> I think I'll skip Iran on my next vacation for now.
They don't give a crap what an average tourist does in his homeland. Repressions are addressed toward their own citizens and foreign journalists/activists because they are a threat to the regime.
They don't give a crap what an average tourist does in his homeland. Repressions are addressed toward their own citizens and foreign journalists/activists because they are a threat to the regime.
Naturally, there are counterarguments, like how visitors provide a view into the outside world, for example.
What part of this news (or the many others about stonings, etc.) do you think is media manipulation? If you don't believe US media, get your facts directly from Iranians, there are ample examples of books and films (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stoning_of_Soraya_M., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_Lolita_in_Tehran, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persepolis_%28comics%29 are popular examples) that can be used for this purpose.
I've never subscribed to the "citizens are actually good, it's the governments who are evil" argument, it just shifts the blame, e.g. "the Nazis did it" by reification: governments are made of people and they, more or less, are populistic, following the majority's wishes. There are many parts of the society in Iran that back the current regime, don't think that everybody's against it.
So, my reply to the grandparent comment would be: read more about the people and regime and if you are convinced, then, yes, do not visit Iran, boycott them by withholding your money.
Persepolis was great, check out other modern Iranian and Iranian/Kurdish productions, there's a bunch of awesome cinema there, to mention the most known ones: About Elly, Separation, Time of drunken horses, No One Knows About Persian Cats, Women without men, and lots of other. If you want to read something lightweight where culture and regime meet, check Lipstick Jihad.
> I've never subscribed to the "citizens are actually good, it's the governments who are evil" argument, it just shifts the blame, e.g. "the Nazis did it" by reification: governments are made of people and they, more or less, are populistic, following the majority's wishes. There are many parts of the society in Iran that back the current regime, don't think that everybody's against it.
(Godwin's Law alert)
No doubt, but such events as nazis comming to power or the islamic revolution are subjects too complex to discuss here in a comment (at least I don't have the intention at the moment).
To clarify: I wasn't referring to how the Islamic Regime came to power (although, as you point out, that would be an interesting and complex topic in itself). I was commenting on the fact that in most cases (except perhaps in extreme cases such as North Korea where governments hold their citizens captive) governments cannot be isolated from what the majority thinks or feels. Many people are uncomfortable by this so advocate the "it's the government that did it" argument.
Using the Nazis as an example was perhaps lazy (although they did get quite a bit of support from the general population, one shouldn't forget, they were voted in, unlike the Islamic regime in Iran). How about other examples: Many Chinese people in the mainland, due to an array of complex nationalistic, historical, and financial reasons back many of the deplorable aspects of China's regime. Same in Saudi Arabia, people turn a blind eye as long as they get their hefty unemployment benefits. Even France's government acknowledged Algerian atrocities very recently, because you know what, the general public still has grandiose ideas about the empire and don't want to hear that sort of thing. Turkey is going through a similar process with its Armenian history.
Another, longer example: I was always told that the animosity between Turkey and Greece was a thing that the governments created, that there existed a "brotherhood of these two peoples on two sides of Aegean". Well, when I traveled to Greece on a couple of occasions, I found the hard way that this was not completely true, people did hold the historical grudges), it wasn't something that he governments made up (same on the Turkish side, too, of course. In fact it was just the reverse: the governments noted this trend and were responding to it in populist ways to get more votes.
I personally always try to remember that politics are not binary in nature, that history is complicated and especially that the volksgeist does not exist.
The accusations are a tool, not a reason.