Carry-ME - Madjid writes from Tehran, Iran.

Carry-ME

Madjid writes from Tehran, Iran.

Wednesday, February 25, 2004

19:45

Military Service (2)
In the last weeks before the Parliamentary Elections, the reformists proposed a bill to reduce the period of the military service down to 18 months. It was also proposed to let people with university degrees be able to pay something between $1000 to $2000 instead of spending the 21-month period. This bill could increase the popularity of the reformists just before a major election. The conservatives, who dominate all key positions, already knew this. So they opposed to this bill, and of course they had all legal (and illegal) levers.
Now that the leader has paid a lot for his support of the Guardian Council, they believe they should do something to increase his popularity. It could be predicted that they would reduce the military service and they didn’t want to share this bait with the reformists. We believed that it would reduce to 18 months. But today it was announced that the leader has agreed to a 20-month period. Yes, all they could overlook was 1 month. Sometimes they seem so naive. Do they really think this reduction can increase his popularity? In my case, it’s more disappointing than encouraging.
(to be continued)

Tuesday, February 24, 2004

06:03

The conservatives won.
OK. The conservatives won easily, as predicted. A guy pointed out “Now that the conservatives have won, they have great difficulties to fulfill what they have promised: a prosperous economy, and a developed country.” Some people think that the conservatives have no other choice but to improve their relationship with developed countries, even with the US. Well, I think they couldn’t be less worried. They have shown their strategy before. They believe there’s no need to do anything. All they need is to pretend they have done something and they’re best at this. That was what they did after City Council Elections. Initially, they will hold the reformists responsible for all problems, accusing them to ruin the foundations of the economy. After awhile, they stop the accusations and start to give fake statistics and magnify the least important achievements. Ridiculously enough, their supporters believe everything they try to penetrate into their brains, although still hungry. You can’t imagine how expert they are in ‘Doublethink’.

Monday, February 23, 2004

09:56

Military Service (1)
All male guys who reach 18 years of age, must spend a 21 month period for their military service. Well, not all guys, but most of them. I will explain more later.
You get your high school diploma at the age of 18 in Iran (if you're neither a fool nor a genius). Afterwards, you need to do your military service. If not, you'll be deprived of your social rights: If you don't have a driver's licence yet, you can't get one untill you do your military service; you can't have your passport, you can't buy a house or a car (you can't register anything officially), etc. So you ought to do your military service.
When you get your high school diploma, you have a 6 month period either to enter a university or to go directly to military camp. If you succeed to get admitted to a university (which is quite competitive, lots of applicants and little capacity) you will have the opportunity to postpone your military service until you graduate from university, and when you get your BS or BA the story repeats: you will have a 6 month period either to get admitted to a graduate school or to do your military service, and so on and so forth.
(to be continued)