Intellectuals and Culture Wars

There is a streak of anti-intellectualism in me that I try to keep under wraps. Occasionally, though, it gets the better of me. Deep down, I can see myself just giving in and unabashedly loathing “them,” in a serious sort of way. Actually, to be frank, I do dislike intellectuals already--myself included. And I am going to try playfully to show you why in the next two or three posts.

So we are going to role play tonight. We’ll make nice to begin with and subsequently grow to be nasty. If you are easily offended, please move on.

And we are going to do it without demonizing Muslims and Jews, or Israelis and Arabs. Too much of that already going on everywhere! It’s going to be Persians and Indians for a change. And I am going to elicit the help of an Indian fellow blogger who has a wicked sense of humor and someone with whom I have lightheartedly jousted in private correspondence. I think he’ll be happy playing along.

So, I am going to be a Persian nationalist who adores India to start with. All things Indian, from people to movies and food and culture to the ancient texts and philosophy, literature and languages which is easy enough, really. We used to be joined at the hips, so to speak.

Our common heritage is hard to miss. Soma or Haoma, Rta or Asha, Daevas or Devas and Ahuras or Asuras, you name it, we both have it. And I have studied a bit of Sanskrit to boot-- a beautifully complex and rigorous language and I have also enjoyed my limited exposures to their famed grammarian, a Panini who wrote about the subject when most of the rest of the planet had no clue what grammar was. The studies have helped me better grasp the structure of our own old ancient languages which hardly anyone pays attention to anymore. And for those opportunities I remain grateful.

Exposures to other cultures do that for you.

If you sympathetically engage with other cultures and their rich heritage--with an open mind and with your critical faculties fully operative, chances are that in due time, you will not only come away awed and humbled, but also will grow to appreciate the elements of your own culture which you might have been taking for granted all your life.

So I have enjoyed laboring over some of the original texts of Hinduism, The Rig Veda and the Upanishads which have helped me better understand our own ancient Zoroastrian tradition as well as Manichaeism and I have learned a great deal from those formidable Indian logicians such as Nagarjuna, and Dharmakirti.

I have been moved by the sensual poetry of Kalidasa and marveled at figures like Shakuntala and my body and mind feel a bit healthier and more serene after encountering Pantajali and heck, even my love life—what little I still remember of “normal” sex at any rate-- has been rendered more enjoyable thanks to those celebrated Kama Sutras.

And of course, even a brief exposure to the magnificent and complex epic of the Mahabharata with so many engrossing concepts such as Brahman, Avatars, Maya and Karma along with seekers and myriad duty bound with exotic names such as Brahamacharya, Grihastham, and Vanaprastham could be sufficient to rock anyone’s world.

And on a more personal level, I remain grateful to our Indian neighbors for having offered sanctuary to those purest ancient Persian communities—the much loved and respected Zoroastrians, after they were forced to migrate in order to escape the hordes of invaders who changed the face of our culture forever.

And gratitude has a way of pulling at one’s heart.

So the emotional attachment colors everything positively for me. Indians might have their own set of problems, but they can do no wrong as far as I am concerned. I am on their side.

Even the more obscure news items rile me up and move me to offer support. So when I read some group is using Christianity to undermine the influence of Hinduism in a region with a history of ethnic strife, I remain vigilant and when the news briefly hits of this same group producing “revolutionary pornography” to fund their struggles, I highlight the report put out by the Tripura Police to show what despicable creatures the Indians are up against. Shame on those porn peddling Christian terrorists in India, I say.

I just love and adore Indians. They are my allies. I wish them success. I am rooting for them. I want to see more jobs for them. And easier access to universities and educational opportunities for their students. As well as greater mobility for their workers and my endless, profuse praises for their democracy, tolerance and hard work. More power to them everywhere, I say.

But there is a catch.

Remember I am a Persian nationalist. What’s good for me I feel grand for everyone else. If someone is nice to me, naturally that means the person is obviously O.K. Everyone is great as long as I get my way and just so long as I get to hear what I want to hear.

But something odd begins to happen.

India votes against Iranian aspirations to harness peaceful nuclear energy. This, I find, especially offensive as they have been trying to gain access to “our” cheap oil. I know my country. I represent my country. What I think is good for my country, I know is really good for the country. Dastardly Indians.

And then some Indian blogger shows up to my blog and writes a comment on my post about the eight years of a devastating, brutal war. He writes:

In terms of Reagan’s support for Iraq, Iran somewhat reaped what it sowed by first humiliating Jimmy Carter and then deliberately waiting till he lost the presidential elections before releasing the hostages on the day Reagan took office.

Which is, indeed, perfectly reasonable, I know. He has kindly reminded us of a chain of events which has been no secret to anyone. Iranians took some Americans hostage. Then some Americans got tired of a president they deemed weak and indecisive. They voted for Reagan and wanted him to act on those nasty feelings most everyone had come to develop for the Iranians. And when the war dragged on and on, Reaganites didn’t think twice about siding with Mr. Hussein.

But the war and revolution were also particularly difficult for my family, friends and classmates among so many other millions. Loved ones died and some were poisoned and others were purged and some landed in jail or were executed or assassinated. It wasn’t the best of times for any of us.

So his comment doesn’t sit well with me at all. Is he implying that my family and friends deserved to be gassed and bombed and killed simply because some other miscreants took a few diplomats as hostage?

So my festering wounds break open. All the negative emotions that all of us have which remained under control for so long are suddenly set loose. I don’t know what they are exactly or where they come from. But it is all focused now on India.

Perhaps it is all those movies I saw when I was a kid with Indian foot soldiers under the leadership of British officers trying to wreak havoc on my country. Or perhaps it is a few bad encounters I have had with all those Indians who seem to be everywhere these days I visit or am ever likely to visit-- from Europe to the Americas and Africa, Asia or even Guyana.

Indians are taking over.

