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blind and illiterate with an agenda

Any one who like mr. Sobhani "has no idea" what is being said here is either blind or illiterate. because the statements are very clear. as far as 'tribal attacks' this is more like a general fatigue about illogical and bigoted commentary than anything else. If you can't read the farsi then have someone translate it for you. It is beautiful poetry and not the sign of cowardice. I think using farsi on 'iranian'.com should not surprise anyone...

and no one enjoys preferential treatment here. What you say about moderators is paranoid. This is the most equal opportunity site you can find on the web!

but then again defending such an indefensible atrocity (Israel's bombing of Ghaza) and such an asinine ideology (Zionism)would require a paranoid if not twisted mind.

If you do not even know Farsi or bother to want to make the effort of knowing it, then how can you argue about the nuances in the general character of the Iranian people? Unless your arguments are purely rhetorical, aimed at defending Israeli actions at any price, and quite removed from wanting to understand Iran and Iranians.

You tell us not to read Edward Said. I tell you to go read Israelis themselves who abhor the actions of their government and army as much as I do! If you don't want to read Said then pray read this:
//avners.blogspot.com/

va salam nameh tamam!

Well IR and friends

I just wished the reasons you had were at least good enough for you to dare say it in English. You lot evidently even have moderating and other kinds of privileges the rest of us lack in this site, yet you are still incapable of responding and frightened of words. What does this say about you? Why are you so intimidated by words?
-----

No worries Keyvan. It's a mob we are facing. All this is quite expected. It's good to expose what certain people are like every once in a while, especially the ones boasting about how "progressive", "universalist" and "against" racism they are. ;-)

Dear Zion bebakhsid (sorry)

I would like to apologize for this type of tribal attacks on you. I think this Gaza fighting has made many here a little irrational. I have no Idea what they are talking about.

Thanks IR...

Thanks again dear IR. You're one of my favorite characters here... I like your brisk comments. I meant that I will be posting less often due to personal business. My apologies to Ms. Sabetty for off-topic exchanges...

Setareh jaan

Well written piece ,as always,though I don't agree with a few points made in it.

sepaas

Ebi aka Haaji

Re:Last word to Zion

 Iranian Reader aziz :

Jaanaa sokhan az zabaane maa miguee!!.

Well said comments.

Sepaas

Ebi aka Haaji

Thank you Setareh jaan for

Thank you Setareh jaan for writing about our faults and imperfections as Iranians. I wish we had a solution to making the majority of Iranians less racist/arrogant. The logic on the Palestinian issue is extremely sad and disappointing since what is unfair is unfair no matter who does it to whom.I too started to see Palestinian point of view after doing a project on Israeli-Arab relations in college. I am sure the more people learn about the Palestinians' story, the less one-sided they will stay and the more they will question Israeli actions.
Your writing pieces have often been thought provoking.Thank you for at least bringing this issue up. Hopefully you have made a few people think twice about their stance.

Last word to Zion

The reason I call you creature is this:

To kaz mehnat-e digaran bighami

Nashayad ke naamat nahand adami

Ajam again!

Registering is not like joining the club or getting preferential treatment. It's just a question of logistics. It takes time for the moderators to screen anonymous comments and sometimes they lose track of things. Really, don't get put off.

Dear Iranian Reader

Believe it or not, I am a human being too so you really don't need to refer to me as a creature. I have not been screaming 'anti-semitism' and I have not condoned, justified or promoted genocide, theft, ethnic cleansing and the like. I have merely made a simple observation and asked a question about it. Why does this hurt people as intelligent and decent as you and your friends so much?

Oligarchy?

Dear IR, thank you for your kind words. But I can't see what one's registration should have to do with the prefrential treatment with regard to posting of his/her comments! This sounds like apartheid to me!

I know that Mr Javid has not made a commitment to give everyone equal exposure, yet making preference based on one's registration (or lack thereof) is contrary to my initial perception of Iranin.com as an "online Iranian community!" It would rather be like a country club, with premium service exclusive to members only! It has the stench of oligarchy to it!

Iranian Reader

Ghorboon-e dahanet!

We should all ignore the ignorant.  Push the ignore button on her, as someone suggested and many have started to do!  Anyone who has debated with her has eventually come to the same conclusion.  Her mission is only one of spreading hate.  Ignore her and move on with your discussions.

Tarbiat na-ahl ra chon gerdakan bar gonbad ast...

Blame it on nationalism from the Shah era

The propaganda fed to the people about the "Aryan" theory etc still hangs back from those times, my parents even blab about it during dinner.

