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Thomas L. Friedman on the Shah. Shirin Neshat of Sarbazan

 
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Mark Dankof



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Location: Philadelphia, USA

PostPosted: Fri Dec 30, 2005 8:15 pm    Post subject: Thomas L. Friedman on the Shah. Shirin Neshat of Sarbazan Reply with quote




letters@nytimes.com
FAX: (212) 556-3622.

Letters to the Editor
The New York Times
229 West 43rd Street
New York, NY 10036


Dear Sir (s):

I duly noted Mr. Thomas L. Friedman's op-ed piece to the New York Times dated December 23, 2005 and entitled, "A Shah With a Turban." Mr. Friedman is quite correct in his various criticisms of the Presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI). Unfortunately, he displays an insulting and shocking ignorance of Persian history in equating the reign of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and the Pahlavi Dynasty with the thuggery of Mr. Ahmadinejad and the theocratic Mullahs behind the latter's dubious election this past June. This is the obvious implication and intent behind his article's ill-chosen title.

Mr. Friedman notes the repressive character of the IRI regime in Iran, and its systematic eradication of human rights and political expression there in the shutdown of reformist news publications and the disqualification of legitimate political candidates by the Council of Guardians and other totalitarian elements of the theocratic regime in Tehran. What he does not tell his readers is that he himself was a supporter of the anti-Shah student protestors in Washington, D.C. in the 1978-79 time frame, promoting and legitimizing the activities of the Islamic Student Association and Mr. Ebrahim Yazdi. Are you now happy with what you and Jimmy Carter have brought to the nation of Iran, the Middle East, and the entire world, Mr. Friedman? Or is it time to begin singing from a different page while disguising the ugly truths of the past with revisionist history?

Mr. Friedman is a Jewish-American with very cordial relations with the government of Israel and the American neo-conservatives allied with it. Surely he knows that Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi's government enjoyed diplomatic relations with Israel that involved mutual trade relationships and reciprocal travel arrangements between Tehran and Tel Aviv. More importantly, the Shah was an avowed enemy of terrorist factions in the region that were targeting Israel, and kept Iran out of the political crossfire of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. How does this equate in any sense of the word with the provocative anti-Semitic statements and stated desire of Mr. Ahmadinejad to "wipe Israel off the map?" Or the documentation recently provided by Toby Harnden, the Chief Foreign Correspondent of the British Telegraph, that the IRI's newest excuse for a President is recruiting legions of Iranian children to be employed as suicide bombers against American and Israeli interests wherever possible? And is Mr. Friedman aware of the historic and ideological linkage between the Peacock Throne and the reign of Cyrus the Great of Achaemenid Persia 2,500 years ago? Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi was well aware of the role of Cyrus in issuing a royal declaration allowing the Jews of the Babylonian Diaspora to return to their homeland, a fact recorded in the Jewish Old Testament. He was also proud of the Declaration of Universal Human Rights issued by Cyrus on a cylinder now housed by the British Museum. This lineage has nothing, I repeat nothing, to do with the simian government of the IRI regime, or its Chief Baboon, Mr. Ahmadinejad, who was not legitimately elected--but hand-picked by the Supreme Leader of the IRI, Mr. Khamenei--and ratified by a transparently fraudulent electoral process.

And now, people like Mr. Friedman are wringing their hands over the Russian-aided Iranian nuclear program headed in the direction of a full-blown acquisition of the nuclear fuel cycle and the enrichment of uranium. Does anyone believe that the staunch anti-Communism and pro-American stance of the Pahlavi Dynasty would have ever permitted this brand of Russian subversion in Iran and the Middle East to happen?

The IRI regime and its President have wrought much for the world to see: economic stagnation; an 8 year Iran-Iraq War which cost over 2 million lives; the repression of human rights generally and the rights of women specifically; the implementation of a theocratically oriented, State-controlled educational system; the systematic execution of minors in Iran; the routine denial of legal due process of law for the accused; and the possible introduction of a nuclear conflict in the Middle East before the end of 2006.

And all courtesy of the Thomas Friedmans and Jimmy Carters of the planet, whose role in pulling the rug out from under a true friend of the United States and the West, has introduced this great tragedy into the history of the world, a tragedy not yet fully unfolded in time.