Perhaps I got sick one day eating at an Indian restaurant. Or maybe the Indian Goddess I adored dumped me one day and my inner masochist is feeling deprived of the spanking she used to administer mischievously. Who knows, really, why any of us come to finally snap and react the way we do?

Now India is on my manure list. And so is my fellow Indian blogger. Perhaps, finally that last of one too many callous comments from a brash young Australian of Indian descent about Persians has gotten me so annoyed that I am now fed up with all Indians in toto.

So, from here on, you will notice, “objectively” as the old Soviets used to say, nothing much has changed.

Only now my perception of Indians has. But it’s not “politically correct,” to come out and say exactly how I feel in public. So being a half resourceful intellectual, I’m going to pull at the threads of my universe--one strand at a time-- until there is nothing left of that colorfull tapestary which was my love for India and Indians.

I am going to radically reconstitute my experience of the Indian presence in our universe and you’ll see how in my next post.

Mashad, weasels and stupid laws

This item annoyed me no end. Especially since I repeatedly argued about the whole matter with a bunch of my compatriots last year. Back then, the number stood at 32,000.

There are close to 40,000 children without birth certificates in the “holy” city of Mashad, notorious now because of the public hanging of those gay youngsters. That’s because (mostly) Iraqi pilgrims, among others from bordering Arab countries, (according to the report) have brief liaisons with some poor women and then skip town after impregnating them thus abandoning their lovers to fend for themselves.

And by law, children born to Iranian woman and foreign men or those whose paternity can not be established have difficulties getting birth certificates.

While I have nothing against the much tormented Iraqis engaging in a bit of responsible R & R while on pilgrimage in the “holy” city—and this, especially as our Iraqi neighbors are having such a rough time of it regaining a sense of normalcy at home, it really irritates me that they don’t take the necessary precautions to avoid leaving a child behind.

It isn’t as if there are no condoms or other methods of birth control easily accessible. They are ruining some woman’s life as well as that her offspring.

And the Iranian authorities should really be forced to take the appropriate steps to change some of these anachronistic, stupid laws. A more open approach to sex education might not exactly hurt either.

A much welcome additional advantage to changing the laws, of course, is that our irresponsible citizens will be deprived of that omnipresent luxury of blaming foreigners for the consequences of their own indiscretions and false hopes. I am sure quite a few people can intuitively appreciate how easy it can be to scapegoat some non-existent Iraqi or Arab pilgrim when faced with a difficult, embarrassing predicament while stuck in a needlessly intolerant milieu!

It’s called the “Sacred Defense Week”

September 22 is the anniversary of Mr. Saddam “Hitler” Hussein’s attack on Iran. So much of what Iran is today, I think, is the unfortunate outcome of those devastating eight years of a needlessly protracted war.

This is how some veterans of those years look like dying years later. This is what the victims of chemical warfare look like curtsey of Mr. Hussein and partially made possible, of course, by the (mostly) European, and the American involvement and subsidies.

Some more pictures of the war years here and here.

And the military marches go on to commemorate those events just like every other year. More pictures here, here, here, and here. More young men likely to die in case there is another conflict only to be soon forgotten again as we all move on with our own merry lives.

So you see, I really don’t hold any of the unkind characterizations of Iran and Iranians against the pundits. People are fully entitled to feel superior if that’s what sets their shorts on fire. But I fear some are drawing all the wrong conclusions thus dragging us even deeper into an abyss. All of us.

Iranian revolution came to an end with that war I think. I know the revolution is forever associated with the despicable Islamic form cemented during the war years. But that was never inevitability. Revolutions are funny that way.

Revolutions tend to release the imagination as well as powerful new forces which then often become impossible to comprehend and control.

Before the Iranian revolution, you will recall, we were all being lectured about how all we could do was to make the only possible choice available. It was either the Soviet tyranny as a model for the third world or those American backed strongmen—brutal and vainglorious rulers like the Shah. That was not all too palatable for many everywhere.

No third alternative was even deemed probable. Either “them” or “them.”

And we Iranians said no. We broke out of a suffocating construct. But then we failed miserably in finding our way through all the tortuous aftereffects.

In the midst of the war, there were massive terror campaigns initiated by the MEK activists who killed the President and many other prominent figures which resulted in a murderous, brutal backlash that cost us thousands of our idealistic youth. There were massive student unrests brutally suppressed and a civil war in Kurdistan and elsewhere taking a heavy toll while some of our most promising men and women were dying on the battle fronts.

The confusing atmosphere and all, in retrospect, proved too much for a people who had come to feel liberated from a Bastille of imagination, and who yet lacked the experience or the tools necessary to make possible a more humane alternative.

But judging by the venom and the bloodlust evident in the “civilized,” portion of our planet after a bit of pressure, I am not quite convinced any other people in our shoes would have been any less of a failure.

That’s why, you see, in my less despondent moods, I remain (guardedly) optimistic. Iran is an ancient nation and this too shall pass.

The crash

A companion of many years which has felt more like an extension of my body—dearest laptop—began to make curious noises one day and then it suddenly died. And it took along thousands of photographs and pages up on pages of notes about various books and articles and many other files I had managed to accumulate over the years.

Of course I have back ups, but they too are sitting inside assorted boxes (which remain) scattered around different cites across four continents. Mr. BP, you see, isn’t the most stable of fellows. So we have been brooding a tad more dejectedly of late.

And we have also been interviewing for jobs. But of course that too isn’t going anywhere. We have lost our taste for the “respectable” society and we half suspect the disdain to be mutual.

Living the life of a semi-literate vagabond in the margins of our great cities has a certain charm, I must admit. But it would get terribly tedious intellectually, I fear. So, I am thinking I should really take a long break soon to put my own affairs in order.

Before I go, though, I would like to finish a number of conversations which I’ve never managed to develop to my satisfaction. So, I intend to do a series of posts on Mr. Pollack’s book, The Persian Puzzle, which might also offer an opportunity to rethink some of the issues I have broached in the past.

