These days, I am seeing more and more cases of extremism which are not from radical Islamic people but from supposedly liberal people. Couple days ago, a facebook friend whom I have addded without really knowing, thinking that he is a reader of my blogs had an interesting post. In his facebook post, he had written about Ibrahim Yazdi’s life history and he had much negative to say about Yazdi. But my issue was not with this person’s criticism of Yazdi but at the end, he listed tens of names of poeple whom should be criticized since they have asked for better treatment of Yazdi by IRI. Among names, I saw names of people who have worked for human rights in Iran including Shirin Ebadi and several other peopele whom I admire greatly for all they have done for causes such as freedom and human rights in Iran. Another case of criticism which is unwarranted in my opinion, was issue of jokes and why we should not tell Rashti jokes.
New canddate for criticism is names. It alway starts with something easily agreeable. The fact that if you name your kid certain names, they have better chance of becoming successful in Art world. OK, this is certainly agreeable but after few exchanges, the person starts criticizing many names and demonizing parents who give such names to their kids. Persian poems have already been subject of criticism. So in past month, poems, jokes and names have all been criticized. What is next? Mulla Nasreddin’s stories? It is as if some poeple do not have any better cause. Also it is much easier and takes less courage to tell someone that they should not tell Rashti joke or name their kids Eskandar as opposed to writing poem/article/story against IRI. Some of the people writing against poems, jokes and names have good intentions. They point to the fact that some issues can not wait for a just government in Iran and need to be addressed now. I agree but these manufactured issues are not my issues, specially when in one case, I realized that lies were even used to make writer of certain article seem to be an expert in the subject matter by giving the writer a university professor title which was fabricated.
It will probably not end with poems, jokes and names. You just sit back and look at what will be the next candidate(s) for criticism. This kind of thinking (explained above) reminds me of Maoists and how blindly following this path of crticizing and trying to change culture of a country in extreme ways in a very short time is attributed correctly to Pol Pot and we know how that one ended.
even Pol Pot. Note below link which is a poem I wrote about criticism of poems and jokes, I should probably change it to add names to it too or it may require a whole new poem about people who criticize names :).
http://iranian.com/main/blog/anahid-hojjati-98
