Salaam Iran

If you have lived in the United States you should have heard the expression Camel Jockey. It's a derogatory term to belittle middle easterners especially Iranians. To your surprise, it is a well-suited term for us, as you might remember the modern Iran, without camels roaming the streets of Tehran started to form well after world war two about hundred years after the west started the industrial revolution. So, yes we were camel jockeys and that is fairly recent history of us if you put it in perspective to our long history.

The inception of modern Iran took place after Tehran Conference when president Roosevelt mentioned Iran's name in the main conference treaty and called Iran an ally. After the war, about two years post Tehran Conference, he assigned his personal representative, Gen. Patrick J. Hurley to solidify president Roosevelt's promises to Iran during WWII.

Gen. Hurley, in his report to president Rooosevelt on Iran wrote:

"Inauguration in Iran of the American pattern of self-government and free enterprise will be an assurance that [the] proceeds from development of Iranian resources will be directed substantially to the building of schools, hospitals, sanitary systems, irrigation systems, and improvement of all facilities contributing to the health, happiness and general welfare of the Iranian people.

He added:
"This plan of nation building may be improved through our experience in Iran and may become the criterion for the relations of the United States toward all nations which are now suffering from the evils of greedy minorities, monopolies, aggression, and imperialism."

The imperialism in the text is directly pointing to the British and Russian forces. President Roosevelt commented under the report: "I was rather thrilled by the idea of using Iran as an example of what we could do by an unselfish American policy."

I invite all of you to review our recent history carefully and find for yourself when the trend of Iran's modernization was aggressively pursued.

Humility is the key in the survival of our culture and land. The nation that we like to call our enemy, once was our ally...this also goes to Americans.

So the term Camel Jockey is coming from the perception of the American mass population as they still remember how they built Iran in hope of establishing friendship and how Iranians answered their kindness with nationalizing their assets and invading their embassy.

Image Source: AFP