Ephemeron

Ephemeron



Those are windflowers glowing in the outer darkness
    just beyond the gateposts. If I squint,
I see them clearly: white windflowers, flicker of star gas,
    bridal-veil nebula—an infinity bent
By the gravity of dawn and rain, but opening.
    It astonishes me again: I am fifty and pregnant,
And beyond the bedroom window September is gathering
    its cosmological light. A child, the windflower says.
What's that? Nothing. Or hardly anything
    five weeks beyond conceiving. And that monstrous
Morning star above the neighbor's gable mutters,
    enough. What's one more human? Heartless,
These elemental things, mist on the sidewalk, litter:
    And so there are gods again, suddenly.
The windflower opens its oblivious scripture
    as the sun advances degree by omniscient degree.
In the street a shadow of sparrows echoes the oil slick
    left by yesterday's downtown express. Details gather ominously,
And that is the point, precisely, a god's favorite trick—
    the accrual, like money in the bank, of our undoing.
But an arm's length away, the anti-entropic womb
    of my sleeping wife is growing
A consciousness. Listen, zygote. The windflower's true name:
    Anemone. Its true vocation: to be blowing
Against a wooden gate at 6 a.m.
    in the broken dawn-light of the fiftieth September
Of a man old enough to refuse to be ashamed
    of his own joy. And the windflower's fate? No matter.
It is enough, now, to watch it being.
    It is enough to be myself—again almost a father,
Watching the newsboy wander the street—feeling,
    almost, the old gods' abstract hearts contract.
I smell them gather above me like ravens, wheeling
    over the promise my body makes. Black-
Hearted godhood has left them hungry.
    But it is they who assemble, in the amniotic sac,
Bits of star-grit, skeins of DNA, the holy chemistry
    of existence. What can I do but leave them to it, even
Knowing what I know? My spiritual autobiography
    is a shambles-in-progress, my unfinished Confessions
A creaking stylized fiction from a distant century—
    it reads like a pirated version of a bad translation
Of a novel the young Balzac wrote, then threw away.
    No god forgives such things. The gods have taste.
Smelling an uncouth sulfur in the aura of the coming day,
    the Supreme Will wrinkles the Great Face.
The Gaze averts, and here's our chance. A space
    opens—ambiguous territory, zygote. Translucent. Our place.

T. R. HUMMER

Enslaving White Women: The Phenomenon of the Alien ‘Loverboy’ in Holland

Enslaving White Women: The Phenomenon of the Alien ‘Loverboy’ in Holland

Peter Stuyvesant

One of the darkest chapters of multiculturalism in Holland is the enslavement of White women by immigrant men, mainly Muslims (see also “Pakistani family networks prey on White girls in the UK“). The current antiracist discourse makes White parents and their daughters blind to the dangers of foreign men. Since the 1990s the luring of Dutch women into prostitution by young foreign males has been documented and is worthwhile for a wider audience than the Dutch-speaking countries.

Immigration, women and group behavior

In the prevailing Islamic culture among the majority of Dutch immigrants (Turks, Moroccans), a woman should be a virgin until marriage and it is customary to marry with the consent of the parents and within the same ethnic group. Islamic immigrants have a very high rate of marriage within the same ethnic group despite the fact that the third generation has grown up in Holland. In 2001 between 90% (Turks) and 95% (Moroccans) marry within the own ethnic group. In2007 (gelijke herkomst = common descent) and 2010(allochtoon = foreign) the figures are not much different. When we look at those figures it should also be taken into account that word ‘autochthonous’ only says something about crib and not about creed. 

Mass immigration means not only the settling of new individuals and foreign families, but ultimately leads to alien communities with their own lifestyle and values. In many cases those values don’t match and cause misunderstanding and even hostility. One very sensitive issue is the position of women. Dutch women with their individual freedom of sexual intercourse and partner choice are seen as morally low from an Islamic point of view, because they are more likely to hang out and have relationships with different men. Dutch women are seen as easy prey and lust objects due to their more unrevealing and sexually taunting ways of dressing.

It is very interesting to see that on the one hand Islamic men tend to go to places where Dutch women are most revealing and vulnerable (discos and swimming pools) and harass them (usually in groups), while they create a safe environment for their own women by demanding separate swimming hours for Islamic women in public pools. This kind of evolutionary group behavior to shield off their own women from Dutch man by veiling them and demanding separate leisure facilities, while at the same time extensively preying on Dutch women for the sake of sexual intercourse, has not been noted in mainstream scientific publications.

