Ahmadinejad & Christmas on his blog

December 22, 2006 6:23 PM

Ahmadinejad: Merry Christmas to everyone! My sincere congratulations to everyone for the Glorious and Auspicious Birthday of Divine Prophet - confirmed and authenticated by Gabriel, the angel of Divine revelation - the Obedient of Almighty God, Jesus Christ, the Messiah (peace be upon Him)
posted by persia (60 comments total)

Self-link.
posted by fleacircus at 6:31 PM on December 22, 2006 [6 favorites]

Do we really need a fpp every time he updates his blog?
posted by empath at 6:31 PM on December 22, 2006

If there's a reference to Jesus as "the Messiah", then it's a phony. Shiites believe that Jesus was a prophet, but no more than that.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 6:52 PM on December 22, 2006

Maybe something was 'gained' in translation? He may have been using a Persian word that was kind of 'messiah' but not 'Messiah'?

Still, I don't like the fact that he gets attention the rest of us C-List bloggers don't. Who does he think he is, kottke?
posted by wendell at 6:56 PM on December 22, 2006

"If Jesus Christ (peace be upon Him) was present today, he would ...try to nullify and exterminate the merits and the rights of women and diminish their position – a position that virgin Mary (peace be upon Her) – is their role model and sample."

PWNED!
posted by jne1813 at 7:05 PM on December 22, 2006

And a Happy Solstice to you!
posted by homunculus at 7:06 PM on December 22, 2006

Actually, all Muslims consider Jesus to be a prophet (along with Moses, Abraham, and many others), although the "Messiah" must be a poor translation term.

One thing Jesus wouldn't do? Celebrate Christmas, which was basically a Roman celebration in honor of Apollo.

/Grinch-filter
posted by bardic at 7:11 PM on December 22, 2006

If there's a reference to Jesus as "the Messiah", then it's a phony.

The Koran explicitly refers to Jesus using that title, several times.

I think the problem is merely that it doesn't mean to them what it apparently means to you.
posted by Flunkie at 7:11 PM on December 22, 2006

Feliz Ahmadinejad
posted by emelenjr at 7:16 PM on December 22, 2006 [7 favorites]

jne1813 - that's exactly as far as I got before I stopped reading.

As the father of a young daughter I'd like to be the first person this xmas season to tell Mr. Ahmadinejad to go fuck himself.
posted by photoslob at 7:17 PM on December 22, 2006

"4.171": O followers of the Book! do not exceed the limits in your religion, and do not speak (lies) against Allah, but (speak) the truth; the Messiah, Isa son of Marium is only an apostle of Allah and His Word which He communicated to Marium and a spirit from Him; believe therefore in Allah and His apostles, and say not, Three. Desist, it is better for you; Allah is only one God; far be It from His glory that He should have a son, whatever is in the heavens and whatever is in the earth is His, and Allah is sufficient for a Protector.

"5.17": Certainly they disbelieve who say: Surely, Allah -- He is the Messiah, son of Marium. Say: Who then could control anything as against Allah when He wished to destroy the Messiah son of Marium and his mother and all those on the earth? And Allah's is the kingdom of the heavens and the earth and what is between them; He creates what He pleases; and Allah has power over all things.

From: University of Virginia E-Text Center

This is a different concept from the Christian vision of Jesus as coming on the Day of Judgment. (Most) Shi'as believe that the Mahdi (Messiah) is hiding, waiting to come out, and clearly not Jesus
posted by slm303 at 7:19 PM on December 22, 2006

if jesus christ was here today, you'd have probably shot him as a heretic, mr ahmadinajad ...

(of course, we'd have locked him up as a lunatic, fried his brains and then let him wander around homeless but it isn't shooting ...)
posted by pyramid termite at 7:27 PM on December 22, 2006

The letter's also pretty clearly aimed at American Christians. It's snark about George Bush, thinly disguised. As Christians believe Jesus was the Messiah, he may just be trying to speak their language.
posted by EarBucket at 7:30 PM on December 22, 2006

jne1813 - that's exactly as far as I got before I stopped reading.

As the father of a young daughter I'd like to be the first person this xmas season to tell Mr. Ahmadinejad to go fuck himself.