At least two reviewers from the opposite sides of the political spectrum haven’t been too terribly kind to the Gentleman.

Mr. Amir Taheri, our famed, old “Emissary of the Apparatus,” comes to pull a Juan Cole on Mr. Pollack, charging our author with suffering “from the fact that he has never been to Iran and does not know the Persian language,” while complaining further:

Pollack has an amazing arsenal of adjectival bullets with which to shoot his hated Iranians. He writes that Iranians are "stupid, naïve, paranoiac, delusional, unreasonable, and obtuse." And that is only for starters!

And that, of course, makes a rational discussion of the conflict that much more difficult.

Mr. Kaveh Afrasiabi, on the other hand, an author who is the closest there is to a thoughtful fellow traveler, has almost identical set of objections:

Pollack indulges in criticizing Iranian emotionalism, xenophobia, exaggerated "self-importance", "considerable ignorance of many of its policymakers", etc, thus making a mockery of objective analysis bereft of such abstract generalization smacking of what the late Edward Said labeled "Orientalism".

The crux of the matter, for Mr. Afrasiabi, appears to be the following:

Pollack unfortunately proves incapable of breaking free from a CIA school of thought that, in addition to denigrating Iran's national character, consistently predicts the imminent demise of the Islamic regime in Iran.

I have been reading Mr. Pollack’s book and I like it. It is nowhere written in stone that an analyst should like Iran or Iranians. By that standard, almost everything anyone ever writes these days about Iran could be easily dismissed.

But it is terribly unfair, I think, to highlight a few unflattering characterizations out of 539 pages of a book instead of thinking about some of the more important assumptions and conclusions presented by a writer.

Any how, I was pleasantly surprised by Mr. Pollack’s attempts at being fair minded and his efforts in seriously grappling with a number of fundamental difficulties and challenges that Iranians and the Iranian regime pose. This is not to say that I don’t have misgivings. But since when has agreement become the sole standard for judging a book?

I’ll tell you about some of Mr. Pollack’s more interesting observations soon. This especially since--as our Spirited Poetess rightly points out-- after the election of Mr. Ahmadi Nejad, and faced with the brewing (potentially) catastrophic conflict, some of the loudest (Iranian) observations are reducible to a variety of the shallowest sartorial, or boring and banal rhinological, fulminations.

About Beslan.

A year passes. No end to fury and grief and still more talk of blasphemy. Edited repost from last September.

*********

What is it about Beslan? It haunts and infuriates, leaving us dazed or baffled although practically every one of the impulses, deliberations and miscalculations leading to this calamity can be accounted for. I have been trying to avoid discussing Beslan for fear of sounding like an absolute lunatic.

Is it Islam?

Of course it is. At least a particularly repugnant strand of Islam even when overly generous! “Who are we trying to kid?” I am thinking. The Beslan barbarity is a reminder of the sort of dystopia awaiting us if the Islamists succeed. The stakes are high indeed.

And then there was a child crying under my window this evening, shouting at the top of his lungs: “Divaneh, divaneh, nazan mano.” Roughly translated, “maniac, don’t hit me.” In all likelihood, echoes of his mother's pleas. A child of no more than 5 or 6 profoundly perturbed about being battered. Children finally managed to find a way onto my heart. Shortly after my sister’s first born.

Look, when I used “daze” and “baffle” at the beginning, I wasn’t playing clueless. It is easy to be sanctimonious about such a brutality. But, at the end of the day, isn’t it really all about inhibitions? And apathy, coarseness of spirit, and helplessness?

Why is it that I didn’t rush down to beat the living daylight out of the bastard who made the young boy cry in agony under my window? Why is it that everyday I pass by all the pathetic, poverty stricken street children peddling in this land of obscene expenditures only to occasionally hand them money when “touched” by something "extraordinary?” Why is it that we tolerate child abuse, child prostitution, widespread hunger, and systematic killing of children everyday?

The World Food program ran an advert on BBC the other day. Hunger kills 776 children every hour on the hour, every day. Do the math. Seven Hundred Seventy Six.

Sometimes, silly stupid questions become an obsession with me. Look at the conflict that the majority of us tend to focus on compulsively because it might be “closer” to home-- the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Why is it that children in buses and pizza parlors are blown to bits, incinerated and dismembered while it is not “O.K” to serve their soulless bodies in a deep dish pizza? We eat almost every thing else that moves, don’t we?

Why is it that some get vasculitis when a cartoon of Sharon drinking the blood of children shows up in print somewhere, but the same people can stomach hearing or watching children’s blood being spilled practically everyday on the streets of the occupied territories? And they almost always insist on a “firmer” policy, don’t they? It is in the news everywhere, isn’t it?

I have been avoiding Chechnya for years. I don’t understand it. I was terribly disgruntled with various “National Liberation” movements to begin with. But they are not going to go away simply because I don’t wish to deal with the questions. We have the basic facts in front of us and can all do the math. Prior to Beslan, the “score” stood at 80,000 Chechens to 4000 Russians. Can you count that? 80,000 out of a population of a little over a million, I think.

How many of those 80,000-- are you willing to wager--were children? Had you heard of the “black widows” some 10 years ago, before Crozny, when the same Jihadists were running around being the same murderous miscreants they have always been?

But then I think about “us” again. Of all the many years that we—the Persians—have abused our own various national minorities and in particular the Kurds—and I use abuse here to encompass all of our various shameful deeds such as withholding oil money for regional development, preventing them from studying their own beautiful, ancient language in schools and universities, and putting their children to work in backbreaking construction jobs, or the ongoing de facto economic blockades, as well bombing their houses and cities , tormenting their families, and torturing their activists, never once, to my knowledge, have they ventured to seek us in “our” cities or schools in order to kill and to avenge their mistreatment.

