A Muslim Bob Edgar...maybe

Although I can't figure out why this wasn't the top story for every major news outlet, at least the NYT and IHT reported on the arrest of Ayatollah Mohammad Kazemeni Boroujerdi, a cleric calling for the end of theocracy in Iran. Someone with some clout is speaking out against, quite possibly, the world's currently most threatening regime, being punished and possibly killed for it, and the action is going largely unnoticed.

Well, not everywhere. Elsewhere news filtered through (which may or may not be reliable) that some Iranians thought the arrest might lead to an uprising, even a revolution. But being that the desire is to end the reign of the mullahs, perhaps people were unwilling to participate to protect yet another religious leader. Apparently a major player in all of this is the (supposedly??) democratically leaning KRSI Voice of Iran radio station, through which Boroujerdi widely broadcast calls for separation of religion and politics. The station used to have a website with an online stream (I think), but it's gone now and I'm not sure what that means. (This blog is interesting and may have good info.)

If we needed any proof of the corruption of the Iranian government, this is it. I've personally been intrigued by Ahmedinejad's challenges of assumed Western superiority. It's necessary to call out Bush, to call out and challenge the West, particularly the U.S., on its attempts of enforcing its will upon the world. But this challenge alone can't bring us under the sway of an otherwise insane man. It reminds me of the Ceausescu regime of Romania, in that a cloak is being pulled over the eyes of many well-intentioned members of the international community by a savvy manipulator, while inside the country's borders, people starve. Of course in the case of Iran, we have as much, if not more, at stake as the Iranian people when it comes to the wills and whims of the current regime, and Ahmedinejad hasn't done as much to hide his extremism. But we cannot let the cloak be pulled over our eyes.

So many have been wondering where the voices of moderation for Islam and Iran are hiding. But given that the voices are out there, the real questions are where is our Kapuscinski, where is our Orwell, where is the COVERAGE of what's actually going on? Any writer today who wonders where Muslim voices of moderation are is full of shit. Go there and tell us what's happening, someone!