Shirin Neshat
Sarbazan

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blank



Joined: 26 Feb 2004
Posts: 1672

PostPosted: Thu Jan 05, 2006 5:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

January 2, 2006


Dear Mr. Friedman,

I am writing you to express my disappointment with comments you made
in a recent article entitled, “A Shah With a Turban.” In this
article you went as far as to imply that there is little difference
between the current President of Iran and the late Shah. Your
indiscretion in making such remarks has not been well received by
the Iranian community. Not only were your comments misguided, but
they were also inflammatory. No true academic with a reasonable
background in Iranian affairs would make such a farcical parallel,
trivializing the splendor and integrity of a formal world leader,
Iranian patriot, and dignified monarch, in order to compare him to a
terrorist chief and notorious thug. It would be ludicrous to
overlook obvious contradictions between the Pahlavi state and its
successor, between regional stability and international terrorism,
and between national pride and international disgrace. For further
evidence of this stark contrast, one need only examine recent
remarks made by President Ahmadinejad, in which he questions the
historical reality of the holocaust, demands the annihilation of the
state of Israel, and proposes the removal of the Zionist state to
central Europe where it may be resurrected. We shall never, even in
our wildest and most ridiculous of dreams, imagine the Shah leveling
such seditious demands or indecent accusations. Nor would we dare to
associate the Iranian state under his control with that which is
managed by Tehran’s theocracy. Therefore, while I commend you for
candidly and systematically exposing the weaknesses and abuses of
the clerical government, I advise you to show greater care when
drawing comparisons between the current regime and that of the late
Shah. To suggest any parallel between the Islamic Republic and any
previous Iranian state, as you do in your title, is not only an
insult to your own academic integrity, but also to that of the
entire Iranian nation.

I thank you in advance for your attention, and I believe I
speak for all Iranians when I say that I anticipate and welcome your
apologies.



Respectfully,



Bijan Ganji
Founder and Director of the Cyrus Center for Human Rights
Georgetown University, Washington DC


Last edited by blank on Thu Jan 05, 2006 7:22 pm; edited 1 time in total
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 05, 2006 5:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

And this is for the ignorant ones like Friedman.....

Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (January 1979):

"I have devoted my existence to provide them a better life. I have given land to the peasants. I have imposed our industrialists to share their profit with workers. I have developed an excellent health program and established social security. I did everything to better the standard of leaving of my people. I cannot order soldiers and policemen to shoot people."
"I am told today that I should have applied martial law more forcefully. This would have cost my country less dear than the bloody anarchy now established there. But a sovereign cannot save his throne by spilling blood of his fellow--countrymen. A dictator can do it because he acts in the name of an ideology which he believes he must make triumphant, no matter what the price. A sovereign is not a dictator. There is between him and his people an alliance which he cannot break. A dictator has nothing to pass on and power belongs to him alone. A sovereign receives his crown from the people...
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cyrus
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 06, 2006 12:15 pm    Post subject: Iran Under the Shah Reply with quote

Iran Under the Shah

January 06, 2006
The International Herald Tribune
Farah Pahlavi


Thomas Friedman's article, "A shah with a turban" (Views, Dec. 24), poignantly illustrated the rift between Iran's clerical dictatorship and the country's population, especially the youth. However, an inappropriate headline and cartoon by Kal undermined what was informative and valuable in his article.

The implication that the shah's reign bears any resemblance to the present regime is inaccurate. Under the late Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Iranians enjoyed incomparably better lives than what they have to endure today; moreover, the prospect for a stable Middle East appeared promising.

Jews and other religious minorities thrived and prospered under the shah, who promoted religious freedom and tolerance. During World War II, Iran assisted many Jews fleeing the Nazis by issuing them Iranian travel documents, a policy that was continued for Middle Eastern Jews expelled from their respective countries.

Farah Pahlavi, New York
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AmirN



Joined: 23 Sep 2005
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 06, 2006 7:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (January 1979):

"I have devoted my existence to provide them a better life. I have given land to the peasants. I have imposed our industrialists to share their profit with workers. I have developed an excellent health program and established social security. I did everything to better the standard of leaving of my people. I cannot order soldiers and policemen to shoot people."
"I am told today that I should have applied martial law more forcefully. This would have cost my country less dear than the bloody anarchy now established there. But a sovereign cannot save his throne by spilling blood of his fellow--countrymen. A dictator can do it because he acts in the name of an ideology which he believes he must make triumphant, no matter what the price. A sovereign is not a dictator. There is between him and his people an alliance which he cannot break. A dictator has nothing to pass on and power belongs to him alone. A sovereign receives his crown from the people...


I think most of us go over in our minds how events would have unfolded if only Shah had acted more sternly and crushed the traitors. Iran would have probably been spared such misfortune that it has suffered for 26 years. Deep inside, I sometimes wish he had done just that.