Why not? What is it that holds them back? They are both Muslims and an abused national minority, aren’t they? What causes the inhibitions? How long will it last?

I know the Chechens have been brutalized, but what kind of a society will they create even if “liberated” from the brutal yoke of the Russians? What did the poor Ossetians ever do to deserve this? What control do these wretched Ossetians ever have over the decisions of this supposedly “reformed” KGB strongman Putin? Or those of an ex-Communist Party apparatchik, Yeltsin? Did they help Stalin forcibly exile to Serbia all those Chechens years ago? Did they exert any kind of an influence on the Tsars before that?

Why is it that it is O.K. to take children hostages, to torment them, to force nudity upon them, to imprison them in a hot gym, to starve and dehydrate them, to shoot them in the back, give them urine-soaked cloths to suck on, to scar them permanently for life, and yet it wasn’t “acceptable” to feed them some barbequed teacher?

What held them back?

Regardless of the “tribal” idiosyncrasies involved, the various Jihadists have a very particular notion of the dystopia they try to impose on the majority as well as specific means in mind to get us there.. Every one of their (mis)deeds is a harbinger of what they wish to bring us. And they must be resisted, and methodically defeated, their ideas discredited and their methods repudiated.

Here in Iran, for instance, the first sign of their activism was spraying acid on the faces of women deemed improperly dressed in conformity with their understanding of the Islamic etiquette. They are doing their best to drive women out of public spheres in Iraq, and we know how they forced women to retreat inside imprisoning them in various Afghan homes, and denying them education.

And well Saudi Arabia has always been Saudi Arabia. So now they ride the wave of the agonizing misery of some Chechen women to open a new front in their tribal war of ruin.

The fight involving women and children is a central battle front. Women are the primary educators of children. Aside from suffocating their teachers and caretakers or killing and imprisoning them, what else do they promise children?

Whether it is by killing them in a school in Beslan, or brainwashing them and destroying their humanity in various religious madresas in Pakistan or in other intellectually stifling places like Saudi Arabia and Iran or by distracting them from learning in France, or by killing the joys of learning through fear in the likes of my little friend in Tehran thousand of kilometer away from Beslan, they have very specific objectives in mind.

What do they really want?

A new vicious tribalism, widespread fear, pacifism and inaction, I think. And in this goal they are united with those authoritarians who acknowledge “weakness” only to distract from the issues of right and wrong.

The authoritarians whose own weak case is being bolstered further by their natural allies who never tire of talking “Carthagian” tactics, “Jacksonian Economy of Force” and nuclear weapons as means of forcing “cultural adjustment” on Arab and Muslim lands!

Both groups feed on each other’s energy while complementing the other’s activity. They must know that not all of us have the desire or the stomach for collective retribution and widespread murder and mayhem. They want the majority of us out of the way so they can do what they want. And they must be resisted, and forced to retreat.

A lot easier said than done, though.

At the end of the day, I think, YES, in a sense, it has everything to do with Islam. I was wracking my brain trying to think “devouring of children” theme in mythology.

I stopped reading Russia related material years ago. So much to read and so little time. I couldn’t think of anything on that front. But we have all the usual Greek stuff about Kronus, and various child-eating dragons in the Japanese and Chinese literature as well as the Indian Demon which I think Krishna slays.

But what about us?

Isn’t it true that we live in region where one of the very central formative “myths” is the ten plagues? Isn’t it true that our shared heritage postulates an omnipotent deity who repeatedly “heardens the Phraoh’s heart,” (Exudus 9:12; 10:20; 14:10) only to do this:

At midnight the LORD smote all the first-born in the land of Egypt, from the first-born of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the first-born of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the first-born of the cattle. 12:29

Perhaps, so long as we continue to celebrate our heritage mindlessly—our sanctimonious prattle notwithstanding--- we don’t really get to have much of an inhibition when it comes to killing children.

Then the first thing we should think about doing is to let go of whosoever insists on not being under our yoke before we end up losing a lot more than our first born.

That and bolstering our inhibitions when it comes to assorted barbarities.

Something a lot akin, I suppose, to tapping whatever it is that accounts for our dislike for munching on a barbequed human hand or a thigh.

Help

There is an ancient quarrel that finds echoes in the mind-- and this, especially after each newest recurrence of devastation and carnage. There are many different variations. But for me there are now basically only two voices left—clamorous, ferocious. One is Job's interrogator:

3: Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me.
4: Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.
5: Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it?
6: Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof;
7: When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
8: Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb?
9: When I made the cloud the garment thereof, and thick darkness a swaddlingband for it,
10: And brake up for it my decreed place, and set bars and doors,
11: And said, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: and here shall thy proud waves be stayed?

With, I suppose, the punch line here:

9: Hast thou an arm like God? or canst thou thunder with a voice like him?

The other is what we encounter in Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching:

Heaven and earth do not act from (the impulse of) any wish to be
benevolent; they deal with all things as the dogs of grass are dealt
with.

That said, with each passing year, I find myself siding more with Chuang Tzu when it comes to the practical consequences:

3. Zhui Khü 2 asked Lâo Tan, saying, 'If you do not govern the world, how can you make men's minds good?' The reply was, 'Take care how you meddle with and disturb men's minds. The mind, if pushed about, gets depressed; if helped forward, it gets exalted. Now exalted, now depressed, here it appears as a prisoner, and there as a wrathful fury. (At one time) it becomes pliable and soft, yielding to what is hard and strong; (at another), it is sharp as the sharpest corner, fit to carve or chisel (stone or jade). Now it is hot as a scorching fire, and anon it is cold as ice. It is so swift that while one is bending down and lifting up his head, it shall twice

And this version is more to my liking (pdf):

Tsui Chi asked Lao Tan [Lao Tzu], saying," If the empire is not to be governed, how are men's hearts to be kept good?"