Nicely written. I hate the IRI, if I could give my life to have them removed from power, I would.

That does NOT mean I have to somehow see Israel as an "ally" or friend of Iran as many as my Iranian brothers and sisters on this site write or picture it to be. I hope they come to their senses.

Our future belongs to the half a billion "arabs" living around us which we have blood and cultural ties with (thats the truth, wether you like it or not). Not a 6 million vacation colony that is currently running the largest apartheid prison camp in the world.

Being "arab" is a complicated term anyways. "Arab" nations have as much problems with their identity as we do, and they have alot of inner racism. Persian gulf arabs for example dont like Syrian or Lebanese arabs, Ive heard and vice versa. Pluss, there are alot of Syrian and Lebanese nationalists that clinge to their pre arab era, as much as we do...

So this arab/persian childish thing should be put aside, the foreigners should leave, and the people in the region should fend for themselves together. Thats the future.

One Too Much Fundamentalist Training "Iranian Reader"

"It's a good thing you're anonymous otherwise some day you'd have a lot of explaining to do"....

What are you threatening people for posting their opinion here Mr. Iranian Reader? That is wonderful man. Where did you get your training? In Taliban camps?

Thanks Setareh and Irandokht!

Truth is, I got tired of seeing intelligent and decent people like you wasting your time responding to this creature.

I saw this Indian proverb in an Arundhati Roy book: "You can wake up someone who is asleep but you can't wake up someone who pretends to be asleep."

Move to California Setareh....

....and you'll be surrounded by anti-Israel "intellectuals" like yourself. You won't need to miss any party any more. You will feel safe and sound among your likes. By the way,

Yaa makon baa peelbaanaan doosti
Yaa banaa kon khanehi dar khorde peel

If you can't engage in an intelligent discussion or debate, why bother placing an article here to begin with? You seem all bothered and riled up by a few comments that are not in line with yours. Aren't you just proving Zion's points about possibility of being a racist by responding the way you have been responding?

Iranian Reader

You should write a lot more often!

IRANdokht

Dear Iranian Reader

Yes! Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The gall some people have! Unbelievable!

One too many Spielberg movies...

I think we should collectively ignore this Zion, whoever and whatever he is (I use "he" for brevity). He thinks this is a Spielberg movie in which he is standing up to the Gestapo. Truth is, faced with real Gestapo he would probably wet his pants and denounce his heritage. Not that I would ever blame anybody for doing that!  

Truth is, Mr./Ms. Zion, the writing is on the wall for your kind of moral grandstanding. We've certainly had enough of this vacilation between delusional rectitude and snivelling victimhood. You can scream "anti-semitic" till you're blue in the face. You have blown it, man. You could have made friends of people like us. Instead, you've chosen to condone, justify, and promote genocide, theft, ethnic cleansing, torture, deceit.... all those good things that increasingly define the state of Israel. It's a good thing you're anonymous otherwise some day you'd have a lot of explaining to do. Some things are indefensible.

Yo, Ajam...

just register, man. Then it won't take long for your comments to appear. We don't want to lose you!

Setareh

I would not have needed to repeat my point, if you had addressed it. Thanks for all the nice words about me personally, but I'm afraid you still did not address the point at all. What am I to do? I told you, if you don't like to talk about it, fine. Just say so with honesty.

-----
Oh, and when you say something like " You are a zionist before you are anything else" that sort of implies you see being zionist as something a bit different from having an opinion or an ideology. You know, just saying...

Zion you are repeating yourself

Your 'observation' is argumentative and purely rhetorical. Your adamant repeating of your views betrays a lack of debating ability, clear logic and articulation as well as arrogance. Zionists are not a 'people' like the Palestinians are! Nor are they a race. Zionism is an ideology not a nationality! I have every right to disagree with it or dislike it. It would not make me any more racist than if I disagreed with Nazism or Communism! All your 'observations' and 'points' are fallacious. I DO NOT debate with sloganeers who love to hear themselves!
Yours is the discourse of bullies. We do not share the same language or grammar.

Setareh

'[your name] along with your comments it shows that you are a zionist before you are anything else.'
Even if we agree that the last part was a meaningful thing to say, wouldn't it be fair to say that you have the same attitude towards "zionists" that you attribute to your friends and family regarding palestinians?

'I wouldn't dream of converting a adamant zionist!'
Do you engage in debates in order to convert people?

