Iranian of the Day

Royal Accountability ?

ROYAL ACCOUNTABILITY: Crown Prince Reza Praises Mossadegh's Patriotism (ANDISHEH TV)

ROYAL ACCOUNTABILITY: Crown Prince Reza on Torture During His Father's Rule

BITTER LESSONS: Sailors Convicted of Sabotage Face Firing Squad (1953)

Now would like to know when some of you Jomhurykhahs are going to apologize for your Republic's crimes ? ...

BOOK: EVEN AFTER ALL THIS TIME By Afschineh Latifi ( A Memoir ) 

THREE DECADES EARLIER: A Mother At Evin Doors (1980)

And don't come back with the convenient excuse that this Republic was Not Your Choice  or that it is neither a Republic or Islamic when you (or your parents ?) were shouting 'Marg bar Shah' and claiming to see the 'Ayatollah on the Moon'.

You expect us Constitutionalists to Apologize but dismiss your own Accountability ?

COMPLAINING JOMHURYKHAH: What Have the Pahlavis EVER Done For Us ? ;0)

Otherwise RP 2 and the Monarchists are no more no less to blame than you folks and your favorite system of government.  

Yeh Kam Ensaf ham bad cheezy neest ...

HISTORY OF VIOLENCE: IRI's Reign of Terror Begins (BBC Report 1979) 

We have respected your Like minds and their intellectual legacy when they pass away :

Crown Prince Reza's Tribute to Mehrdad Mashayekhi (1953-2011)

But when have you done the same in regard to our like minds ?

Daryoush Homayoun’s Last Interview on Andisheh TV (2011)

Or respect the pain of our Royals when they lost their dear ones ? Be it by Human Compassion and decency ?

The Ever So Elegant Bahram Moshiri Blames Family for Prince Ali Reza Pahlavi death

So You see it's easy to claim that the Grass is greener elsewhere but it's far harder to look in the mirror ...

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kqT5DjCUNg

Maybe it's time you did ... 

Apologize that is ... 

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7mIy97_rlo

;0)

Related Blog:

Crown Prince Reza on importance of "Checks and Balances" of future regime 

Shahrnush Parsipur: "I was Never Physically Tortured by the SAVAK" 

Make no difference

I guarantee if RP were to do it will make no difference. People who hate Pahlavi will come up with something else. The goal is to deflect responsibility and relieve their own guilt.  Because they need to justify the revolution.

No amount of work by RP will change these minds. Therefore I suggest RP should write them off and move on. If not we are going to spend the next 33 years rehashing what happened before 1979.

Condemnation of all HR violations

Dear Arj, I think RP has put himself in a position that he would be a fool if he does not condemn HR abuses prior to 1979. I also think that the condemnation of all HR violations is intrinsic in his statement. However if there are many people who share your view then I hope that he clears that matter once and for all. I don't think such statement would affect his position in any way. It may distance a few old Shahollahis from him but they are not aligned with his vision anyway.

شتر سوار‌ی دولا دولا!

Dear Divaneh, I'm glad you've had your awakening in the past few years and now you can see (so to speak)! As I stated before, RP has had the past 33 years to reflect on the violations of human rights under the previous regime, and he hasn't! I'm sure during these 33 years he has received many inquiring eamils in that regard, and chashm, I take your advice and drop him a line too. Come to think of it, I send one to Khamenei while I'm at it! But that does not end it there. The question is why does he not mention the violations of HR that took place before 1979?!

Here is a part of my related post on another thread: But, this is a simple matter of advocating human rights! Let me put it this way; forget about his being a family member of (or even related to) the former Shah of Iran. As a HR advocate (if he considers himself one), is he not obligated to support the human rights of all Iranians at all times (including pre-1979), or is his defence of HR subject to limits of time, place, circumstances or other sorts of expediency?! Does condemnation of violation of human rights of Iranians during, let's say the 70s, jeopardize his position that that of the 80s, 90s, 00s and 10s doesn't?! If it doesn't (which according to the principles of HR it shoulden't), then why dosn't he do so?! And if it does jeopardizde his position, why does it?! Why bother then to claim to be an advocate of HR?! Let me reiterate; I made no reference to family ties or any realtionships of the sort. Just a logical request that has nothing to do with vengeance or any demands for apology...

Go RP !

Proud son of ancient Iran we love and respect.

Dear Arj

I am not here to score credit from anyone. I however regret that you echo my bank manager when it comes to me and credit.

