Pictures of Iran: You decide

reply to post by antar


Flagged and starred. thank you for that great series of pictures. For those that have never been the pictures of the Persopolis hardly do it justice. The sheer size and grandure will leave you speechless

Thanks again

Thank you for the images.

Sadly, if one could look into the souls of the people that live there, or anywhere war is ravaging, then we would be able to find ways we could all share these images together because the beauty those images portray are garnishings compared to the spirit.. Soldiers would drop their arms and revolt against the one's who drive the war.

I looked at the images and instead of seeing a far off land, I saw home. I felt the grass under my feet, experienced the heat of the sunlight through ornate windows and was cooled by the refreshing night air.
I became angry for knowing someone wanted to invade our house.


b

Why would the USA ever bomb mountains and grasslands ect? None of those pictures are of places that would be strategic to bomb in any way. If all irainians died those places would still be there. If the USA and the president gets you mad, buy a rifle, and vote that way.

well im torn between the rhetoric of those playing house in iran intimidating the world with violent genocide, and the beauty of the countryside, which if incurred upon to save other countries like isreal, would likely suffer major infrasturcture losses not the wanton destruction of nature. precision strikes wont mar the landscape. besides, the world is dealing with bullies who disagree with eachother on the direction that humanity is to go. Unfortunately none of them consider the facts, are they the ones in control? The majik 8 ball says..only for a short time..until the delusion is broken by the natural causes, and they are humbled to the true spirit of reality. But good luck for that right?

Originally posted by 4thDoctorWhoFan

Originally posted by Odessit
I believe he didn't ask for your pettiness.

Then you would be wrong.

I only responded in kind. Sorry if you don't see it. Oh well....
Besides, are you his spokesperson?
Can you read his mind?

[edit on 5-11-2007 by 4thDoctorWhoFan]

I believe you are BLIND if you can't really see that he didn't ask for your sorry and besides, who are YOU to tell me what is right and what is wrong? are you a reliable source? Hell no, it's time to get educated for yourself and start watching less FOX dear

[edit on 6-11-2007 by Odessit]

[edit on 6-11-2007 by Odessit]

How can a country that is so beautiful be let taken control by the monstrous Aribic Islam. Persians need to rise and reclaim their mighty land.

How can a country that is so beautiful be let taken control by the monstrous Aribic Islam. Persians need to rise and reclaim their mighty land.

I suggest you read up on what happened in Iran in 1953. They had a democracy and both America and Britain destroyed it over oil. I guess nothing changes. British and American foreign policy is the reason why we face so many problems today in regards to the middle east. Both America and Britain should keep their noses out of other countries affairs. It's none of their business. If the Iranian people don't like the way they are being governed. It's upto them and them alone to do something about it. Iran in it's entire history has attacked no one and their president never said that Israel should be wiped off the map or that they are developing nuclear weapons specifically for the purpose of destroying Israel. It's all propaganda bull****. Iran has enough conventional weapons to destroy Israel ten times over, why even wait until they have a nuclear bomb, if that's their intention.

When Iranians took U.S. officials hostage in the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979, Americans were mystified and angry, not being able to comprehend how Iranians could be so hateful toward U.S. officials, especially since the U.S. government had been so supportive of the shah of Iran for some 25 years. What the American people failed to realize is that the deep anger and hatred that the Iranian people had in 1979 against the U.S. government was rooted in a horrible, anti-democratic act that the U.S. government committed in 1953. That was the year the CIA secretly and surreptitiously ousted the democratically elected prime minister of Iran, a man named Mohammad Mossadegh, from power, followed by the U.S. government’s ardent support of the shah of Iran’s dictatorship for the next 25 years.

www.fff.org...

There's no denying Iran is a beautiful country with a proud and ancient heritage. Let's hope it stays that way. Hopefully if left to their own devices the youth of Iran will once gain bring democracy to their country. Unfortunately the British and American governments have other plans. What's new.

www.pbase.com...&page=all More pictures.

