Monday
October 2, 2000
Depressing comments
Reading Mr. Kadivar's reminiscing his trip ["Requiem
in Cairo"] and observing the 20th anniversary of the death of
Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi was very heartwarming and enjoyable. I have
been dreaming of the day to visit the tomb of Mohammed Reza Pahlavi in
Cairo. My deference for the late Shahanshah is due to my awareness and
admiration or the love and hope Mohammed Reza Shah held for his country.
The very fact that his final resting-place is in Cairo instead of his
beloved Iran, demonstrates the tragedy that his downfall represents for
his dreams and for our country.
During the reign of Pahlavis, my parents were simply employees of the
government and had rather peaceful lives. They didn't have any glorious
positions. They just lead simple lives. They certainly wished to see
the country move towards more liberty and wished for the corruption to
end. However, in 1978, they were one of the few to know that Khomeini
will be far worse than the regime of the Shah. Certainly, the people who
are ready to "throw-up" when other people express their emotion
about this man, fell into streets in 1978 and were so easily mesmerized
by a bearded, turbaned, uneducated man.
While Mr. Kadivar's article was enjoyable and impartial I was so disgusted
and yet depressed to read some of the responses from the distinguished
visitors to this wonderful site. I was astonished to see how after twenty
years Mr.
Bardia Saeedi, Neda
and Babak
Arminian can find it so easy to "throw up" at Mr. Kadivar's
trip to Cairo. Immediately after reading their letters, I began to think
about all that has bothered me through the past 21 years both in Iran and
in the U.S.
Mr. Bardia Saeedi can throw up about the deference some people hold
for a man who sought to strengthen our nation, give his countrymen better
lives and enhanced Iran's image and standing in the world community. I
have been on the verge of tears almost every day of my life thinking what
individuals such as these gentle people committed and what their actions
have meant for so many people.
I throw up thinking about the images of our boys and girls as little
as thirteen years old who died in a senseless eight-year war. I tremble
of the thought of the physical, intellectual, emotional and financial loss
our nation suffered from a war that the Shah had avoided. I feel so depressed
to think how Iran's best artistes and greatest minds left our nation in
droves after 1979 and continue to do so.
How is it that our Iran is suffering from lack of medicine, doctors
and trained engineers and professors while the west is enjoying the fruit
of labor of so many of Iran's brightest? Inside me cries to know how Iran's
bravest generals, pilots, officers were executed early on in the revolution.
Interestingly, the executioners are people who were later themselves executed
or have since sought the comfort of the West and continue to attack the
Pahlavis.
I want to throw up thinking of the innocent 400 hundred people who were
charcoaled to death inside Cinema Rex by the "revolutionaries."
I want to cry when I watch Olympics and Iran is the only nation to wrap
its sole female member like a candy in a black chador. I feel ashamed
knowing my country's image as a fairy-tale land was replaced with a pariah
nation, a terrorist outlaw state.
Iran, the land of Cyrus the Great, the prophet of human rights, the
liberator of Jews, is trashed in the world for its inhumane treatment of
its Jewish, baha'i and Christian population. Next time, Bardia Saeedii,
Babak Arminian, and Neda want to throw up because people go to pay their
respect for a man who's now been dead for 20 years, then should find smile
on their face knowing that the ayatollahs desecrated the baha'i and Zoroastrian
temples and cemeteries in our land.
Next time they want to scorn about Iranian people, who respect a fellowmen,
they should think of themselves and their kind who saw the image of "their
Imam" in the moon only two decades ago.
H. Jalili
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