I find it ironic though, that if he had acted that way then history would have judged him as a dictator. He had two choices. Act with force for an ultimate good: “the ends justify the means.” Or, relinquish command and let the chips fall where they may: “the means justify the ends.” He chose the latter. His choice was the one that was more noble. We won’t ever know which choice would have been the best for Iran as a whole.

History has shown what a noble man and king he was. What placed the final stamp on his grandeur was the manner by which he acted during his final days in Iran.

Looking at Iran’s history, my opinion is that the Pahlavis were the best kings that reigned in Iran since the time of the Sassanids. I find it no coincidence that this noble later dynasty is named after the middle Persian language of the Sassanids: Pahlavi.

Iran was in shambles at the beginning of the 20th century because of its previous kings’ incompetence and corruption. Iran was on the brink of collapse and disintegration. It took a remarkable man such as Reza Shah to literally save Iran from utter ruin. His son proved equally capable in following his father’s example. The two of them turned a devastated country which was lagging a century behind into the powerhouse of the middle east. Iran was well on its way to becoming one of the great powers of the world, until this cursed revolution emerged and descended on Iran like a plague. One has to be either a fool or a liar not to admit to the immense service that these two kings provided Iran.

Unfortunately, this world is filled with fools and liars.
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I am Dariush the Great King, King of Kings, King of countries containing all kinds of men, King in this great earth far and wide, son of Hystaspes, an Achaemenian, a Persian, son of a Persian, an Aryan, having Aryan lineage

Naqshe Rostam
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ViaHHakimi



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PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 5:11 pm    Post subject: Abbas Milani's response to San Francisco Chronicle Reply with quote

Abbas Milani's response to San Francisco Chronicle

Dears,
An article worth reading!
Hashem


____________________________________________________________

From: Hambastegi Mellate Iran
Sent: Friday, February 03, 2006 4:31 AM
To:
Subject: Abbas Milani's response to San Francisco Chronicle

Abbas Milani's response to SF Chronicle

Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2006 11:31:11 -0800

A Response to Mr. Black

Abbas Milani

Even for acclaimed investigative journalists like Mr. Edwin Black, few things are more dangerous than the temptation to conflate fact and fiction, to traffic in hackneyed shibboleths, and to write half-truths based on scant knowledge. His defamatory diatribe against the nation of Iran, published in the San Francisco Chronicle of January 8, 2006, is replete with half-truths, gross misstatement of facts and a defiant disregard for known but inconvenient facts of history. To chronicle every factual error and faulty accusation in the piece would require an essay much longer than the original piece. If nations could have their day in libel court, Mr. Black would now be looking for a whole bevy of lawyers to answer the many libelous accusations he has made against the entire nation of Iran.

The trigger for Mr. Blacks attack was Mr. Ahmadinejads odious comments about wiping Israel off the map, and his even more shameful denial of the Holocaust. Surely those comments deserve to be thoroughly condemned. The regime in Iran must be made to understand that the world community has zero tolerance for such anti-Semitic ranting. But it would be a tragic mistake to fall into a racist trap when condemning Mr. Ahmadinejads racist words, and that, unfortunately is precisely what Mr. Black has done in his essay.

He claims that if we look at Irans Hitler-era past we will discover that Iran and Iranians were strongly connected to the Holocaust and the Hitler regime. The facts of history are just the opposite of what Mr. Black has claimed. As early signs of the murderous Final Solution became visible, the Iranian government of the time convinced the Nazi race experts in Germany that Iranian Jews had lived in Iran for over twenty five hundred years and were fully assimilated citizens of Iran and must be afforded all the rights of such citizens. The Nazis accepted this argument and the lives of all Iranian Jews living under the Nazi yoke were saved. An account of this episode can be found in the History of Contemporary Iranian Jews, published by Center for Iranian Jewish Oral History. Moreover, as I have recounted in my book titled Persian Sphinx, Iranian diplomats in Europe and elsewhere offered hundreds of Iranian passports to European Jews and thus saved their lives. And when the Nazi killing machines began their slaughter of innocent Polish Jews, 1388 Jews, including 871 children were moved to Tehran where they lived in relative safety till they moved to Israel. Again the History of Contemporary Iranian Jews has provided an account of what are called Tehran Children.

Mr. Black goes on to claim that Iran and its leaders were not only aware of the Holocaust, they played both parts the country offered escape routes for refugee Jews but only in exchange for extortionate passage fees. The man responsible for the transfer of Jewish refugees in Iran who went on to become Israels ambassador to Iran--has an entirely different story to tell.