"Be careful," replied Lao Tan, "not to interfere with the natural goodness of the heart of man. Man's heart may be forced down or stirred up. In each case the issue is fatal. By gentleness, the hardest heart may be softened. But try to cut and polish it, and it will glow like fire or freeze like ice. In the twinkling of an eye it will pass beyond the limits of the Four seas. In repose, it is profoundly still; in motion, it flies up to the sky. Like an unruly horse, it cannot be held in check. Such is the human heart.

My way of saying, it is only natural that all of us come to need a bit of help sometimes. Please give as generously as you can.

The American Red Cross

The Mercy Corp.

A (naïve) case for (modicum of) Irano-Israeli rapprochement

I am still puzzled by the curious silence which shrouds Mr. Katsav's recent personal peace appeal to Iran. I think we might have a real opportunity here to win some much needed time and breathing space to set our houses in order. I know this is a thorny issue. But I am going to make a case for having the Europeans find a way of linking the future of Iranian nuclear aspirations to some degree of direct engagement between Iran and Israel.

The relations between these two nations have ancient roots. I know the affairs have been a tad more complicated in recent past, with revisionists on both sides hard at work projecting the present animosities backward in time in order to provide even more justification for the ongoing campaigns of hate and venom.

Yet, the fact remains that some ancient nations are tied at the proverbial umbilical cord. There have been positive interactions and mutual influences over countless centuries as attested to by what little scholarly work exists that map out the history. Much work remains to be done, of course, given the vast quantities of material available still that has remained unexplored by the broader academic community.

As an aside, I have noted once before what a magnificent tradition of Judeo-Persian literature exists which is simply astounding and that you should get familiar with it if you are not already. And in one recent work (I have yet to examine) we get a glimpse into the life of our Jewish compatriots over the years. Some pictures here.

I know full well that all must not have been easy. But really, whose life has? Where there are shared memories, there are nursed grievances. The Iranian plateau is an enchanting landscape, and yet, all the many different ethnic groups inhabiting it have suffered more than their fair share of wars, misery, oppression and massacres. Their full litanies of anguish are always poignant and deserve to be acknowledged. Life, however, must go on and should be lived forward.

Besides, there is that matter of the investment made of our ancestors' tax money-- the Persian funds used to rebuild the Temple. The interest alone accrued on that loan should be enough to finance many more nuclear power plants like the one being built in Bushehr that our old friends have been threatening to destroy.

[My earlier reading of the contours of stand off and my personal opposition to Iran's harnessing of nuclear energy.]

I think the Europeans are in a position to play a decisively constructive role here, as are the Americans. Boldness is not always best measured by the yardstick of one, two many flattened cities. Occasionally, all that is required is working from a different angle with those matters subject to most intense disputes.

Let's start first with some of the easier difficulties.

If the assassins of the reigning imbecility from the heartland of evil are reluctant-- despite common grounds, most notably their intense loathing for Liberalism-- to negotiate with the bullies of the Great Satan, there is no reason why they shouldn't be pressured into opening a dialogue with the emissaries of the Zionist Entity. Perhaps, even Mr. Blair of the Elderly Dragon can get involved, I suppose. That is one of his passions, isn't it?

After all, what could some of the more obvious objections be?

That the Israelis are oppressing fellow Muslims, the Palestinians? Well, the Russians, of course, have been butchering the Chechens by their thousands for years leaving hundreds of thousands of refugees and they still get lucrative contracts all over the place.

Or is it that the Lebanese Shi'ias might be offended? Just last year, I heard their famed leader, the always odious Sheikh Nasrallah speak in glowing terms about the Israelis since he thought them caring enough to want to have the corpses of their fallen back.

It always annoys me no end when enemies only choose to acknowledge mutual humanity in death. And what of the Palestinians, we may wonder?

They too, of course, negotiate with the Israelis all the time. And after the recent disengagement from Gaza, perhaps the PA and Mr. Abbas could be prevailed upon to ask the Iranian authorities--very publicly and loudly—to only express their concern in form of assistance rendered as funds—under some international supervision of course—to help build homes, farms, factories, hospitals, greenhouses or schools.(NO INPUT ON CURRICULUM)

After all, a few bombs or rifles would not really alter the existing disequilibrium of power in any meaningful way and the Palestinians appear able to get all the rocks they require from the unpaved roads or demolished houses whereas hope of better life and concrete tangible changes in the right direction might make it a lot easier for all parties involved.

What would the Israeli objections be?

That Iran is involved in activities that harm Israeli citizens? The Israeli regime is always prepared to negotiate to save lives. Why not open direct negotiations to avoid even more harm?

Or could it be that Israel does not deal with a regime which grants ethnic minorities like those Khuzestani Arabs the right to vote while treating them like second class citizens?

Or perhaps the more cogent objection could be that the ever so gentle sensibilities of the Likudniks are too offended by the Iranian regime's practice of gender apartheid?

Again, you will recall the rather cordial relations with the regime of South Africa at the height of Apartheid's obscenities with millions of dollars in trade even as multitude of Jewish activists were at the forefront of the global battles to put an end to the injustices in SA.

And here of course we have additionally both regimes' love affair with China while this latter continues to occupy Tibet. There has been an interesting history of Sino-Israeli relations which has been taking some intriguing turns of late and Iran's relation with China, as always, has been no secret to anyone.

And while we are at it, none of the rest of us-- even the most sanctimonious and self righteous (yours truly at the forefront) --have been making much noise about…oh, let's pick something in random, the sum of 206,970 workplace accidents resulting in the astonishing number of 30,597 deaths last year alone in China.

Almost 6000 miners among them vanishing in those underground death camps. When you seriously reflect on those numbers, it actually far exceeds the casualties both sides have suffered as a result of the last 5 years of that heart wrenching, tragic although progressively more tedious, perpetual little war in the contested promised land which continues to consume global life with partisans incessantly pulling our emotional strings.