Seeing the reaction the thread gets --and it can only be positive with images like these-- the old thesis that ignorance is the very foundation on which war arise, only proves true.

So, now you have awareness of a place called Iran, you've taken the first step in gaining knowledge, and you may actually now feel empathy toward human beings the propoganda machine have tought you to view as non-humans, backward bloodthirsty bigots or worse.

Isn't it amazing what a little outlook with other glasses can do?

That's the first step in denying ignorance, change glasses now and then. Suddenly you feell empathy because something unreal have become real. Or clear.

Quote.
"and when my enemy came close the thing that scared me most was that his face looked just like mine" Bob Dylan

Oh Lord, just like mine.

Even more so in Iran, were the dwellers are decendents from the Arayans. No matter the bad taste of the word, if you are white and not Latin/Hispanic, you're Arayan.
So these people are in reallity your closest relatives. Again if you're Caucasian, as they now mostly call it.

No racial pun intended here, this only to tell, we're the same family and these people are really close. Pictures can be a great help, but to experience it yourself can be quit others.

These pictures, very beautiful and dellicate as they are, --I'm sorry to tell it-- only have little resemblance with a general, average picture of Iran.
It is mostly desert and barren land, that looks more like the moon, than the garden of Eden. Paradise is a Persian word btw.

No intention to bring down the joy with these artistic images, I only speak as I've been to Iran myself and have travelled from the Turkish to the Afghan border and viceversa a couple of times. If you take the route along the Caspian Sea and over the Elbrus to Theran you might find landscapes like in the images. They are 70% from that area ...and Persopolis of course. Only say these are hand-selected Iran.

Oh yes, also better say it's 35-40 years ago I was there. I remember in Theran doing a drawing of the city skyline with the Elbrus Mountains as horizon. Over them I wrote "HELL". It was in June, terrible hot, and the food was horrible. The city-people were a pain in the ass, wanted to touch you all the time, most had never seen a European before. It was in 1966.

I hurry to tell, the hospitality, especially in the countryside and provincies are the most outstanding I ever have met. Very proud, and in many ways more than we, cultured people, whom I never once felt insecure with. Religion was not an agenda back those days, only in their ancient mosques you would get a reminder, but you could walk where you wanted inside, as long as you took off your shoes.

In their building structures and their magnificent patterns of tilework, I sensed a grandeur and tranquility I'd never since have done anywhere.

Originally posted by antar
reply to post by bovarcher

 

Thankyou very much for the best post yet. Wow the quality has just been taken over the top. I appreciate learning what you have discovered and am proud to be in the company of such a well versed and traveled intellectual . You have a brilliant mind and the heart of a poet. Thankyou for your lifes experience shared to raise the consciousness of this our planet.

Whoa Antar - this super-compliment is hardly deserved! Much appreciated though.

I just travel, get to know people and report my impressions. One thing I have learned though, is that it's easy to form misconceptions and skewed ideas about a place and a people if you've never been there. Sometimes the reality can be a surprise. For example, at one time I imagined Iran might be a bit like Pakistan, or the Arab countries. The reality I found is that it's not remotely like either, but has a unique character of its own and surprisingly, is very much more sophisticated and 'western' in attitude. I don't really see the reality reported in the western news media, I'm afraid to say.

Maybe we should build a spacecraft and convince all the politicians of the world to go on a special trip around the galaxy, and send them off with all their germs and bombs, etc. Odds are we would go on living just fine even if they left the weapons behind. People don't need government, government needs people and government needs people to be dependent, otherwise why have government if people can live independently. If the society you found is based on violence in order to eat, sleep and live, then why would anarchy be any worse? At least the most basic acts in living would be closer to sanity then organized bloodshed. In fact I'd rather have disorganized bloodshed any day over this organized 20th century kind. Our current leaders are throwbacks to the previous century and rather than letting the world live on it's own they actually want to be responsible for the slaughter. A real leader lets people slaughter themselves rather than take credit for the destruction and calls it peace. Everyone knows that violence is inherent in living, yet why does everyone want such massive organized killing when it's better that it's not organized, it's better that it's not premeditated. What is better random killings on the streets or an army of serial killers and assassains? If governments and religions would just quit the killing maybe we could finally be free.