He writes; As the Shah of Iran had particular affinity for the Jews, the military and bureaucratic institutions of the country spared no effort in helping refugees reach Israel. (Moir Ezrys Yadnameh, vol. 1. p. 52). He goes on to say, countries like Bulgaria, and Rumania asked for great sums of money from Israel in order to set their Jewish population free. But the Iranian government never asked for any money. (p. 60) with little to besmear the people of Iran with, Mr. Black eventually performs a conjurers trick. In the middle of the narrative, he introduces the notorious figure of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and then the Iranian nation is blamed for every step taken by that despicable figure. But as an acclaimed investigative journalist, Mr. Black should know that Iran was at the time of World War II about eighty-percent Shiite, and that Muftis are unique to the Sunni sect of Islam. Considering the long simmering tension between Shiites and Sunnis, and between Persians and Arabs, an Arab Mufti, would be hardly a popular character in Iran.

Mr. Blacks story about Reza Shah and his affinity for the Nazis and his decision to change the name of the country to Iran suffers from revealing errors of omission and commission. Contrary to Mr. Blacks claim, Reza Shahs affinity for Germany predates the rise of Nazis by almost two decades.

During World War I, when Reza was just a colonel in the Cossack Brigade, he contacted German embassy in Tehran and solicited their help in fighting British and Russian encroachments on Iran. He was wooed by the Nazis who agreed to sell him the steel factory he coveted and considered a sine quo non of progress and modernity. Nevertheless, according to the British embassy reports from Tehran in 1940, the total number of German citizens in Iran from simple technicians to sinister spieswas no more than a thousand.

Even when Mr. Black writes about the issue of the countrys change of name, he gets it only half right. He writes; So intense was the Shahs identification with the Third Reich that in 1935 he renamed his ancient country Iran. But Iran has been called Iran for over twenty-five hundred years. Reza Shah was not to rename his country; he asked the world not to call it Persia, but to use the countrys own name for itself. It was, as I have written elsewhere, a mistake. But it was not a wholesale recreation of a country,s identity that Mr. Black insists.

After mixing fact and fiction about the Nazi era, Mr. Black conveniently overlooks the next thirty-seven years and jumps to Mr. Ahamadinejads time.

Here are a few facts that were overlooked.

Iran was the first Moslem country in the world to establish diplomatic and economic ties with Israel. Throughout the fifties, sixties and seventies, Iran supplied oil to Israel, and after the rise of Nassers Pan-Arab nationalism in the Middle East, Israel, along with Irans secret police, operated a radio station in the Southern provinces of Iran and beamed their anti-Nasser message to the entire Arab world. David Menashri, one of the most eminent Israeli scholars of modern Iran, calls the sixties and seventies the Golden Age of Iranian Jewry when Jews enjoyed almost total cultural and religious autonomy, experienced economic progress and had no less political freedom than their Muslim counterparts. (David Menashri, The Jews or Iran: Between the Shah and Khomeini, in Anti-Semitism in Times of Crisis, ed. by Sander L. Gilam and Steven Katz, p. 356) He adds that, On per capita terms, they may well have been the richest community in the world. (Menashri, p.358). But these facts are inconvenient for Mr. Black and forfeiting his responsibilities as an investigative journalist, he includes in his narrative only those facts and fictions that fit the tortured image he wants to give about Iran and Iranians.

Inside and outside Iran, the Iranian people are held hostage by the theocratic regime and leaders like Ahmadinejad. It is bizarre to hold the hostages responsible for the sins of the hostage takers. It is grossly unjust to fabricate a false past for the hostages and hold them responsible not only for the vices of their hostage takers, but also for crimes they never committed. Sadly, Iranian history, like the history of almost every other nation, is not free from the blemish of anti-Semitism.

The Bible tells us of the time when Esther was the queen of Persia, and the demonic anti-Semitism of the vizier, Haman threatened the lives of Iranian Jews.But Esther succeeded in saving her peopleand thus the feast of Purim. The bible is also replete with praise for Cyrus, the Persian king and Gods anointed and Chosen ruler, who liberated the Jews from their Babylonian captivity and helped rebuild Jerusalem. Mr. Blacks rendition of Iranian history overlooks the Esthers of the past and focuses his angry gaze only at Hamans.

Abbas Milani is the Director of the Iranian Studies Program at Stanford

University and the co-director of the Iran Democracy Project at the Hoover Institution.
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 5:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Afareen bar Dr. Milani.
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