Sometimes, I have to remind myself that there are almost 200 different countries on our planet with close to 6 billion inhabitants in total. And they all have problems requiring urgent attention.

Ultimately though, it might be argued that Ahmadi Nejad is way too disagreeable to have a dialogue with. True enough. But let's recall that Mr. Sharon himself has been no angel. Perhaps the two of them can accomplish together what many better natured souls always fall short trying. What is there to lose, really?

I think the Iranian authorities are acutely aware of Israeli intentions and their capabilities. And Israelis must fully know--and still should acknowledge and more realistically reassess-- the extent of the fundamental changes in the Iranian psyche in the last 26 years.

Even on our best days, I must admit, we Iranians were a belligerent lot. Though I think some of the observers of the Iranian scene have been slow to dot the i's when it comes to recognizing what havoc the post revolutionary civil strife and the Iran-Iraq war has wreaked.

Simply recall the extent to which Americans, at the height of prosperity and comfort, have been affected by those few spores of anthrax and the resulting changes in the average American's expectations from their representatives in government due in part to the continuous fear of further non-conventional terror assault.

Now, try to imagine a society that has lost hundreds of thousands with close to 90,000 victims of poison gas still suffering acutely. And that number excludes the tens of thousands who have already perished since the initial assaults.

That is CHEMICAL WARFARE, Ladies and Gentlemen, we are talking about here in case you are reluctant to hear me. Brought about in part, curtsy of the European and American involvement in Mr. Hussein's chemical warfare against Iranians on top of the memories of all the Scud missiles raining down their heads.

I think it is a horrendous miscalculation to underestimate the ferocity of Iranian regime's response to any Israeli attack on their pride and joy. And neither the country nor the region will recover from the fallouts of the breakout of more open hostilities between Iran and Israel for a long, long time to come.

I think it will serve the long term interests of those with hopes of a more sane future for the region to do what it takes to support a gradual de-escalation. That might give us more time to settle the score internally.

Again, the key, I think, might lie in some European attempt to tie any further progress on negotiating the future of Iranian nuclear aspiration to some formal—however limited—Iranian ties or at least direct dialogues with Israel.

About Mr. Ganji (again)

We seem to have some positive developments. Apparently Mr. Ganji is doing slightly better and even the illustrious Anan has finally decided to step in to demand his release. Better late than never.

I have never told you why Mr. Ganji is important to me. I don't feel comfortable with this panegyric business. But I am going to work to change that tonight.

Obviously, judging by the reactions Ms. Sheehan elicits, people and their conduct come to have different meanings and are perceived differently and that applies to Ganji as well, I suppose.

I don't share his views of politics or religion. Really, I don't agree with him about much. Although, I must admit, as I've grown older, and having lived through some tumultuous times, a shared outlook on life, politics and religion have become progressively less relevant for me.

Certain qualities of character count a lot more now than all the agreeable babble in the universe.

So about this man of conscious, free thinker, audacious journalist, and the veteran of the murderous Revolutionary Guards, I'll say this: Mr. Genji might not have always made the decent choices in life. But in this, he is very much like the rest of us.

There is such thing as forgiveness, after all. Which one of us could look back and unequivocally claim to be proud of the past?

But I think Mr. Ganji is what the wise old poets—ancient healers so much more firmly anchored in our common heritage and creative with constructs that continue to soothe and amaze–would have called the best and the bravest of men. And in many ways, Mr. Ganji has proven far better than many of the rest of us.

Mr. Ganji is the last of a (mostly decimated) generation who remains too guilt ridden to live the prosaic and too responsible to live aloof. He is a man conscientious enough to want to see to it that the mistakes of the past are set right.

And that to me is noble, and dignified. Mr. Ganji has integrity. Ganji does not collaborate and is no sycophant. And he refuses to bow or break or repent.

He makes it clear that he is no hero and justifiably so, I think. In many ways, he's come to realize that the age of heroism is long past and should best be forgotten.

This is a different era we live in and a fundamentally disenchanting one, in my view. And it is not as if history ever ended. It is merely that "grandeur of spirit" has finally vanished.

This is a time for sneak attacks and for striking the vulnerable and unsuspecting and for molesting the defenseless and for incinerating women and children from afar. A time when jailors torment their hungry, thirsty wards with the aroma of barbeque or the offerings of excrement and urine. A time for hoods, claustrophobia and lynching.

The era of petty tyrants and their petty spirited foes, and a time for spins, meanness and smears.

And while I am no longer certain there ever was a time when Titans clashed, I am rather convinced that what we have now are mostly the confrontations of the entitled and of the self-absorbed-- accompanied by nauseating displays of murderous jingoism and onanistic tribalism.

And unless there is a sustained outpouring of decency—which I am thinking highly unlikely in the foreseeable future, we'll be made into Tutsis and Hutus—most of us. It is a grave mistake to delude ourselves by (falsely) assuming our superiority.

So, I can certainly see why Mr. Ganji decided to say "no."

Mr. Ganji could have repented a long time ago to live a safe, servile existence and to contribute to the cacophony. But he refuses and if that means dying, he is prepared to let go.

More importantly, and ironically enough, he makes his stand only truly hurting close family members and friends who love him the most.

By his acts, Mr. Ganji, I think, puts petty tyrants, myriad jailors, assassins, tormentors, sycophants and indeed all those deliriously pursuing that illusive "awe" of the Leviathan on notice (yet again) of the truth of a simple proposition.

A proposition which Rousseau knew well and most tormentors seem to have nowadays forgotten—that,

it is difficult to reduce to obedience a man who has no wish to command, and the most crafty politician could not succeed in subjugating men whose only wish was to be left free.

So you see, for me Ganji is no hero. He is just a man probably fed up with what surrounds him and tired of living though audacious enough to toil on—but only on his own terms.

And while I am sure for some he remains just another predictably disingenuous Iranian who has never progressed beyond that adolescent stage of obsession with honor and shame; for me, Ganji rekindles the flames of hope in these dark, unsettling times.