Loverboys and ethnic minorities

What’s also noticeable is that Islamic men tend to seek sexual intercourse with Dutch women, but at the same time they don’t seek a more durable relationship or children with these women. In Islamic culture marriage is deeply enmeshed in kinship relationships and not uncommonly is consanguineous (i.e., marriage with close relatives, typically first cousins). This pattern typifies the kinship-based eusociality characteristic of the Middle East (including traditional Jewish groups) and is the diametric opposite of Western marriage practices centered around individualist choice of marriage partner unenmeshed in extended kinship relationships (see “Altruism’s bloody roots“).  Around 25% of Morrocans and Turks marry a close relative.

The sexual exploitation of Dutch women brings me to the phenomenon of the “loverboy”. In Dutch culture the English term ‘loverboy’ means the wooing of a woman by a man with the intention to force the woman into prostitution. In many cases the man uses a mix of mental pressure (he loves her, but needs money) and violence to make her prostitute herself.

Saban Baran, a Turkish national who is infamous for forcing over 100 White women into prostitution. He was merciless in beating women up and even tattooed them to show that show that they were his 'property'.

Photo of a victim of Saban  Baran appearing on a website devoted to bringing Baran to justice. Baran fled The Netherlands while on leave from prison to be a with a baby born to one of his trafficking victims whom he married from jail. Turkey does not extradite its nationals.

Cartoon emphasizing Baran's notorious
 practice of tattooing his victims

The great majority of the ‘loverboys’ are of foreign descent, most notably Muslims. There has been extensive research by social scientists on this topic. The government-sponsoredWillem Pompe Institute for Criminology released some figures on the ethnic composition of the group of loverboys in Amsterdam in 2004: 83% were of Dutch nationality, but of this number 37% was Moroccan, 17% was Turkish, 14% Surinam, 12% Antilleans and 7% of other descent (page 14). Looking at the ethnic composition of the Amsterdam population in 2004 there were 8,5% of Morrocan descent, 5,1% of Turkish descent, 9,6% of Surinam descent and 1,6% of Antillean descent (page 11). In both absolute and relative numbers minorities are overrepresented, the Antillean (Caribbean Blacks) by a factor of 7.

It is safe to say that over half of the loverboys are Muslims, but we should not dismiss the fact that a quarter of them are Blacks (Surinam and Antillean). Among Dutch passport holders only 13% can pass as native Dutch and this number sinks below 10% of we take into account that there are no native Dutch in the 17% non-Dutch passport holders among the loverboys in Amsterdam. In any case, it is an under representation by a factor of 5 because 51,3% of the Amsterdam population in 2004 was native Dutch. In another report of the Willem Pompe Institute for Criminology of 2006professor Frank Bovenkerk acknowledges (page 20) that foreign men are at least partly driven by a contempt for the lifestyle of Western women.

Breakdown of White defense mechanism

The problems with loverboys are not exclusively Dutch. They exist also in neighboring countries like Belgium, England, France and Germany. In Belgium the newspaper De Morgen(17-9-1998) had the headline “Loverboys recruit minors for prostitution,” and the newspaper Le Soir (25-8-2003) published an article under the title ‘L’amour vendu aux “loverboys” (“Love sold to ‘loverboys’”). In all countries minorities play a key role, especially those from Muslim countries around the Mediterranean like Turks, Albanians (including Kosovars) and Algerians. It is a widespread problem in Western Europe because of the breakdown of White group defence mechanisms due to antiracism campaigns which deemphasize any hint of rampant criminality among ethnic minorities.

Even when figures show that more than 90% of the loverboys are of foreign descent, the police worry more about the discrimination against non-White loverboys than the protection of Dutch girls. A telling example is this movie by the Dutch police in which the question of whether all loverboys are foreigners (obviously phrased to be false even if 99% of loverboys are foreigners) is tagged as “discrimination”. The White girl asking this question in the movie is confidently corrected (Nee!) by the police officer who goes on to explain away the ethnic background of loverboys by describing them in more general terms as men who want luxury and quick money.

