Archive Sections: letters | music | index | features | photos | arts/lit | satire Find Iranian singles today!
Nuts

Legal fund
Put me down for $50 to prosecute Iranian-American who tried to run over innocent students

 

March 13, 2006
iranian.com

I was talking to a friend of mine about Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar -- that Iranian guy who drove his car into a crowd of innocent students somewhere in the Carolinas [See: Crazy call].  My friend said, “why don’t we set up a legal fund for him?”

-- A legal fund? Are you crazy? This guy is a disgrace. Why would you want to set up a legal defense fund for him?

-- I’m not talking about a legal defense fund for this idiot. I’m talking about a legal prosecution fund! Just the opposite.

-- Very funny. We chip in to turn up the heat up on this guy?

-- Precisely. Let’s help throw the book at him.

-- I don’t think you have much to worry about that too much. There are plenty people down there in Carolina who don’t take kindly to a guy named Mohammad Reza mowing down their kids on a college campus in broad daylight.

-- True. But I have a special gripe against him. I feel I am a plaintiff in this case too because he used my identity in the commission of a heinous crime.

-- But he used his own name.

-- Identity is more than just your name, especially these days. These days, one’s identity can be more rooted in where he comes from, or what religion or sect he was born into, than his individual name or life track. To the people who don’t know me intimately, which I’m afraid is the vast majority of those I live and work with everyday, my being Iranian leaves more of an impression than just about anything else about me. We pay a price every time an Iranian does something stupid like this.

-- I know. I feel the same way too sometimes. But, that’s how things are. “A blacksmith committed a crime in Oregon, so a coppersmith was lynched in Florida”! (gonah kard dar balkh aahangari, be shoshtar zadand gardane mesgari).

-- Well, they wouldn’t have if the coppersmiths all over were smart enough to do something preemptively to distance themselves from that blacksmith and all blacksmiths.

-- Interesting angle. Usually, a minority comes together to make sure the authorities don’t go too far in prosecuting one of their own.

-- Not me. I feel no compassion for him because he is a fellow Iranian. If I had the money, I’d buy a full page ad and blast him because he is a fellow Iranian. People like him really hurt us.

-- I know. It’s unfortunate.

-- It’s more than unfortunate. I can’t do anything about the mullahs who give me a bad name from halfway around the world because they have all the guns and money. But, why can’t I vent against the same madness here?

-- And, what do you propose to do?

-- Why don’t we start something and let everyone know we are not the same as this guy. Nobody else is gonna do it for us. Let’s raise money and start a campaign against him and what he stands for. Let’s do something to distance ourselves from him. Do you want to chip in? Start something? I’m serious.

-- Well, I don’t know. It’s a cute idea, but what’s the point in the end.

-- If not survival, if not life with more dignity, then just because it’s the right thing to do.

-- OK. You start it. Put me down for $50.

COMMENT
For letters section
To Manesh

ALSO
Manesh
Features

RELATED
Opinion

Book of the day
mage.com

Iranian Nationality and the Persian Language
by Shahrokh Meskoob

© Copyright 1995-2013, Iranian LLC.   |    User Agreement and Privacy Policy   |    Rights and Permissions