RP has repeatedly stressed his beliefs in Human Rights, Democracy and Secularism. He has been a very active opponent and as a politician he has played a very good win-win game in asking the ICC to investigate Khamenei. You have assumed that he turns a blind eye to the crimes of the last regime and condemn him based on your assumption. Why don’t you ask him and give him an opportunity to respond to that allegation? Write to him as an Iranian and let us know the result too please. His vision resonates strongly with me and as I have already said he may be the one to unite the opposition. As VPK said, we do not have a plethora of opposition figures to choose from. Let me make this clear that I do not see RP as a king but a person who can be a very effective member of a leading committee and who can play a positive rule in the future Iran.

With regards to the Shah, I would have agreed with everything that you said a few years ago but not now.  I have learnt more about him and make a different judgement now. You oversimplify things and assume that he had full control. One person cannot be in full control in any system. For example if I gave you some wrong information and you acted on that, then who is in full control? You or me? If you still want to blame him for everything bad, then please give him all the credit for the good things and the progress that Iran witnessed in his time. We must appreciate the enormity of Shah’s task when passing judgement on him. He became a dictator, but it was a system and a culture that made him the dictator. Still he thought he was doing the right thing and genuinely thought people loved him until he saw the masses of demonstrators from a helicopter. That was probably when he realised that he had gone too far in ignoring the rules of the constitutional monarchy and tried to reach people, albeit too late.

You think defending Shah is irrelevant here and I think otherwise. By blaming him we seek to rid ourselves of any blame and that is why we fail every time.  Because we transfer the blames from ourselves and our dictatorial culture to him, we do not see the reason and the necessity to change. When his son does something positive for the country, we try to find the negative in there. You are a good example of this culture of riding ourselves of responsibility and looking hard for an escape goat.

I have found you one of the most informed contributors in here and am not going to change your credit score based on one view.

Reza Pahlavi

It looks like Reza Pahlavi has become a lot more active in the last few days.

TL

I missed what you mean. Are you saying there was or was not private ownership. I know as a fact plenty of people had varying amounts of wealth. There was a pretty good sized middle class. Maybe I don't get what you mean.

ROFLM!!!!! ARthritis' post. ROFLM!

"(که در ضمن همشان از صدقه سر همان خدا بیامرز، محمد رضا شاه پهلوی خودشان، مادر و پدرشان به آنجا رسیدند.)"

Basically saying that there was no private wealth distribution to speak of. All belonged to Velayateh Pahlavi. 

That's one of the fundamental Human Rights articles in the UN Declaration: the right to property.

ROOOOOFLM! 

You couldn't make it up!

Migam in Shahollahis kheili khengan, this is the sort of thing. Thanks for the laugh!

امیرپرویز خان

امیرپرویز خان عزیز،

پس از عرض سلام، خیلی‌ ممنون از محبت جنابعالی... بنده هم با شما کاملا موافقم... اینجا در اصل باید از آقا رضا پهلوی (و هم یارانشان...) به عنوان یک انسان و ایرانی‌ شریف کمال سپاسگزاری برای حرف حقشان و زحمات بیدریغ‌شان در راه آزادی ایران و ایرانیان کرد... متأسفانه یک سری آدم نفهم و عقده ائی بر اساس پرورش اسفناک کودکیشان، حالا در بزرگ سالی‌ هم همیشه باید سنگ جلو راه و چوب لای چرخ این کشور بدبخت و مردم ستمدیده ایران کنند... یک ذره شرم و حیا و خجالت هم سرشان نمی‌شود!!! تمام دنیا و مردم دنیا واقعیات را دیدند و باور داشتند و یا آورده‌اند، بجز این مثلا تحصیل کردها (که در ضمن همشان از صدقه سر همان خدا بیامرز، محمد رضا شاه پهلوی خودشان، مادر و پدرشان به آنجا رسیدند.) یک مشت نمک نشناس، دریده و عقدیی که آبرو ایران و هرچی‌ ایرانی‌ را در تمام دنیا بردند... با همین طرز تفکر مریض، ایران را از دست دادیم به یک مشت جانی و عقب مانده و بیمار... واقعا باعث تأسف است که چنین مثلا ایرانیانی به تور این مملکت خوردند... به امید آزادی ایران و مردم خوب و شریف ایران...

Re breaches in the past

Dear Divaneh, for some reason (je ne sais quoi!) I always gave you, youe keen sense of humour and sharp instincts more credit than this. But your recent posts are having a kind of sobering effect on me! Your defence of Shah (both in substance and style) is mind boggling to me! My comments are not a trial on Shah (not that I believe he's not to blame for HR violations), but rather a genuine inquiry on RP's universal committment to HR in Iran and condemnation of HR violation thereof! The issue of corruption in Pahlavi regime is a whole other issue!

