--VS Naipaul, Our Universal Civilization, 1990: 1) I was soon to discover that no colonization had been so thorough as the colonization that had come with the Arab faith. Colonized or defeated peoples can begin to distrust themselves. In the Muslim countries I am talking about..
2) this distrust had all the force of religion. It was an article of the Arab faith that everything before the faith was wrong, misguided, heretical; there was no room in the heart or mind of these believers for their pre-Mohammedan past. So ideas of history here were ...
3) quite different from ideas of history elsewhere; there was no wish here to go back as far as possible into the past, and to learn as much as possible about the past.
Persia had a great past; it had been the rival in classical times of Greece and Rome. But you wouldn’t have ..
4) believed it in Iran in 1979; for the Iranians, the glory and the truth had begun with the coming of Islam.
(If only Sir Vidia were here to see Iran of 2022!) #MahsaAmini
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Here are the highlights of my testimony at the US Senate's Human Rights Caucus last Monday:
1) The first step that the US administration can take to help the movement inside Iran is to cease downplaying what is happening in Iran and call it by its real name: A revolution.
2) This is the greatest democratic movement Iran's known not only since 1979, but since 1906--the Constitutional Revolution. These revolutionaries aren't driven by leftist or rightist ideologies, but the basic desires that have been the underpinnings of all democratic movements.
3) Lifting or not lifting the sanctions is a matter that's only the concern of Washington pundits and politicians. In Iran, despite the grave economic pains, the people's demands center around basic liberties and individual dignity.
1) A few thoughts for the malicious twitterati who’ve been targeting me for the last few weeks:
One: The rumors are true. I’m, indeed, a Zionist. Without the state of Israel, my paternal relatives, whose homes and business were set on fire in January of 1978 in Khonsar,Iran,
2) and who lost all they ever had, would have had nowhere else to go.
Two: The most important words in the Hebrew scripture for me are, “Remember your departure from Egypt.” Iran is my Egypt. By remembering Iran, I’m precisely fulfilling what every Jew has done
3) and continues to do from the beginning of history.
Three: In other words, it’s my duty to speak truth to power. That’s all I wish to do.
I’m no one’s leader, nor do I aspire to be. I hope the movement wraps up quickly for the people’s sake, and for my own, because
1) I’m a proud signatory of #theLetter published in #Harpers, calling for justice and open debate.
Some have dismissed it as a statement by a “privileged” few. The term privileged does, indeed, apply to me, though I’m not white, nor Christian, nor a man.
2) In the spirit of “what doesn’t break me, makes me stronger”, here are my privileges: I was a Jew & a woman under the #Antisemitic & misogynistic regime in my beloved #Iran. I've the privilege of coming of age in the revolutionary era, witnessing the rise of #Authoritarianism.
3) As the statues were pulled off their pedestals by euphoric crowds, and the streets were renamed, women lost their rights, all in the name of assuring their “well-being.”
Every act of dissent was repressed in the name of the nation’s “safety”.
Senator Tom Cotton's op-ed for the @NYTimes was explosive and caused a senior editor, James Bennet, to resign for running a “non-factual” piece. But, other politicians, such as Iran’s Foreign Minister, have never had their non-factual pieces so severely scrutinized.
THREAD ⬇️
1-On June 3, Senator Tom Cotton wrote an op-ed in which he said the military should have the authority to quell “rioters and looters”. Whether readers agree or disagree with Cotton, they all understand that they’re merely reading an opinion.
2-But, a senior editor, James Bennet, was forced to resign for running a “non-factual” piece. If facts have always been a standard for NYTimes op-eds, I wonder why Iran’s Foreign Minister, Javad Zarif, has been allowed to publish non-factual opinions.