I assumed -- and still hope -- that jne1813 was kidding, but you seem to be serious, so:

Here's what jne1813 quoted Ahmadinejad as saying:

"If Jesus Christ (peace be upon Him) was present today, he would ...try to nullify and exterminate the merits and the rights of women and diminish their position – a position that virgin Mary (peace be upon Her) – is their role model and sample."

Note the ellipsis. Let's change his selective quotation a bit, to include a little more of what Ahmadinejad actually said:

"If Jesus Christ (peace be upon Him) was present today, he would order an encounter against those who ... try to nullify and exterminate the merits and the rights of women and diminish their position – a position that virgin Mary (peace be upon Her) – is their role model and sample."

Which has pretty much exactly the opposite meaning of what you read it to mean.

I am not a fan of Mr. Ahmadinejad. But "go fuck yourself" is not called for - at least not by the reason you give.

For the sake of completeness, here's the full quotation, which I think is quite clearly indicative of the latter, not the former, sentiment:

"If Jesus Christ (peace be upon Him) was present today, he would order an encounter against those who would propagate corruption, obscenity and perversion, and try to nullify and exterminate the merits and the rights of women and diminish their position – a position that virgin Mary (peace be upon Her) – is their role model and sample."

posted by Flunkie at 7:30 PM on December 22, 2006 [1 favorite]

Messiah simply means "annointed one".
posted by spock at 7:31 PM on December 22, 2006

i'm giving ahmadinnerjacket the benefit of the doubt on the "nullifying the merits and rights of women", concluding that it was either poorly written or poorly translated.
i call that fellow "jesus". use of the words "messiah" and "christ" imply a faith i do not harbor and i doubt he does either.
in any event, most historians believe jesus was born in the spring. the christians co-opted our pagan solstice for their christmas the same way they co-opted the jewish passover for their easter. i regard christianity as a form of cultural identity theft.
posted by bruce at 7:41 PM on December 22, 2006 [1 favorite]

i'm giving ahmadinnerjacket the benefit of the doubt on the "nullifying the merits and rights of women", concluding that it was either poorly written or poorly translated.

I mean, really. Even ignoring the selective removal of the words "order an encounter against those who" -- which is akin to the selective removal of the word "not" -- why would Jesus "diminish their position" if that's the position that the Virgin Mary is the "role model and sample" of?

Ahmadinejad has a lot of things wrong with him. But it takes a truly strained and twisted interpretation of what he said to conclude that he meant that Jesus would try to nullify the rights of women.
posted by Flunkie at 7:48 PM on December 22, 2006

b1tr0t: The first bolded and terminates the comma-separated list, the second and joins two sentences.

No offense, but I think you're wrong.

Please see my comment here for why.

Additionaly, Ahmadinejad is on record several times as speaking against sexism, and for the rights of women. Whether he means it or not is, at best, debatable - especially whether or not he means it in the same sense that most women mean it. But nonetheless, that's what he says.

There are several reasons to believe that the "and" joins things that "those who would blah blah blah" do.

There is no reason to believe that the "and" joins things that Jesus would do. Except for wanting to think that the President of Iran just said Jesus hates women.
posted by Flunkie at 8:02 PM on December 22, 2006

especially whether or not he means it in the same sense that most women mean it

I meant "... in the same sense that most Westerners mean it.
posted by Flunkie at 8:04 PM on December 22, 2006

1. The koran (amongst other sacred texts) has lots of nice things to say about ": reaching the pinnacle of bliss, construction of immaculate life, efflorescence of all potentialities and talents, implementation of justice and devotion across the world amongst all human beings"

2. The current despots of the world, Ahmefuckface included, have some mighty chutzpah invoking this as their personal philosophy, with the blood and tears of thousands of people on their hands who tried to achieve said efflorescence.
posted by lalochezia at 8:06 PM on December 22, 2006

My sincere congratulations to everyone for the Glorious and Auspicious Birthday of Divine Prophet - confirmed and authenticated by Gabriel, the angel of Divine revelation ...

One monotheistic warmonger gibbering to a bunch of other monotheistic warmongers about their love/war gibberish.

