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Letters

July 22, 2003

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* A shame to freedom loving Iranians

Dear Mr. Baniameri, [Hooray to hooligans]

I know your post is under the category called "satire". But I assure you, there is nothing funny about your assessment.

I find your categorizing the brave youth who have the guts to stand up to Islamic Brown Shirts and *pay the price* in blood as "hooligans, rejects, gangsters", etc. to be disgusting. You should be ashamed of yourself even joking about this, while people like Ahmad Batebi, the Mohammadi brothers, and thousands of other such fine young men and women get arrested, beaten, and tortured by the most medieval system on this planet in this day.

Tell us, Mr. Baniameri, what have YOU done to help the cause of freedom in our country? These people are doing what *every* Iranian (including you and me) should be doing to liberate ourselves and gain our rightful place in this world. If I am not among them physically, at least I hold my head down and don't make fun of them, and I help them in every little way that I can, morrally, financially, and in my heart (it is never enough..)

And I have news for you as well- a vast majority of those "rejects" who didn't make it past the mullahs' entrance exam (read political ideological screening) would breeze through the universities out there where you live in comfort and are saying lengesh kon. Ironically, one day the blood and sufferring of these very people you ridicule will pay for your freedom.

I found your post to be disgustingly distasteful, especially given the current situation. It is like a Jew in America making fun of holocaust victims and their weakness and outcast status in German society in 1943. Your post is a shame and disgrace to freedom loving Iranians everywhere. And I can assure you, one day we will be free, and no thanks to contributions like yours.

Fereydoon

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* Four groups who will help democracy

have always believed that Iranian exiles are a desperate bunch of people who have no right in interfering with Iranian domestic politics. Especially when we consider that the majority of them and their parents were defeated, humiliated and shamefully booted out of their homeland. After reading Siamack‚s latest column "Hooray to hooligans", we can now count on four distinct groups who will help with the evolution of democracy in Iran:

1) Filthy rich Iranian exiles, including ex pop stars churning out "revolutionary" propaganda from former porn studios in LA.

2) Monomaniacal cultists who practice self-immolation as a method to register their dissatisfaction with a regime they label as "fanatical". Could they be anything more fanatical than dousing yourself in gasoline and then asking a poor standerby for a light?

3) A neo-conservative racist regime emanating from a country which previously supported one of the worst dictators to ever rule Iran, in the form of the Shah, and when that policy failed they aided the Arab fascist from next door in slaughtering thousands of our brothers and sisters in Iran.

4) And finally we have Siamack‚s hooligan friends, who in his own word‚s are most probably "high on testosterone and nicotine" and "are a bunch of high school flunkies".

Siamack‚s latest column only confirmed what I already knew. A few days after the riots I read a message from inside Iran, from a real student from the faculty of law, stating exactly what Siamack said, "I can assure you that none of them are university students".

Well folks if we are going to put our trust in a bunch of "hooligans, misfits, bacheh tanbals, thugs, gangsters" and ignore the intelligentsia within Iran, who largely oppose any foreign intervention and want to see reformation take place within an Islamic context, then that tells us more about our own aspirations of revenge, than the true aspirations of the people of Iran. Reformation within an Islamic context can and will occur, it will be a slow and painful process, however lets not forget that it took the US and UK hundreds of years for their own democratic systems to mature. In 'Jeffersonian democracy', freedom for white folks was based upon slavery for black people.

Iran needs time, engagement and patience for reforms to take place, a shotgun catalyst approach will only backfire. Even after 80 years of fanatical secularism in Turkey they have been unable to sideline political Islam. In the mean time if the rich, ideologically defunct and often miserable Iranian exiles want to continue doing their dirty laundry in public like an illiterate Jerry Springer audience, then they are most welcome, but please don‚t claim to be speaking upon behalf of the people of Iran.

Isa

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* Your sense of humor sucks big time

Siamack: [Hooray to hooligans]

Your article is tasteless, disrespectful and degrading to those brave students. In another word, your sense of humor sucks big time.

Alibaba

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* Pahlavi positive spearhead

Dear Ms. Hadizadeh,

I liked your piece of writing on the demos in LA [Demonstration, Los Angeles style]. Eventhough I don't necessarily agree with you. I think these demos are useful and necessary. I believe that they should continue as vehemently as possible and the fact of using Reza Pahlavi's picture as a spearhead to this movement is in my opinion a constructive act. I do not know how far this can help remove the regime in Teheran, however it does prove at least that when people want to join hands it is possible, beyond political preferences.

