Honouring Farvardigan
Remembrance day for the dead
Apill 7, 2004
iranian.com
On March 26, Mohammad Khatami vented his anger over Israel's
killing of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. "The heinous crime reflects a cowardly
behaviour of the occupying Israeli regime as well as its fear of
Palestinian resistance." The hollow man of the clerical government
could not of course pass up the opportunity of singing another
serenade under the bloodstained windows of Middle-Eastern terrorism.
Words for Mohammad Khatami are pliable material to be employed
for reconstructing reality and glossing over flagrant falsehoods
and inconsistencies. It never occurs to him however that his
sanctimonious remarks more than anything else are an indictment
of the Islamic
regime itself and its dastardly method of eliminating whomever
it has feared since the day of its inception. The ruling mullahs
have a habit of never seeing the plank in their own eyes.
Mr. Khatami of course has no remembrance of those Iranians executed
or gunned down over the past quarter of a century by the assassins
of the totalitarian government in Tehran. Those Iranians were
targeted for possessing three qualities that terrorize terrorists:
patriotism,
courage and integrity.
Today, on the day of Farvardigan (19 of Farvardeen), the day
in our calendar on which ancient Iranians honoured the spirit of
their
departed loved ones and the memory of their lost heroes, we pay
tribute to those men and women whose power, unlike Khatami's
heroes did not depend on the quantity of the explosives they carried
under
their belts or the amount of damage they could inflict on their
fellow human beings. We honour those brave men and women whose
strength rested in the humanity of their character and the steadiness
of their moral fortitude.
Our immortal national heroes were not trained in guerrilla camps
by the likes of Osama bin Laden or indoctrinated in extremism
by Sheikh Yassin, but like Prime Minister Shapour Bakhtiar and
Foreign
Minister Abbas Ali Khalatbari had studied in the best universities
in the world and had earned their degrees in law and humanities.
On Farvardigan we pay homage not to fanatical leaders like Ruhollah
Khomeini who set a price on the head of writers and intellectuals,
but venerate those such as Amir Abbas Hoveyda who enjoyed the
friendship of the best thinkers of the era engaging in correspondence
and
dialogue with the most eminent national and international luminaries.
Our heroes unlike another idol of Mr. Khatami - Assadollah Lajevardi
(the prison chief of Tehran dubbed 'The Butcher') are not remembered
for incarcerating our compatriots and watching over their beaten
and tortured bodies. Instead, like our country's valiant Captain
Shahriar Shafigh they are immortalized for watching over our
territorial integrity. We remember him and his proud naval fleet
for helping
to restore to our homeland the islands of Greater and Smaller
Tunb and Abumosa. Captain Shahriar Shafigh stands especially
close to
our hearts for exactly the same reasons that twenty-five years
ago put him on the top of the assassination list of the Islamic
Republic: his unswerving devotion to his homeland.
And how can any Iranian forget General Rahimi captured by Khomeini's
henchmen after the triumph of anarchy and barbarity in our country?
How can anyone forget his unfaltering devotion to his king and
his country? How can we forget his great self-composure and exquisite
sense of humour under circumstances that would break anyone's
spirit? How can we forget his bright and intelligent face beside
that grim
and snarling incarnation of envy and dogmatism in the person
of Ebrahim Yazdi?
How can we ever forget the thousands of other Iranians murdered
by an inhuman regime that has only succeeded in defeating the brightest
hopes and aspiration of our nation?
Farvardigan is a day for remembering the dead, but its real lessons
and admonitions are for the living. By marking this day, we remind
ourselves that no matter who we are or where we are, the same
incontrovertible end await us all.
Could the ruling mullahs in Iran register the real significance
of this day and the eternal shame that will forever be invoked
by the hateful memory of their crimes, they would not cling to
their illegitimate power at any cost.
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