Windows on Iran - Part 39 to 42

by Fatemeh Kashevarz

The Iranian TV Hit about the Holocaust

The Wall Street Journal (September 7) had a piece about a TV series it describes as Iran’s Unlikely TV Hit and adds “the most surprising thing about the wildly popular show is that it is a heart-wrenching tale of European Jews during World War II.”  The truth is what is surprising is not the Iranian series but the Wall Street coverage of it. The presentation of Iranian society as being in denial of the Holocaust is so bad that I was going to search bookstores on my next trip to Iran to see what I can find on the subject. Last week, a friend returning from Iran brought me four randomly picked magazines. Two of them had clear (in one case extensive) articles in condemnation of the Holocaust. Now, let’s get back to the TV series:

The hour-long drama, “Zero Degree Turn,” centers on a love story between an Iranian-Palestinian Muslim man and a French Jewish woman. Over the course of the 22 episodes, the hero saves his love from Nazi detention camps, and Iranian diplomats in France forge passports for the woman and her family to sneak on to airplanes carrying Iranian Jews to their homeland.

Shot on location in Paris and Budapest, the show stars Iranian heartthrob Shahab Husseini and is so popular that its theme song—an ode to getting lost in love—is a hit, too.
Despite its positive subject, theWSJ article about Iranian TV show, is still plagued with a negative language. It calls the series “unlikely” and “most surprising” and describes other Iranian TV series as a “fare of scarf-clad women and gray-suited men.” As a person who tries to follow Iranian popular media, I can tell you that these statements are exaggerations at best. Nevertheless, in these days of demonizing Iran, the Wall Street Journal must be commended for allowing a positive and heart-warming piece of information to come to light about present day Iran.  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118912609718220156.html?mod=loomia&loomia_si=1

Iran Depicted as a Sewer

On September 4, the Columbus Dispatch carried a cartoon that depicted the entire map of Iran as a sewer with cockroaches running out of it and infesting neighboring countries. http://www.cair.com/Iran_DispatchSep42007.gif  I wrote to the editor, asked if he realized the implications of turning 70 million people into cockroaches, and indicated that I was amazed - indeed speechless - that this kind of Nazi style dehumanization propaganda could be carried out by a respectable paper. The editor wrote back - referred to Mr. Ahmadinejads anti-Semitism - and suggested that the intention was only to caricature the extremists! Since he sounded very nice, I mailed him the beautiful wedding pictures of the newly wed Jewish couple Sanaz and Payman in case the paper would like to show Americans a dimension of Iran that most Americans do not see. I have not heard back yet.

National Iranian American Council (NIAC) protested the Columbus Dispatch editorial page cartoon. Board member Dokhi Fassihian wrote to the Columbus Dispatch editor<> http://www.niacouncil.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=880&Itemid=2

The protest did not come only from the Iranian Americans. Many other Americans have been horrified by the dehumanizing message of the cartoon. Teach Peace did a special information sheet on it which you can easily forward to others to prevent this kind of preparing the public for a new war. (Thank you David Dionisi for sharing this): http://www.teachpeace.com/WarPropaganda.pdf

US Sees Potential Merit To Iran Cooperation Plan
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/iran_nuclear_usa_dc;_ylt=AnkDEkaB3_.W2O0BsNtPT1FSw60A

Rumi on NPR

On October 5, I was guest of NPR’ s Tom Ashbrook on the show On Point. My good friend Professor James Morris (Boston College), and the famous translator of Rumi Coleman Barks were also on the show. We had a great conversation on Rumi’s mysticism, personality, and poetic art. Here is the link if you like to listen: http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2007/10/20071005_b_main.asp

The Song of the Reed

Still more on Rumi! Our celebration of his 800th birthday last Saturday in Maryland with Afghan, Tajik, Iranian, and American friends was absolutely delightful. A master Iranian flute player and a young American vocalist performed verses from Rumi’s Opus Magnum the Masnavi. This was all thanks to the vision and the hard work of Prof. Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak and the Roshan Cultural Heritage Center for Persian Studies he has founded at Maryland University. Unfortunately, I don’t have a recording of that performance to share with you. But do I have another treat for you. Professor Jawid Mojaddedi of Rutgers University, who has been translating the Masnavi of Rumi into English verse, has just shared with us a pod cast of his own reading of the introduction and the first 18 verses of the book known as “The Song of the Reed.” Enjoy! and share with Rumi lovers:  http://podiobooks.com/title/masnavi-one/

Mr. Ahmadinejad’s Visit to Columbia University

In the last window I promised to tell you about Mr. Ahmadinejad’s visit to Columbia. Since you have read a lot about this end of the trip, let me tell you a bit about the reactions in Iran.

The initial reactions to Mr. Ahmadinejad’s visit, and the insulting remarks by the President of Columbia University, was a statement of support issued by the Iranian university presidents in which Dr. Bollinger’s remarks were condemned. Ironically, this rare expression of support for Mr. Ahmadinejad by the Iranian university community is practically a gift from Dr. Bollinger.

In response to Dr. Bollinger’s suggestion that American academics would not be permitted to speak freely in Iran, five Iranian Universities have issued invitations to him and the Columbia faculty for unrestrained visits to the country and exchanges with Iranian students and faculty. If the initial responses in the U.S. are any indication, the invitations will not be taken seriously.

Iranian bloggers engaged in extensive and interesting debates about the pros and cons of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s visit to Columbia University. While most debaters felt frustrated by the remarks of the Columbia President, the debates did not lend full support to the Iranian President either.