I wish Iranian artists like Googoosh and other actors and singers could bring their share of contribution in such demos which should continue. The spirit of these demos are positive, and have nothing to do with a war mongering attitude. It somehow reflects Reza Pahlavi's message up to this date in regard to a non violent ressistance to the IRI. I believe and maybe I am wrong but that in the long term Iranians in general will support the idea of a Democratic Constitutional Monarchy.

I also think that in a certain degree this could even be beneficial to Iran since it would follow the European example. It would also be a proof for the very first time in the history of our nation that we can have a Democratic constitutional monarchy in the middle east, something to which our forefathers a century ago tried so vehemently to establish with the 1906 Constitutional Revolution crushed by the Tzarist and British Rulers. Maybe all these demos are small drops, yet drops can lead to oceans. Please see here.

warm regards nevertheless, despite our differences regarding the Role of the Crown Prince Reza.

Darius KADIVAR

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* Leave the twin sisters rest in peace

First allow me to thank the Iranian Thompson twins, aka Ahmad and Mahmoud Sadri, who not only saved us time but also saved valuable web space by writing a joint piece [Liberty against all odds] instead of doing an "encore" as they often do.

Secondly, on a serious note, could they, and many others for that matter, leave Laleh and Ladan rest in peace without iconising them into political symbols. Even before their torn apart bodies had reached the soil of their homeland, opportunists, from both ends of the political spectrum began jumping on the global grief's bandwagon and claimed Laleh and Ladan as symbols of political struggle.

It is hard to imagine that on the eve of their life saving-breaking operation, the last thing that the conjoined twins could have had on their minds was even remotely related to the political turmoil back home. Instead we read such sentimental stories, as penned by Sadris, making desperate attempts to transform these two otherwise unpolitical of souls into some sort of political icon.

But in their haste to beat rivals in the race to claim Laleh and Ladan for political ends, Sadris have ignored a major difference between the conjoined twins' bid for independence and the students struggle for liberty. The twins chance of survival was 50-50; the students likelihood of safe return from a street protest, if returning at all, is 1 to 100. So much for the metaphor. Now could we please leave the twin sisters rest in peace?

Parkhash

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* Should surgery have been avoided?

Dear Moe, [Goodbye]

Thank you for a lovely and highly sentimental poem. I so much appreciate the time you have taken to write the poem. However, I am surprised that no one has yet questioned the legitimacy of Raffles Hospital's decision to proceed with plans to operate Ladan and Laleh Bijani. I therefore decided to write a comment on this.

Prior to the surgery the chance of survival was estimated to be less than 50%. The question is whether surgery should have been avoided in this case. The hospital's best intention to help the twins does not necessarily justify a course of treatment that is too risky. If I, for instance, in my best intentions drive a person in a car where I know there is more than 50% chance for a serious car accident, I will be prosecuted for knowingly having jeopardised the person's life.

I am aware that the twins were informed of all risks involved, but neither this will free the hospital from its duty to make rational and well-grounded decisions on whether surgery can be too risky in specific cases. Only because a patient volunteers in desperation to a course of treatment does not justify imprudent measures with fatal consequences. The fact that Ladan and Laleh did sincerely and desperately want the surgery at any cost is the same as saying that they were ready to risk dying for the sake of being separated.

However, a hospital's primary duty is to save life, and life is what needs to be put first. Ladan and Laleh's case is not any different from thousands of other patients who suffer from various diseases and conditions that reduce their life standard. Frequently, they are referred to a quality of life they do not like because surgery is considered too risky.

Many of these patients may wish to end their lives, without this giving the hospitals a valid ground to assist them in 'committing suicide'. Hospitals neither are 'charity organisations' helping people commit suicides, nor doctors are 'moral philosophers' determining whether staying alive or being separated is more important. Decisions for surgery must be based upon strict medical considerations. Given lifesaving being hospitals' primary duty, only two criteria can determine whether a surgery is justifiable:

A) A good prospect for improving a medical condition. When an investor invests in the stock market, he expects a higher chance for positive return on his investment. It will be utterly irrational to invest in shares, if he considers the risk for loss to be more than 50%, given his intention is to maximize return on capital. Similarly, surgery can be justified if the chance for survival is at least more than 50%.

B) If the risk of surgery is higher than 50%, but the alternative is death or a lesser chance for survival. An example is to operate a person who is suffering from a life-threatening injury. In this case, surgery - even if riskier than 50% - might be the best option to save the person's life.

