Yesterday afternoon U of I had the privilege of hosting Stephen Kinzer, the author of All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror (a book about the 1953 American coup of Iran), on his nationwide tour promoting diplomacy with Iran. Hadi Esfahani, a professor here and Iranian scholar, also joined Kinzer talking about his experiences in his homeland. I learned so much from both their talks and wanted to share some key points.
One of the most important things that I think everyone needs to understand is that the people of Iran do not hate Americans and in fact there is a long history of Iranians looking up to the US as a young superpower who battled the British, the main imperialist regime of their own country. Esfahani told a story about how over the summer an acquaintance of his who worked for the governor’s office in the Iranian region where he is from originally, asked him about how local political here in the US offices deal with economic policies, road rebuilding etc. He was trying to demonstrate that people there don’t view Americans as evil, as many of us (me included) think most of the Middle East feel, but still look admire the US as a country. These years of respect and esteem would be completely destroyed “in one hour” if we bombed Iran. I was really pleasantly surprised by this information and gave me hope that maybe could ally with Iran instead create yet another enemy. The American government needs to start giving the Iranian government the respect they deserve!
Another thing that real was a real mind fuck to me was how in 1953, it only took three weeks for top CIA official, Kermit Roosevelt (grandson of good ol’ Teddy), to completely destabilize Iran. These actions led to horrible consequences that took a democratically elected government out of power just because they wanted to take back control of their own oil. I couldn’t believe it only took three weeks to completely demonize Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq who was just looking out for the best interest of his people.
During question and answer time, one guy brought up an article in the Economists from a couple weeks ago that pretty much advocated for bombing Iran. This just shows that that the idea to military measures in Iran is still very hot on the table of US political consciousness. I decided to checkout the their website and was disgusted by the way Iran was represented in several of their articles. I quote from the article Has Iran won? “Who would have thought that a friendless theocracy with a Holocaust-denying president, which hangs teenagers in public and stones women to death, could run diplomatic circles around America and its European allies?”
One of the most important things that I think everyone needs to understand is that the people of Iran do not hate Americans and in fact there is a long history of Iranians looking up to the US as a young superpower who battled the British, the main imperialist regime of their own country. Esfahani told a story about how over the summer an acquaintance of his who worked for the governor’s office in the Iranian region where he is from originally, asked him about how local political here in the US offices deal with economic policies, road rebuilding etc. He was trying to demonstrate that people there don’t view Americans as evil, as many of us (me included) think most of the Middle East feel, but still look admire the US as a country. These years of respect and esteem would be completely destroyed “in one hour” if we bombed Iran. I was really pleasantly surprised by this information and gave me hope that maybe could ally with Iran instead create yet another enemy. The American government needs to start giving the Iranian government the respect they deserve!
Another thing that real was a real mind fuck to me was how in 1953, it only took three weeks for top CIA official, Kermit Roosevelt (grandson of good ol’ Teddy), to completely destabilize Iran. These actions led to horrible consequences that took a democratically elected government out of power just because they wanted to take back control of their own oil. I couldn’t believe it only took three weeks to completely demonize Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq who was just looking out for the best interest of his people.
During question and answer time, one guy brought up an article in the Economists from a couple weeks ago that pretty much advocated for bombing Iran. This just shows that that the idea to military measures in Iran is still very hot on the table of US political consciousness. I decided to checkout the their website and was disgusted by the way Iran was represented in several of their articles. I quote from the article Has Iran won? “Who would have thought that a friendless theocracy with a Holocaust-denying president, which hangs teenagers in public and stones women to death, could run diplomatic circles around America and its European allies?”
Mainstream media is feeding this garbage to US citizens to create an atmosphere of shock and appall so that military measures can be taken in the future if necessary. I refuse to see a repeat of Iraq! I yahooanswered "Iran Politics" and got these are some of the things people said:
~Iranian President: "Blah blah blah blah blah"Iranian Politician: "I don't agree with that!" Iranian President: "SHOOT THE INFIDEL!"Just a day in the life I suppose...,
~A theocracy gone very bad
~If a person agrees with dictatorships,and the agenda of world domination,then they will probably like the policies of Iran
~They are a corrupt nation who desperately wants power through hate of Israel and America..it plays well with an uneducated populace
It's pretty bad that people have such a tainted view of Iranian politics and the country in general. This totally comes from lack of understanding which is an underlying theme in many major catastrophes and disputes.
Both talks were rich with so much information and something pretty sweet happened. Timothy V. Johnson’s, Champaign’s representative in the House. press manager and right hand man came to the talk and was so impressed that he bought the Kinzer’s book and plans to talk to Johnson. Hopefully he’ll vote on some good bills, jo.
Both talks were rich with so much information and something pretty sweet happened. Timothy V. Johnson’s, Champaign’s representative in the House. press manager and right hand man came to the talk and was so impressed that he bought the Kinzer’s book and plans to talk to Johnson. Hopefully he’ll vote on some good bills, jo.
Overall I was totally impressed and it got me thinking about some crucial ideas.
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1 comment:
I completely agree. There are quite a few "facts" out there about Iran which just are not true.
Modern day Iran has never invaded another country and has never expressed interest to do so.
Iran has a democratically elected government and therefore Ahmadinejad cannot be a dictator.
Yes, Iran is politically conservative with it's views on homosexuals, but so is America.
Iran is also conservative on women's issues, but there is a thriving women's movement in Iran which is changing that.
Women in Iran are not barred from going to school. They actually have a much higher ratio of women in science, engineering, medicine, and at Universities in general than America does. Women in America aren't completely equal to men either when you look at average pay rates and accessibility of abortion.
Yes, the Iranian government is Islamic rather than secular. But do you really think America has separation of church and state when you have to be Christian to get elected (Catholicism and Mormonism are Christian religions as well because they believe in Christ).
What real basis do we have to demonize Iran when we are just as bad?
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