Simply put, Mr. Ganji makes me blush.

Who are they, really?

I have been thinking about the comment Craig left a few days ago. There was certain lucidity in those simple expressions of his sophisticated thinking. And he has helped me better grasp what the problem for me has been all along with this Mesopotamian expedition. Let's see if I can articulate it—however tentatively.

From the very beginning, the pitch has been: there is no room in this war for oscillations. No room for nuances. Things are black and white. You are either with us or against us. They in 'them' pose such serious existential threat that the we in "us" have got to fight a very dirty, bloody slug match to the finish.

No doubts, no questions, no hesitations, no pauses allowed.

So in order to channel the primitive impulse that has kicked in, you've got to have a sense for who they are that propose to lead this dirty fighting and what they aim to accomplish. Especially since you find the other side rather creepy and have had your own mini bouts— ineffective mostly, yes, but it has now simply become a question of joining forces.

Hence the question of trust!

What is the vision of those who propose to lead you and promise to support you?

What is their real beef? What is this fight all about to them? What might they mean by victory? Could I trust them to watch my back when things get real gory?

But here is where things start to get messy.

So it has been the claim of some of their more outspoken ideologues that "we" are hated for who we are and not what we do. But when you reflect a bit more carefully, it turns out after all that this war has come about not because of who "we" are actually, but because of what we've failed to do.

That is, a failure to project invincibility by having unleashed Fury at the very first signs of trouble is what has led to this mess. They can still hate us as intensely as they have always, and yet, we'll be safe and get to drive our gas guzzler, and continue with our shopping sprees and lead our merry lives for as long as we have those terribly fiery iron fists.

We don't have to alter anything. We'll just send our boys and girls to flatten them. End of problems. And just to be on the safe side, no pictures of those who've paid dearly for our calculations.

Herein we have the first doubts about trust.

It appears to me that the "enemy" however ill defined, has always been thought of really not quite as formidable as they've made it sound. Or they couldn't have thought them so easily controllable. That's why they can counsel us to forget the "Arab streets." Those streets are filled with" impotent" men, as far as they are concerned, and stink of hot air which can ultimately be quite easily managed.

After all, they have lost every major war they fought in and have been brow beat to submission by some very low octane rulers. How bad can they be?

That's why we've been getting those constant comparisons. "This hasn't been all that bad now really, has it?" That is the constant chime. It's a war but not really a war. Just look at those casualties in percentiles. Negligible for what we've been doing. Or at least that's how I've understood those claims.

As an afterthought, we have had one incidental feature tagged on to the invincibility thesis—the Democracy creation project even when it means (or perhaps because it actually means, who knows?) wars or bombing entire countries into smithereens. In part since as the argument goes, expansionism and ferocity has always been in our nature. We have a mission. We are idealists and we fight for the underdog.

A classic case of an ill defined project, if I ever saw one. They want to be the scariest chelovak in town while also pretending to look out for the weak. Here is where things become even more confused and confusing.

It isn't as if these good folk who propose these policies have been out of power for any considerable length of time all these years. When you look, some of the meanest, most ferocious thugs and petty tyrants in the region have either been their best friends, their paid agents or still to this day their closest chums.

You don't have to agree with any of their arguments to see what conundrum they're faced with. If you try to be everything to everyone you actually end up being nothing to no one.

Again, at issue is that quaint matter of trust.

If your aim is to be the biggest, meanest thug in town, then the type of folk who would naturally be attracted to those qualities are going to have second thoughts about working with/for you having seen you in action.

Look where some of their old buddies have ended up: dead, hiding or in prison. One of the most prominent best friends of recent past who maimed, raped, butchered and gassed is sitting in a cell waiting to die. Their other buddies too must be feeling pretty insecure by now.

But that's the nature of politics for you and the inevitable future of all thugs no matter how big.

Alliances of convenience come and go. And I am not going to feel too terribly sorry for them, especially since none of them were ever my buddies.

But they are not content simply annoying the other thugs.

Some of these very same people who have had awfully close encounters with the ruffians we talked about (with pictures to show for it) get terribly nasty and start impugning your motives by charging anti Americanism or treason after your slightest reference to their history.

But you can't make the memory of those encounters disappear. You can't wish history away, even if you wanted to. Every time I see a close relative, I am reminded again of who has helped poison (gas) him. Tens of thousands more just like him still suffer. And it's basically the same story practically all over. Even assuming that history started in 1979, Mr. Boot and Co. should re-do their math before sounding too self-righteous or indignant.

They always lecture everyone, and yet refuse to own up their deeds. They have never been wrong. Never done wrong. Doesn't help their credibility in the slightest when they refuse to level. From here on, it gets even messier!

They say, go on, my fight is now also your fight. Join it. We know you have been disenfranchised and it's time for you to step in and take charge of your lives. But their message of hate, venom and bloodlust is too loud to miss.

Their publications are filled with them. That's because, I am guessing here, it is not even clear to them anymore who they aspire to be or even who they actually are.

Some of the ideologues and their fellow travelers say loudly and repeatedly: look, we have those nukes. We have used them in the past twice. And if the need arise, we're prepared to do it again. Isn't this what they ultimately mean by Hayba?

Hence even more mistrust.

Thugs aren't likable--even the biggest ones. And one way or another, the prospect of a grotesque death has always been looming overhead—be it by hanging, stoning, hacking, gassing, swords, bullets, bombs or a terribly nasty chronic illness wreaking havoc. Now just one more thing to worry about!

But you're half hoping that you're elsewhere when the angel comes for you or at least too busy having fun with a rather brilliant old-fashioned cantankerous Spartan of a dominatrix to notice the painful end. So life goes on as it has always.

