Ah it is sweet of Mehr to provide so many pretty pictures of Khomeini’s re-enacted Return to Iran as Cardboard Dude.
It’s cool that Khomeini is a giant. It’s cool that he has no feet. It’s cool the way his two handlers’ white gloves appear discreetly on his shoulders and at his sides, while his own hands don’t appear at all. It’s just all so dignified and holy and impressive.
The New York Times likes it too.
Shortly after the airport arrival, another cardboard cutout made an appearance in southern Tehran at Refah School, which served as Ayatollah Khomeini’s base of operations. There, it was joined by officials, including the education minister, who sat in a large circle with the silent version of the revered leader and awkwardly drank tea.
Well now I don’t see why that would be awkward, do you? Officials sitting around with a giant cardboard Dude, drinking tea? Where does the awkwardness come in?
(Oh I bet I know. They didn’t dare burst into shrieks of laughter, yet it must have been so hard not to. Of course; that would do it.)
There’s something missing though. There should be a giant cardboard Khomeini issuing a giant cardboard Fatwa.
I smell a photoshop contest! Slight more seriously, someone needs to start mass-producing cardboard cut-outs of Khomeini and selling them. I’d love to have one in my room. Or maybe one propped up peering out my front windows to scare off the Mormons/Jehovah’s witness solicitors. What about on a dartboard? Urinal cakes? Endless possibilities.
getting a serious “muslim baron harkonnen” vibe from this…
Sometimes I feel I have nothing to say. Nothing I could say would in any way portray my feeling of despair. I should just laugh at this, but I can’t. I find the pictures incredibly sad: adults paying respect to a cardboard cutout? Is there any possibility of having a rational discussion with them?
There are rational people in Iran, just not as many as before the “revolution”. Iranian friends have as much belief in the
idioticsupernatural as a mustard seed. One of the reasons they are no longer in Iran.How about a re-enactment of the scene at his funeral where his cheap casket got ripped open and his rotten cadaver tumbled out onto the ground? That’s how I remember him.
Isn’t this considered idolatry?
Massively ironic and hypocritical that this is happens in the same country that had riots over the Mohammed cartoons.
The one with the cardboard Khomeini sitting in the car is particularly hilarious.
Cag:
“There are rational people in Iran, just not as many as before the “revolution”. Iranian friends have as much belief in the (idiotic) supernatural as a mustard seed. One of the reasons they are no longer in Iran.”
Precisely. Rational people have no power in Iran. They must either pretend they are morons or flee the country. Meanwhile, power remains in the hands of those who cannot see that paying repect to a cardboard figure is… well, there is no word to describe imbecility of that degree.
When I first saw this I found it funny, especially when it was spoofed here:- http://cardboardkhomeini.blogspot.com/
Now I just feel sad. There are Iranians like the author of Persepolis and Reading Lolita in Tehran and the makers of the film Separation. There are talented, clever Iranians in exile. However they may hate the regime, they must find this kind of bufoonery humiliating.
When Paraguayan dictator Francisco Solano Lopez started to slip into insanity, he decreed that every family in his country should own a portrait of him, and give the portrait a seat at the family table for dinner every night. That was supposed to keep the country’s morale up during a war with three neighboring countries at once, with a combined population 30 times larger than Paraguay’s.
In the end an estimated 20-50% percent of Paraguay’s population survived his rule.
Rosie – well I take it the Iranians are laughing themselves sick, so I think we can join them!
It’s cool that Khomeini is a giant. It’s cool that he has no feet.
Finally de-feeted ….
It’s like one giant hazing ritual. How embarassing for the people being forced to go along with it.
de-feeted – heh heh heh.
LOL and Wow. I would have thought that this would be frowned on by sharia law and by a theistic government. The Ayatollas and Imams must be doing a tough balancing act.
I have to wonder about how tough it is to legitimitize government power while parading a cardboard Ayatollah. Is the power more tenuous and in danger than we thought?
There are actually three different cardboard Khomeinis being used. Suddenly idolatry becomes polytheism (unless they’re saying it’s one of those “trinity” things like the Christians have.)
It’s weird that the soldiers/police/whatever greeting him are holding roses. Like he’s going to notice. I also feel sorry for the guys carrying the cutout around, worrying about what might befall them if they were to drop the fucker’s photo.
@1 (Andrew B.):
For
instance.
“There are actually three different cardboard Khomeinis being used.”
Two are doubles, in case of an assassination attempt (presumably one involving a cigarette lighter).
Stewart (#19),
Two are doubles, in case of an assassination attempt (presumably one involving a cigarette lighter).
Or inflammatory rhetoric.
But another case of sensibly using body doubles ….
It’s an eerie resemblance to Sean Connery. I keep expecting Cardboard Dude to say “The name’s Khomeini…Ayatollah Khomeini” or at least “Suck it, Trebeck, suck it hard, HAHAHA”
I want a giant cardboard Salman Rushdie. That Khomeini Guy is creepy-looking.
LIke something you’d see in a Monty Python sketch.
Monty Python would probably do him as the Pantomime Ayatollah Khomeini.