A major factor that makes prostitution more socially acceptable is the favourable way it is being portrayed in popular media. The above-mentioned professor Bovenkerk points out in his book Loverboys, on Modern Pimps (2009) that the movie Pretty Woman with Richard Gere and Julia Roberts (produced by Arnon Milchan) has contributed to a glamorous image of prostitutes and their costumers: rich men falling in love with prostitutes. In reality costumers of prostitutes don’t seek emotional satisfaction or love. Nevertheless, showing off with cars and cash and giving expensive gifts is the way loverboys usually attract women, just like in the movie.

To Live A Spiritual Life

To Live A Spiritual Life

It has become a commonplace to hear someone say, “I’m spiritual but not religious.” Most people have a general understanding of what is meant. I usually assume that the person holds to a number of ideas that are considered “spiritual” in our culture, but that they are not particularly interested in “organized religion.” I understand this, because organized religion can often be the bane of spiritual existence.

I am an Orthodox Christian – which is not the same thing as saying that I have an interest in “organized religion.” There is much about organized religion that I dislike in the extreme, and I occasionally see its shadow seep into my experience within Orthodoxy. But I repeat unashamedly that I am an Orthodox Christian and admit that one clear reason is that I am not very “spiritual.” Without the life of the Church and its Tradition – I could easily drift into a shapeless secularism – living a mediocre existence, marking time until my time is done.

The shapeless contours of spirituality often reflect nothing more than the ego within. How can I escape the confines of my own imagination? It is, of course, possible to ignore the question of the ego’s input and be satisfied with whatever we find comfortable as our “spirituality.” But, as noted above, I do not think I am an inherently “spiritual” man.

The Church is spiritual – indeed it is far more spiritual than “organized.” It is standing in the midst of the holy (whether I am aware of it or not) and yielding myself to that reality that largely constitute my daily “spirituality.” I pray and when something catches my heart, I stop and stay there for a while.

In earlier years of my life, as an Anglican, I learned about a  liturgical phenomenon known as the “guilty secret.” It referred to the extreme familiarity that grows up between priest and “holy things.” Holy things easily become commonplace and their treatment dangerously flippant. More dangerous still, is the growing sense of absence in the heart of a priest as the holy becomes commonplace and even just “common.” Of course the things which God has marked as “holy” are just “common.” A chalice is holy though it is only silver or gold (still “common” material). God uses common things in the giving of grace.

The “guilty secret” can afflict anyone. It’s the old phrase, “Familiarity breeds contempt.” It is particularly dangerous on account of our secular culture which holds most things in equal contempt. Things are only things within our culture, and any value it may have is imputed and not inherent.

This same problem holds true with “spirituality” itself. Words easily revert to mere words; actions to mere actions; ideas to wispy drifts of nothing. I have written elsewhere that secularism breeds atheism. The guilty secret that stalks us all is nothing more than the suspicious voice of secularism whispering, “There’s nothing and nobody there.”

The life we are called to live as Christians is not one long argument with the voice of secularism. The voice of secularism is not the sound of our own doubt, but the voice of the evil one. He has always been a liar.

The essential question for us is clearly stated by St. John:

By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world. (1Jo 4:2-3)

It is the question of Christ’s incarnation – but, in turn, it is also the question: “Is the flesh capable of bearing the Spirit?” Do we live in a world that is capable of God? There are many, who have partaken of a semi-gnostic spirit within modern secularism, who are not comfortable with Spirit-bearing material. Christ is someone whom we have fenced off, demarcated as a unique event such that He alonebears Spirit. He is the God who became incarnate in a world that was, by nature, secular. His incarnation would thus be a sign that does not confirm the world in any way, but by its very coming condemns all flesh.

This, according to St. John, is the spirit of the Antichrist. It is as though the evil one had said, “Fine. Take the flesh of this child born of Mary, but everything else is mine, and tends towards nothing.”

The Incarnate Christ is not only God with us, but reveals the true reason for all creation. “Heaven and earth are full of Thy glory.” Nothing is merely anything. Everything bears the glory of God.

Thus my “spirituality” is to learn how to live in a material world that is everywhere more than I can see or know. For such a life I need a guide. Without a guide I am left to the devices of my own imagination. My parents were not raised in such a situation. They were not teachers in this matter. It is the life of the Church, the way of knowledge that is the lives of the saints that teaches me how to live. They help me eat (or not eat) in a manner that reveals God. They teach me to read, to honor icons, to forgive enemies, to hold creation in its proper, God-given place. I am an Orthodox Christian. Who else remembers how to live in the world, holding that Christ is come in the flesh?

