Tuesday, April 3, 2012

10,000 Days for Seven Persons, Iran

"...yesterday, the seven leaders of Iran’s Baha’i community marked a – the anniversary of their cumulative total of incarceration of 10,000 days in Iranian prison for their beliefs. We condemn Iran’s ongoing persecution and arrests of Baha’i community members, and we continue to be deeply concerned by the harassment and intimidation of all religious minorities in Iran, including its significant Sunni and Sufi populations..."

today's briefing from the Sec. of State's Office:

This is what happens in a fundamentalist state. Of course we must define what we mean by fundamentalist but there are some regularities and this means that there is a certain kind of regime or attempted regime: all of which have consistent characteristics, and this is what I mean by using the word "fundamentalist," it seems. Furthermore, fundamentalism usually means a strict interpretation of religion.
     But al-Assad's regime is not fundamentalistic, then, since it is not based in some kind of strict interpretation of a religious tradition. Yet, I am not totally sure where the difference would lie, if there is one. National Socialism in Germany was not religious. But it was extremely totalitarian, and I think we should recognize those similarities. There is Iran and Burma, too. All these countries are, including of course Germany under National Socialism - so, were - established regimes. They seem to have similarities. Some examples: a few privileged persons in control, classification of citizens into formally-designated groups such as party members and non-party members, collecting enemies internally, and killing or torturing them...
     In each case there are specific rules that organize things and create categories. Such rules are category-creating rules. They are rules that create categories; and such rules end up with creating a "good" group versus a "bad" group of human persons, of members of the species homo sapies. Or, sapiens, spelled less informally.

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