Iran seems like a very nice place, too bad they have idiots for leaders and the same could be said of America I suppose.

[edit on 6-11-2007 by bubbabuddha]

Originally posted by lurch149
... whether you think our alliance with Israel is right or wrong, the president of iran has said he wants to wipe Israel off the map.

Ahmadinejad is a kind of Iranian version of GWB. They're a well-matched pair for intellect, in fact. He says these things to play to his less-educated and not-too-clever rural constituency in Iran, to garner more support. Most educated Iranians realize it's just rhetoric and have little time for him.

There is no way Ahmadinejad would ever dare do anything which might put Iran at serious risk of conflict with the USA. He's not quite that deranged. It's all posture and macho-BS. Anyway, he's constitutionally restrained by the parliament as far as war is concerned, in a way which the US President is not. So nothing serious is going to happen - unless 'W' and his crew decide to start it, that is.

reply to post by greeneyedleo


Again it's not about the pictures, it's about what the pictures represent. The pictures represent the abstract ideas about how Iranians and others see Iran. It's not about the landscapes it's about who loves those landscapes, who chose to photograph those landscapes as a means to preserve the memory of those landscapes in a way that captures the photographer's feelings or ideas about those landscapes. It's about the people who live there, their surroundings and what makes up part of their experience, their joy for life, for invention, for manifesting beautiful things. All of those photos represent that in one way or the other.

A photo of a tree is not really that impressive, I can look out my window at trees, go outside, walk across the lawn, and hug several trees. What's important is how I feel about those trees. Now how do I express that? I could say, "Boy, I really love those trees!." Or I could make a painting, and that painting could be photo-realistic or highly abstract. The point would not be to highlight the trees, the trees do very well highlighting themselves, the point would be to highlight my feelings and thoughts about the trees. That's the purpose of the slide show that the OP posted. It shows representations made by other people who have had different intimate relations with the country of Iran than what is broadcast on a daily basis here in the US. Indeed some photos have a travel brochure quality because some people, perhaps not exclusively Iranians, consider Iran to be a beautiful and desirable place to visit. Where one could enjoy themselves and the company of the people who live there. We definitely do not get this perspective in the US media.

What I have heard about Iran covers the same things that you have heard, but many of those same things I have also heard about my country, The United States of America. Not only in regards to its own citizens, but in regards to the citizenry of other countries, and yet everyday that's balanced out by reports of how much good this country also produces. I have heard few good things about Iran. In the US media Iran comes across as an amazingly simple country. That is that it is an evil country that cannot be trusted because of all the bad things that it is alleged to have done. Not until Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to Columbia University in New York City this year did I get glimpse of a nation of a more complex people. His brief visit to America did more to shed light on the complexity of the situation between the US and Iran, relative to the rest of the world, than any news broadcast or presidential address concerning Iran over the entire tenure of the Bush Administration. It was especially interesting to hear how Ahmadinejad's words had been mistranslated and twisted by the media to reflect exactly the opposite of what he had intended. I'm not saying that Ahmadinejad is a lovable person, what I am saying is that he is more of a person to me now than he had been before, now that he has been here to America.

Those pictures help enormously to clarify what Ahmadinejad represents. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad doesn't just represent atrocity anymore than President Bush does, they each represent portions of the complex fabric that is mankind. That is, they each represent beauty and ugliness, glory and infamy, triumph and failure.