Andreas Georgiou, Greek Statistics Chief, Accused Of Falsifying Data To Make Crisis Look Worse

Andreas Georgiou, Greek Statistics Chief, Accused Of Falsifying Data To Make Crisis Look Worse

ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece's statistics chief will testify next month in a criminal investigation into allegations that his office falsified the budget deficit to make the country's financial crisis look worse, court officials said Monday.

The head of the newly independent statistics service ELSTAT, Andreas Georgiou, denied any wrongdoing and has not been charged with any offence in the investigation, stemming from allegations made by a former ELSTAT board member.

Georgiou and court sources said he had been asked to provide evidence on December 12 as a suspect in the probe that could prompt charges of "breach of faith" if the state is proved to have suffered damages by his actions.

"It is an unprecedented case of statisticians being investigated for producing figures under EU regulations," he told Reuters. "Any attempt to manage statistics in the national interest is a recipe for disaster."

In 2010, Greece overhauled its discredited statistics service by making it independent of political influence and appointing Georgiou, an IMF statistics veteran, to its helm.

The European Union demanded that Greece put an end to the release of flawed economic data after frequent revisions since joining the euro zone in 2001 had infuriated partners.

But trouble hit the service in September when a former ELSTAT board member said shortly after she was dismissed that 2009 deficit data had been artificially inflated.

The revision of Greece's 2009 budget deficit to 15.4 from 13.6 percent of gross domestic product in November 2010 showed the country's fiscal woes were even worse than previously thought and sped up the debt crisis which is still rocking the euro zone.

"The 2009 deficit was artificially inflated to show that the country had the biggest fiscal shortfall in all of Europe, even higher than Ireland's which was 14 percent," former ELSTAT board member Zoe Georganta was quoted as saying by the Eleftherotypia newspaper.

Georganta told Greek media the inclusion of a number of utilities under general government data inflated the deficit and that this was done under German pressure to justify harsh austerity measures.

Government officials at the time denied the charge and said the revision was done in close cooperation with Eurostat but the accusation prompted a criminal probe by the public prosecutor.

"It is procedural to invite the persons mentioned in the allegations to testify as suspects but it does not mean charges will be brought against them," said a court official who requested anonymity.

If charges of breach of faith - a crime that usually applies to those who embezzle or misuse public funds - are brought against ELSTAT staff, they could face at least five years in jail if convicted.

"These allegations are very serious," Georgiou said. "We have followed EU regulations. The statistics we have been accused of 'cooking' are the ones that did not receive any reservations from Eurostat."

(Reporting by Dina Kyriakidou; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

What’s Wrong with “Spirituality”?

What’s Wrong with “Spirituality”?

By Frederica Mathewes-Greene

I don’t like the category “spirituality.” It sounds so external. It sounds so optional. It isn’t a concept I find in the first millennium, or anywhere in Eastern Christianity. As far as I can tell, what people today mean by “spirituality” is what St. Paul meant by “life in Christ.”

This is a transformation that every Christian is supposed to be experiencing, because we are all “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4). As we partake of the life of Christ and discipline ourselves, seeking to assimilate that life, it affects both our souls and bodies. His light spreads within us like fire spreading through a lump of coal, and so we become Christ-bearers to the world. This is such an essential, foundational element of life in Christ that to extract it and label it seems to deaden it.

Early Christians did not talk about “spirituality,” much less varieties of spirituality, appropriate to this or that kind of personality, or ethnic background, or gender. Not only is that unhelpful, I don’t think it’s even possible to set up such divisions. Each one of us is participating in the light of the One Christ, so in one sense “spirituality” is exactly the same for everyone, because Christ is one. But each one of us is the only human being God ever made who is exactly us, so we will radiate that light back out again just a bit differently than any other saint.

So although the unity of Christ means there is only one possible “spirituality,” in another sense there are as many different “spiritualities” as the billions of people who live and who have lived. But an in-between that imagines that there are different styles appropriate to this or that sub-group, speaks of nothing so much as our culture’s reflexive love of shopping.

The thing about contemporary “spirituality” that annoys me the most is its capacity for narcissism. Focusing on spirituality instead of on the Lord makes you stop halfway down the hallway and think about yourself. That obviously delays your progress. It can be a temptation to consumerism – “Gee, centering prayer didn’t work, I think I’ll try Ignatian meditation.” And it can be a temptation to self-adornment, by suggesting that being spiritual makes you superior to other people, makes you more “interesting” or “deep.” What appears to be very intentional involvement with spiritual things, can actually be simply the taking up a new beauty regimen.

