I was standing in my living room, transfixed by the events displayed on the television screen. My one-year-old son was sitting in his high chair, waiting to be fed. Occasionally, he hit the tray with his spoon or goo goo gaa gaaed to get my attention. I was watching the twin towers collapsing, not knowing that my life will be changed from that moment forward forever.
When the dust had settled, and the initial shock had somewhat subsided, I began thinking about the events of 9/11. What would force a group of people to commit such a horrific crime against another nation? Who was Osama Bin Laden and what did he want to accomplish? Soon it was clear to me that I had more questions than answers and must search for the truth on my own.
To answer such questions, I knew instinctively that one must not solely rely on the information disseminated by governments or the corporate media. So my journey of discovery became stolen moments of poring over books and essays at home or work. I had to learn about the history of long gone events and not so distant encounters. The wars fought by the Crusaders opened my eyes to the reality of severed trust between Christians and Muslims while the Battle of Tours introduced me to the halted conquest of Europe by Islam. The return of Jews from Diaspora, the establishment of the State of Israel, and the unwavering support of the Jewish nation by the United States uncovered another piece of the puzzle. The communist invasion of Afghanistan and the reaction of the Muslim world filled in the remaining blanks and left me at awe of how naïve American policy makers had been.
At the end of this journey, I had but one conclusion to make: The United State’s choice of friends and foes around the world had been governed by a juvenile axiom often exercised by children in a school yard: “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” It was hard to believe but this was the best the Yale and Oxford graduates of American political landscape could come up with. To add insult to injury, the more I learned about the perpetrators of 9/11 events, the more I was convinced that America’s foreign policy was directly responsible for arming and training such extremists in their Jihad against the Soviet Union.
Then came the days of self reflection and soul searching. I began thinking about the history of my country (Iran) and the interference of foreign powers in our politics. I wondered what my life and the lives of millions of Iranians would have looked like if Mosaddeq had not been removed from power in a coup d’état supported and funded by the British and U.S. governments. Would I be living in a foreign land in exile now? Why is my country’s freedom mutually exclusive with the prosperity of the American nation?
Finally, at a moment of utter clarity, while reciting out loud Thomas Jefferson’s words as inscribed in the American Declaration of Independence from the Great Britain, I realized that there could be no “separate but equal station” amongst the oppressor and the oppressed. In 1776, the American Founding Fathers concluded the reality of an inevitable war with the Great Britain before authoring and signing that historical document. Until such time as Iranian intellectuals can unite to inscribe our independence from all foreign powers, until such time as Iranian political factions can recognize the unalienable rights of the masses to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, until such time … Iran will be the staging grounds for thugs and tyrants alike …
For the most part, I kept my political opinions to myself and rarely engaged in discussions even in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. This old habit of mine stems from my life in Iran where from childhood the young are taught to rein their opinions of the authorities and are often reminded of the fact that the walls have ears. [edited out]
Last week, seven years after the events of September 11, 2001, at a family gathering, my eight-year-old son asked me if I remembered that day and wanted to know why we were attacked. I was tempted to tell him about the Crusaders, the Muslim invasions, the Battle of Tours, the birth of the State of Israel, the Communist invasion of Afghanistan and the rest. But I resisted the inkling and instead replied: “Because we called them Sand Niggers.”