'also you seem to think that those who don't agree with you are racist and prejudice and those who do not are not. '
I do nothing of the sort. You hardly know me at all and yet you can easily make such claims. What does this say about you?

'so you insinuate that I am racist while you and the people I described in my article are not'
I did not insinuate anything. I made an observation, and asked you about it. The observation was that you consistently ascribe the opinions of all those you mentioned in your piece, the ones you disagreed with, to looks and racial origins. I wondered if that actually revealed something about the racist presuppositions on your part. It is a completely fair, reasonable and relevant question. If you feel uneasy to answer it just say so. Do not try to find excuses to avoid this debate.

No!

True Iranians are not racist, their religion is. Your examples about iran is not racism, they are bad attitudes and bad jokes, but what islam/arabs are doing in Darfar IS racism. Arabs also spent tens of billions of $s helping saddam defeat iran and pour chemicals on iranians, that is racism the same way that nazis were. Even at the pinnacle of iran-iraq war, iran did not bomb iraqi cities.

If bad jokes are racism, so be it; but that is nothing compared to real racists that act like saddam towards iran, or islamic republic leaders towards kurds, or arabs in Darfar, or esraeelis and palestinians towards each other, or japanese towards indigenous people of islands, or france in algeria, or ....

Blame real culprit, islam and islamic republic, NOT iran.

one last time

Rajab,

I will say this one last time so that you might understand it clearly, there is a vast difference between the actions of governments and political parties and the people, epecially the ruling class that oppresses the masses. Arabs should not be held accountable for the actions of those they have risen up against countless times in the name of justice. Nor should we be held accountable for the injustices committed "in the name of Islam." That's like saying that all Muslims and Arabs are responsible for 9-11. Regarding the sensitivity towards Islam: what religion has not been used to oppress people? Christianity? Judaism? Shall I go on? Again, a distinction must be made between the actions of various parties using nationality, religion etc as a smokescreen. I would hope that you could see past these one dimensional labels. I do not deny the suffering of Iranians under various regimes, nor do I condone the actions of Arab goverments, or any goverment for that matter.

Repeat posting!

Since I'm not sure if this posting makes it through or not, please forgive me if there are double postings of the same text on my part. Lately, my posts are deleted or held back for hours before their allowed through which makes them seem out of pace with the current trend of discussion. So, I try not to post as much in the future, for I can see the writing on the wall clearly. But just in case this one makes it through, here is my point:

Thank you dear Ms. Sabetty for sharing your experiences. Indeed, many of us have come across similar situations where one would have to make the difficult choice between remaining silent out of respect for the hosts of a gathering, or speak out in response to ignorant remarks of a loud-mouth bigot, hence being reflected as supporting the IRI for refusing to subscribe to an inhuman racist agenda! As if due to IRI’s support for Palistinians, every Iranian "patriot" has to be against them! Isn’t that reactionary? What about South Africa? Did Iranians have to condone the apartheid system because IRI condemned it?!

I believe such racism is in a part institutionalized in our culture, and in another due to a Social Darwinist attitude adopted mainly by monarchists and the far right to align with the current trend of "war on terror" propaganda. It is desperate times, and it call for desperate measures!

P.S. There are about nine million Palistianains of different creeds, beliefs and political inclinations, some of whom may indeed have supported Saddam Hussein. Is that to imply that all Palistinains are at fault? Is every Iranian to blame for Mojahedin’s support for Saddam?!

Again...

Shia L: I agree with the first part of your argument. The second part of your argument, I do not agree with since you may not completely be familiar with the events of the last 30 years, pretty much all of our life times, based on which we make a judgment and open old wounds. You said:

If Iranian culture is under attack it is at the hands of Western culture through something called Globalization. We Arabs did not invent the idea of hair bleaching and nose jobs... And as for attempting to gloss over the fact that saying "Arab culture is lower than Iranian culture" is not racist, try again.

No, iranian culture is NOT under attack from globalization, and even if it, it is nothing compared to what people face every day. Bleached hair and nose job does not harm anyone and it is a personal matter. That is NOT our problem.

The iranian regime has been hiding behind islam for 30 years and committing all sorts of crimes under the disguise of islam says so. At the same time sympathizing with palestinians in a way that has endangered the country of iran.