Neither of the above cases seemed to apply in Ladan and Laleh's case. I fully understand how difficult it must have been for the twins to be attached to each other. Yet the twins' condition was not life threatening, and subsequently surgery was never necessitated from a purely medical point of view. I believe therefore surgery should have been avoided in the face of the high risk associated with it. The tragic fact that not even one of the twins survived underlines how risky the operation must indeed have been.

The chief surgeon at Raffles Hospital has himself acknowledged that the risk was estimated to be at least 50% prior to the operation. Surgery was also dismissed both in Iran and Germany, which should have given a clear signal to the officials of Raffles Hospital of the risks involved. I would like to see an independent public inquiry to address the validity and professionality of the hospital's decision to proceed with the surgery. This will of course not bring back the lost lives of Ladan and Laleh, but it will give a clear signal of what acceptable and legitimate criteria are for surgeries of this type.

I would also ideally like to see the creation of an external controlling body in every country, whose job will be to oversee that future surgeries are performed in accordance with accepted criteria. This will help secure that risky operations are based upon purely medical considerations, and not on hospitals' individual 'good intentions' or perceptions of right and wrong, prestige attached to a surgery, economic, or marketing factors.

Hamid Karimianpour

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* Twins in a much better place now

Like many others in the world, I too watched as Laleh and Ladan [Need for a happy ending] were going through a life-changing experience. I prayed to God that he would do whatever he felt was the right thing for these two wonderful ladies

I remember 5 years ago when I was visiting Iran with my family and that was the first time I heard of Laleh and Ladan. Their faces were constantly on the television and their warm happy faces brightened up the room.

Although to us humans their death may look sad and seem like a tragedy, I truly believe that God has a reason behind everything that he does and I truly believe that Laleh and Ladan (God rest their souls) are in a much better place right now.

So please don't be upset for them, I know that is not what they want, rejoice in the strength they had and the way they bought all of us together no matter what differences we had. Thank God for your health, for your families and friends health, and thank God for taking them to a better place where they can rest in eternal peace.

Nazanin

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* Sad new helped mollahs

The media attention to the sad loss of the twins which coincided with the anniversary of the student up-rising helped save the mollahs. Don't you think so?

Moftaki

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* Reformists: Dangerous donkeys

No Iranian in their right mind would have any sympathy for this Abadi guy. His punishment should have been 1000 times more severe Guys like Abadi built the foundation of Islamic Republic of Iran. Everybody knows Ayatollahs and Mullahs are a bunch of backward idiots. The only thing that mullahs are good at is brainwashing people. The mullah's weapon is his tongue. The best way to disable and punish a mullah is to cut his tongue.

The culprit of this misery that the Iranian nation is experiencing under Khomeini‚s regime is the "Meli Mazhabi" gang; People like Abadi, Ebrahim Yazdi, Velayati, Bazargan and Banisader. People like these, that some are now turned into "reformists" have done the most damage to Iran. Because these are the people who implemented Khomeini‚s and other mullahs‚ Islamic plans. In those days, Meli Mazhabis were the "salesmen" of Mullahs.

From the outside these Melli Mazhabi people look very progressive. They deceived the masses by using their titles education and university credentials to "sell" and approve the mullahs nonsense Islamic system. Dr so and so from so and so university. However, looks are deceiving.

The truth is the Melli Mazhabis are close-minded. They all Islamists at heart. No amount of education would enlighten them. An Islamist is an islamist is an islamist, no matter what. They are like donkeys with loads of books on their backs, blindly giving rides to mullahs to carry their sinister plans. A donkey is a donkey is a donkey, no matter what. The likes of Abadi; the resr of Melli Mazhabbis, and "reformists" are very very very dangerous donkeys. They kick !!!

S J

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* "Project Norouz" on Albris

Just finished reading your fascinating article in The Iranian [Project Norouz]. Well done.

I checked Alibris.com and they have several used copies of the book available starting at $2.95 (I ordered one and I'm looking forward to reading it)

So if you receive any inquiries from folks trying to locate the
book they can try Alibris.

Steve B

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* Mervilleux

Chere Madam, [Sacred in Fez]

Je ne suis pas sur d'avoir comprendre exatement ce que vous vouliez dire dans voter article, et ca le fait doublement iterecent.

Votre ironie et voter manier d'expression est mervilleux.