Those pictures afford people, at least myself, to view Iran in the same way I view my own country. Previous to seeing those photos I was against warfare with Iran on principle. That is to say, I would be against any war regardless of how necessary war might seem to be. (Which is not to say that we should not fight, that I would not fight, if the time to fight should come.) The picture that was painted by propaganda and the media of Iran is that it is an irrational country that resorts to irrational means to get what it wants. The President of Iran's visit coupled with those pictures communicates to me otherwise. I now have a more complete sense of the country of Iran. It is not a complete sense nor anywhere near the sense that I have of my own country. It is however the sense that if we, The United States of America, attack Iran, then we would, in a sense, the human sense, be attacking our own country.

Originally posted by Bspiracy
I looked at the images and instead of seeing a far off land, I saw home. I felt the grass under my feet, experienced the heat of the sunlight through ornate windows and was cooled by the refreshing night air.
I became angry for knowing someone wanted to invade our house.

Without reading your post, I've said the same thing in a post I just made. Those images do convey more than they seem to depict.

Thank you for the pictures Antar!

Nothing makes me happier than to see that there are other people that realise that all human beings, indeed all forms of life on this planet, are mere visitors on this beautiful globe on which we live out our existences. What are countries and nations and governments when we take a step away from this rat-race and realised that we all share this space. This special oasis floating in an ocean of space. What is the meaning of these man-made illusionary boundaries we have created in between each other?

Too often we view ourselves as belonging to only a nation, a cultural division, a social scene, we divide ourselves and distinguish ourselves from other people and other things from which we are different. I wish more people could step away from these divisions and realise that the only true division and distinction we can make is that there exists life on our Earth, this planet amongst a sea of uncertainty, of which we are all privileged to be a part of. We are mere visitors to this existence, why waste our time with war, with destruction of this most beautiful planet we all share and should be able to enjoy?

Earth is such a beautiful thing, life is such a beautiful thing, and sharing this beauty with other beings which feel the same way is maybe the most beautiful thing of all. Judging from this thread there are many people who are sharing this right now. There is hope.

Thankyou so much to everyone that viewed the posted pictures. I have found some very good people on this forum that I would have never discovered without this thread. I appreciate so many kind and intelligent answers and especially those that understood just exactly why I posted.

Let me tell you that I have a half sister (so beautiful, like a china doll complexion) that is half Iranian. Her name is Lisa and was adopted at birth to close friends of my Godparents. Lisa was raised in a life of privilege, and traveled between the US and England all of her life. She is articulate and multi talented, sophisticated and a genuine Persian Princess.

When we first met it was during the Iranian conflict when on every street corner Americans gathered along side the likes of Mickey Mouse giving the finger to Iran. It was a terrible time and we came very close to war with them. Lisa was shocked at the sight of me and Mom because she is petite and although fair skinned, has dark eyes and black almost blue hair. Mom and I are tall and Nordic looking, green eyes. Well Lisa said "I guess the Italian really came out in me?" I said "Italian! no your ,IRANIAN!!" At that point we see T-shirts, posters and bumper stickers everywhere flipping the bird to Iran.

Back to my point, my judgements and indoctrination towards my views on Iran were set back in those days and through out the years I was unaware of just how deep those feelings went. I am not a predigested person, and am very open minded in most cases. However when I was sent these pictures from my Brother the other day, I hesitated in opening them and almost didn't. Why? Because I did not want to see the horror that they would surly depict of the Iranian culture and its people. I was sure that there would be pictures of bloody street scenes and half dressed dirty children running from the soldiers, bodies strewn across abandoned war torn apartments and dry desolate communities so poor, with the wrinkled faced old ladies in kerchiefs looking hopeless.

Something switched in my consciousness upon opening these beautiful pictures.

A light that had previously been dimmed brightened for me and I felt my consciousness raise.

Although it happened on a personal level, the realization of the depth of covert manipulation by the dark forces of the planet came clearly to the forefront.

This is just ONE manipulation. How many more misconceptions control me? This is my quest to drop the past and all that I have been told and to look at the world from new eyes, from a higher state of awareness.

Awareness is all that is needed to shift the balance back to the origin of my birthright, which is truth, and only truth.