Moreover, you express surprise at RP's having not condemned the violations of HR during the past regimes and ask me: " Why do you assume that he ignores such crimes during the last regime?" Okay, in that case, show me an example in which he has! The mere assumptions 'that since he condemns the crimes and violations of HR by the current regime, therefore he would've condemned the HR violations by the previous regime' does not suffice, where is the proof?! He's had 33 years to do so and he still hasn't (at least as far as I know, unless you have proof to the contrary!), and chances are that he never will, for this is the moment of truth. It's now or never!

As for 'Shah not being the only one in charge,' come on... Are you serious?! He controlled everything that even by the constitution he wasn't allowed to control! He couldn't even tolerate half-ass ppolitical parties who did not even challenge his authority (i.e Hezbe Iran-e Novin and Pan Iranist) and scrapped them for the single-party Rastakhiz! He took the constitutionalist concepts that our forefathers had fought so hard to realize, totally scrapped them, created the system as it was and controled it as he wanted to! How could he be off the hook?! If he did not have control over things, then I believe Bashar Asad when he says he does not have controil over the army and the system! Can't you see that this is the favourite excuse of all despots and petty didctators?! Indeed, I was giving you more credit based on your previous posts! 

H T-G and Arj

Thanks for the support and elaborating.

I think, now, I've said most of what I must have wanted to say here. (long post. Ewwwaaaaawwww ;) )

//iranian.com/main/blog/fred-756#comment-...

amirparvizforsecularmonarchy

The point is that a lot of us care enough to want to improve the very much tarnished image, but not by lying via ommission. Otherwise, think about it, even Larijani is supposed to be in charge of human rights in Iran.

Vildemose stated it succinctly and beautifully:

"RP is claiming his legacy of his father as a monarch-to be...Accepting that legacy comes with  the price of accountability."

People

You act as if we have a smorgasbord of options to choose from. We do not! It reminds me of a starving person turning down bread because it is not Fillet Mignon. Fine then hold your breath and stomp your feet.

The choices are pretty limited and if you get a better one show me. For 33 years nothing happened. Now that someone takes initiative all I hear is "nay saying" and demands. Oh he has to kiss our *** in the public square! Well forget it.

Arthritis, I'm obviously providing a great service

Adab ra az bi-adaban yaft.

Now, that you've attempted your personal attack, I ask you again, where is the paper that according you is "scientifically proven" that the cyrus cult crap is a declaration of human rights?

You see, people like yourselves, simply don't seem to see what harm you do to yourselves by continuing to lie. 

People don't want to know about psychological necrophilia. People in Iran and outside just want to live peaceful lives without enforced dishonesty. Be it Hassan Hossein or Cyrus. Get with it. We're in the 21st century!

آزموده را آزمودن خطاست!

Monarchy, Mojahedin, Stalisnists and all other non-democratic forces have shown us their true faces. Trusting them once more is only one more historical mistake.

Dear Arj

RP seems to address the current HR abuses in Iran. Given his recent speeches and interviews, it would be surprising if he did not condemn the HR abuses in any other period. Why do you assume that he ignores such crimes during the last regime? Any such abuse is as much related to RP as any abuse in the Ghajar or Safavid eras.

You may think he ignores it because his father was at the top of the previous regime, but let us remember that whilst some members of the Pahlavi family were corrupt and used their status to break the laws, they were not alone in this. Every Army general was a law in himself, every chief of the police force was the law, and they punished those who stood against their corruption. It was a corrupt system that was created by our own culture. A culture that lacks respect for law and is intrinsically dictatorial.

I extend that view to Khamenei and Ahmadi too. They do not bear the sole responsibility for this sorrupt system. Iranians need to look inside.

amirkabear4u

I am responding to you to the best of my guesses. Please remember I am not a Pahlavi; do not know them and do not speak for them. These are just my own guesses.

But if he did meet RP, then there are a lot of gains for RP which I am not going to mention them here.

You may have a point about a meeting. I don't know I just gave the reason why not. My own feeling is the bad outweighs the good.

Who do you think pahlavies are?

They are  ones who modernized Iran; brought 38 years of peace and prosperity.

Personal hate. Shah did not meet his oppositions.

That is your opinion. I feel more hate from Pahlavi haters than RP. In fact I see no hate in RP.