Just leave us alone, gibberers. Your god has no right to torch this earth so. Or even to scare my children.
posted by and hosted from Uranus at 8:15 PM on December 22, 2006

Peace to Iran, Mr. Ahmadinejad, from a Tehran American High School grad.
posted by Brian B. at 8:21 PM on December 22, 2006

In other news, a Danish artists group manages to call Ahmadinejhad a swine in the Tehran Times. Here's the ad.
posted by AwkwardPause at 8:22 PM on December 22, 2006

What, no 'Happy Hanukah'?
posted by boaz at 8:43 PM on December 22, 2006 [3 favorites]

J.C. I know him. Hung out with hookers, lepers and poor tax reprobates right? Liked to party? Yeah, him I like. I don't know the guy he's talking about.

peace be upon Jose Feliciano and emelenjr and his beloved comment.
posted by Smedleyman at 8:45 PM on December 22, 2006

Frankly there really isn't any foreseeable chance of any sort of mutual understanding as long as one just ignores what the other side is actually saying and tritely replying "well go fuck yourself". You may not like these people, you may completely disagree with their world view -- and if you don't listen to what they do say how the fuck can you claim to know if you do or not -- but these people exist. And they're not willing to lie down or bend over just because some buffoon elected by the majority/plurality of less than half of those eligible to vote in a country of 300 million says they should.

Frankly I don't think the West has much of a chance in this "war on terrah" if it keeps fighting the enemy it wants to have rather than the enemy it does have. That's basic strategy.
posted by clevershark at 8:48 PM on December 22, 2006 [1 favorite]

Poorly written AND poorly translated. And this is far from the first time. I'm just not sure if this makes him more of a "dangerous nutcase" or "ineffectual fuckwit", but it's actually a relief to see that the latter is a possibility. Ahmadidude seems quite the match for Bush in his use of language. Who wants to make the first website collecting Ahmadidumbisms?
posted by wendell at 8:57 PM on December 22, 2006

homunculus: i for one did my bit...
posted by dubious at 9:23 PM on December 22, 2006

That may have been translated into English, but it didn't make any sense whatsoever.

HAPPY FESTIVUS ANYWAY, YOU NUTCASE.

I mean, really:

He was a messenger of peace, devotion and love based upon monotheism and justice. He was raised in His Mother’s hand – Virgin Mary (peace be upon her) – that Almighty God stood her as impeccable and exalted her above the women of the world.

Love based on monotheism? What does that even mean? I sense some punctuation errors along the lines of "I would like to thank my parents, God and Ayn Rand."

Also: Mary must've had some freakishly large hands, to raise a child in one of them.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 9:54 PM on December 22, 2006

Ahmadinejad is a dangerous guy, who seems to be in some respects a reflection of the still more dangerous American president.

However, this letter is a gesture of good will and respect. IMO Ahmadinejad gets a "fuck you" for the holocaust denial and playing around with the idea of nuking Israel. But this peace and respect stuff, I like. It'd be nice to hear more of this than the other sort of stuff. So from me Mr A. gets an appreciative nod of approval for this, although it's still from across the room and behind a sheet of impact-resistant glass.
posted by washburn at 10:07 PM on December 22, 2006

If there's a reference to Jesus as "the Messiah", then it's a phony. Shiites believe that Jesus was a prophet, but no more than that.

Actually, all Muslims consider Jesus to be a prophet (along with Moses, Abraham, and many others), although the "Messiah" must be a poor translation term.

Pls chk wiki b4 d-railng kthxbye

al-Masih is very definitely a title given to Isa/Jesus and Isa holds a role in Islamic theology greater than almost any prophet except The Prophet.

I think the problem is merely that it doesn't mean to them what it apparently means to you.

In fact that role very closely resembles the role he has in the End Times of Christian theology.

Ahmadinejad is a dangerous guy

He may have poor choices in international conferences to hold, but he's not "dangerous" -- he's a civilian president with no foreign policy brief. He's somewhat more powerful than the Speaker of the House, but he isn't the Commander in Chief of the Iranian military (even the regular part, let alone the Revolutionary Guards).

The current despots of the world, Ahmefuckface included, have some mighty chutzpah invoking this as their personal philosophy, with the blood and tears of thousands of people on their hands who tried to achieve said efflorescence.

