Letters August 2006 Islam still has a far cleaner recordThis is a response to Leila's reply to Tosh's response "The shouting blind are frauds": Leila, You asked the following of me......." Why is it that everyone who responds calls me names? You call me a fraud, another calls me an anti-semite. Here is my answer. I hope you read it carefully and give it considered and rational thought. When you express an opinion in a public forum.....and an internet site like Iranian.com is a form of public forum.....you need to realize that it is best to clearly communicate your arguments grounded in things you know, have studied, or have adequately researched. A public forum is much different than a gathering of friends and acquaintances at a soiree in your home. At home, or among personal friends and acquaintances, emotional arguments may be perfectly acceptable. But without reasoned and informed grounding, in a public forum, you will alienate, and rather quickly so, people whom are better informed or studied on an issue. As an individual reader of Iranian.com, and on a personal level, I would never advance an argument in a public forum on a topic of which I had only superficial knowledge. If I felt I were sufficiently grounded in a topic, then I would make my argument for my perspective. Similarly, I would also not make my argument with analogous comparisons unless I was equally grounded in those analogous areas as well. I read this site to learn more of the Middle East and about Iranian influence on the region specifically. I am studying and researching so I have a better grasp of this region and all of the impact it is having, good and bad, on my life. Because of your correspondence I will open up further and explain that I read and research the site to some extent because I am also personally concerned that violent, militant Islam is in a period of ascendant revival, but to truly know for myself if it represents the grave, destructive danger my emotions believe it to be, I feel I need to study and research to make an informed and reasoned decision rather than react based solely on emotion. When, or if, I feel I have a sufficiently grounded understanding then, perhaps, I might contribute a paper to the site.....but not unless or until. Even though many Iranians and others of Iranian descent like yourself make what I perceive as strictly emotional arguments on this site all the time about all manner of topics and issues, I have never commented so to any writer until now. I would not have done so this time if you had not over-reached and attached to your argument analogous comparative comments to 'Native Americans'. Since I am very well grounded in numerous areas of aboriginals your analogy struck at something near and dear to me. It struck me immediately in a quite visceral way as the kind of 'placard' phrase I might see in a Berkeley protest rally or something. If you had left off the entire reference to 'Native Americans', you would never have heard from me. I live in 'Fly-over America', and in a gesture of forthrightness, I openly admit I have a great and unrepentant disdain for the 'placard crowd' of the two American coastlines. What is the 'placard crowd'??? Well...Berkeley is a prime example.....a university town with, at least on the surface, a highly educated populace that should be capable of reasoned, studied, and nuanced thinking. Yet often what they "know" about a subject is what they read on a bumper sticker or a protest placard. Because they have a postgraduate degree of some kind they believe they are well beyond actually studying issues before shooting their mouth off. Even so, I would have no problem with that if they were not continuously shouting their placard "knowledge" at the rest of us as if we were as demonstrably ignorant as they. The aboriginal peoples of America are at the top of the list for this 'placard' crowd's unstudied, uneducated and uninformed opinions. Just as the American nation is a singularly unique nation, quite unlike any other, now or in the past, American aboriginals and their collective and individual tribal histories are also singularly unique and vastly dissimilar from the histories of other peoples. That uniqueness simply is not comparable to other histories, now or in the past. American aboriginals are also not a monolithic group any more than are the various peoples of the Middle East. As different as the histories and experiences of the Armenians are to those of the Iranians, so too are the histories and experiences of the Creek from the Sioux. I react with visceral emotion when anyone throws in a reference to 'Native Americans' as a way to bolster an argument that has nothing to do in even the most remote way to a topic under debate. Accept my apology for reacting to your emotional argument with an emotional response. I am better than that. With Sincerity, P.S. Most of the foundation of the current revival of virulent Islamic fundamentalism began in the late 1800's, Wahabi in Medina, Saudi Arabia and Shia in Qom, Iran. At the beginning of the 20th century, Iran had 800,000 native Iranian Jews. In 2006, less than 20,000 native Jews remain in Iran. Even if Iranian Jews as a group had a substantially negative birthrate and a high émigré rate over the entire course of the 20th century, statistically, there should still be a Jewish population in Iran numbering in the hundreds of thousands. They did not all immigrate to Israel, nor to America, and certainly not to Europe. So, Leila, where did they all go??? Where did they all go??? Where did they all go??? Ask yourself that over and over.....then seek the answers through research and study rather than simply acquiescing to the opinions and propaganda spouted so thoughtlessly by the 'placard crowd'. If you are any kind of a reasonable person, you may not like the answers you find as to the disappearance of so many Jews from the Iranian nation. Iran's current leaders, both religious and governmental, openly and frequently, speak of the destruction of Israel. Given the disappearance of 780,000 Jews from Iran in the past century, should reasoned, studied and thoughtful people believe these guys simply mean a dismantling of the modern governmental entity of Israel??? Given the Gordian-knotted relationship of Iran's leadership with Hezbollah, should reasoned, studied and thoughtful people believe the current situation between Israel and Hezbollah is about something other than Iran's religious autocracy taking the first steps to achieve their oft-stated goals??? Iranians, and not just Germans, should probably realize their histories with Judaism place them in a position of exercising special sensitivity as to how they express themselves on all things Jewish. Put yourself in the shoes of Israeli Jews. From a Jewish perspective, if it looks like a duck, walks like duck, and quacks like a duck, it is goddamned doubtful it could be pink Cadillac. Finally, you should re-read your decidedly vitriolic and conspiracy-laden response to Farshad earlier today as further evidence as to why making an argument without reason, and without study, research and reflection beyond the inane Berkeley bumper-sticker, placard-carrying mentality, causes people to brand you with the same broad emotional brush you are so quick to use.
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