PS: Do you remember RP volunteered to fly planes against Saddam. Is that hate; no it was not a bluff because IRI might have just said yes.

Vildermose Jan

I know what you are saying. There are several issues here:

• RP has name recognition. That by itself does not mean he is "claiming the legacy". It just happens that he is better known than I am.
• If RP claims the throne then you got a strong argument.

But it this the right time to push on that? If it is necessary to build support fine; personally I am willing to wait on it. Please remember RP takes a big risk by being political. He could just  have a nice pleasant life in America. But he chooses to risk himself. To me that is more than enough; I rather not make demands now; put that for later.

What good does an apology do anyway? It is actions that matter not words. I don't want to humiliate him. It just gives IRI more ammunition to divide us. If the Islamic Republic fall then as a part of claiming the throne RP should apologize. That would be the right time. But right now we got bigger fish to fry. 

VPK

You said;

- What good is gained from a face off between them?

Well that is politics. One does not have a choice. I may dislike so and so BUT FOR THE SAKE OF MY COUNTRY, MY PEOPLE and PEACE I have to meet people. At least RP could say he tried. There would be possitive credits for his effort no matter if AN agreed to meet him or not.

If RP publicly asked for a meeting just before or after AN's UN speech where he keeps saying IRI is a better democracy than US. Two actions would take place. AN refuse which only make a fool of himself. But if he did meet RP, then there are a lot of gains for RP which I am not going to mention them here.

- He considers Ahmadinejad too much a scum to meet and RP does not consider the guy a legitimate president.

Who do you think pahlavies are? A lot of Iranians, as you know, do not even consider RP as a true royal. A lot of people do not see RP as a legitimate royal. I would do what I could for my country and I have done so. Meeting a scum is part of that too for any politicion.

In all this comes to one issue.

Personal hate. Shah did not meet his oppositions.

People with hate can not promote democracy.

Re objectivity

To all, let me reiterate; in order to condemn a crime or any infractions with regards to human rights, one does not have to be responsible or in any way implicated to condemn it! We are talking about advocacy of HR here, and it's incumbent upon RP as an advocate of HR (if he claims to be) to objectively condemn all breaches of human rights regardless of time, space, circumstances or whether or not they involved his family members!

This (objectivity) is a basic principle of HR. I'm not making it up or unjustly targetting RP! Do you understand, or can you not look at this objectively either?! For if we don't, the issue of human rights in our country will perpetually be a matter of expediency (maslehat) and nothing but a mockery of actual HR! Again, this does not necessarily have anything to do with RP, but a determining factor on the future of our Iran!

 VPK: RP is claiming his

 VPK: RP is claiming his legacy of his father as a monarch-to be...Accepting that legacy comes with  the price of accountability.

A state of war only serves
as an excuse for domestic tyranny.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Born December 11, 1918

Responses

• G. Rahmanian: you are right and RP has no responsibility for Shah. He is responsible for his own actions. To my knowledge he has never violated any rights of people. Hence nothing to apologize for.
• Vildermose: I disagree. Do you apologize for your parents or grandparents? Why should he? We don't prosecute people for actions of others.  This is the worst time and gives IRI just what it needs: fights among opposition.
• Hooshang: I do not have your lofty goals of "democracy". I just want to be free of IRI and back to a secular half way normal system. Anything more is just icing  for me. Honestly I would settle for the old Pahlavi.

A fair judgement on Shah

Many Iranians blame RP for what his father did, and now some state that he should not be held accountable for the actions of the late Shah. Both groups condemn Shah as the sole responsibility for the corruption and the Human Rights abuses in the last regime.

One expects the maturity to allow us to have a better understanding of the challenges and problems that Shah was faced with. Shah was not the whole system, but a single person within a system. He made his decision and acted on the information that he received from his immediate environment. If we are a corrupt nation and many Iranians abuse the positions of power for their personal gains, then lets condemn that. Shah was surrounded by honest and dishonest politicians and officials who fed him the information. We forget that he was appointed to his role by British and how he had almost completely turned the table on them by the end of his reign. We forgot that he became king when Azarbaijan was invaded by the Russians and Iran was in a dire position for having placed its bets on the losing horse of the Germans in the WWII. We oversimplify these and think Shah was in control all this time. The truth is he was trying to take the control.

When we judge Pahlavis, it is only fair that we remember their good deeds as well as bad ones. I also think he made a mistake in the case of Mosadegh. He should have worked with the great man. He made a mistake in promoting Akhonds and their Islam. But remember that his biggest fear was the Russian and the threat of Iran disintegration. His policy against the spread of communism in Iran (let remember some communists wanted parts of Iran to join USSR) was promotion of Islam. Shah and his father have a very big share in laying the foundation of the new Iran.