Amicalement,

Mani

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* Walking tall

To Mr. Hossein Sabet, the founder and owner of Dariush Grand Hotel in Kish Island:

I am honored to be alive and see your creation. And I am certain that there are millions of Persians, sharing the same feeling.

I was 172 cm tall till 10 minutes ago. Now I am walking as if I am 180 cm.

You are a true son of Persia.

On behalf of many Persians who do not have the opportunity to thank you, I thank you.

Bahram Soroush

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* No clue what freedom means

I read Shokooh Mirzadegi's poem: "Nasl-e tazianeh va Abrisham". what a shame! This is not a poem. Ms. Mirzadegi cannot write poetry or prose. She is simply void of anything valuable to say. Plus the fact that her name has gone down in history as a traitor.

We all remember her confessions and ugly kissing up to the shah thirty years ago in relation to Golsorkhi and Daneshian's "court day".
What I don't understand is why Ms. Mirzadegi insists on writing about freedom when in fact she has no clue what it means!

Please post my reply on your site and please let your website reflect young, fresh and worthy viewpoints instead of repetative nonesense of Ms. Mirzadgi and others like her!

Thanks,

Paria

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* Looking for some photos

I am looking for some photos:

-- The Iranian prime minister Hossein Ali Mansour
-- The Islamic Leader Ayatollah Shariatmadari
-- The Savak secret police logo.

I am doing a research about Iranian history and need some photos ...so I will be very pleased if you help me ... THANKS...

Hilal Salloum

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* Az Danmark

MERCI as site music shoma!!

Mehran az Denmark

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Dear ND, [A better way]

I am in disagreeing with you in your idea of non-obedience being of story you had cited in your letter. In that story the prophet asks from God: "how he gives life to bodies" this story has 2 points: first it is nonsense, and of no use to prophet or anybody else to know how God animates life in bodies because we havewn‚t enough knowledge and energie to do so.

Secondly it is a good example of total obedience because he asks "HOW" not "WHY". Asking "HOW" is act of total obedience and asking " WHY " is act of freedom and liberty and disobeyance. Why God in Islam or other religions is afraid of freedom and Liberty in humans? For example story of "Adam & Eve" God orders angels to Great Adam, and Satan disobeys & is punished, And also orders "Adam & Eve" to not to eat from a fruit and they disobey and are exiled from Eden. This story also is in contradiction with God as discribed in religious definitions and teaches total obedience to everyone.

Why all of religions try to keep people in "IGNORANCE"? Why they are again any changes in societies? There isn‚t any exception. History of Iran and supposed Islamic societies or Europe of middle age and many others are good examples. If you pay attention to religion of people you will find that we are sentenced to be member of this or that religion for the crime of being born in the family that they are sentenced to be member of this or that religion. Their crime is the same as ours.

I am sure that if you study Islam and Coran you will find interesting facts that nobody tells to people. And all dignities of Islam are afraid of people discovering these facts.

Some writers call the revolution of 1979 the Arab Invasion II, but they are wrong bedcause the Arab Invasion after 14 centuries hadn‚t ended yet.

Ali Ardjmand

More letters (July 22, 2003)
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July 22, 2003

Zahra (Ziba) Kazemi
* I will not stop
* Justice is meaningless

Iran
* Show courage
Letter "to mother fuckers"
* Rishashoun khoshk besheh
* Bad language & content
* Ey kaash...
* Delam khonak shod
* Jijare manam...
Protests, students
* Don't want to be manipulated
* National strike

* So much we like to cover up
* Positive spearhead
* Groups for democracy
* Shame to freedom lovers

* Your sense of humor sucks
* When is time to wake up?
Reformists
* Dangerous donkeys
Reza Pahlavi
* Positive spearhead
University Entrance Exam
* Nobody can deny this truth
Twins: Laleh & Ladan
* Finally, two likable Iranians
* Avoid surgery?
* If not Moslem and Iranian
* Passing comets
* In a much better place
* Sad news helped mollahs
Music
* "Azadi": International exposure
* Fantastic choice

* Az Danmark
Homosexuality
* For gay Muslims
* My mother not as reasonable
* Don't hurt him
* Playing with your son's life
Book

* "Project Norouz" on Albris
Satellite jamming
* Out of Havana
Mirzadegi poem
* No clue what freedom means
Sabet, Hotel Dariush
* Walking tall

Help
* First women's newspaper?
* How to become Zartoshty?
* Looking for some photos
West & Human Rights
* Where is Jesus?

Jahanshah Javid
* How sweet
Reminder
* I am better

 

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