An Iranian American Prespective

Greetings All,

I have been lurking for some time and decided to bite the bullet and wade on in. Robert Kennedy once said in a speech “May he live in interesting times. Like it or not, we live in interesting times. This perhaps is truer today than in his time . Crisis’s are breaking out everywhere especially in the Middle East that potentially could spark the next global war. Internal strife at home. The divisions in our nation are reminiscent of those surrounding yet another unpopular war, Vietnam. We have a president that is / has become so out of touch that his own party would love to disown him to ensure their own re-elections. Our media which broke stories like Watergate is now in the business of spinning the truth for whomever holds the purse strings or has any sort of power.

Against this backdrop we move ever further into this new century.

I am a quintessential American first and foremost. My father came to this country from Iran in 1956. For reasons unknown to me he decided that the University of Kansas (Go Jayhawks) would be the place for him to pursue his dream of becoming an engineer. He met a farm girl from Iowa who was studying to be a occupational therapist, and the rest as they say is history. Seeking perhaps a more tolerant environment, they moved West and settled in the San Francisco Bay Area. Quickly buying a home and the first child (me) came along followed by another. His job took him to interesting places and eventually an overseas assignment in the former Yugoslavia where we lived for almost 4 years. Many visits were made to Iran and other countries. I can still remember Beirut in 1975 and the incredible beauty of the city that even a 7 year old could appreciate. The time overseas occurred during my formative years and gave a greater appreciation for other cultures and countries.

We came back just in time to witness the revolution that swept across Iran. Hostages were taken and for the first time in my life I experienced racial hostility directed at myself. The morning that the Desert 1 fiasco took place, threats were made to the local school. Myself and my sister were taken out of school that morning and sent home with a sealed note from the principal. We were told we could not come back. I learned years later that the school could not quarantine our safety and those around us so we had been removed. The school district later backed down and let us back in after a week and threats from our newly hired lawyer. It became very clear to me that I simply had to hide my Iranian half. It was fairly easy and my last name can be easily passed off as Italian which I did at every opportunity. I am not proud of that but at the time it was the path of least resistance. It is something I will NEVER do again.

Basically after that things settled down, finished school, went on to a University, graduate, got married etc etc. Along the way I attained the rank of Eagle Scout, an accomplishment I am still very proud of.

That brings us to today. It is frightening to me to see the level of mindless patriotism that I have seen in many of the threads. People talking about dropping nuclear bunker busters as if they were M-80’s. Going in an cleaning house in the Middle East and the spewing John Wayne esq. rhetoric as if it were a shoot out at Dodge City. The level of hypocrisy to me is staggering. The level of ignorance about the people and their cultures is appalling. Many people here in the US have nary a clue even where some of these places are. Its funny, I recent unearthed a huge collection of 45’s my mother had. For some youngsters, a 45 is like a small record with one song on each side and came across one of the classic anti war anthems from the 60’s ‘Eve Of Destruction”

Think of all the hate there is in Red China
Then take a look around to Selma, Alabama
You may leave here for 4 days in space
But when you return, it’s the same old place
The poundin’ of the drums, the pride and disgrace
You can bury your dead, but don’t leave a trace
Hate your next-door neighbor, but don’t forget to say grace
artists.letssingit.com...

Actually the whole song is relevant, but this passage really reflect how I feel about what is going on in our country.

Well thank you to those who read all the way through this excessively long introduction, I promise to be far less verbose in the threads.

Thanks

I agree with you on how sad the state of the freeworld is against the middle east, but you have to see, this is what Mr. Bush and the Bush administration wants. In order to fuel a war, you have to justify it, and by doing so, you have a cause to keep it going. The American Government lies to the people and makes it seem like they are going to fix everything as long as the people supports them. As long as they have war supporters, they have a justified reason to be in the middle east. The American public hates the middle east because that is what is fed to them. I myself, am safe from this hate propaganda in Canada. God bless Canada....

I'm not very politically minded. It's too confusing for me but I guess it's made that way deliberately. I'd like to understand this though. One of my bestest and longest friends is Iranian and he often recalls the time when he lived in Iran when the Shah was in charge. And he loved those days. Now I've been led to believe elsewhere that the Shah was a bad guy with evil death squads etc? My friend hates the Iran of today. He complains that all the freedom of the Shah days were taken away. You couldn't play cards, snooker or listen to radio even. And he says only recently some of these rules have started to relax. When I've said in the past "there's going to be a war soon, US v Iran", he says "I hope so." Do a lot of Iranians feel like this?

Good to have you here Op AJAX. We could use your perspective around here. I too dislike all the mindless "patriotism" I often see.

Welcome

[edit on 10/8/07 by FredT]

reply to post by wigit


Thanks Everybody

wigit,

The Shah was no saint by any stretch of imagination. The SAVAK or secret police operated on a level of brutality that only a Nazi could appreciate. The irony being that the SAVAK were trained by the Mossad. The Shah like many leaders became insnared and captured by the sirens song of absolute power. He was totaly out of touch with the vast majority of his subjects and the level of corruption was fierce. He had grand plans and ideas to make Iran a modern first world country but lost his way.

The return of the Shah's son would acomplish nothing IMHO if he is an absolute ruler like his father. However, I think that Iran and her people would benifit from a UK style system of government. with a democraticaly elected government and a symbolic monarchy from which to draw pride and sence of purpose etc.

reply to post by Operation AJAX


Welcome to ATS and a very nice intro.

I find it amazing how alot of Americans like to lump everyone together by either nationality, race or religion because of the actions of a few lunatics and think that they are all the same.

Yet it never occurs to these same people that others around the world can view our present administration as a bunch of war mongering fanatics and then think that all Americans must be war mongering fanatics. Which we all know is clearly not the case.

Welcome to ATS. It's GREAT to have a different perspective. I look forward to your posts.

Btw, don't forget to check out BTS. That's the fun part of ATS.

reply to post by Operation AJAX


Great job on the intro post OP AJAX. You will bring a nice change of perspective to a very,imo, one sided debate here.

Really looking forward to reading your posts.

Thanks again everybody for the great welcome. The discussions that are ongoing here are fantastic and I can see Im going to be spending quite abit of time here