"The war with Iraq(Iran and Iraq) began that September and did not end until late July 1988 . . . At first the war seemed to pull the divided country together: we were all Iranian and the enemy had attacked our homeland. But even in this, many were not allowed to participate fully. From the regime's point of view, the enemy had attacked not just Iran; it had attacked the Islamic Republic, and it had attacked Islam.
The polorization created by the regime confused every aspect of life. Not only were the forces of God fighting an emissary of Satan, Iraq's Saddam Hussein, but they were also fighting agents of Satan inside the country. At all times, from the very beginning of the revolution and all through the war and after, the Islamic regime never forget its holy battle against its internal ememies. All forms of criticism were now considered Iraqi-inspired and dangerous to national securty."
Does the ring a familiar bell to anyone? I finding it eerily too close to home.
The context here is the death of someone's mother. They were not allowed to bury her in a cemetary because she was a "political outcast" due to her religious views.
"I wanted to touch him, but the experience had put him outside of reach: he was still there in that car, driving towards the garden. There were many such instances, when expressions of sympathy could not be exchanged. What do you say to someone who is telling you about the rape and murder of virgins - I'm sorry, I feel your pain?"
This reminds me of how I feel when I hear some of the stories here at the cafe. Or when I hear of the death of a loved one, as so recently happened when my aunt died.
On cult mentality as well as political propoganda . . .
"The place where the regime tried to keep its hold, ironically, was in the realm of our imagination. . . . This was not only to justify an increasingly unpopular and desperate war, whose end the regime had refused to contemplate until it had "liberated" the whole of Iraq. It was also aimed at intimidating and controlling a restive population, by holding up the prospect of even greater misfortune. . ."
and
"Khomeini's death carried its own illuminations. Some, like me, felt like aliens in their homeland. Others, like the taxi driver I came across a few weeks after the funeral, were disillusioned with the whole religious fraud, as he put it. Now I know how fourteen hundred years back they created the imams and prophets, he said - just like this guy. So none of it was true."
"what they mourned. . . was the death of a dream. Like all great myth makers, he had tried to fashion reality out of his dream, and in the end, like Humbert, he had managed to destroy both reality and his dream. Added to the crimes, to the murders and tortures, we would now face this last indiginity - the murder of our dreams. Yet he had done this with our full compliance, our complete assent and complicity."
Black and white thinking - objectifying of people . . .
Context is a young college student, dedicated to Islam and the regime, who had just set himself on fire and gone running down the hallway of a school building.
"Resentment had erased all ambiguity in our encounters with people like him; we had been polarized into "us" and "them." It did not occur to me or to my students and colleagues as we shared stories and anecdotes that day . . . that he who seemingly wielded so much power was in fact the one with the strongest urge to self-destruction. Had he, by burning himself, usurped our right to revenge? . . . "
"one did not have to agree with him or approve of him to understand his position. he had returned from a war where he belonged to a university he had never been a part of. no one wanted to hear his stories. Only his moment of death could spark interest. It was ironic that this man, whose life had been so determined by doctrinal certainty, would now gain so much complexity in death."
Some historical notes that I find facinating . . .
In Iran, there were many who were opposed to a ruling religious regime. Many who were forced to wear the veil and follow Islam against their will. Those who refused (and here I speak most specifically of women because it was from that perspective that the books was written) were sent to prisons where they were repeatedly and brutally raped and then shot.
Many who were a part of the revolution that turned Iran into an Islamic Republic, did not understand the consequences of their actions. All they knew is that they hated the monarchy and they were so caught up in that idea alone, that they did not consider the effects a religiously ruled political force would have on the people in their country.
The news scenes, so often aired, of Muslim people burning flags and screaming hatred for the U.S., were often "faked". The government paid poverty stricken people to participate in such acts for propoganda.
Additionally, many who truly did despise the U.S. and western culture did so because they felt that "we" were imposing and forcing our culture upon them. We were corrupting their religious way of life.
I find this last concept interesting on many fronts, including the political climate we face in the middle east, but even more so the political climate we have right here at home. I wonder about the religious right who so resents the rest of the people for our "liberal and corrupt ways." I wonder if they consider the long term effects of winning their moral war. If they understand that they too, in trying to fashion reality out of a dream(ideal) may destroy both the dream and the reality.
One last passage regarding the history of Iran and the author and then I am done for a while :)-->
"At the start of the twentieth century, the age of marriage in Iran - nine, according to sharia laws - was changed to thirteen and then later to eighteen. My mother had chosen whom she wanted to marry and she had been one of the first six women elected to Parliament in 1963. When I was growin up, in the 1960's there was little difference between my rights and the rights of a women in Western democracies. But it was not the fashion then to think that our culture was not compatible with modern democraqcy, that there were Western and Islamic versions of democracy and human rights. We all wanted opportunities and freedom. that is why we suppored revolutionary change - we were demanding morerights, not fewer. . .
By the time my daughter was born the laws had regressed to what they had been before my grandmother's time: the first law to be repealed, months before the reatification of a new constitution, was the family-protection law, which guaranteed women's rights at home and at work. The age of marriage was lowered to nine. . . and women, under law, were considered to have half the worth of men... My youthful years had witnessed the rise of two women to the rank of cabinet minisiter. After the revolution, these same two women were sentenced to death for the sins of warring with God and spreading prostitution."
