Folklight Reflections

The Green Revolution turns RED? As promised in yesterday's (Friday) prayers the mullocracy delivers heavy handed repression unseen in Iran since the fall of the Shah. Ironic to see the revolution come full circle and return to this bloody state in an attempt to maintain power. The quote by Lord Acton says it best: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men." While Mousavi and the reformers prepare to face martyrdom the power of faith in their cause is evident. The world is watching as Islam is on display. The dream of a caliphate is not a national dream, rather it’s a fading dream of ideologues. You can not force anyone to believe something, humans must choose to believe. That is God given volition. The Wise choose to use it in pursuit of truth. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Fearful rulers attempt to control with Fear… Faith is the antithesis to Fear Faith is only as strong as the object of th...

(image - Gallo Getty) The growing reformist movement in Iran has taken the world by surprise. The movement and the mullahs response to it is very fluid and evolving rapidly. Professor Mark Levine writing about Iran on the Brink makes crucial points: “It seems that the Iranian elite has been caught similarly off-guard, and is still trying to read its own society to understand how broad is the societal discontent reflected in the mass protests. This calculus is crucial - in some ways more so than whether the results are legitimate or, as some claim, electoral fraud. It will determine whether the Iranian power elite - that is, the political-religious-military-security leadership who control the levers of state violence - moves towards negotiation and reconciliation between the increasingly distant sides, or moves to crush the mounting opposition with large-scale violence. The religious establishment is itself split into hard-line, moderate and more progressive factions, each of whose memb...

Iranian speaker of parliament has condemned an attack on university students which was reported to be carried out by Islamic militia and police. Speaker Ali Larijani was quoted by ISNA: "What does it mean that in the middle of the night students are attacked in their dormitory?” "The Interior Ministry is responsible for this and should answer for it ... parliament is seriously following the issue" While he did not elaborate on who executed the attacks, students blamed members of the religious Basij militia and plainclothes police. Basij is a volunteer paramilitary force loyal to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Mousavi, who spoke prior to the shooting, also condemned the attack. "They have attacked dormitories and brutally broken legs, heads, arms and threw some of the students out of the windows and arrested a lot of people," Thousands of Mousavi supporters marched on Iran’s state run television station. The protest march was peaceful despite being in defiance of an o...