|
November 26, 2003 Page 2 * Iranians feel kind of superior I have the impression that the Iranian people are a little bit nationalistic and they feel kind of superior to the rest of the Middle East. We don't forget the important legacy of your ancient empire of Darius, Cyrus, the poetry of Omar Khayyam, and others you can boast about. But don't forget the Babylonians, Asyrians, Acadian and of course Egyptian superpowers that left a wonderful imprint of their high and sophisticated culture. Although I admire the history of the ancient Persian empire - Greece's rival - you can get a feeling by reading some articles from this magazine that I'm attending to a Hitler's speech about the glorious history of Germany accompanied by his favorite musician, the nationalistic Richard Wagner. Alberto PS: By the way, in Turkey they know that Mevlana came from somewhere in Central Asia (Afghanistan?), but he settled down in Konya and felt good living there. * Just a fairy tale Ok, maybe I am just in a bad mood this morning, but where is this woman
from? I have never read so much farce in a single paragraph. This
is an excerpt from a very long article by Tara Bahrampour
in the New Yorker, "Persia
on the Pacific": I think it's just a fairy tale, Iranians leaving LA to return to Iran! specially the ones who don't even have a clue, as the author. Also, the general population in Iran is quite different than the LA's Iranian blond ladies. * Spare us the kinky details Do we really want to know the first time someone had sex? ["One fine day"] This little story, escapade, one night stander, or whatever else you want to call it, was not written beautifully, did not mean anything to the reader, and it wasn't even erotic enough for a porn magazine! All it showed was that a disturbed, nervous, utterly "cheap" girl had sex with someone and later thanks the man for it! Is this what we Iranians have come to America to learn and be proud of ? Does this make us all feel "free" and "modern" now ?! May God help us! So dear Iranian.com, please show a little more taste in choosing material for the site! We expect that from you by now and we depend on your sound judgment. We really don't want to know what happens when every Iranian girl (or boy) has sex for the first time! Spare us the drab and kinky details. Thank you and more success to you in choosing material for your site. * Part-o-pala Do hafteh pish dar iranian.com dastani khundam be esm-e "Dokhtari benam-e Gohar". Paz az khundan-esh, nazdik bud harcheh khordam bala biyaram. In hafteh, az hamun nevisandeh dastan-e "Anfvaan javaani" ra khundam. Por az part-o-pala va jomleh-ha-ye zedd-e-yahudi bud. Chera "Iranian" in mozakhrafat va dorugh-ha-ye zanandeh ra montasher mikonad ? Nevisandeh-ye in dastan-ha ham bi-savadeh va ham bi-ettela az ozay-e Iran. Omidvaram ghalam-ash beshkaneh va digar khiyal-e dastan-nevisi nakoneh. * Wonderful, huh? I hope you are not very sleepy because of the sock's mistery ["It socks"]. I suppose it is an international problem but with this advice maybe you can solve the problem and sleep well. There are some net bags with zippers to keep the socks in the washer machine. And it's a miracle: you put 6 pairs of socks inside and you receive the same 6; you put 10 and you receive the same 10. Wonderful, huh? It solved my problem but if it doesn't solve yours I recommend another strategy: each time you buy socks you buy 2 of the same brand and color that way you can always have a spare when one disappears. The mistery is still a mistery. I wonder if my wash machine broke one day, whether I could see all the socks colected inside it during all these years. Or maybe the socks jut got tired of always being with the same partner and decided to travel and search for a single life, who knows? Thank you for making me smile with your story. Next time I will search your name to read another. Wishing you a happy life, Claudia B * Just wants to be cute? This has got to be one of the worst articles ever on Iranian.com ["It socks"]. This is a subject that comedians and not-so-funny individuals have been grappling for at least 30 years. Does Ms. Habibian have anything new to say, or does she just want to be cute? Of course, there is
also the poor quality of her book "One
Thousand & One
Persian-English Proverbs" to consider... * Four-star hezbollahi Again you publish an article by Dariush Sajjadi ["Jaam-e zahr!"]. This guys is a patented 4-star hezbollahi! Does someone read this rubbish before publication? HELLO, ANYBODY HOME ? What's going on? Do I have to be on the look for a new decent Iranian online magazine? * Kashani betrayed Mossadegh I was so outraged and appalled that somebody was ignorant enough to call the God-damned Ayatollah Kashani "marhoum" (blessed). He should be damned to eternal hell. ["Baazgoshaaee-ye parvandeye 28 Mordaad"] He is one of the most hated sons of bitches in the eyes of those who actually know history. I did not see a name and did not care to waste my precious time reading some horse shit form the nephew of a criminal. The interviewer should really be ashamed for being such a coward. Does he not know that Kashani actually betrayed Mossadegh and kissed the Shah's ass for his own advancement? Does he not know that this dog was after marrying many young women because his little ego did not match his little penis? Didn't he have a large harem of nearly 300 women? How could such a pig be praised as blessed? No member of his family