Iran, are religious but at the same time they hate IR.

Many of these people do not understand the dynamics about the Iranian society. They just make their own assumptions.

I personally ASSUME, A big majority of Iranians are against IR. Lets say between 75% to 90%. At the same time around 60% to 70% are still religious.

As what Parham79 indicated, I think he is right. Here in Auckland there are many Iranian students who recently came from Iran. And the ones from Mashhad say the same thing. But that is only for Mashhad.