Banalization of history
Let's not play with words for it is a DENIAL of the Holocaust under the coverage of so called search for historical truth

December 7, 2006
iranian.com

In reply to Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich's "Blind ambition":

PARIS -- I am amazed to read Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich slandering of Reza Pahlavi in such reducing terms as if he wants to "bomb Iran" in order to get back his throne. I am as a matter of fact not surprised to read her comments on the Iranian.com for having followed some of her articles for a year or so on other Persian-English websites where she clearly supports nearly all of the current Iranian regime's foreign policies and domestic ones.

It is your right Ms. Ulrich, for after all we are in a freezone: the internet which for the time being is out of control of totalitarian States and maybe even more thanks to psyphon technology. I wonder though if you could express yourself with the same zeal in countires like Iran where blogs are blocked, where bloggers are randomly arrested and journalists dissapear very much like in Chile under Pinochet or Cuba under Fidel Castro.

I am amazed by some so-called self-promoted intellectuals like you who fail to see a bigger danger, not to say picture, than Pahlavi or the American neo-cons who have inevitably failed in the military campaign in Iraq. Americans have recently proved through elections that they will not give George Bush or his foolish administration a second chance to invade Iran or anywhere else on this crazed up fundamentalist-infested region.

Why don't people like you draw attention on what Ahmaninejad is doing to our country Iran and to the young generation of Iranians with no connection with the past, be it Monarchical or even Mossadeghi? Why aren't you shocked by the fact that someone like Ahmaninejad can initiate an international conference of denial of the Holocaust? Maybe your German half (Ulrich?) makes you more indulgent to historical pro-nazi revisionism?

Let's not play with words for it is a DENIAL of the Holocaust under the coverage of so called search for historical truth. THIS IS CRIMINAL. To distort history and claim the contrary to suite the ideological ambitions of Ahmaninejad and his rotten regime that in normal circumstances should be considered as a shame to humanity on all accounts.

The danger of Ahmaninejad's words is not a threat to Europe or any other Western democracy because a return to Nazi ideology in Europe is highly improbable in a near future. Generations of people grew up with the stories of WWII -- be it through living testimonies or films like those by George Steven who filmed the liberation of concentration camps in Nazi Germany.

No, the real threat is that the same ideologies "La Bete Immonde" ("The Abominable Beast") that so many writers and historians described about the Nazi Ideology, will one day resurface not in Europe but in Iran, the land where Human Rights was born and yet anti-semitism seems to have become a banality of words thanks to Ahmaninejad who allows himself to speak in our name and disgrace Iran and Iranians everywhere in the world. We should rather call him AHMAGHI-NEJAD.

Ms. Ulrich, you are targeting the wrong man in the wrong era. Long ago SAVAK was replaced by the SAVAMA in the aftermath of the revolution and its record largely surpasses in quantity and no less cruelty those of the terrible SAVAK. As for Reza Pahlavi, he will at most be around to say how things were better under his father's regime and and promote human rights and democracy as an ideal for his countrymen. I think this is a good thing but ALAS that won't topple the IRI in a near future.

Also you seem to even confuse the Shah's coronation in Golestan Palace in October 1967 with the Persepolis Celebrations of October 1971. The Shah never crowned himself in Persepolis, where did you find that?! Maybe this website will refresh your memory or maybe you are too young to remember or not even born at that time which could explain your confusion.

Your article reminds me of the lack of accuracy that was so common amongst journalists back in 1979 when they would cover the events in Iran and had to rely on translators in Iran who would bullshit them on the Shah's regime and the so-called totalitarian state we lived in.

I am neither a supporter nor a detractor of Reza Pahlavi, I just think that the Pahlavis have always been attacked for the wrong reasons and particularly at the wrong time and mostly by the same type of baseless arguments that prevent people from seeing the Big Picture: That is the banalization of history and a denial of the death of more than 6 million Jews just to satisfy the nuclear and geo-strategic ambitions of a little man and his disgraceful regime that is not representative AT ALL of what Iranians think. Comment

Darius Kadivar is a freelance journalist, film historian, and a columnist for OCPC magazine.