You must have been poorly translated. Ahmadinejad was elected.

His choice of Mary as a role model for women suggests that he values the maternal behavior of a teen bride over, say women going to college and becoming investment bankers.

Where the hell do you get that?

I'm bailing. Nobody in this thread has the faintest fucking idea what they're talking about.
posted by dhartung at 10:33 PM on December 22, 2006

Nobody in this thread has the faintest fucking idea what they're talking about.

Hey! I resemble that remark!
posted by grapefruitmoon at 10:35 PM on December 22, 2006

Name something that makes her a legitimate role model.

She did what she thought she had to do, instead of - say - abort teh baby Jesus.
posted by porpoise at 11:24 PM on December 22, 2006

As I read it, Mr. Ahmadinejad thinks Jesus would oppose those who propagate corruption, obscenity and perversion. He would also try to nullify and exterminate the merits and the rights of women and diminish their position.

Shia Iran has always had a very high opinion of women & their role in society; while gender norms have never been exactly progressive, most Iranians would be horrified at the thought of "diminishing the position of women." Shia Islam in general holds its women in very high regard--considering Fatimah, Muhammad's daughter, one of the holiest figures in the religion (and not just her--Khadijah and Aisha as well)--and Iran, in the wake of fairly gender-progressive thinkers like Shariati, is no exception. It's highly unlikely that Ahmadinejad wants to exterminate the merits and rights of women.
posted by maxreax at 11:28 PM on December 22, 2006

dhartung writes: he's not "dangerous" -- he's a civilian president . . . I'm bailing. Nobody in this thread has the faintest fucking idea what they're talking about.

I guess your bailing means that you'll never have an opportunity to explain to those of us lacking faint fucking ideas why you entertain the rather idiosyncratic belief that a civilian president like Ahmadinejad can't be dangerous.

I do hope however that you'll spend a bit more time convincing the clueless Israelis about Ahmadinejad's harmlessness before they begin bombing.
posted by washburn at 11:46 PM on December 22, 2006

we have a civilian president and he's plenty dangerous.
posted by bruce at 12:46 AM on December 23, 2006

photoslob: "jne1813 - that's exactly as far as I got before I stopped reading.

As the father of a young daughter I'd like to be the first person this xmas season to tell Mr. Ahmadinejad to go fuck himself."

Exactly! How can you trust a religion whose holy book contains passages like:

• "A woman must receive instruction silently and under complete control. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man. She must be quiet."
• "Wives, in the same way be submissive to your husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives."
• "These are those who did not defile themselves with women, for they kept themselves pure."
• "And every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head—it is just as though her head were shaved. If a woman does not cover her head, she should have her hair cut off; and if it is a disgrace for a woman to have her hair cut or shaved off, she should cover her head. A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man."

Frigging Neanderthals...
posted by PontifexPrimus at 1:11 AM on December 23, 2006

I heard that the religion feature in the new Civilization game is pretty cool.
posted by j-urb at 1:14 AM on December 23, 2006 [1 favorite]

washburn: I guess your bailing means that you'll never have an opportunity to explain to those of us lacking faint fucking ideas why you entertain the rather idiosyncratic belief that a civilian president like Ahmadinejad can't be dangerous.

I think he already did:

dhartung said: He may have poor choices in international conferences to hold, but he's not "dangerous" -- he's a civilian president with no foreign policy brief. He's somewhat more powerful than the Speaker of the House, but he isn't the Commander in Chief of the Iranian military (even the regular part, let alone the Revolutionary Guards).

If the military doesn't take marching orders from him, that pretty much neuters him. He can't order a strike against Israeal, for example, whereas Bush could probably order a strike against Iran, under the same legal umbrella he used to go after Iraq.
posted by homunculus at 1:24 AM on December 23, 2006

Exactly! How can you trust a religion whose holy book contains passages like. . .

You could find equally, if not more ridiculous rules, in Leviticus. (Women are ritually "unclean" and must leave town when they have their periods, for example.) While there isn't enough room or patience here for a discourse on feminist issues in the Koran and the Hebrew Testament, it is fairly explicit in the former book that women should be taught to read, so they can experience the word of the (true) Prophet for themselves.