When this happens, hidden agendas have no more power over us, they can't have power, they become part of the past.

There is something making change, something greater than all of us, the consciousness of the planet is rising, and we are all linked to this change.

These pictures are very nice. Never knew that it was such a beautiful country. And they shouldn't destroy such land so various and sometimes
recognizable in places.Like if its in your own neighbourhood .

Lets hope it comes to peacefull dialog. So that one day we all could see that beautiful country.

We could make a slide show of pretty pictures of Jews living in peace in Germany before Kristalnacht or pretty Japanese Gardens before December 7, 1941.

Pretty pictures do not show the hearts of men with evil in their hearts.

Originally posted by CharlesMartel
We could make a slide show of pretty pictures of Jews living in peace in Germany before Kristalnacht or pretty Japanese Gardens before December 7, 1941.

Pretty pictures do not show the hearts of men with evil in their hearts.

Yeah, but it goes both ways and that's the point of this thread. Tragedies are what they are. They do not, however, represent the whole picture. Was every German citizen a Nazi German? Was every German citizen a Nazi sympathizer? If we considered and believed only Nazi Germany's side of the story, what then?

What about Americans who helped to fund Hitler's regime against the Jews in Germany and throughout Europe? What about all of the neo-Nazi groups that exist in America and other European countries, including Australia? Surely all of these countries deserve the same ill-repute that the Nazi's brought to Germany. Were not Native Americans slaughtered at the foothills of the purple mountain majesties?

"By conservative estimates, the population of the United states prior to European contact was greater than 12 million. Four centuries later, the count was reduced by 95% to 237 thousand."

Source

And just what about the history of slavery for the entire world?

Do any of these atrocities, this ugliest aspect of mankind, represent the entire nature of man? No it does not. The reason we know it does not is because we have perspective. Again, that is what this thread is all about. Pictures of old men chatting on a bench in the sun are just as helpful towards understanding, just as the picture of the Saigon execution captured by an American photographer, Eddie Adams, was for the American media and population.

We should be focused on all that we done, rather than just part of what we have done. No one expects a photograph to tell the whole truth, but the question must be asked, how much truth do we receive? Perspective is quite necessary.

The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera. Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world. People believe them; but photographs do lie, even without manipulation. They are only half-truths.

What the photograph didn't say was, 'What would you do if you were the general at that time and place on that hot day, and you caught the so-called bad guy after he blew away one, two or three American people?'

–Eddie Adams

Originally posted by Areal51
"Home of the brave." Don't make me laugh. Our administration is composed of greedy and frightened cowards. Period. It really would be the day that our current President would visit Iran's universities to engage in dialog with its best and brightest. That really would be the day.

For starters, the President does not have to go to Iran to meet with college students because there are lots of Iranians here in the states attending college getting one the best educations on Earth. Unlike Iran, the U.S. allows citizens of other nationalities to come here and learn. A lot of Iranian college students end up staying but some do return and when they do stay or go, they are the best and brightest because of the U.S. Get a grip please.

Originally posted by Operation AJAX
Ah yes but the good Doctor is interested in nothing but sheer trollery. He comes out from under that bridge every so often like a crazed and brainwashed member of YAF (Young Americans For Freedom) or other such neocon indoctrination groups, shouts some memorized but deeply felt rhetoric, and then scampers back under the bridge to await the next oppurtunity for hit and run trollery.

Wow, typical liberal tactic. You cannot win in debate or have a valid discussion so you resort to name calling and spewing exteme liberal propaganda. By God man, you don't even attempt to hide it.

With a statement like you just made, you should look into the mirror to see who is the actual troll. I have been conversing with other here and have more posts in this thread than you. So if anyone is trolling, its you.

Rest assured despite all of his mindless patriotism and chest thumping he will present more strawmans than a Wizard of Oz convention.

Right, I forgot that any opinion opposite of your views is considered mindless patriotism and chest thumping. Sorry, but defending one's country against people like yourself is easy.