The Performers
| American and Iranian revolutionary traditions surprisingly have much in common. When Americans celebrate the 4th of July, they often forget that the core purpose of the famous document penned by Thomas Jefferson was to declare independence from Great Britain. Had the colonies failed in that struggle for freedom to govern themselves, the Declaration of Independence's famous "unalienable" rights to equality, liberty, and life would have been rendered not self-evident. Like America, Iran's 1979 Revolution, had much to do with throwing off perceived shackles of foreign domination. One hundred years ago, imperial Britain and Russia strangled Iran's first Constitutional revolution. Similarly, in 1953, the US CIA orchestrated the overthrow of a democratically elected government. Restoring the Shah to his throne caused subsequent repression to be seen as made in America. (( snip )) Earlier this year, the Iranian and American presidents both stressed the importance of "mutual respect," of recognizing what independence, equality, regional leadership, and freedom mean to both countries. For Iran, an open question is how will it respect its own people and heal the deep fissures recently opened. This need not be a clash of alien values, of America vs. Iran. One hundred years ago, Howard Baskerville, a 24-year old missionary educator, became Iran's American martyr while trying to help Iranians then struggling for freedom. He's still admired in Iran; in 2005, former President Mohammed Khatami unveiled a sculpture of Baskerville in Tabriz's Constitutional House museum. Before his death, Baskerville explained to skeptical friends that "The only difference between me and these people is my place of birth, and that is not a big difference." He was right. |
The Critic
| ...you have picked up ... the slogans of both countries, rather than the historical and cultural contexts and differences .... ["Posted by JES at July 5, 2009 02:55 AM"] |
Indeed, indeed, Mr. Critic, but what else is a decent, self-respecting (not to say "respectability-crazed") ‘you’ to do on a purely ceremonial occasion?
Of course it could be fun to break this flimsy butterfly on a wheel, and fun well short of solemnly doubting that the earnest respectabilitators have any adequate grasp of what went wrong in the early 1860's.
Why, I myself could easily get worked up about how an elegant imported article like M. de Ramázání manages to overestimate the ignorance of the holy-Homelanders™. Wombschoolin’ and Niederdümmung have taken a grave toll, doubtless, but can it really be the case that most Yank sweet puppies are unaware that "the core purpose of the famous document penned (sic) by Thomas Jefferson was to declare independence from Great Britain"? [1]
On the fun side, one should cherish the prominent "Who is buried in Grant’s tomb?" aspect of that attempted mass defamation of poor old Sam’s idiot nieces and nephews: Et vous, M. le Professeur, qu’est-ce que vous gardez dans votre boîte de pain? [2]
Have a nice Silly Season, everybody.
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[1] Few things are more annoying than that perpetual comfy wallowin’ of U. S. rightists and neorightists in the supposed wonderfulness -- the ‘exceptionalism’, the ‘indispensibility’ -- of Wunnerful US. But there is another side of the horse to fall off as well. Verb. sap.
It's rather a shame that the good folks who would be most irritated by this little exercise in Selbstelitismus are extremely unlikely to encounter it. Certainly anybody who dwells within the penumbrae et emanationes of Planet Justworld is bound to be well washed in the blood of this lamb already.
[2] Very likely it contains the collected addresses of Th. W. Wilson and M. M. Litvinov instead of anything less nutricious from Pepperidge Farm. La paix est indivisible is especially delicious with bologna and fresh aruguletta and mayonnaise.
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