JahanKhalili

Above is a picture of an American woman who visited Ayatollah Khomeini at his house. She did it all on her own, barely speaking any Farsi and without any connections, credential or help from anyone. She just went there after getting the idea to do it. I'll tell you more about it later in the blog.

We've already established that Iranians suck at geographical exploration, scientific study or cataloguing of their own flora and fauna, their own archeology and even their own history.

Iranians were foaming at the mouth when I told them that their Cyrus cylinder bullshit about being a human rights charter was a fraud. But they should have known better.

What are they, retarded?

All they had to do was look up the translation, instead of believing rumors. Iranians didn't know sh-t about Cyrus the Great's cylinder - or himself.

Do Iranians know anything about Ayatollah Khomeini? You would imagine that they should. I heard all kinds of nonsense about him from them. One claim was that he was Indian. It appears that he did in fact come from the Kashmir.

However, I later asked a friend from India who came from the Moussavi family, about the history of that family in India. According to him, they had originally immigrated to India from Iran, and this is a quite well-known fact in India. It doesn't take a genius to see that Ayatollah Khomeini - with his fair complexion - was probably not originally of Indian descent.

The Shiah movement spread from Iran to India, not the other way around. That means that Iran was a source of theologians for India's Shi'ites.

You don't have to be a genius to dig. But Iranians aren't interested in finding just anything.

They are only interested in information if its "useful". So they don't dig. Instead, they either arm themselves with information from others, or make it up themselves. But if Iranians need to delegitimize someone, they'll find a way to do it, and facts don't matter. All that matters is the end result.

The older Iranians living here in America are bellyaching about Ayatollah Khomeini. If you say the word "Khomeini", their facial expression changes, and starts looking like they're taking a hardened sh-t on a cold pot. Whenever they talk about him, its always the same stuff: how many people he killed, how evil he was, how he ruined Iran, etc. ....

This stuff is quite useless for a historian. No one can be either elevated to a god-to-be-worshipped, nor can they be lowered to be the most despised symbol of evil in the world. Human beings are in reality very complex, and their complexities cannot be grasped by mobs who are using them to make political statements.

Various ridiculous stories that would make a hardened psychiatrist go mad, are circulated about Khomeini. One version was the usual story about him being a CIA or British agent. One of the more colorful versions - told by an all knowing Iranian idiot at a dinner party - included a tunnel specially constructed for Khomeini, that ran from Jamaran to the UK.

I have given up telling Americans about the insane things Iranians believe, because it makes me look like an idiot for no reason, and they themselves can't quite grasp that such degrees of stupidity are even possible.

Then there's the well-known Tahrirolvasyleh hoax, that claims that Ayatollah Khomeini wrote in an obscure book (which no one can seem to produce) containing passages that condone pedophilia and bestiality. As "proof", they'll show you some files on the internet that aren't photostatic.

Or they'll claim that some bookstore has it, but they don't feel like wasting money to buy it. No where is it posted on the internet, as scanned photos. I suspect that if it ever is, that it will not be available for authentication by any expert. Someone showed me the book in Arabic on a website, but couldn't show me the relevant passages, so I could check on them.

As it is, no expert seems prepared to back up the claim, despite the fact that there are such experts who could do it if it was legitimate.

No one seems to have produced an actual example of the book complete with the incriminating passages printed in Iran or Iraq from a time where it would have been legally valid. If you express amazement at this idea, or any of the others, the Khomeini-haters either act like you're a simple minded person who cannot grasp such cerebral mysteries, or they get offended and suspect you of being in league with their enemies.

On the other side of the political aisle are the Iranians who fairly worship Ayatollah Khomeini.

He's infallible, according to them. He is almost like the sun. In their version of events, Iran was at its darkest time, when suddenly from the sky on an airplane came Ayatollah Khomeini and brightened everything up with his frowning face. Then came his followers, who were very dear people. You can't say anything even remotely critical about Khomeini in front of them, or they'll hate you. Maybe these assholes think that genuine goodwill comes from coercion.

But I don't give a sh-t what THEY think. They can kiss my American ass.

Out of their goodness, they harshly judged everyone who was not suitably religious or revolutionary just like them, and some of them were deprived of their livelihoods, sacked or even executed.... ....and Iranians lived happily ever after. If you even point out inconsistencies or problems with their version of him, they'll get angry and accuse you of being in league with their enemies.

Then, as the story goes, he made everyone happy and godlike. Iranians became a holy people, good and pure....

... and that, despite the fact that there were so many bootlegged Betamax pornography videos in Iran (some of them found in religious households) that it was probably easier to obtain them there than in the West.

... that, despite the fact that (aside from those good and truly sincere religious people we all knew) no one can stand some of the worst specimens among his followers - the superior acting holy people, full of takabor and having no consideration for anyone but people who thought exactly like them. They acted so superior. They were so self-serving and arrogant; judgmental, cruel and unforgiving.