Abbas Milani is one of the most authoritative academics with respect to Shah and the picture that he paints is of a man who loved his country and worked to the best of his abilities to create a country with a strong economy and fair deal of modernization out of a broken and defeated country. According to him, Pahlavis took a country that lost almost 20% of its population to Spanish Flu at the end of the WWI and delivered Iran of the 1979. Again they were only people within the whole system and cannot take the whole credit.

Milani thinks if one day Iranians are in charge of their country they may decide to move the Shah's body from Egypt to Iran and honour him. I am tired of bodies and devotion to graves, but think one day Iranians should erect his statue in one of the biggest squares in Iran.

RP has to condemn the Human Rights abuses in any period and he probably does. If I am not mistaken he condemned that CIA coup in Iran in one of his interviews. He however has many reasons to be proud too. His experience, devotion and democratic stance make him a very good candidate to unite the opposition.

Sorry for being long winded.

Re expedience

Dears VPK and APFSM, when it comes to human rights, the matter of expedience is a political ploy to dodge responsibilities for the stance one supposedly takes! I give you an example; Mir Hossein Musavi refrains from condemning the breaches of human rights back in 1980s for the same "practical reasons" that you say RP shouldn't! Yet the daunting question remains; is anyone in the history of our nation ever going to unconditionally defend human rights for all and condemn their breaches under any circumstances without any escuse?! Don't bother to answer, it's a rhetorical question!

RG, the term "dear" does not mean that you or anyone else hold any emotional value to me, but rather a figure of speech to express civility! Get a grip, every other word you utter is a slogan! With that mob mentality of yours, you are trying so hard to fit into the expat pop-culture that the more you shout slogans the less sense they make!

Using undemocratic Institutions for Democratic Struggles?

The Institution of Monarchy, very much like Velayat
Faghieh is inherently undemocratic due to its top-down,
non-participatory nature and unsuitable for the modern world. In both
IR and monarchy you don't chose the leader, but it has been chosen
for you, and decided on how to lead you forward.

By the very same token, exact same could be said
about Mojahedin and almost all the exile Leftist group lets. In both
Mojahedin and Stalinists we also witness a top-down structure, with
the 'leadership' being permanent and chosen before for the rank and
file.

What's more interesting is that all these divers group;, Valyat Faghieh, Mojahedin, Monarchists, Stalinists ,
are at their most isolated levels in Iranian society. Iranian people
have had it with games and leadership chosen and delegated from
nowhere.

He needs to apologize to

He needs to apologize to and reconcile with all the victims of his father's murder, negligance, betrayal, and plain stupidity... Then he can rightly claim he truly cares about 'human rights' and his taj va takht (legacy) as his heir. This is the least he can do morally and ethically.

 A state of war only serves
as an excuse for domestic tyranny.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Born December 11, 1918

Misleading Comparison!

While Mousavi must be held accountable for what happened during the time he served as IR's Prime Minister, RP is not accountable for what happened during his father's time. This is like saying we are responsible for our fathers' acts. Such logic does not hold water.

SAVAK

I know of one instance of a doctor who got taken by SAVAK. He was a political "activist" and very opposed to the Shah. What they did was interesting. They spend hours talking to him to get him to understand why he was wrong.

At one point he asked "why don't you just execute me; isn't that less trouble". The agent responded "Iran has invested a lot in you and we want you on our side". This is contrast to IRI which puts no value in human lives. 

SAVAK got a really bad reputation. It was not pussycat but no where as bad as people said. I would love to hear some first hand experiences proving me wrong. My instance was anecdotal and maybe you know more severe situation.

On "slogans" of "Islamist Fascism" and " class struggle"

To refer to the cause of anti fascism and class struggle  as mere "slogans", at the time when Iranian workers struggle is getting more widespread and militant at an unprecedent rate, at the time when the news of arrest and torture of Trade union leaders by the Fascist Islamist regime is just too many to mention, is at best a symptom of utter lack of understanding of the only forces in Iranian society who are capable of overthrowing the islamist Fascism. Not to support the demands which would help the anti Fascist Struggle of the Iranian people, no matter where they are from,  under any pretext would amount to betryal of thousands of Iranian political prisoners, languishing in the Islamist facsit Regime's  torture chambers.

And I am nobody's dear, certainly not on this site......

"Personal business must yield to collective interest."