[lit-ideas] Re: Desecrating the Qur'an
- From: Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 19 May 2005 05:25:09 -0700 (PDT)
Someone writes:
>What did you do to piss them off so much?
Well, I had made one serious mistake that I can
remember, a mistake in
my
reading matter. When I arrived in the home, they had
thoroughly gone
through my backpack, looking at everything
--interested in seeing what
the
ferangi was carrying around with him-- and they had
come upon the
current
issue of TIME magazine. Now, this was the Iran of
Shahanshah Pahlavi,
and
foreign magazines were totally banned. I mean, really
totally banned.
*Yes, I believe that. This was a regime supported by
the US. Did these people report you for owning
forbidden magazines ?
(snip)
They considered
this
article carefully word for word. The article told them
that the
Shahanshah
had been selling Iranian oil, *their* oil, to Israel.
Shahanshah
Pahlavi,
whom they detested, the Enemy of God, had been *having
dealings with
Jews*,
there it was, right there in black and white! Their
fingers poked at
the
magazine page, following along word after word.
Dealings with Jews.
*Could you perhaps comment on the continuing US
economic sanctions toward Iran ?
They had also come across, in the bottom of my pack, a
pocket knife
with a
two-inch pointed blade, and they had instantly
"traded" this with me
for
one of their official, allowed village knives, a legal
knife with its
not
more than half-inch non-pointed blade (that they had
been using in the
village to cut the throats of sheep).
*I am sure that this passage must be relevant, though
I
don\t quite see how.
You have to bear in mind that the situation in Iran in
early 1979 was
tense. In a nearby town, human intestines had recently
been strung from
lamp-post to lamp-post. (The intestines had pertained
to some local
Shah
supporters.) This particular village was built right
up against the
high
concrete wall of one of the Shah's massive political
prisons. Everyone
was
living in fear of arrest and torture.
*Yes, I suppose it was a tense situation.
And, these people were your
ultimate
antisemites.
*I would have thought that the Nazis or the Russian
pogromniks were "your ultimate anti-semites." As some
character in Shakespeare says, "thus men learn each
day."
So in that context, when they interrogated me as to
whether they were
translating this article correctly from the English
into Farsi, that
they
were understanding correctly that *their oil was going
to Jews*, I was
testifying that yes indeed, what the words meant was
that Shahanshah
Pahlavi had entered into a trade agreement with
Israel. I said that I
failed to see why they found this so troubling. I said
it wasn't as if
the
Shah, no matter how much they hated and feared him,
had been *giving
away*
any of their oil, (cut)
*How much do you reckon these people were getting from
this transaction ? Also, what made you think it was
money they were primarily or solely concerned with in
this case ?
and pointed out that what the Shah was doing was,
merely,
that he was *selling* it on the open market, an
arms-length financial
transaction that did not indicate any love.
*WHen it was found that Ronald Reagan was secretly
selling weapons to the Iranians, this was objected to
by some people in the US wasn\t it ? (Of course,
Reagan also wasn\t giving away the weapons for free,
but used the money to finance the contras in
Nicaragua.)
Incautiously, I said that I
failed to see why they were getting so excited about
Jews -- since we
were
all of us God's children.
*Granted, there is the continuing issue of the
legitimacy of the state of Israel which prevents many,
especially in the Muslim world, to refer to "Israel."
But my experience in Asia has been that Asians often
refer to "the Jews" to mean Israel, just as they use
"the AMericans" to refer to the US etc. Could it be
political correctness that makes some Westerners so
horrified by this reference ?
Still sometimes lurking in the shadows,
O.K.
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