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Tuesday
June 26, 2001

Let them be!

In response to Ms. Sabety's article "Diana not", she wrote:

I picked up the pen in the hopes that her death -- by turning our attention to depression, and eating disorders amongst our women -- might help other young girls and women who might find themselves in her predicament.

There was not a single note in this article that talked about overcoming depression and eating disorders.

Whatever the cause of Leila Pahlavi's death she was no Princess Diana. We never heard of her engaging in charitable works or kissing an aids victim or traveling the world to walk on mine fields or -- more relevant here -- we never heard her publicly confess her problems. Diana did.

For goodness sakes, she is dead!!! Let her be! If someone wants to compare her death and the circumstances of her untimely death to princess Di then let them!

We have never seen any Pahlavi engage in substantial charitable acts towards any person or noble humanitarian cause after the revolution. So, however tragic her death, Leila only shares with Diana her young age at death and a struggle with an eating disorder as well as all those poor-rich-child feelings of abandonment. But in all fairness to Diana, we cannot call Leila Pahlavi, who had been largely absent from the public sphere until her death, a "people's princess".

Is this really necessary? I thought this article was to "turn our attention to depression and eating disorders!".

I do believe that exile must have aggravated her depression but I also believe that this could have happened even if her father was still occupying the Peacock throne.

Can you even fathom the tremendous pressure and hardship that this family has gone through?? Granted they may have not been the best thing that happened to Iran, but please don't let your shallow opinion get in the way of your writing about depression and eating disorders!

Our deposed royal family's women looks nothing like their ancestors because of the nose jobs and plastic surgery they all have had. Talk about an identity crisis.

Is there a point to this? Is this not an article on depression and eating disorders? Are you trying to say that anyone who gets plastic surgery has an identity crisis? What is wrong with looking good?

I mean how much transformation can a poor soul take before she no longer has a sense of identity? Our identity crisis does not stem from plastic surgery! Our lack of identity stems from the fact that we have not learned to embrace the good attributes of the cultures we have been exposed to! Instead of embracing a rich culture-dating back to the Achamanian empire-and incorporating the new, we undermine ourselves.

Not all the young girls out there are like Cher or Googoosh who make a cottage industry of transformations. Take away their language, their religion, their body, their nose, their credibility and their country and what are you left with?

You are left with the person's soul and individuality, not a dead 31-year old!! Why don't you talk about OUR cultural double standards that exist between men and women which contribute to a Persian woman's insecurities in the first place!

I accuse the culture of hypocrisy and materialism that the Pahlavis epitomized and promoted for the loss of much of our identity.

Have you seen what the Islamic Republic culture has done to our identity, for the past 20 years? You know, it is criticism like this that probably lead to Leila's depression in the first place.

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