Photo caption: I took this photo for Maz Jobrani 😉
In response to Iran, a hope
One day we will be happy to call Iran our home without any reservations. That is if we live that long! As the saying goes; home is where the heart is and not where there is democracy!
One day I hope Iranians in Iran can have genuine dialogue among them. Forget about dialogue of civilizations or with other countries. We need genuine dialogue among ourselves so we can understand and tolerate each other. Without tolerance there will never be peace and one group will always try to dictate to other groups.
One day I hope fashion (or lack thereof 🙂 will not be based on law so that men and women can wear what they want. It is a shame and a crime (at least a misdemeanor) if you ask me to force women to wear mandatory clothes (not just a headscarf) to work in Government and private offices in the heat of the summer. It is torture going home after a hard day of work in a hot summer afternoon using public transportation.
One day I hope men and women can go to beaches and hot springs together as a family and not in shifts!
One day I hope travelling to Iran will become easy for everyone with every passport including Iranians who hold foreign passports.
One day I hope Iranians won’t worry about foreign powers anymore and know how to deal with them like a foreign power themselves.
That day is not today. Today Iran is like a reality show. There are threats left and right, inside and outside Iran. Some think they can destroy Islam and make things “easy”. Yeah right! Not that there is anything wrong with it! But this is not a dialogue it is intolerance for the sake of tolerance, do as I say not as I do. Some people are quick to reject fatwas issued by religious leaders in Iran but are quick to issue fatwas of their own variety (not religious of course not 🙂
People in Iran are tired of the religious rule. They don’t even know how to imagine an Iran without the religious rule. How would people react if one day an Iranian man and woman came to streets in shorts and tube top? Is that ever going to work? How do we make it work?
I think it’d be good to lighten up on general slogans of peace and democracy and instead try to be more specific and support more tangible causes. Let’s not call millions of people Islamists because then you have to explain how to deal with them. Should we line them up and kill them? Like when Will Ferrell used to imitate Bush on Saturday Night Live (when he was Governor of Texas and there were record number of executions) by going deer hunting and telling his dad (Bush senior) I want to KILL IT!! Calling people Islamists is like when we’re called Terrorists in our adopted countries.
The day you can call yourselves truly tolerant is the day! You may be knowingly or unknowingly intolerant. Make sure you know which one you really are. The hope for that day is today.