And dhartung, I don't think it's correct to paint all of Islam with the same end-times theologies. It's there, certainly, but a lot of it comes after the Koran itself was written down. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that it would be unfair to claim that Catholics are as driven by Revelations as Evangelicals are. It's part of their Bible, sure, but it's not a book that's as widely poured-over for many, many reasons.

And to pick further nits, or at least clarify, I'd argue "Messiah" is an accurate but overly loaded term to use in this translation, hence a problematic one for reasons other people gave.

Oh, but you left this thread in a great big huff. Forgot about that. Please don't return.
posted by bardic at 2:36 AM on December 23, 2006

bardic: "Exactly! How can you trust a religion whose holy book contains passages like. . .

You could find equally, if not more ridiculous rules, in Leviticus.

Err... that was, sort of, exactly, my point. These quotes are all from the Bible.
And before someone pulls out the old canard of "you don't have to believe everything in there, some passages have been corrupted, others have been superceded by later parts others again were only included by fallible men etc." - if you can argue that way for the Bible, why not the qu'ran?
Why not give the man the benefit of doubt and not automatically assume that he meant the most draconian and evil passages when he made that speech?
posted by PontifexPrimus at 3:06 AM on December 23, 2006 [1 favorite]

Name something that makes her a legitimate role model.

Um, being a good mother for one. No reason to slag Mary for not going into investment banking, b1tr0t.

Perhaps the Iranian president was referring to other career choices available to Western women such as pole dancing. As Flunkie observed Ahmadinejad is on record several times as speaking against sexism, and for the rights of women.
posted by three blind mice at 4:02 AM on December 23, 2006

What dhartung said. I'm not sure why this was posted (famous blogger posts Christmas message! stop the presses!), but it certainly is giving people a chance to express one more time their righteous indignation at Ahmadinejad and show what wonderful people they are, even if they're completely uninformed about Iran, Islam, and pretty much everything outside of pop culture and geekery.

If there's a reference to Jesus as "the Messiah", then it's a phony. Shiites believe that Jesus was a prophet, but no more than that.

As so often, SC Den Beste is talking out of his ass. It's a terrible tragedy when a smart guy decides he's omniscient.
posted by languagehat at 5:50 AM on December 23, 2006

Peace on earth.
Goodwill toward men.
(Muslims excepted, of course).
Sheesh.
posted by spock at 6:11 AM on December 23, 2006

Hey I have an idea that will bring us world peace... everybody mind your own beeswax.
posted by autodidact at 6:44 AM on December 23, 2006

Pertinent and timely reading on the Islamic view of Jesus: Jesus is not from Nazareth.
posted by davy at 7:06 AM on December 23, 2006

From the same site as in my previous comment: "A clear majority of 87% has voted in favor of the Muslim learning about Jewish and Christian scriptures." (Why not return the favor?)

The Islamic view of jesus as reported in Wikipedia and About.com.

And, on the specifically Twelver Shi'ite Islamic view of Jesus, a short Q&A on Where Islam and Christianity Agree and Differ on Jesus and an ebook (HTML, readable online or downloadable zipped) entitled Jesus through Shiite Narrations.

(Hi languagehat!)
posted by davy at 7:28 AM on December 23, 2006

homunculous writes:

If the military doesn't take marching orders from him, that pretty much neuters him.

I don't mean to demonize Ahmadinejad, and I was careful to describe him as the lesser of two evils when compared to President Bush.

But to say that he's "not dangerous" because he isn't the commander of the military is sort of oddly shortsighted. The point of my comment to which you respond is that if Ahmadinejad provokes a military action by Israel or the US that will have been dangerous. Likewise Ahmadinejad can exercise a destabilizing influence in Iraq and try promote an extreme antisemitism in the Middle East that will make a political solution to the Israel/Palestine problem more difficult.

