Uneven playing field
Being from Iran is not easy, and the government is no help
December 15, 2004
iranian.com
As a touring musician, promoting a brand new album,
the one constant in my life is travel. Last week alone I journeyed
through several cities in southern United States, flew across
the Atlantic to Paris, and by tomorrow night I will be back in
America, just in time to fall asleep in my home in
New York City.
Over the last few months of travel whether my eyes glanced
at the cover of a national magazine, or whether I'd been browsing
through a local paper, regardless of the state or country that
I was in and regardless of the religion or politics favored by
those masses, the headlines were often the same and something
to the effect of: "Iran's hard-liners are back", or "Iran is
in a nuclear standoff with the West".
Reading passed the headline pointed out that the militant Iran
of my childhood has returned and the Islamic conservatives backed
by the Basij Islamic militia have wiped away the reform-minded
and are once again standing defiantly against Democracy and the
West; and Imam Khomeini lives on even more powerfully in memory
than perhaps he may have been in reality. When buried under such
news there would be a mention of Iran's willingness to negotiate
its nuclear standoff, I would exhale with relief.
At a time like this, after a quarter-century of unfavorable
international public relations, Iran does not stand as a nation
trusted by the West's governments or by the West's people. How
can it when to this day Iranians such as Hossein Shariatmadari,
the boss of the state owned newspaper Keyhan, are making
statements like this; "firing a bullet into his damned
blasphemous head is an absolute necessity." His
target
being Manouchehr
Fouladvand, an exiled Iranian television presenter, echoing
the fatwa on Salman Rushdie.
Can you imagine the outrage if the head of the BBC made a comment
like this about an ex-patriot who mocked the Church of England?
Such comments are not even made in isolation. Last month a female
Iranian MP suggested that if ten prostitutes were arrested and
executed then the government would have "dealt with the problem
once and for all."
Last night, as I walked passed the corner of Avenue Kleber
and Rue de Presbourg in Paris, I couldn't help but feel happy
for the cold lone prostitute waiting for a customer as she has
done for at least the last fifteen years (that is how long I
remember her being there). I am not sure what the laws are in
France but one thing is for sure: considering her longevity,
execution is not an option.
The truth is that Iranians, or at least a large portion of
the 800,000 in America and the countless more in Europe, Canada
and Australia who like myself have been raised and educated in
the West, who are working and paying taxes in the West, and in
all
senses
living honestly trying to create a life in the West, must admit
that the decisions of a government to whom we feel no affinity
at all, is creating an uneven playing field for us in which just
to win the trust and acceptance of the people with whom we team
is made harder. After all, they read the same headlines we do!
 If you are one of those Iranians who is right now getting ready
to pounce at me and leave messages such as "You are not a proud
Persian" on my band's website's bulletin board, spare yourself
the energy. I am a very proud Iranian and I come from a very
proud Iranian family. We did not flee as soon as the revolution
whispered. I watched it from my bedroom window outside the Jam
e Jam. We did not flee when the first bombs landed either. We
dealt with fear as it took root. We stood, we witnessed, and
we waited.
One thing, however, that we did NOT do was to ever join in
the public chants of "America is the Great Satan". My father
and mother were both educated in the West and even as an eight-year-old
boy who had never left Iran I did not believe in such propaganda;
and thankfully so. Today I live in America, and even
though the playing field is not even, at least I can say that
there is a playing field.
Let me put it to you this way: if I lived in Iran right now,
not even the liberal paper Shargh would be able to print
what I am writing without obeying the rigorous censorship laws
and
the red lines drawn around the freedom of expression. If you
don't believe me you should read the Human
Rights Watch report of secret squads that
operate under the authority of the Judiciary and use torture
to force internet journalists to write "self-incriminatory
confession letters".
America is the land of dreams in which mine are coming true.
England is where I mostly grew up and the streets of London are
where I still feel most at home; but Iran is in my blood in exactly
the same way Italian-Americans, especially those from Sicily,
gather around the television screen every time The Godfather is being shown, as if watching their own history, and Irish-Americans
celebrate their Irish blood every time they drink someone under
the table.
As an English-American-Iranian, or whatever subcategory I fit
into, more than anything I wish for real diplomacy in Iran. I
want my contemporaries living there to be able to witness the
freedom of decision that I have practiced for over two decades
in London, Paris, and New York. But, unlike some pro-West Iranians
that according to Time magazine believe, "a showdown
with the U.S. is just what is needed to make the mullahs' regime
crumble",
I do not want war. I lived through a war and will never wish
that upon anyone. In my opinion, for what it is worth, Iran needs
to find its Democracy from within. Always the first step to democracy
is the will of the people.
Very recently an American-Iranian man who has lived in America
for over twenty years but still frequently visits Iran said to
my American band members and I, 'the people of Iran don't like
this government in Iran. They want democracy but they know they
can't have it. So, they just decide not to do anything about
it. They don't vote; they don't do anything. They just live their
lives and ignore the government."
Sadly, statistically, he is correct. According to a recent
report by The Economist only fifty percent of Iranians
even bothered to vote last February with less that 25% of the
eight million
people in Tehran bothering to cast their vote. The Iranian man
I met had mentioned, "this was a sign of apathy" but there is
a part of me which feels this is also a quiet protest at having
reached a dead end.
 Even though Western Iranians like myself have to fight so much
harder for an equal piece of the pie my thoughts go out to the
twenty or so million Iranians under the age of fourteen who were
not there when the revolution happened but still have to rely
on Iran to provide them with a future. Going back to Iranian
pride: yes, I lack pride when it comes to admitting that Iran's
neighbors: Turkey, Qatar, Dubai, and even Azarbaijan are ahead
of Iran in the global economic and public relations race, but
I am proud enough to say I hate to see it happen to Iran; and
I am proud enough to work twice as hard for the chance of equal
success.
About
For more about Buddahead, aka Raman Kia, and his band, visit buddaheadmusic.com
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