Monday, May 29, 2006

The Absurdity of the Cockroach Cartoon

All different kinds of Iranians are jumping on the bandwagon and condemning the cartoon which has rocked the Azeri parts of Iran. All sorts of Iranian one man "parties" are busy drafting out damning statements calling for the heads of the two young journalists, Mana Neystani and Mehrdad Qasemfar, just so that their non-
existent inactive groups get a mention and pretend that they exist.

Its a typical Iranian trait. A whirlwind, a craze, a new fashion, a new wave has come about and some have let themselves be taken over by it, no one wants to be left behind without having published a statement, but also without thinking through the problem and its consequences. The cartoons are not offensive, they are not meant to portray the Azeris as cockroaches, it is ludicrous to suggest so. The cartoon is simply a depiction of two sides talking completely different languages while pretending to engage in a discussion, thats all there is to it. Instead two young Iranians have to suffer and as usual they are journalists, the most perilous profession in Iran.

What I hear more than anything else from people who have recently left Iran, is that after 27 years of Islamic Republic policies, the Iranian people have lost their sense of identity. For 27 years until recently, nationalism has been a bad word. School children are no longer taught to be proud of their Iranian heritage, they are taught all our history before Islam was bad and cruel, it was Islam that liberated us, and Islam is our main identity. It was because of Islam that our boys sacrificed their lives, defending the country against Saddam's aggression. Our flag no longer bears any Iranian symbols, it is written all over with Arabic words. Only recently and because of the nuclear issue, the regime has engaged in some pathetic effort to revive nationalism but not a positive kind of nationalism, a destructive meaningless jingoism of the worst kind. It is for that reason that the young Iranians are craving for an identity. One minute they are taken in by the shallowest Pan-Turkist propaganda, one minute by the Kurdish media across the border and one minute they regard themselves as a nuclear power and so on. Twenty Seven years of deliberate destruction of the Iranian identity by the mullahs is now bearing its poisonous fruits and some pathetic excuse as this cartoon has lit up a tinder dry powder keg.

I am not jumping on the bandwagon however, I don't believe any movement aimed against the mullahs is a worthy cause to back, and I won't condemn the cartoon or the cartoonists either. Instead I will join those who are calling for these two innocent young Iranians Mana and Mehrdad to be freed.

7 comments:

ayhan said...

how can you say the cartoon is depicting two sides who can understand each other?
what would you think if in the cartoon I were child and you azarmehr were a cocorach who cannot understand eachother as we do it know?
why the cocorach has to talk in turkish? and the child in farsi?
what would be if the reverse happened: the cocorach speaks farsi and the child speaks azeri turkish?

you are so good at writing artickles and literature but you lack logic...

Azarmehr said...

The cartoon is just depicting two small minded beings which just dont realize they are not getting anywhere. Who is who is just coincidental.
Or you could look at it another way, the little boy is Turkish and thinks he is speaking comprehensible Persian and the cockroach is Persian speaking but is trying to speak Turkish and they are still\not getting anywhere. Is this worth dying for? Is this worth turning back on 2500 years of common history?

ayhan said...

of course it doesnt worth. it is just a cartoon. I think people scattered off the roads not only for the cartoon but for more cultural rights...
it is very foolish that the cartoonists be in jail...I support your demokratik and secular iran idea but not the pehlevi style...azeri turks are not minority iran unlike arabs and kurds. and they are the part of iran for more a thousand year, governing it untill 1925.
after the form of new- modern turkey, emparialist powers of europe and russia thought there must not be two big turk state side by side and so they changed the turkish kachar dynasty with the farsi dynasty..
azeri turks deserve more cultural rights..

Azarmehr said...

On a few occasions Ayhan, you make sense, on most occasions you talk bollocks. Especially when it comes to Iranian history :))

Chester said...

"after 27 years of Islamic Republic policies, the Iranian people have lost their sense of identity."

This really struck me.
I don't know if you're familiar with the book "Londonistan" by Melanie Phillips. It's new. I heard her talking about it on tv about a week ago.
She was talking about the lack of nationalism in Britain and how destructive it's been.
I see the same thing happening in the U.S. It's perpetrated deliberately and predominantly by the Liberals in the name of multiculturalism, and it must be stopped.

I need to read her book.

Azarmehr said...

Melanie Phillips talks sense. I always try to read her writings.

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