should be given the time of day. Just like the crown cannnibal's family, they are of the same fabric. Kashani turned his back against Mossadegh because as a shrewd mullah (any way you slice it they are all mullahs) realized that he best ally himself with the Shah because powerful Western regimes were after their own interests as well and did not give a shit about the Iranian people. I happen to have a few books in English and in Farsi form that era. One of these books "Mosadegh's letters" was published in Iran which is a historical collection of this great man's letters to many people from an ordinary citizen to ministers and senators. Amazingly there are only a few to Khashani and I bet my bottom dollar that the boys of the Republic conveniently avoided printing them in this book. How do I arrive at this conclusion? Well, in one of the letters he asks Kashani the reason for his criticizing and rejecting a General Vosoogh and Dr Akhavi who are dedicated to helping people without salaries. The other letter congratulates Kashani on his post as speaker of parliament. Do you have to be an Einstein to figure that a stupid little mullah without any political credentials gets such a position by betraying people and kissing asses big time? I just have a tough time coming to terms that in this day and age there are still people this ignorant. Seven years ago I dated an Iranian who was very sweet and honest (but truly ignorant about his country's history) when he mentioned that his mother was related to Ayatollah Kashani, I showed him a book about Kashani and read some of the passages about his real agenda: women as sex objects. His face turned red and I never heard him mention his relation again. I can understand a younger person who has been out of Iran for so long not knowing the truth. But someone in Iran thinking that this professor is going to tell the truth and turn his back on his worthless father? I do not think so. Like father like son! * Tyranny of imposed ideas Nobody would disagree with your article in principle, but it really targets tyranny, which you call monarchy here ["Why I'm not a monarchist"]. You, and most people today I imagine, are against personal rule without clear limits and accountability. But that is not specific to royalty. Autocratic and abusive republics have been the monarchies of the 20th century, while constitutional monarchies are today's republics with royal heads of state. A republic, let us be clear, is a democracy. Because "res publica", or the "common" "wealth" has to be democratic to be common and publicly shared. Only in democracies do the people have a common stake in or shared ownership of public institutions. The Iraq of Saddam, Syria, Libya or various communist states were never republics, whatever they may have claimed, nor popular, nor democratic, because they were not democracies. But Denmark, Sweden or Spain are in
that sense, republics. Saddam was a monarch, but Queen Elizabeth II is
not. And as for those intellectuals, thankfully society has evolved enough not to depend for its enlightenment on a minority of self-regarding, arrogant, dictatorial and mostly left-wing charlatans who constantly talk at an imaginary audience of presumed admirers. Why replace one tyranny with the tyranny of imposed ideas? We have books, the Internet and quality dailies, we do need to be enlightened by "intellectuals". * Inconclusive Mr Imani (or many other email reincarnations of the same), When I saw your chosen title (Why "I" am not a monarchist) I thought I should expect a public denial from a well-known Liberal figure of grea(t standing such as Chomsky, Vidal, Miller or a satirist such a Buchwald (not to mention Michael Moore or Woody Allen). Instead I saw an obscure name such as yours and thought: why should it matter if Amil Imani (or AI's of this world) is not a monarchist? Well, let me reassure you that I don't think the monarchists are going to declare a week (or even a minute) of mourning now that you have made such a public protestation against their cause. More likely, they may have a cause to celebrate. Why? Because you can't utter a single original word that has not been said before, albeit to no effect, or cause the uninitiated to go: "Wow"! Instead you seek legitimacy by copying a collection of, out of context, second-hand quotations from Sophocles, Calderon, Rutherford, and Lawrence, down to Calhoun Mitchell and Plato, interspersed with a bunch of cheap rhetoric, this time of course of by yourself. Iranians of Tudehi background, used to believe that the history of the world began with the storming of the Winter Palace in October 1917 in Russia. Now their offspring, disappointed with their fathers' lack of vision, switched to capitalism, hence became fervent Americano-philes, and have moved their year-zero-marker some hundred and forty years back to 1776 and would like us to believe that the history of the world began by the American Declaration of Independence! Can't they ever get their misplaced sense of history corrected? * Not in the same league Dear Mr. Nazer, [Mossadegh-e Dovom] I agree with your point on the leadership council as opposed to excessive power for individual leaders. But may I respectfully ask you to reconsider placing Bush in the same group as JFK or Bill Clinton and so on? You are well aware of public opinion specially among the educated. Mohamad NavabNavab, More letters (November 26, 2003) |
Archive By
subject Iran/Mideast
|
|