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Abigail
"The war with Iraq(Iran and Iraq) began that September and did not end until late July 1988 . . . At first the war seemed to pull the divided country together: we were all Iranian and the enemy had attacked our homeland. But even in this, many were not allowed to participate fully. From the regime's point of view, the enemy had attacked not just Iran; it had attacked the Islamic Republic, and it had attacked Islam.
The polorization created by the regime confused every aspect of life. Not only were the forces of God fighting an emissary of Satan, Iraq's Saddam Hussein, but they were also fighting agents of Satan inside the country. At all times, from the very beginning of the revolution and all through the war and after, the Islamic regime never forget its holy battle against its internal ememies. All forms of criticism were now considered Iraqi-inspired and dangerous to national securty."
Does the ring a familiar bell to anyone? I finding it eerily too close to home.
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Abigail
On a non-political note . . . .
The context here is the death of someone's mother. They were not allowed to bury her in a cemetary because she was a "political outcast" due to her religious views.
"I wanted to touch him, but the experience had put him outside of reach: he was still there in that car, driving towards the garden. There were many such instances, when expressions of sympathy could not be exchanged. What do you say to someone who is telling you about the rape and murder of virgins - I'm sorry, I feel your pain?"
This reminds me of how I feel when I hear some of the stories here at the cafe. Or when I hear of the death of a loved one, as so recently happened when my aunt died.
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Abigail
On cult mentality as well as political propoganda . . .
"The place where the regime tried to keep its hold, ironically, was in the realm of our imagination. . . . This was not only to justify an increasingly unpopular and desperate war, whose end the regime had refused to contemplate until it had "liberated" the whole of Iraq. It was also aimed at intimidating and controlling a restive population, by holding up the prospect of even greater misfortune. . ."
and
"Khomeini's death carried its own illuminations. Some, like me, felt like aliens in their homeland. Others, like the taxi driver I came across a few weeks after the funeral, were disillusioned with the whole religious fraud, as he put it. Now I know how fourteen hundred years back they created the imams and prophets, he said - just like this guy. So none of it was true."
"what they mourned. . . was the death of a dream. Like all great myth makers, he had tried to fashion reality out of his dream, and in the end, like Humbert, he had managed to destroy both reality and his dream. Added to the crimes, to the murders and tortures, we would now face this last indiginity - the murder of our dreams. Yet he had done this with our full compliance, our complete assent and complicity."
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Abigail
Black and white thinking - objectifying of people . . .
Context is a young college student, dedicated to Islam and the regime, who had just set himself on fire and gone running down the hallway of a school building.
"Resentment had erased all ambiguity in our encounters with people like him; we had been polarized into "us" and "them." It did not occur to me or to my students and colleagues as we shared stories and anecdotes that day . . . that he who seemingly wielded so much power was in fact the one with the strongest urge to self-destruction. Had he, by burning himself, usurped our right to revenge? . . . "
"one did not have to agree with him or approve of him to understand his position. he had returned from a war where he belonged to a university he had never been a part of. no one wanted to hear his stories. Only his moment of death could spark interest. It was ironic that this man, whose life had been so determined by doctrinal certainty, would now gain so much complexity in death."
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Abigail
Some historical notes that I find facinating . . .
In Iran, there were many who were opposed to a ruling religious regime. Many who were forced to wear the veil and follow Islam against their will. Those who refused (and here I speak most specifically of women because it was from that perspective that the books was written) were sent to prisons where they were repeatedly and brutally raped and then shot.
Many who were a part of the revolution that turned Iran into an Islamic Republic, did not understand the consequences of their actions. All they knew is that they hated the monarchy and they were so caught up in that idea alone, that they did not consider the effects a religiously ruled political force would have on the people in their country.
The news scenes, so often aired, of Muslim people burning flags and screaming hatred for the U.S., were often "faked". The government paid poverty stricken people to participate in such acts for propoganda.
Additionally, many who truly did despise the U.S. and western culture did so because they felt that "we" were imposing and forcing our culture upon them. We were corrupting their religious way of life.
I find this last concept interesting on many fronts, including the political climate we face in the middle east, but even more so the political climate we have right here at home. I wonder about the religious right who so resents the rest of the people for our "liberal and corrupt ways." I wonder if they consider the long term effects of winning their moral war. If they understand that they too, in trying to fashion reality out of a dream(ideal) may destroy both the dream and the reality.
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Abigail
One last passage regarding the history of Iran and the author and then I am done for a while
:)-->
"At the start of the twentieth century, the age of marriage in Iran - nine, according to sharia laws - was changed to thirteen and then later to eighteen. My mother had chosen whom she wanted to marry and she had been one of the first six women elected to Parliament in 1963. When I was growin up, in the 1960's there was little difference between my rights and the rights of a women in Western democracies. But it was not the fashion then to think that our culture was not compatible with modern democraqcy, that there were Western and Islamic versions of democracy and human rights. We all wanted opportunities and freedom. that is why we suppored revolutionary change - we were demanding morerights, not fewer. . .
By the time my daughter was born the laws had regressed to what they had been before my grandmother's time: the first law to be repealed, months before the reatification of a new constitution, was the family-protection law, which guaranteed women's rights at home and at work. The age of marriage was lowered to nine. . . and women, under law, were considered to have half the worth of men... My youthful years had witnessed the rise of two women to the rank of cabinet minisiter. After the revolution, these same two women were sentenced to death for the sins of warring with God and spreading prostitution."
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oenophile
Abi,
I've gotta read it.
R
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Mister P-Mosh
That is a good illustration of why I semi-jokingly call the U.S. the worlds biggest middle eastern nation.
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