Mr. Ahmadinejad’s Visit to Tehran University

The sympathy expressed for Mr. Ahmadinejad’s mistreatment at Columbia does not seem to have lasted very long. His visit to Tehran University yesterday met with protests from more than a 100 students who criticized him for his lack of openness to criticism from the Iranian academic community. While the Iranian president spoke to a selected group of students inside the hall,  riot police prevented the demonstrators from entering. Later, his car had to avoid the crowd and leave through the back door.  The students’ banners read “Free the jailed students.” I have attached the picture of one banner that reads “Why Speak in Columbia. We have questions for you here!”

Here is an NY Times piece sent to me by Matt Miller on the student response to Mr. Ahmadinejad’s visit to Tehran University: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/09/world/middleeast/09iran.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

Iraq Will Have to Wait

The anxiety concerning the possibility of a military attack on Iran continues inside and outside Iran:

The Iraqi President Jalal Talebani objected to the arrest by the American forces of an Iranian in Kurdistan saying “I express to you our outrage for these American forces arresting this Iranian civil official visitor without informing or cooperating with the government of the Kurdistan region, which means insult and disregard for its rights.” He called for “his release immediately in the interest of the Iraq Kurdistan region and the Iranian-Iraqi relations.” This is not the first instance of an Iraqi official expressing support for Iranians. You will find the full article at: http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/09/22/talabani.letter/index.html 
 
In a disturbing piece, in Truthdig, Scott Ritter discusses the fact that our full attention to Iraq may distract us from the fact that a more serious situation is brewing with Iran. He writes: ” Here’s the danger: While the antiwar movement focuses its limited resources on trying to leverage real congressional opposition to the war in Iraq, which simply will not happen before the 2008 election, the Bush administration and its Democratic opponents will outflank the antiwar movement on the issue of Iran, pushing forward an aggressive agenda in the face of light or nonexistent opposition.”

Of the two problems (Iraq and the potential case of Iran), Ritter suggests, Iran is by far the more important.  “The war in Iraq isn’t going to expand tenfold overnight.  By simply doing nothing, the Democrats can rest assured that Bush’s bad policy will simply keep failing.  War with Iran, on the other hand, can still be prevented.  We are talking about the potential for conflict at this time, not the reality of war.  But time is not on the side of peace.” Thanks to Paul Appell for this article which you can read the rest at:  http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20070927_ritter_stop_iran_war/

Seymour Hersh’s recent article in the New Yorker is not reassuring either: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/10/08/071008fa_fact_hersh (thanks to Amir Amini for sharing this article).

Reading “Guernica” in Tehran

Jahanshir Golchin has shared this interesting article by an American woman married to an Iranian and writing from Tehran: Rosa Schmidt Azadi. What adds to the complexity of Rosa’s perspective is that this long time activist anthropologist who has traveled between Tehran and New York for many years, witnessed the falling of the twin towers:  http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_rosa_sch_070924_reading__22guernica_22_i.htm

Iranian women golfers acquired the second place in the ninth international women’s golf competition in Cyprus: http://www.shirzanan.com/spip.php?article654

The U.S. Government will impose new sanctions on Iran. While there is doubt about the actual effectiveness of the sanctions, and the agreement of other nations with it, nevertheless the move is another step away from reconciliation. Here is yesterday’s N.Y. Times article on the new sanction: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/25/washington/25tehran.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

A very interesting analysis of the catastrophic economic consequences for the world as a whole of a possible strike on Iran in today’s Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/25/AR2007102502840.html?wpisrc=newsletter

Reporting on Iran continues to be problematic. Words and images project images of religious fanaticism, or violence, even when the content of a report indicates the opposite. The coverage of the visit to Iran by Mr. Putin, the Russian president, in New York Times on Oct. 17 is a perfect example. According to the report, the Iranian, Russian, and other Caspian Sea nations oppose the possibility of a military intervension in Iran and call for a diplomatic approach to all conflicts - including the Iranian nuclear issue. The image used in the article (p. A6), shows Mr. Putin and Ahmadinejad walking past a row of wall decorations depicting pre-Islamic Iranian guards symbolically escorting the two leaders. The caption to the image reads “Presidents Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran followed in the footsteps of Persian soldiers yesterday.”

Here is a NY Times article with more details on the visit of the Russian President to Iran which was itself a historic event. The main purpose of the event was discussing Caspian Sea resources including oil. Besides Mr. Putin, leaders from Azarbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan expressed objections to further military action in the region: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/17/world/17iran.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

Matt Miller has shared a fascinating interview/article with the millitary historian Gabriel Kolok from Spiegel. It provides a very interesting analysis of a possible U.S. millitary attack on Iran. Thanks Matt: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,511492,00.html

The identities of the six British Members of Parliament who were present at the meeting with Debra Cagan have now been revealed and yesterday, the New York Times reported a virtual re-confirmation by the MPs that Cagan did indeed say that she hates all Iranians.  The National Iranian American Council (NIAC) calls on everyone to ask journalists why they have not covered the story of Debra Cagan and her outragous remark, “I hate all Iranians.” http://capwiz.com/niacouncil/issues/alert/?alertid=10436826

Film on ancient Iran

This film by the award winning documentary maker Farzin Rezaeian. In this major new documentary called Iran: Seven Faces of a Civilization, Mr. Rezaeian uses the latest technology to showcase the 7,000-year history of Iran’s art and archaeology.

Iranians look upon the recent Nobel Lauriete Doris Lessing as a daughter of Iran: http://www.payvand.com/news/07/oct/1138.html
Iranian men and women chess players maintained their lead in Asian Chess Championship held in Manama, reported Gulf News on Oct. 19: http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/Story.asp?Article=197252&Sn=SPOR&IssueID=30213

Fatemeh Keshavarz, Professor and Chair, Dept. of Asian and Near Eastern Languages and Literatures, Washington University in St. Louis