by Seth Franzman
PART II: ONE BY ONE: HOW ISLAM DESTROYS MINORITIES
Two recent books originally penned in the 1920s and put out by Paul Rich detail Iraq in that period. What is interesting is the story of the minority Jewish, Mandean and Christian communities. We learn that their wives were carried off, their daughters forcibly married to Muslims and that, from time to time, they suffered attacks and massacres. Such was the stuff of the 'world of tolerance' that was Islam. Such is the stuff of today, whether it is another bulldozer rampage in Jerusalem or the stabbing of a Jew in Yemen, or another bombing of a Yezedi community in Iraq. Drip, drip, drip...the minorities disappear. One by one.
On March 5th a Palestinian Bedouin from Beit Hanina drove his bulldozer into a police car, flipping it over. Then he pushed the police car, with policeman in it, into a bus. He was shot dead at the scene. This could be determined 'temporary insanity' or some act of hatred for the police were it not for the fact that this was the fourth such attack in a year in Jerusalem. The first two in 2008 killed four people in two separate attacks by Palestinians driving bulldozers in West Jerusalem. The third involved an Arab who drove his car into a group of soldiers. Each attack appears to have been uncoordinated and basically unplanned. They were 'sudden acts' of 'rage'. Hamas praised the attacks, noting that either restrictions on movement of Palestinians or potential home demolitions cause 'repercussions'. The EU, in an unrelated report, also seems to have excused this behavior by noting Israel activities, "illegal under international law, serve no obvious purpose, have severe humanitarian effects, and fuel bitterness and extremism."
But a look at the accounts of early 20th century travelers in Iraq, and an attack on a Jew in Yemen may shed light on some nuances. Robert Hay, a British officer who resided in Kurdistan in the 1920s wrote extensively on the ethnography of the region. On the Jews he noted that "girls are sometimes carried off and made to change their religion" by neighboring Muslims. On Christians he noted "Christians are in demand as servants in Muhammadan houses...Muhammadans may take Christian girls to wife, though they may not give their daughters away to members of the other religion...the Turkish government ordered a massacre in Ainkawa [a Christian Chaldean village]...they live in a constant state of suspicion and terror...in Shaqlawah and Koi the Christians are occupied in weaving...[which is] considered a degrading occupation and it is probably on this account that the Christians have survived." In Gertrude Bell's account of Iraq at the same time, describing the low lying country, she spoke of the Mandeans, a group of people with Christian-Zaroastrian beliefs, and noted that "of late many of their women have been married to Muslims and they are facing extinction." These two accounts are mirrored by accounts of Jews and Christians throughout the Muslim world at this time. Although not generally massacred they suffered a slow degradation, raping of their women and destruction of their communities through a slow boa constrictor like policy.
The recent murder of a Jew by a knife wielding former air force officer in Yemen is not unique. He was acquitted of manslaughter for reasons of insanity. The connection between him, the Mandeans and Chaldeans and Jews in West Jerusalem today is very clear. When Muslims decide to 'go crazy' they murder non-Muslims. Muslims don't have bulldozer rampages in East Jerusalem. In truth what is happening is not really people 'going crazy'. It is instead people who are raised from birth on books that teach only hatred and intolerance. When people decide to murder others it is more likely that they murder those people they have cursed their entire lives as 'swine'. Robert Hay noted it in among the Kurds; "If a Kurd wishes to express contempt for an official he will say 'even a Jew is better than he' or if he wishes to show how will behaved his tribe is he remarks 'even a Jew could keep us in order."
When people speak like this in normal every day life, as if to say in the U.S in the 1960 "even a Nigger is better than he", we come to understand how Islam works to destroy minorities. Recall that 'scholars' have long described the Kurds as being 'tolerant' towards Jews and popular imagination among Jews even conjures this up. This is a mistake. There was not a place in the Muslim world where the 'tolerance' was not as it was in Kurdistan. There was 'tolerance' in the sense that people survived. But they survived like the Samaritans in Nablus. They didn't survive. They slowly died out, each person's life and each generation a private hell of insults, degradation, raping of women and suppression. No different than the plight of slaves in the U.S, the plight of minorities was one neverending evil. It is an evil, alas, that still exists today.
PART III: NO SYMPATHY FOR ROXANNA: PEOPLE AND NATIONS MUST PAY FOR COLLABORATION WITH IRAN
Roxana Saberi was recently reported by her father to have been wrongly imprisoned by the Iranian regime. She was charged with buying alcohol but her real reason for detention was 'illegal reporting'. On the face of this it seems like another reason to protest the Iranian regime's treatment of journalists. However it is time to start asking 'why are the journalists there in the first place'. Roxanna was no longer a reporter, her press credentials had been revoked a year ago by the regime. She was instead getting in touch with her heritage and learning Farsi. The truth is that there is a great deal of collaboration by journalists and scholars and others with Iran. The same people that would have boycotted South Africa or some other place are all too happy to fraternize with this regime and that is why it is important to have less sympathy for them.
Pictures of journalist Roxana Saberi show her enjoying her time with ayatollahs. She covers her head in a tight fitting headscarf, tightly stapling it below her chin in order to follow and "respect the dress code." She "loved Iran" and "loved the place." She was "finding her roots" and studying Farsi. She was a minor celebrity, "filing reports for press all over the world." She helped the world understand and love Iran. In order to make them love it she, like all journalists in the country, made sure to paint a good picture of it. There was no discussion of human rights violations, of extremism, of terrorism, of anti-semitism. There was the typical, could-have-been-produced-by-the -government, reports of wonderful exotic Iran. No controversy. No investigation. Not criticism. No judging. When the government revoked her credentials she blindly followed orders and stopped reporting. Then she was arrested for buying wine, which is illegal in Iran. No protest followed. Her parents preferred to keep quiet and hoped the arrest would be resolved. Had Roxanna been released she would have gone back to loving Iran and telling the world how great it and its president, Ahmadinjed, were. But she wasn't released. And now the media is telling us all about this prisoner of conscience and how she may be in danger.
