COMMENTARY

Tell us, where is everyone? Where did all the people who demonstrated against Israel’s brutality in Operation Cast Lead, in the Second Lebanon War, in Operation Defensive Shield, or even in The Hague, when we were dragged there unwillingly after daring to build a separation barrier between us and the suicide bombers, disappear to? We see demonstrations here and there, but these are mainly Iranian exiles. Europe, in principle, is peaceful and calm. So is the United States. Here and there a few dozens, here and there a few hundreds. Have they evaporated because it is Tehran and not here?

All the peace-loving and justice-loving Europeans, British professors in search of freedom and equality, the friends filling the newspapers, magazines and various academic journals with various demands for boycotting Israel, defaming Zionism and blaming us and it for all the ills and woes of the world — could it be that they have taken a long summer vacation? Now of all times, when the Basij hooligans have begun to slaughter innocent civilians in the city squares of Tehran? Aren’t they connected to the Internet? Don’t they have YouTube? Has a terrible virus struck down their computers? Have their justice glands been removed in a complicated surgical procedure (to be re-implanted successfully for the next confrontation in Gaza)? How can it be that when a Jew kills a Muslim, the entire world boils, and when extremist Islam slaughters its citizens, whose sole sin is the aspiration to freedom, the world is silent?

Imagine that this were not happening now in Tehran, but rather here. Let’s say in Nablus. Spontaneous demonstrations of Palestinians turning into an ongoing bloodbath. Border Policemen armed with knives, on motorcycles, butchering demonstrators. A young woman downed by a sniper in midday, dying before the cameras. Actually, why imagine? We can just recall what happened with the child Mohammed a-Dura. How the affair (which was very harsh, admittedly) swept the world from one end to another. The fact that a later independent investigative report raised tough questions as to the identity of the weapon from which a-Dura was shot, did not make a difference to anyone. The Zionists were to blame, and that was that.

And where are the world’s leaders? Where is the wondrous rhetorical ability of Barack Obama? Where has his sublime vocabulary gone? Where is the desire, that is supposed to be built into all American presidents, to defend and act on behalf of freedom seekers around the globe? What is this stammering?

A source who is connected to the Iranian and security situation, said yesterday that if Obama had shown on the Iranian matter a quarter of the determination with which he assaulted the settlements in the territories, everything would have looked different. “The demonstrators in Iran are desperate for help,” said the man, who served in very senior positions for many years,

 ”they need to know that they have backing, that there is an entire world that supports them, but instead they see indifference. And this is happening at such a critical stage of this battle for the soul of Iran and the freedom of the Iranian people. It’s sad.”

Or the European Union, for example. The organization that speaks of justice and peace all year round. Why should its leaders not declare clearly that the world wants to see a democratic and free Iran, and support it unreservedly? Could it be that the tongue of too many Europeans is still connected to dark places? The pathetic excuse that such support would give Khamenei and Ahmadinejad an excuse to call the demonstrators “Western agents,” does not hold water. They call them “Western agents” in any case, so what difference does it make?

To think that just six months ago, when Europe was flooded with demonstrations against Israel, leftists and Islamists raised pictures of Nasrallah, the protégé of the ayatollah regime. The fact that this was a benighted regime did not trouble them. This is madness, but it is sinking in and influencing the weary West. If there is a truly free world here, let it appear immediately! And impose sanctions, for example, on those who slaughter the members of their own people. Just as it imposed them on North Korea, or on the military regime in Burma. It is only a question of will, not of ability.

Apparently, something happens to the global adherence to justice and equality, when it comes to Iran. The oppression is overt and known. The Internet era broadcasts everything live, and it is all for the better. Hooligans acting on behalf of the regime shoot and stab masses of demonstrators, who cry out for freedom.

Is anything more needed? Apparently it is. Because it is to no avail. The West remains indifferent. Obama is polite. Why shouldn’t he be, after all, he aspires to a dialogue with the ayatollahs. And that is very fine and good, the problem is that at this stage there is no dialogue, but there is death and murder on the streets. At this stage, one must forget the rules of etiquette for a moment. The voices being heard from Obama elicit concern that we are actually dealing with a new version of Chamberlain. Being conciliatory is a positive trait, particularly when it follows the clumsy bellicosity of George Bush, but when conciliation becomes blindness, we have a problem.

The courageous voice of Angela Merkel, who issued yesterday a firm statement of support for the Iranian people and its right to freedom, is in the meantime a lone voice in the Western wilderness. It is only a shame that she has not announced an economic boycott, in light of the fact that this is the European country that is most invested in building infrastructure in Iran. She was joined by British Foreign Secretary Miliband. It is little, it is late, it is not enough. Millions of freedom seekers have taken to the streets in Iran, and the West is straddling the fence, one leg here, the other leg there.