The islamic republic has executed upward of 40,000 people in 30 years, mostly calling them "mofseo-fel-arz", some with no crimes but for speaking against regime. They have looted the treasury and stolen the fund that did NOT belong to them for arab causes. The leader (khamenei) and president (ahmadinejad) often appear in public with palestinian checkered head cover in public. On the other hand, during iran-iraq war, all arab nations (syria excepted) supported saddam and placed a heavy cost on iranians. That is why peole are sensitive towards islamic culture since it is has been used as tool of oppression and corruption.

As for saying "Arab culture is lower than Iranian culture", nobody said such a thing, but it is not hard to see for an iranian that islmaic culture that has been presented to public in the past 30 years has been nothing but disaster for iranirans. Now how do you relate that to arabs, your guess is as good as mine.

It is NOT a matter of who is better and who is not. Yes we do have problem in that whole region, but in case of iran, the crimes of the regime is legalized under sharia law, and people associate islam with arabs more than with indigenous iranians. It is simply a mild reaction.

As for arabs in general, I still think that people have no animosity towards arabs in general, but relate islam to arab culture. The islam that was viewed positively before 30 years ago and is viewed negatively today as a result of the 30 years of experience. Otherwise, deep inside, there is a connection with arabs of the region that does not exist with the western world.

Ms. Sabety makes conclusions based on minor incidents and her ideological tendencies. She does not really know the difference between racism and bad rhetorics and she does not live in iran to have day to day empathy with iranian people within. She tries to apply shallow western standards on two cultures (iranian and islamic-arab) thousands of years old. She probably has not seen (or heard) real western type of racism which in fact may be in play in palestine after all. She does not know that the same people whom she accuses of racism have all sorts of races living side-by-side with no violence perpetrated upon one group (except when religion gets in the way), and she does not know that the same people used to sending their kids to Lebanon to get educated only a generation ago. Her observations are shallow and her conclusions are deep and ideological. That is why I disagreed with her.

doostan

very nice article indeed. Setareh is touching on a very sensitive and complex subject, and of course it is going to be difficult to satisfy all sides.

I would like to add a few of my personal observations through working and living in a number of regional countries:

- the Persian/Arab divide is real and exists on both sides. it is not just persians who show 'bad attitude' in this regard. both cultures display a romantic and exaggerated sense of superiority, and not just against each other. this is related to a history of imperialism, which justified itself through a 'racist' outlook. both sides are also highly fragmented and diverse, and try to achieve 'unity' by attacking a 'foreigner'. Arab hatred toward the turks is greater than their grief toward iranians.

- iranians are perceived as being 'arrogant' by most of our neighbours. we are also seen as people who talk too much! i tend to agree with the latter. nothing gives me a bigger headache than an iranian party! :) 

- the perception of iranians as 'arrogant' is a little unfair (since our imperialist past is long gone), in that we tend to be opinionated people who believe we have something to say about the world and its affairs. it is not 'us' who have the wrong attitude, but 'they' should be a little more like 'us'. in other words, people everywhere should have the confidence and self-belief to speak up.

- a surprising impression: afghans (in afghanistan) are not half as angry with iranians as one would expect from the way we treated afghan refugees. most likely this is because they were treated better in iran than they were elsewhere.

- the sunni-shia divide is real, and it is mainly the sunnis who look down on the shia rather than the other way. the rise of the shia in recent centuries may have something to do with this. talk of a 'shia crescent' by jordan's king abdallah was a clear case of unnecessary divisions being sown into muslim countries. outsiders also fan the flames in this respect - something that is very clear in Lebanon, where the desire of the shia to gain greater and fairer political rights is depicted as a 'threat'.

- saddam was a major factor is reviving persian/arab animosity. even in the way he was executed, there was a lot of bitterness among arabs against iran that was seen as the 'victor' in his death. and it was not just palestinian mercenaries involved. yemen also dispatched fighters to attack iran, while most other arab nations provided funds to saddam. the biggest of these was kuwait, which turned out to be the most ironic of all.

- persian gulf states have a love/hate relationship with iran. despite all the noise, iranians are among the highest paid foreigners in dubai.

- both arabs and iranians live too much in the past. some talk about 'cyrus' like they knew him! same with hassan, hossein and ali! and herein lies the weakness of some of our 'patriots' who refuse to see that the IRI is Iran today. dismiss it all we like, the concrete reality is not going away through wishful thinking. dunno how that last one got in there, but it seemed relevant!

Peace!

Bravo!

Thanks for taking time and witting about these things.
It is very infuriating to see as you put it (some) Iranians are so blatantly racist that support crimes of ZioNazis against Palestinians.

Cheers,
MD

Hajminator

I loved the video. LOL. So funny! Thank you.