There are many ways in which Ahmadinejad can be "dangerous" short of organizing a tank push into Iraq, which I don't think is what anyone has in mind when they refer to him as potential destabilizing influence.
posted by washburn at 7:30 AM on December 23, 2006

And more: Cultural Relations Between Christianity and Shi'i Islam. (What do I win?)
posted by davy at 7:34 AM on December 23, 2006

Most of Iraq has been part of Iran for most of history. E.g., before Muhammad there were the Sassanids. Not only that, but most Iraqi Muslims are Shi'a, and the holiest Shi'a sites are in Iraq, such as the tomb of Ali. I say let Iran absorb the Shi'a parts of Iraq if that's what Iraq's Shi'a want.
posted by davy at 8:47 AM on December 23, 2006

Hell, make Iran take it anyway: Mesopotamia has never been anything but trouble.
posted by davy at 8:59 AM on December 23, 2006

There are a frightening amount of people in this thread who know next to nothing about Islam and Iran, and yet pontificate about it as if they do.

There is no possible chance that Ahmadenijad said anything about eliminating the rights of women. For one thing, this was written for a western audience, and he's not fucking stupid. He's well aware how important women's rights are to us.

For another, while Islamic countries can treat women HORRIBLY, they would never ever say that they do the things they do because they're against women's rights for the sake of being against women's rights. They will always say that they are doing whatever it is they do to protect women's rights.
posted by empath at 9:51 AM on December 23, 2006

And also, let's not forget that many of the leaders of the Islamic revolution in Iran were women. Including many women with guns.
posted by empath at 9:52 AM on December 23, 2006

As the father of a young daughter I ... like to ... fuck...

That's gross dude.
posted by delmoi at 10:00 AM on December 23, 2006

As I read it, Mr. Ahmadinejad thinks Jesus would oppose those who propagate corruption, obscenity and perversion. He would also try to nullify and exterminate the merits and the rights of women and diminish their position.

It can be read either way, but the amount of parsing going on here is pretty ridiculous. It's obvious that Ahmadinejad meant for this letter to be read by westerners, so why would he include an idea that he knows westerners would find abhorrent? The whole purpose of the letter is to find common ground.

It's clearly an example of poor translation, followed by tortured linguistic analysis by people clearly out to paint him in a bad light, and people who have no interest in understanding him as anything other then a straw man to vilify.

The current despots of the world, Ahmefuckface included, have some mighty chutzpah invoking this as their personal philosophy, with the blood and tears of thousands of people on their hands who tried to achieve said efflorescence.

How the fuck is "Ahmefuckface" a "despot" any more then G.W. Bush is? Calling elected leaders "despots" is ridiculous. Ahmedinejad doesn't even control the Iranian Military, or have anything to do with its foreign policy (other then acting like an ass and pissing off other countries)

The point of my comment to which you respond is that if Ahmadinejad provokes a military action by Israel or the US that will have been dangerous. Likewise Ahmadinejad can exercise a destabilizing influence in Iraq and try promote an extreme antisemitism in the Middle East that will make a political solution to the Israel/Palestine problem more difficult.

But by what stick can he poke Israel into action? He has no control of the Nuclear program, and he has no control over foreign aide. Not only does Ahmadinejad have no control over iran's military, he has no control over their diplomats either.

Certainly Ahmadinejad promotes a paranoid anti-zionism that could be considered by some to be anti-Semitic. But if he is antisemetic I don't think it could really be called extreme antisemitism, when compared to antisemitism in the rest of region.
posted by delmoi at 10:31 AM on December 23, 2006

Yeah delmoi, "extremists" like the so-called Jewish anti-semites.
posted by davy at 11:20 AM on December 23, 2006

The religion feature in Civilization IV is totally awesome. I wonder if Ahmadinejad is building the Spiral Minaret as he attempts cultural victory...
posted by grapefruitmoon at 11:35 AM on December 23, 2006

"in any event, most historians believe jesus was born in the spring. the christians co-opted our pagan solstice for their christmas the same way they co-opted the jewish passover for their easter. i regard christianity as a form of cultural identity theft."
posted by bruce at 7:41 PM PST on December 22

Merry Christmas, AND GO FUCK YOURSELF!
posted by CCK at 12:14 PM on December 23, 2006

Why was this posted?
Seriously, not being (particularly) snarky, I really want to know, what is it about this rant on some dude's blog that drove you to hit the "post" button?
posted by signal at 12:39 PM on December 23, 2006

Hey signal, why not? You'd rather read about dildos for dingos?
posted by davy at 1:24 PM on December 23, 2006