می بخور، منبر بسوزان - مردم آزاری نکن

It was such a nice and sunny day, that we could go horseback riding and picnicking in the Crater Lake area. Ladies love horses and men love ladies. That is how most of us end up tolerating a whole lot of foul smell and so much fanny fatigue … just to bond with those beautiful creatures.  

The big difference between men and women is that, they can ride British without looking funny, but we have to ride Cowboy style or be damned as fruity. All this with no regard for the fact that we actually have something in need of protection … the British way!  

When male Iranians are hard pressed, especially when the pressure is applied to their most precious parts, we generally turn into loud nagging machines. So my buddy starts to nag about his wife and how he ended up marrying her due to his political sympathy with the “Sazeman”.  

My buddy still carries a lot of love and a lot of hate for the Sazeman – even though he vehemently denies to care the slightest bit anymore. He can’t help himself … he was recruited at the tender age of 16 and kept under their spell for a decade. Sometimes when depression attacks, it’s as if he is ashamed of not having fought his way into bloody martyrdom, like so many “brothers”.  

Nagging Iranians can quickly turn into philosophers and political scientists. As a nation, we have historically been unable to find workable solutions to our most basic problems … but instead have strived to solve the most fundamental and intractable mysteries of religion and ideology! So buddy makes a quick turn away from his miserable marriage to the questions of Islam, Marx and evolution.  

Sazeman has always been big on evolution, and tries to clarify and justify every event and “process” based on that premise. Now, buddy is trying to teach me a thing or two about evolution and dialectic, while keeping the balance of his chubby figure on that Oregon steed. Yes, the story of how we will all evolve from instinctive and greedy animals, to god-like spirits living in the peace and harmony of a classless utopia.  

Buddy learnt those stories during so many 20 hour long induction sessions. Kids would sit and listen to a young Sazeman operative, who had all sorts of courageous stories of struggle, prison and sacrifice. Hour after hour, they had to learn that Islam meant evolution via spiritual connection with the almighty, through the enlightened element (Onsor Mojahed). Their sessions wouldn’t end, until one by one they’d crash and cry, and confess to their base filths and evil motives. That was their 1st step … their pledge to a true beginning, in the path of Mojahed.  

A gorgeous Alaskan lady is attracted to our boring discussions, and jumps both tall and yummy feet into the philosophy soup. Content and relieved, I’m delegated to the secretarial duty of keeping the minutes.  

Buddy: Society should be led by people who have figured it out. People of wisdom and vision – if you wish, the philosopher kings.  

Lady: I don’t think that anyone has figured it out, or can ever figure it out. That’s why we need democracy and checks & balances. Any one person or one ideology who claims a choke-hold on truth, is simply trying and planning to enslave everyone else, for their own satisfaction.  

Buddy: But if the society evolves enough, and everyone can believe in the great ideals of humanity, we can be free of all evils, and conduct a safe and steady life.  

Lady: Humanity can’t even make its own food! We have to kill and destroy something or the other, just to survive. Killing and violence is as much a part of us, as loving and life giving … two wings of the same bird. We can never create a utopia of love and peace. Exactly for that reason, we need freedom - for people to talk, write and read. Otherwise, even democracy turns into a façade for dictatorship.  

Buddy: But true democracy and freedom can only be achieved if all people are equal and at the same material and wealth level. That needs the destruction of capitalism and the establishment of a classless society.  

Lady: People without private ownership, who have to depend on some sort of big-brother government for their livelihood, can never be free and can never have democracy. All of them will easily become servants and slaves to the ideological system, and the big-brother’s own will and desire to dominate.

Thanks heaven, we finally reach the rim of that gorgeous lake, with 30 kilometers of majestic rock reflected on the deepest body of water inside the US of A. I am simply breathless, buddy turns to me and asks: “What do you think”?