Persian Watch Dog
In defense of Persian Watch Cat
Updated February 8, 2001
The Iranian
Editor's note: Since the publication of Guive Mirfendereski's commentary
"Power
of one", senior members of Persian
Watch Cat (PWC), the Iranian anti-discrimination group, have demanded
the removal of the article, or certain words and phrases. They have threatened
to take The Iranian to court for "defamation" if their
demands are not met. I have invited the PWC to write a reply explaining
why they believe Dr. Mirfendereski is wrong. Here's the personal
views of its executive director and a
note from the public relations office. And the following is an unedited
reply from one of the group's members. -- Jahanshah Javid
Dear Mr. Jahanshah Javid,
Please publish my enclosed article in your Iranian dot com. You mentioned
in your own recent emails to an abundant number of individuals, "I
will publish your articles too". Please publish my article as soon
as possible. This is my second request. I have now replaced your name with
just "JJ". Maybe your deeply buried conscience finally understands
what I want to tell you.
Eradatmand,
Shahin Karimi, MD
Title: The Child Molester
Is Mr. JJ, the editor in chief of the famous Iranian dot com, a child
molester? Is Prof. Guive Mirfendereski, the incredible writer of Iranian
dot com with unrestricted power to write and publish whatever he wants
to write and publish, a child molester? I don't know. And I don't care.
But I came across an email of Mr. JJ to a big group of people with an attachment
to it discussing the possibility of Mr. JJ being a child molester. It appeared
that Mr. JJ did not bother much about such accusations, originally in form
of a single private email to him, circling around in public since he himself
decided to publicize such private emails of others by forwarding the emails
to bigger and bigger groups of individuals where his name is now being
associated with "child molester-hood". Hence, I chose this penetrating
word complex (child molester) for my submitted article, hoping that the
more controversial and exciting the title, the more and more readers are
attracted to subscribe to Iranian dot com, no matter how if JJ himself
or others are harmed by such articles. After all, the goal here is to make
the business productive, not to meet the good old principles of responsible
authorship.
My article is in fact a response to Dr. (I am sorry Professor) Mirfendereski's
"Power
of One" where he discloses his emotional and impulsive schizoid
personality by utilizing character defamation for some of the mostly respected
personalities of our community, by calling them "anti-American"
and "anti-Semitic" in public. Mr. JJ does not show even the slightest
inhibition, nor does he demonstrate any respect for the well-known US regulations
to avoid defamation of characters in public. After all Mr. JJ is also from
our good old country where character defamation is a daily routine. Prof.
Mirfendereski's "Power
of One" reminded me of some of "those" articles at IRI's
Kayhan where defamation of character is the goal number one in order to
satisfy personal vendetta and revenge against the opponent. I suggest that
Prof. Mirfendereski submit all of his future articles to IRI's Kayhan or
IRI's Etlelaat, or even directly to IRI government. By showing such outstanding
skills in media supported bigotry, Prof. Mirfendereski already qualifies
to serve such defaming systems as IRI run media or IRI itself. And Mr.
JJ's newspaper also qualifies to be based in Tehran since it is very supportive
of character defamation. No wonder why one single "Letter to Editor"
(Shocked
and Saddened) led to two main and big (really big) articles and several
letters by Prof. Mirfendereski including repeated accusations of "anti-Americanism"
by our famous professor of International Law (I wonder which place he really
educated at? My impression is that he is trained mostly in Kigali, Rwanda,
as he already mentioned in one of his articles).
Well this balance (one tiny letter to editor versus two main articles
and several letters including repeated character defamation with mentioning
full names of the poor victims over and over again) seems obviously somewhat
odd and may catch the eyes of any judge or jury during a litigation against
defamation of character. But who knows, maybe by the time of the court
session, our incredible professor is already out of country (back to IRI
or Rwanda maybe?) and the "burden of proof" will remain for poor
JJ to convince the judge and jury that so many respected people and so
many victims of the defaming professor were are all "anti-American"
and "anti-Semitic", as described by Prof. Mirfendereski and published
unrestrictedly by JJ. What a freedom of news. I love it.
