Meet Keiko

Why the idea of “obliterating” seventy million people does not make you shudder?

Meet Keiko
by Fatemeh-Keshavarz
29-May-2008
 

Twenty Years ago, when we first moved to St. Louis

I met this lively graduate student named Keiko

After twenty odd years, it is hard to recall details beyond her round face framed by short shiny black hair

But I remember the way she moved through the building with a combination

of agility and grace, in bursts of short successive moves -

much the way robins would explore a tree (without making noise or knocking anything down)

A year after we had met, Keiko died – suddenly – of lung cancer

***

“I didn’t know Keiko smoked!” I said to the teary-eyed friend who brought the news of her death.

“She didn’t,” he said rather hurriedly, and added after a silence, “she was born in Hiroshima.”

Neither of us said much after that.

Keiko’s round face and shiny black hair have come back, often, these past few days

And every time, I have caught myself drafting a letter in my head, a letter I know I will not put in the mail:

“Dear Senator Clinton!

I write with a personal request.

If we were careless enough to hand you the key that opens the Oval Office

And with it as many war fronts across the globe as you wish

Please do yourself a favor, throw it away and do not look for it!

You may want to find out first

Why the idea of “obliterating” seventy million people does not make you shudder

And if you have the time to pass through St. Louis Missouri,

Please stop by and meet Keiko Yamakawa

Her round face smiling from a hand-made picture frame

Ashes of Hiroshima in her lungs”

St. Louis, Missouri

April 29, 2008


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Jaleho

Dear Ms. Keshavarz

by Jaleho on

I loved your book, Jasmine and Stars: Readimg more than Lolita in Tehran.

It is a pleasure to see you on this site!


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I love you

by Anonymous-haha (not verified) on

Dr. Keshavarz!

I really admire your work


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How soon people forget?

by David2 (not verified) on

About Japan- Anybody here hear about the "rape of Nanking", just one horrific atrocity's among many the Japanese committed? No? May I suggest reading a book, lol.

Simply put, the Japanese were begging to be nuked.

Don't forget it was your Iranian President threating to use nukes in the fist damn place. I love Japanese people and Persian people but, evil can not be allowed to flourish, continue committing atrocity's, prosper, profit... You will learn soon enough.

As you know it is your government supplying men, arms, ammo and are causing all the fighting/deaths in Iraqi.... You will learn soon enough.


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Compassion

by Alex Patico (not verified) on

Dear Fatemeh Keshavarz and the rest of you,

Yes, Obama might surprise us and be caught up in the Great American Power Syndrome, but he's earned a chance to show he's different.

Yes, governance in Tehran is far from what we would wish it to be, but that is not the issue.

Bombs don't probe the political correctness, or even the innocence or guilt of those they obliterate.

Is there anyone in Hiroshima who says "I love the Americans because of what they did here"?

Was there any war that had everyone saying afterward: "that was better than peace"?

I hope that other women will read Lolita in Tehran, but even more I hope that young women in Portland will read Rumi. I hope that guys in Rasht will hear Stevie Wonder, but I also hope that guys in Tallahassee will hear Googoosh and Um Kalthoum and Maria Monte.

Brava, Fatemeh! Keep being human.


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Dr. Keshavarz's poem

by Artemesia (not verified) on

Congratulations to Dr. Keshavarz for receiving a Peabody award for "The Ecstatic Faith of Rumi," that was featured on two episodes of NPR "Speaking of Faith."

On a recent trip to Iran, on the flight from Frankfurt to Tehran I sat next to a young Iranian woman who spent most of the trip in sad silence. She said she had been visiting her brother in the hospital in Germany. From time to time she drew out an envelope and studied the X Ray photos inside; I glimpsed the chest X Rays, sensed her deep distress, and composed in my mind the narrative I was witnessing first hand. I was sitting next to a victim of chemical warfare, one of those persons the US had participated in destroying "over there" so we wouldn't have to "fight them over here." This young woman's anguish at the suffering of her brother was real, it was not a media slogan and it would not disappear with a tap of the click-by media.

I asked the young woman to please forgive my country for what we had done. But I don't know how anyone can forgive.
Jesus said, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do."

But we know, we know what we are doing and threatening to do.

Father, there is no forgiveness for us.


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Thank you for this poem

by Mack (not verified) on

Dr. Keshavarz,
The spirit of caring that infused your published literary memoirs shines through this poem as well. We need Iranians and Americans like you to keep hope alive.


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Hopefully, no more murders and destruction (war)

by Anonym (not verified) on

“If Bush and Cheney spark a wider war, incredibly it will be a Democratic-controlled Congress that paved the way for such reckless behavior overseas, just as it did in October of 2002, when Tom Daschle was majority leader.

Last September, the Senate asked the White House to declare the Iranian armed forces a "terrorist" organization. The vote was 76 to 22, much like the 77-to-23 vote that authorized the war in Iraq.”

From the article:

//www.huffingtonpost.com/lincoln-chafee/iran-...


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Reading a comment posted here..

by Michael HongKongi (not verified) on

The warmonger and pro-hate individuals
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Its' very interesting to read the spin that certain fanatics want to put on everything, the idea of a people and country to be bombed, destroyed, or nuked doesn't mean anything to them. They very slyly and indirectly want to justify and encourage it to happen.

All they care for is to put their spin on everything for the sake of their own fascist and fanatical personality and dark view towards the world and life. After all in their own feeble minds, they consider themselves above other humanbeings.


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Unites States of Amnesia

by Anonymous-2 (not verified) on

Very well said. Thank you very much.

How quickly the US forgets the devastating impact of its horrofic wars on millions of people around the world.


Mehdi

Hilary is insane - Warmongers don't like Obama

by Mehdi on

Great write-up!


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very sad story but also very

by Anonymous106 (not verified) on

very sad story but also very funny when you relate it to hillary clinton! If there is a chance that Hillary will drop a bomb on Iran, then Obama will as well. So please don't confuse yourselves.

the only thing we know how to do is to be dramatic.


Abarmard

very nice

by Abarmard on

Great and short. thanks very much. How soon people forget!


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Fatemeh, if you wanna blame

by Farhad Kashani (not verified) on

Fatemeh, if you wanna blame anyone, blame the IRI for its non-stop warmongering rhetoric. We have been incredibly lucky so far that we haven't been nuked yet. Once you have an illegal and fascist regime who is out to destroy civilization as we know it, all you gonna make are enemies, not friends. Don't you forget it took us through the longest war of the 20th century from 1980-1988?


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Thank you for sharing this with us

by hanna (not verified) on

Dear Fatemeh:

Thank you very much for sharing this sad story with us. Unfortunately, politicians forget the human cost of wars and the barbarism associated with such statements.

Best regards