But there is something problematic about all this. The journalists who go to Iran never do their duty in subjecting the country to the kind of criticism they subject other, usually freer societies to. They collaborate with the regime. They never mention the regimes radicalism and Antisemitism and racism. They march in lockstep with the ayatollahs. They never report on dissidents. They follow the official line of describing Iran as a Persian Shia paradise. There are no minorities in their reports, no talk about the blacks in Southern Iran, or the Arabs in the southwest, or the Baluchis in the southeast or the Azeris and Kurds in the north. Nope. They even weave stories about how the "Jews love Iran", reporting as if they are working for the government's information ministry. They never dare to look behind the curtain.
The same journalists in the west who can't wait for another version of 'Brokeback Mountain' or 'Milk', two movies about homosexuals, to be released, are the same ones who would never dare ask what becomes of homosexuals arrested for their 'immoral and indecent behavior' in Iran. There is no discussion of the minors hung in Iran for various offenses. In fact there is no discussion of the death penalty. There is no discussion of the discriminatory divorce laws or the rampant legal prostitution that takes place under the guise of 'temporary marriage' in Iran. The wine swilling westerners who probably can't go a day without a drink in the West don't report about laws that make it illegal to buy wine. In fact we only found out about this extremist law when Saberi was arrested. There is no discussion about the discriminatory dress 'code' that forced women to cover their hair while men wear what they please.
The western media collaborates with the Iranian regime. There is not one media outlet that is not guilty. The BBC is the worst with its month long 'Taste of Iran' program, a hagiography of the country. But Fox news and other networks are no better. And yet every once in a while the public is supposed to believe that some arrested journalist deserves to be felt sorry for.
Let's just recall the sheer numbers who have been arrested, without undue complaints or repercussions for Iran. Akbar Ganji was jailed in 2001 and was still in prison in 2005 when he got sick from prison conditions. Ali Farahbakhsh was sent to prison in 2007 for three years for going to a conference in Bangkok. He was held in solitary confinement for 40 days. In the same year three female members of a 15 member Iranian female Journalists delegation about to travel abroad were arrested and taken to the infamous Evin prison. Emadeddin Baqi, who ironically wrote on prisoners rights, was arrested in October of 2007 and released in September of 2008 from Evin. Like Ganji he had become sick and required medical treatment for his time in prison. Soheil Assefi, Fashad Gorbanpour and Masoud Farshad of the Sharq newspaper were arrested after their newspaper gave an interview to a poet who wrote about homosexuals. Sina Motallebi was arrested for blogging. Iranian Kurdish journalist Mohamed Sadiq Kabudvand was arrested in 2007 after his daily paper was banned. He suffered a stroke at Evin prison in May of 2008 and is still sick. Asr Iran and Mohamed Khadeghi-Nejad, both journalists who had reported dissident protests, were attacked by anonymous men on motorcycle in December of 2008. Omid Memarin was another blogger arrested. Iranian-American journalist Parnaz Azima was prevented from leaving the country. An Arab journalist in Iran, Yousif Aziz-Banitaraf from Khuzestan who wrote about nomads was arrested in 2005 for "fomenting revolt" among Arabs in Iran. He was sentenced to five years in prison.
But no matter how many they arrest, how many they torture and beat and rape in Evin prison and how many are released almost at the point of death or with other serious health problems, the journalists will keep pouring in, usually female journalists from the West dutifully covering their hair and following the regime's party line. But its only part of a larger collaboration. When the former Iranian president, Mohammed Khatami, was invited to Spain in 2002 the Spanish agreed to not serve wine at the host banquet, lest the Iranian delegation be offended, but the Spanish did request that women attendees not be forced to wear headscarves. In the end the wife of Spanish Prime Minister Jose Aznar and Queen Sofia neglected to come lest their hair offend the Iranians (this is in line with the western liberal post-human idea that in our countries we must respect their culture and in their countries we must respect their culture). The collaboration runs deep.
No. There can be no sympathy for collaborators with such a regime. If Saberi had reported on just one of the issues discussed above perhaps then we could have sympathy. But until western journalists subject Iran to the same harsh critique, the same obsession with minorities and 'human rights' that western nations are subjected to, then there can be no sympathy for them. They collaborated, much the way the New York Times did with Stalin and numerous French journalists did with Pol Pot and the Hutu genocidaires. Collaboration must be punished. Since we can't punish it in the west we must not shed tears when, in an odd and ironic way, the Iranian regime does it. Roxana wanted to find her roots. She loved Farsi and Iran. Now she is hearing plenty of Farsi in her interrogation cell. She is learning about her roots. But when she is released she will secure that headscarf tightly around her neck and keep her eyes down and propagandize for Iran once again. There must never be sympathy for the collaborators, whether it is Emma Goldman, who came to America and then preached anarchism and was deported only to find her Soviet utopia was not as she thought, or the Americans who went to Stalin's utopia in the 1930s or Rachel Corrie who aided and abetted Palestinian terrorists or the British charitable workers helping the Arab genocidaires in Khartoum today (recall the women who was sentenced to be whipped for comparing a teddy bear to Mohammed). No sympathy for collaboration. We must judge them as harshly as if journalists had gone to give us a 'taste of Germany' in 1939 and neglected to mention the concentration camps. No sympathy. No empathy. Stubborn cold heartedness must be our face when confronted by the bleeding heart ignorance of the left and its abysmal fraternization with Islamism and totalitarianism.
Seth J. Frantzman is a graduate student in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, living in Jerusalem.
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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