There is a different Islam. This is already clear today. Even in Iran. There are millions of Muslims who support freedom, human rights, equality for women. These millions loathe Khamenei, Chavez and Nasrallah too. But part of the global left wing prefers the ayatollah regime over them. The main thing is for them to raise flags against Israel and America. The question is why the democrats, the liberals, and Obama, Blair and Sarkozy, are continuing to sit on the fence. This is not a fence of separation, it is a fence of shame.

by Anuj Chopra, Chronicle Foreign Service

Illyas, 20, precariously straddles two worlds.

At home, he’s a devout Christian who wears a silver cross around his neck, reads the Bible and sings hymns praising Jesus Christ. In public, he is a pious Muslim who attends regular mosque prayers.

Illyas and his parents – they asked a reporter not to mention the family name to ensure their safety – had been practicing Muslims until they watched a religious television program beamed by satellite from Reseda (Los Angeles County). At that time last year, Illyas’s mother called a hot line number of Iran for Christ Ministries, prayed with a counselor and soon accepted Jesus Christ as her savior. Illyas and his stepfather quickly followed.

Islam is the state religion of Iran – 98 percent of the nation’s 66 million inhabitants are Muslims – and Islam has governed most aspects of life since the 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled the Shah of Iran. Frustrated with the lack of social liberties since clerics assumed power, Illyas says his family felt compelled to look for other spiritual answers.

“We were looking for a faith that offered the reassurance of freedom,” he said.

Although there are no statistics on how many Iranians have converted to Christianity in recent years, officials at such Christian television stations as SAT-7-PARS say that in the past two years they have received a flood of e-mails and thousands of telephone calls from Iranians. With the advent of satellite television, they say, Christianity is on the rise, with some Iranians even undergoing clandestine conversions at Assyrian churches, said David Harder, communications manager at SAT-7-PARS’ Cyprus headquarters.

“Certainly across the entire region many people are spiritually thirsty. Iranian Christians themselves often have very little access to teaching materials that can help them in their spiritual growth,” said Harder. “Satellite television provides a means through which Iranians, who have often never had the opportunity to enter a church or even to know a Christian, to learn more about this faith.”

Even though satellite dishes have been officially banned in Iran since 1995, they crowd city rooftops and the government seems unable to control what Iranians watch at home, many observers say.

An editor of an independent newspaper in Tehran, who asked not to be named, blames satellite television channels for manipulating viewers into converting to Christianity.

“Iranians are looking for relief and proselytizers are taking advantage of that,” he said. “I stand by the right to take up a new religion, but there’s a vicious Western plot to foment a wider cultural East-West war and demonize Islam in the process.”

Even though the nation’s penal code does not mandate the death penalty for apostasy, the law could change if President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has his way. In February, he introduced legislation that would mandate execution for apostates.

“Life for so-called apostates in Iran has never been easy, but it could become literally impossible if Iran passes this new draft penal code,” said Joseph Grieboski, the president of the Institute on Religion and Public Policy in Washington. “For anyone who dares question the regime’s religious ideology, there could soon be no room to argue – only death.”

Some clerics believe the migration of Iranians to Christianity is symptomatic of frustration with Islam more than interest in another faith.

“If you force religion down people’s throats, it makes them less religious, not more,” said Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a reformist cleric and Iran’s former vice president.

The curbing of social freedoms in the name of Islam, such as mandatory head scarves for women and a crackdown on fashion and Western music, has persisted since 1979, and has driven many young Iranians – 70 percent of the population is under 30 – away from Islam, Abtahi says.

Many Iranians are also frustrated by a stagnant economy despite the country having the world’s fourth-largest oil reserves. Inflation is nearly 19 percent; unemployment is at a record 20 percent. Many blame the economic situation on faulty policies and the involvement of religion in governance.

Moreover, Ahmadinejad has authorized a whopping 700 percent increase in government spending for “Islamic religious activities” in 2009, according to Rooz, a Persian news Web site. Ahmadinejad has also proposed increasing the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance budget from $2.2 million to $16.6 million for 2009.

Last year, the state financed a $5 million film called “Jesus, the Spirit of God,” an Islamic version of the life of Jesus. The movie depicts Jesus as a tormented prophet who was not crucified or resurrected. Instead his disciple Judas Iscariot, was crucified in his place. This premise is based on the teachings of the Quran and the putative Gospel of Barnabas, a disciple of Jesus. It will now be recycled in a 20-episode serial aired on state-run television.

Even though director Nader Talebzadeh says he wanted to promote a dialogue between Muslims and Christians, some Western critics called it a parochial attempt to promote Islam by spreading misinformation about Christianity.

Meanwhile, Illyas says he will continue to practice his new religion.

“I’ll have to keep it a secret as long as I live in Iran,” he said. “There’s no other way.”

Chronicle Foreign Service reporter Anuj Chopra visited Iran early this year on a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting in Washington. E-mail Chopra at foreign@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page A – 9 of the San Francisco Chronicle