They thought they were prophets, but they were really just a bunch of dicks. If I were to imagine that this is what Khomeini was like, I'd end up having a very low opinion of the man. But one thing I learned from living in Iran is to completely distrust public opinion.

I never actually learned anything particularly interesting about Ayatollah Khomeini from either side. That's because people who already have their minds made up about something aren't going to discover anything about it.

As usual, if you want to learn anything about Iran, its necessary to step back from the insane Iranians and go find out about it yourself.

********************************************

I am not an expert on Ayatollah Khomeini, and have read in its entirely only one of his speeches. I really don't know anything about him. One thing I know, however, is that I will not get the whole truth about the man himself from any side of Iranian politics.

Iranian know-it-alls aren't the people I'd consult, if I wanted to really find out things about the man that the public doesn't know much about.

That, as usual, requires individual effort and research.

************************************************

For someone who thought his country and people were so cool special, my father had the peculiar fear of my mother going shopping and getting ripped off by his gracious people.

He knew that as soon as they saw an American woman, they'd rip her off.

My mother was indeed somewhat helpless in Iran. He would talk about how great and holy Iran was, but it seemed that he didn't actually believe any of it - judging from his own actions.

It wasn't my mother's scene. She called it a "crazy place".

But one thing my mother didn't have was Khomeini-itis.

She couldn't have caught it from the Iranians, because she barely spoke any Farsi.

She didn't learn to repeat the ridiculous stories made against him made by some, or the silly worshipful gushing excesses that others engaged in. She saw things from her own point of view, and felt no obligation to echo the points of view around her.

One of the things she did was quite remarkable.

To this day, anyone who meets her will never suspect that they are meeting someone who did something like what she did.

Yet my mother did something in Iran that most Iranians didn't even do.

She visited Ayatollah Khomeini, in his own house.

That she did this without speaking much Farsi, and without connections, should tell you something.

Westerners might be naive. They might be blundering and not versed in the niceties of Iranian culture or Islam. They might step on people's toes and make fools of themselves when they're outside of their own environment.

They might screw up some Iranian job interview, interrogation, or application for traveling to Iran.

Iranians who are devoted to tripping up Westerners who are in Iran and who aren't familiar with them and their stupid ways, will always find ways to do it.

I know that Iranians worship their way of doing things.

Its one of the few things they do very well.

Westerners might get suckered and overcharged when buying something at a store in Iran, by greedy Iranians.

BUT they occasionally have succeeded in doing things there that Iranians didn't succeed in doing - and that is indeed one of the main ideas behind these blogs.

My mother went to Jamaran, and visited Ayatollah Khomeini in his home. She took one of my sisters with her. To this day, I don't know how she did it. But I remember when she got home, there were two female Islamic Revolutionary Guards with her.

She invited them in as if they were friends she had made while visiting Ayatollah Khomeini. They were both silent. Then they stepped in and looked around briefly.

My mother seemed oblivious to the fact that they had come home with her to investigate her and to find out who she was. In her naiveness, she assumed that they were simply women who had hit it up with her and were curious and were dropping by for a cup of tea.

I quickly offered them tea, and turned on the Iranian hospitality. They stood there looking at us and talking to each other.

I had a little kitten. I brought it out and showed it to them. It was still only a few weeks old, and drank milk out of a bottle. It was so cute that it broke the ice and the women started smiling and cooing over the kitten. I spoke with the women.

After a while, they passed up the invitation to stay longer and left.

When they had left, I asked my mother how it went. Did you get to speak to him? No, unfortunately, she didn't. He did all the talking - and she hadn't understood a word of it.

My father never seemed to know anything about the visit. I never heard him comment on it. Its incredible that he, in his supposedly infinite wisdom and knowledge, knew nothing about my mother's greatest triumph while living in Iran.

Neither did any other Iranian know about it.

Neither do any of the Americans that my mother associates with, know or care that she did this.

Yet my mother achieved something that none of these people ever did. ... and I respect her for it.

She has no fame or recognition for it. So what? Having done the thing is its own reward.

Consult with an Iranian know-it-all, or bow to the masses... and kiss your ability to do these things goodbye.

The result-driven Iranians I knew would never have done such a thing. They all already had their minds made up. There was no curiosity in them to go and have a look at something just for the sake of doing so.

An American woman who barely spoke Farsi went and visited their leader, while they sat around and either made up flattering BS about him or made up insulting BS about him.

Needless to say, many Iranians fail at even knowing anything about one of their own historic figures who lived not-that-long ago.

Americans DO things.

While Iranians sit on their asses and talk - people like my mother do things without consulting anyone.

Americans might be naive. They might be like fish out of water in Iran. But they occasionally try things blabber-mouth Iranian know-it-alls would never try.

And they occasionally succeed.