And finally, my own story as it pertains this thread (since Prof. Mirfendereski's
story reminded me of mine):
Ali-Gholi Abtahi was deeply rooted in the traditions of Meydoon Rah-Ahan's
then non-influential, vaguely religious community of Southern Tehran and
Jafari Eslami high school establishment, one of the poorest schools in
Southern Tehran, where I obtained my high school diploma (Well, not all
people are like Prof. Mirfendereski to be able to afford going to a private
American boarding schools in Switzerland and to talk about it over and
over in JJ's newspaper). Years of education in Jafari Eslami High School
and living in Southern and poorest neighborhoods of Tehran had instilled
in Ali-Gholi a wisdom that was without time or bound. When the rapacity
of the 1979 revolution hit Iran with the force of a gale, he would sit
quietly and offer prophesies over a Kabab-Kubideh and Sikh-Jigar (liver)
dinner that lots of good would come of this revolution for him and his
family. He believed that the forces that were working for change would
soon expel all westernized intellectuals and opponents of the revolution
out of the country and will spare the country their ominous intellectualism.
He was sure that the revolution would bring an Islamic system to the country
that would last for 20 to 30 years at least.
Several months after the revolution, my poor parents managed to sell
their only house in Tehran and sent me to the US where I finally became
a doctor. Years later, in 1997, when I was visiting my parents in Iran
for the last time before they passed away, en route from Tehran, Tehran,
to Rasht, Gilan, with the old Paykan of my brother in law, I had a 2-hour
layover in Ghazvin, to eat Chelo-Kabab. Ali-Gholi had managed to track
me down and the message had asked that I call him immediately in his office
since he had become the commander in chief of the IRI militia (pasdaran)
in Ghazvin. While shivering to death, I did, and I was delighted to find
out that Ali-Gholi was so hospitable to me, a westernized doctor who left
his country immediately after the revolution and during the war. And it
appeared that I was of service to him in his quest for Chelokabab with
his old classmate and friend as we discussed selling one of his Karaj investments
(houses) and the issue of converting the money to US dollar for his future
retirement plans. As the conversation inevitably turned to the subject
of "Twenty years of Revolution", I remarked on his prescient
observations about the course of the revolution and that the IRI system
would last and all intellectuals would go out of country without being
capable of doing anything ("hich ghalati nemikonan" as he used
to say).
I asked Ali-Gholi (whom I used to call just "Gholi") how he
knew what he knew when he knew it. He said, "There are two things
about Iranian intellectuals that succeed in failing them every time. First,
they may be strong when they can write articles and publish it. But once
they are gone out of country, then we run the show". I prodded him
for an explanation. "One Intellectual (he used to use the word "Liberal"
for intellectuals)," he said "is already weak, but two liberals
are even weaker since they hate each other, and so on, so once they want
to work together to build up their so-called opposition group, they will
get engaged in infight to that extent that we just need to sit down and
laugh at them."
"Second," he offered, "another thing that fails these
intellectuals in returning to Iran and overthrowing us is that they are
already more corrupted, much more corrupted, than we are. Running a country
requires at least some decency and adherence to a set of moral goals, and
thinking of these so-called intellectuals are incapable of both."
And he added, "Just avoid them."
As we continued eating burned kabab at the two ends of the dirty table
in that Chelokabai restaurant in Ghazvin, we became crystal clear in the
reason why all this had such a loud ring of truth to it: Iran, we concluded,
is not an accidental country, and Iranians who chose to live in Iran after
the revolution are by nature those who are at least loyal to their own
system, even those who complain all along. Because they know that the alternative,
being corrupted intellectuals in Boston and LA, coming back to Iran and
running the country again, is much worse. All this explained why the happiest
thinking Iranian is the one who lives inside Iran, preferably in Ghazvin
or in a similarly restricted society, where being non-intellectual is a
systematically protected, though unwritten right of the society. And so,
tonight, once again I tried to call Ali-Gholi through his cell phone (called
MOBILE in Ghazvin) to seek some advice about our intellectual professor
Mirfendereski and his media supporter, JJ, but his cell-phone was out of
range. So, tonight, I decided to listen to Ali-Gholi''s advise for the
first time in my life and it is with great happiness that I serve with
these presents notice upon the public that I never ever was, am or will
be affiliated or associated with Prof. Mirfendereski, Mr. JJ or Iranian
dot com. I would rather be associated with people like Ali-Gholi, who are
at least honest and sincere, than such defaming, Boston based professors
as Guive Mirfendereski. God bless.