We can say, as in Christ’s parable of the wheat and tares, “An enemy has done this.” It is a strategy of the Evil One to take a good impulse and twist it backward into self-regard.

The term “spirituality” is troublesome because it reifies something that ought to go unnoticed. When you start taking an exaggerated interest in your breathing is when your breathing starts going wrong. Our sole focus should be on the compelling beauty of our Lord, and what moves us forward is only our desire for him. So my advice is: don’t seek an improved spirituality, or even a better prayer life. Just seek the Lord Jesus Christ, and keep your eyes on him.

Originally published in “Gifted For Leadership,” January 2007.

Best photos of the year 2011

 NODAS STYLIANIDIS, Greece 

"I was doing some paperwork in my office which is located a few meters away from the bank. At some point I heard someone yelling, I looked out of my window and I saw the man protesting outside the bank while it was obvious that he was threatening to set himself on fire. I picked a camera and ran out. When I arrived I saw him pouring gasoline on himself and after a few seconds he set himself ablaze. Police, who had already been watching him, rushed to extinguish the fire. The man survived but with serious injuries". 

Canon EOS 7D, lens 70-200mm, f10, 1/500 

Caption: A man sets himself on fire outside a bank branch in Thessaloniki in northern Greece September 16, 2011. The 55-year old man had entered the bank and asked for a renegotiation of his overdue loan payments on his home and business, according to police, which he could not pay, but was refused by the bank.REUTERS/Nodas Stylianidis/www.photoreportage.gr

JOHN KOLESIDIS, Greece 

“There was a planned protest march against a parliamentary vote on Greece’s five-year austerity plan that included tax hikes and government spending cuts, which degenerated into a violent clash between protesters and riot police. 

I was standing on the elevated entrance of a central hotel on Syntagma square with other photographers covering the clashes. The police had just pushed back protesters with the use of teargas. Suddenly, through a cloud of teargas, a group of frightened tourists appeared, with luggage in hand and covering their noses, and started running towards us. The scene was totally surreal: In the middle of a stone war and teargas, tourists visiting Athens on their summer holidays were trying to reach their hotel. 

I didn’t think twice, I lifted my camera and followed their agonizing effort until they reached the hotel entrance where we were standing. The door opened and they vanished behind it, safe and into a reality much different from the one that was evolving before me.” 

Canon EOS 1 Mark IV, lens 70-200mm, f14, 1/400, ISO 320 

Caption: Tourists run from teargas in central Athens during anti-austerity protests, June 15, 2011. REUTERS/John Kolesidis

One of the penalties

One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.


 ~Plato

If One does not....

You will never...

Poem Without Words - Anne Clark

Former IMF Employee And Greek Statistics Head Faces Life In Prison If Found Guilty Of Making Greece Look Uglier

 by Tyler Durden

A few months ago we reported that unlike in any other Banana Republic, where the natural bias is to fudge one's numbershigher to make the economy look better and get the stock market to rise, in Greece even the traditional banana metrics are upside down. To wit: "Greek newspaper Eleftherotypia reports that according to a just terminated member of the Greek Statistical Authority, Greece artificially misrepresented its 2009 15.4% deficit number to Eurostat in order to obtain aid from the EU and IMF." Sure enough, two months later even this absolutely bizarre story has been confirmed. The FT reportsthat "The head of Elstat, Greece’s new independent statistics agency, faces an official criminal investigation for allegedly inflating the scale of the country’s fiscal crisis and acting against the Greek national interest." Not surprisingly, the man who allegedly cooked the books is none other than a 20 year former IMF employee: precisely the kind of guy who knows just what buttons to push to get the US-funded organization to dole out capital. "Andreas Georgiou, who worked at the International Monetary Fund for 20 years, was appointed in 2010 by agreement with the fund and the European Commission to clean up Greek statistics after years of official fudging by the finance ministry." And just because someone needs to be made a scapegoat, if convicted Georgiou may face the same sentence as Madoff: "Mr Georgiou is due to appear before Greece’s prosecutor for financial crime on December 12 to answer the charges. If convicted of “betraying the country’s interests”, he could face life imprisonment." Well, that's fine: the man should rot in hell for not learning that "minus" is not really "plus" - surely no greater ex-capital punishment crime exists. Yet we wonder - will the same life sentence follow all those others who are found to have betrayed their countries interest and inflated numbers higherthus not getting US taxpayer-funded bailouts? Because when it comes to Europe, it is now every many for himself (as the soon to be faded rumor du jour of a €600 billion IMF-funded bailout of Italy confirms)... all the way to Joe Sixpack's wallet.

