I cannot help but notice the "zede-enqelaab" or even "zede-Iran"
bias of your magazine. A simple browse over the list of articles available
reveals this. You have the assimilationist piece by Guive
Mirfendereski, an adolescent article by Pejman
Mosleh, a thoroughly boring piece of fiction by Massud
Alemi, a couple gharbzadeh-esque articles from Laleh
Khalili, the article from Shalizeh
Nadjmi that is little more than a thinly veiled rationalization of
her Black man fetish, the collection of pictures from the pre-Revolutionary
Air Force (who cares!?), the typically mediocre poetry of yet another
gharbzadeh young Iranian woman, Leyla
Momeny.
The relationship your magazine seems to have with the reality of Iran
as it is now, is a kind of nostalgia for what might have been had Iran
sold herself out years ago and an alien's disgust at Iran now - example
being the author who had to rationalize
sympathy for any mullahs. Perhaps in the process of leaving Iran many
people have had to rationalize their expatriate status by making all mullahs
"evil".
Then there are the letters, which I know have been censored to give
an impression that expatriate Iranians are all Western-loving, Islam and
Islamic Republic loathing (examples being Jamshid
E.'s article - apparently straight from his Monafeq sources).
Why is your magazine so blatantly biased? I've yet to read one article
with any sort of praise for traditional Islamic and Iranian values. Not
even a single article about Shi'i Islam or about the Islamic Republic as
the government of Iran, but I've seen quite a few articles about the dead
Shah regime. Indeed, the magazine should be renamed "The Iranian-American"
or "The Persian" - to reflect the orientalist bias that your
magazine's articles all share - the tendency to view Iran with alien glasses.
I know many people refer to your site as a reflection of Iranian culture,
but they are hardly that! The cultural model presented in this magazine's
content is the remnants of Shah-era culture with a heavy admixture of Western
moralism staring incomprehensibly at Iran today. The distinction between
Iranian culture and Iranian expatriate culture should be made explicit.
Babak Banaei
(If this letter is not published I would like a reason.)