Besides, being a thug is ultimately about control, isn't it? Especially since a part of projecting this thug persona has to do with the need to protect a life style—a life styles that even some of the most outspoken promoters of sacrifice (for others) appear awfully inflexible about.

And as delicious a thought as it might be for some of the more psychopathic fellows in those think tanks, extermination is not an option-- not for as long as this is partially about oil, anyways. Perhaps, in twenty, thirty years down the road if this keeps up. But not just yet!

And remember, this is not the last century either. Any delusion of life as usual with endless shopping and traveling and meandering would come to an abrupt end after even limited nuclear strikes. A very premature end, I might add, to those aspirations of laying claim to entire millennia.

So from here, one ends up becoming not only terribly incredulous but also hypersensitive.

Who are they, really? And what do they really want? What precise set of qualities matter to them most? What are their principles? Are there any? One is now after tangible, easy to understandable signs.

Remember, we are not supposed to do nuances.

So the ideologues and their sycophants claim for instance that none of you can be trusted because your religious practices ("el-taqia" of the couple of posts down) make you pretend all is well when things are actually not, but then they turn right around and praise the British profusely for their "stiff upper lips."

They make it sound as if they are the most principled fighters of those nasty "isms"-- well, you remember anti-Semitism, racism and such, and yet some of their routine pitches and talking points reflect the crudest historical building blocks of these ancient vulgarities.

They claim they are really concerned about the suffering of the likes of Ganji and yet, they go on to give us Abu Ghuraib and those Club Gitmo shirts and other paraphernalia and want to see even more humiliation and flattened cities….One, two many Fallujahs is their war cry..

They expect you to start a civil war, and tolerate bombings and murder and mayhem in your own neighborhoods for a promise of a more decent, tolerant future and yet, the moment a grieving mother lands in their own backyard with some candles and crosses, they lose temper about having lost their peace and one ends up shooting a rifle and vandalizing setups intended to commemorate the memory of the fallen.

The likes of Horowitz yell inanities on TV. Drudge does what drudge does best and all other sort of people join in to do some nasty smears.

All the signs, even the "simpler" ones now give one a nasty feeling about all this at the gut level. How am I to trust their promise of a benign hegemony when they can't even offer succor to a grieving mother?

Remember, I am a simpleton. So no matter how you cut it, the visceral doubts continue to grow.

There is no trust.

That primitive instinct doesn't want to be channeled their way, even when you want it to. Especially since you continue to have your own mini-bouts with those creepy Islamist folk on the side and can use a bit of help and guidance.

So I keep asking myself: What are they really after? Who are they, really? What's their vision? Who do they want to be?

The biggest thug or a liberator? Partner or a boss? Savior or a cold blooded killer? Bright eyed and principled or cunning and cynical? Caring or callous? Champion of the underdog or a mean bully?

And so long as even they are not explicitly clear about who they aspire to be, most signs increasingly point to the suspicion that we are dealing here with some pretty callous, mean spirited bullies who expect steep sacrifices from everyone but want to be accountable to no one.

They go on to take credit for every good and yet are unwilling to even be reminded of the consequences of some of their calculations gone badly or those nasty policies of the past.

And self serving, obnoxious, mean-spirited bullies always go down. It is just a matter of time and a question of how many of the rest of us they manage to finally take down with them.

In the meanwhile the mini-battles, however inefficiently, will have to go on until we get more trustworthy leaders with a more clear vision. But like I said, the Islamists are terribly creepy and will have to be brought down one way or another.

Tell me--honestly--where I am wrong in this.

Is this the best America has to offer?

Could it get any more depressing than this?

Is this the model civilization these callous, petty spirited sycophants who smear a grieving woman propose to have the world emulate?

What set of indecencies constitute a vision of life that allows no succor to a distraught, discombobulated mother?

Is there any wonder progressively more people are revolted allover?

Even under a murderous Authoritarian regime, on those rare occasions and however reluctantly, the President could be seen being yelled at in closed quarters by angry citizens.

The embarrassment

Although I normally don't alter entries much after I've posted them, I decided to sneak back on a couple in order to erase traces of crudeness. In two recent posts, you see, I had a sum of 4 profanities. As luck would have it, a couple of bloggers whose opinions I respect had offered their counsel-- which I had so obviously missed--about the need to avoid vulgarities.

And I was persuaded. I am sorry. It was a temper tantrum.

Obviously, though, I must have been more fundamentally embarrassed than I'd thought. Because when I dozed off briefly, I had the oddest of dreams. A nightmare really!

In a new town every feature of which was unfamiliar, I was struggling to find my way before it was too late.

And when I finally came upon what I had been looking for, it turned out to be a building and there was a long line and I was to take a test.

So I register and take my seat. Two pages of questions are handed me.

"You have two hours," someone announces.

And I look at the first question and the second and the third and on and on to the last. There are 79. I simply can't think of a single answer I am satisfied with. It is not exactly a multiple choice test either. Only pointed questions which allow a one line response!

Now, I am sure I can even recall the exact pages of the particular books the questions are taken from. But I can't for the life of me remember what the relevant answers would be.

An hour has passed. I am squirming in my seat.

A friendly old Professor comes by. He looks at the blank paper in front of me and then we exchange glances. I am so obviously blushing. I can even feel my ears. They always heat up when I am embarrassed.

"But surely Mr. ..., you must know at least some of the answers!"

"Sorry, can't think of a single one."

"Do try then." "Write something," he quipped.

And I look again at the papers.

One question stands out roughly in this form: "How does *Caliban's coarseness relate to the nature/nurture debates?"

And I wake up murmuring to myself—as I inevitably always do after my nightmares:

"It doesn't relate much. He simply wants a more worthy ruler, that's all."

The celebrated passage I have in mind:

A devil, a born devil, on whose nature
Nurture can never stick; on whom my pains,
Humanely taken, all, all lost, quite lost;
And as with age his body uglier grows,
So his mind cankers. I will plague them all,
Even to roaring.