Hoder: A Whole Lotta Ego
15 February 2007, evening time
Hossein is part of a generation of idiot savants who have the audacity to refer to themselves as human rights activists, while sipping on five dollar latte’s and attending bogus conferences in the proverbial West. These quasi-intellectual talking heads have no scholarly understanding of human rights discourse, and an even poorer understanding of their own country’s history. — Samira Mohyeddin (of Banu fame.)
I follow the news on Iran much more closely than I ever did before, mostly because of Shima. I used to read hoder.com to get some insight on Iran because I foolishly thought — like many bloggers I suspect — that Hossein Derakhshan actually had something insightful to say. To be brief: he really doesn’t. Hoder is pro-Reformist and Tehran-centric in his outlook. He is very critical of anyone that doesn’t share his political ideology. Reading his site during the last election, you would think it was guaranteed that the Reformists would win, when I suppose if you had been actually paying attention it would be clear this wasn’t going to happen at all. People who can fly back and forth between Iran and Canada are not the sort of people that you should look to for reliable criticism of Iran.
So why bring this all up today? I checked out his site again after he posted on MetaFilter today, and he describes Reading Lolita in Tehran as anti-Iranian propaganda-literature. And you know he’s saying that with a straight-face. This is the go-to guy for news on Iran?
Update Feb 22nd 2007: He posted his thoughts on Reading Lolita in Tehran on MetaFilter today.
“Hoder is pro-Reformist and Tehran-centric in his outlook.”
So you prefer an Iranian to have a pro-regime-chnage and a Washington-centric outlook?
Have you ever been to Tehran, by the way?
by Sanam on July 24 2007, 9:29 pm #
So you prefer an Iranian to have a pro-regime-chnage and a Washington-centric outlook?
I had no idea there were only two choices on the matter.
Have you ever been to Tehran, by the way?
Nope.
by ramanan on July 25 2007, 7:46 am #