More from the FT:

“I am being prosecuted for not cooking the books,” Mr Georgiou told the Financial Times. “We would like to be a good, boring institution doing its job. Unfortunately, in Greece statistics is a combat sport.”

The investigation follows a public dispute over the 2009 budget deficit figure. Under Mr Georgiou, the figure was revised upwards from 13.4 per cent to 15.8 per cent of gross domestic product – a record for a eurozone member state. The revised figure was accepted without reservation by Eurostat, the Brussels statistical service.

The prosecutor cites a claim by professor Zoe Georganta, a senior statistician who was sacked along with other members of Elstat’s board by Evangelos Venizelos, the finance minister, earlier this year. According to Ms Georganta, the 2009 deficit was exaggerated by Elstat “so it would become larger than that of Ireland and Greece would be forced to adopt painful austerity measures”.

Elstat was established in August 2010 in an attempt to bring Greek statistics into line with EU standards. Before then, a committee of finance ministry and central bank officials came up with an annual budget deficit figure to be reported to Eurostat, based on numbers provided by the government statistics office. The finance minister was personally responsible for approving the final figure.

Since Elstat was set up, Eurostat has dropped its warnings about the reliability of Greek data on the public finances – formerly a regular footnote in Commission statistical reports. According to revised Eurostat data, Greece would have failed even to gain admission to the eurozone in 2001 because its deficit was too large.

Yet with all the we wonder: there is hardly any doubt that the latest Greek deficit numbers which probably are in the 20%+ area are fake. So had Greece not received the incremental funding and loans that this misrepresentation supposedly facilitated, just how much worse off would Greece be (after all recall that under the Keynesian canon any spending always and forever equals a boost in GDP). So, uh, shouldn't Georgiou really be preparing for his sainthood ceremony instead of wondering if he will spend the rest of his life in jail?

If Iran attacked it will teach U.S. how to fight: defense minister

If Iran attacked it will teach U.S. how to fight: defense minister

BUSHEHR – Iranian Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi has said that if the United States attacks Iran, the Iranian Armed Forces will teach it “how to fight and (make it) realize what fighting and a razmandeh (true combatant) mean”. 

 

It the enemy attacks Iran, it must be ready to answer some questions such as how long it can fight against the Islamic Republic and “how much it is ready to watch the sinking of its warships and ships,” Vahidi told a parade of 50 thousand revolutionary devotees of the Muslim world in the southwestern city of Bushehr on Sunday. 

The defense minister said that the U.S. should not think that it can wage a war against Iran as it did in Iraq and Afghanistan, adding that in Iraq, Saddam Hussein “retreated” and, in Afghanistan, there was “no one to fight”. 

“(But) in Vietnam, everyone noticed what happened to them,” Vahidi said in an indirect reference to the Vietnam War in which the U.S. army got bogged down in a quagmire. 

He said that since the end of the World War II in 1945, the U.S. army has conducted about 100 military operations, but it has not been engaged in a full-fledged war during this period to show how they can fight, but the Iranian troops are “armed with the weapon of faith and are different from others.” 

Commenting on the recent military threats issued by the Zionist regime against Tehran, Vahidi said that if Israel tries to carry out its threats against Iran, the Basiji warriors will “take revenge on this regime” for its years of atrocities against “oppressed nations”.  

He said, “The Zionist regime has not yet paid the price” for the massacres it committed in Sabra and Shatila and the Gaza Strip, and, if this regime attacks Iran, the Islamic Republic will take revenge for those crimes. 

“Why does the Zionist regime issue such threats? For how many missiles has it readied itself: 10 thousands, 20 thousands, 50 thousands, 100 thousands, 150 thousands, or more?” 

If Israel attacks Iran, “the Basijis will not even give Israel the time to breathe.” 

Message of parade is preparedness to defense country

Vahidi also commemorated the Basij Week and said that the message of the parade across the Persian Gulf waters is to prove that the Iranian people are ready to defend every inch of their land.