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Wednesday
May 16, 2001

Bunch of chickens

The letter by Mr. Nariman Neyshapouri ["DARING to criticize Israel"] made me write to iranian.com for the first time . Over the last two years since coming from Iran for a temporary stay that will be over soon, and particularly since a few months ago that I have been visiting your website I feel like I have had the chance to open a window into the mentality of the Iranian-American community. This community has often surprised me with its ideas.

Let me be focused rather than giving you a free association. The above mentioned letter made me share with you my idea as an outsider. I believe it gives you a chance to see what someone who has a different mind set, while being somehow connected to you, thinks of you. I am not considered an Iranian-American. On most issues I still have the same mentality that the majority of people have in Iran.

I hope what I am saying will not sound offensive since in order to make your point sometimes you have to resort to extreme measures, in this case just a little harsh language. After all your audience seem to be able to comply with the necessities of advanced literature like the language used in your recent short stories ["Bahram", "Dariush"]!

I was enraged by the above letter. The essence of the letter was to ridicule and humiliate another fellow countryman ["Did Tel Aviv pay Salman Rushdie, too?"] who might believe in a different religion and didn't agree with the views of those who tried to incriminate Israel in the Khobar explosion ["Ghost of Khobar", "Look in the mirror"]. So what? But the writer crushed a value that is an inherent part of our culture i.e., the unwritten law of equal rights for all minorities. That the country belongs to all of us. We, the people of Iran, regardless of this or that regime genuinely do not have any problem with any religion.

I have realized this fact better than ever since coming to the U.S. I still have the same mentality and have not assumed the discriminatory attitude of the Western culture. Still I have difficulty understanding some of issues discussed in this website. Even my opposition to our regime is of a different type, its the same type of opposition that you hear in every day life in Tehran. Therefore hearing a drunken brawl like "I WILL defend my country and culture even if it means being labeled anti-Semite. So be it", from someone who thinks is Iranian is beyond my tolerance. Who the hell are you, you miserable emigrant, to talk like this about one of our best minorities in Iran? Even in the West our Jewish fellow countrymen have behaved with utmost dignity, way better than us so-called Moslems who think own the country. How ugly, an alienated Iranian yelling at the oldest inhabitants of our land.

My best friends and colleagues in Iran happen to be Jewish. They are more nationalist than this Westernized gigolo who is brawling "I will defend my country". Really? Where is your country? Then what the hell are you doing here in America? Who said we need your help? What the hell could someone like you possibly be able to do for the country? I am not touching the content of that discussion here, what I care about is the attitude of a bunch of chickens who have practically abandoned their country to the comfort of life in West, but in their mental masturbation (!) in a letter to iranian.com are playing Rostame Pahlevan!

Did you defend "your country" during the war with Iraq? I was there and didn't see you there. To their credit (or credit to the culture) even members of the Revolutionary Guard doesn't have your attitude towards our Jews; my Jewish friends have told me that a thousand times. That's the way our culture is set up. So you are "sick and tired of your country being constantly attacked and vilified by......", then why aren't you looking for the real cause? It is our own (real Iranians) responsibility to fix our country's political crisis that has been imposed on it by the current regime. What the hell are you thinking? That Shimon Perez ask the World Bank to help a regime that is spending 100 million dollars a year on a guerilla group -- based on a Don Quichote-like rationale -- to attack his country? Are you insane?

It doesn't matter what you think about the legitimacy of Israel, as long as they are concerned they have the right to defend themselves. Besides, the current regime in Tehran has violated its own citizens rights in numerous occasions, there is no "us" in Iran, there is no a sense of unity between us. Even we don't like each other: I hate you and you will hate me reading this piece. Its not only Israeli blood boiling by the actions of Iran's government, its the blood of 70 million of our own people (of any religion).

What the hell do you expect? The Jewish community help the regime in Iran because you cutie are "sick and tired"? That's not the way things work in this world; you wake up and be ashamed of your childish attitude and learn about your responsibilities if you really think you are Iranian.

And the last but not least, talk for yourself, I don't want to see a website that is named beautifully The Iranian not to be home to our Jewish brothers and sisters and refer them to The New York Times. We Persians of any religion are the children of Cyrus the Great and will keep our traditions the way he set it. Shame on you.

Ali Ahmad Keshavarz

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