Dear Mehdi I will install Win XP and with it, I will try to write in Farsi, but at the same time I must say that fortunately most Iranian knows English and I do not think they will have any problems to understand my broken English. I read and listened to your conversation with Mr. Ashuri and Mr. Kashani; that was nice to hear the voices of all. It was well organized and thoughtful. I wouldn’t mind to chip in my “ two pennies” opinion on the matter of modernity etc. I am not going into what modernity; etc is, because there are thousands of pages just available in Internet for those that want to learn the theory. In this comment I will tell my understanding of the ‘modernity” and future of it in Iran. One of the pillars of modernity is respect to individuality and taking the individual as autonomous agent of society. I will try to show that so far, not only the Iranian culture had not recognized the first right of an individual but have suppressed identity of millions of its own people. There is a lot in our culture that without its solution, talking about modernity etc is just empty speech. Lets take a look at the issue of individuality in Iranian culture. To analysis any large system, we need to understand its constitutes. The family structure is the cell of any society. We can tell a lot about any society just by looking at their family structure. To best of my knowledge, except Freud – in a rather small scale-- there is no one in the world, which had applied psychoanalysis to a large system as a given society. The family structure and its sickness are very well studied and we have rather convincing knowledge of its dynamism. Read any biography of any dysfunctional person and it would not be that hard to find that one or both of their parents were themselves dysfunctional. Every family has a secret, so does every society. As a family therapist John Bradshaw had said, “ we are as sick as our secrets.” It is absolutely true. I do believe that there is always some unsolved issues, which I would like to cal it a knot, in our life, which without unknotting it there is not going to be any big progress. With the same logic, I would say that in every group, every tribe, every nation and culture there is some stumbling blocks that keeps them from progressing. In my opinion the biggest stumbling block of our nation is its past history which is fabricated totally by the people in the past. Major changes always had happened whenever there were a paradigm shift either in human thought or in science and technology. At least in secular worldview, it is mostly accepted that there were three major revolutions in human history, which had enormous effect in people’s life. 1: Copernican 2: Darwinian 3: Freudian. I would like to add 4: Einstein’s revolution also. These four people’s idea not only had shaped the world but also had caused lots of meso (medium) and mini theories to flourish. Important aspect of these four people’s idea was that, they dislodge the old way of thinking and shifted the paradigm. I think we Iranian – as a large family—have been fed with a big lie for a long time, and no matter what we do, what we read, what we define, we are not going to get out of this thick mud, in which we all are stuck, unless to face the truth. It is well known fact that every member of any dysfunctional family structure must pay the price one way or the other. Esther Rashkin, an Associate Professor of French and Comparative Literature at the University of Utah in her book titled “ Family Secrets and the Psychoanalysis of Narrative.” drawing from ideas of two French psychoanalysts Nicolas Abraham and Maria Torok say that “ A phantom is formed when a shameful, unspeakable secret is unwittingly transmitted, through cryptic language and behavior, transgenerationally from one family member to another. The “ hunted” individual to whom the “ encrypted” secret is communicated becomes the unwitting medium for some one else’s voice—and the result is speech and conduct that appear incongruous or obsessive in a variety of ways. Through close reading of texts by Conrad, Villiers de Isle-Adam, Balzac, James, and Poe, she reveals how shameful secrets, concealed from within the unspoken family histories of fictive characters, can be reconstructed from their linguistic traces and can be shown not only to drive the characters’ speech and behavior, but also to generate their narratives.”
Professor Charles Shepherdson, a member in the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, in his wonderful book” Vital Signs, Nature, Culture, Psychoanalysis” talks about “ symbolic Inheritance” that is transmitted from one generation to another—a historical inheritance that cannot be understood biologically, but that cannot be grasped by the familiar techniques of sociohistorical knowledge. The British biologist Richard Dawkins calls it “ meme” which is DNA of culture. Last but not the least is the article “ The Role of Telling the Truth in Therapeutic Speech,” written by professor Wilfried Ver Eecke in the book “ Pierce, Semiotics, and Psychoanalysis” Taking all these into account, it is not that hard to understand that to cure any mental disease, the truth must came out of its hiding place. In my opinion the reason, which we Iranian are so stuck, is the BIG lie that we been fed for a long time. Fortunately this lie is discovered single handedly by Mr. Nasser Pour-Pirar. In my opinion effectiveness of his rediscovery in human science is equal to effectiveness of discovery of Einstein’s relativity theory in physics. Also, I was never a religious person but never accepted the theory that invasion of Iran by Arabs was the reason for our declining culture. It was nonsense to believe that the entire nation would capitulate to bunch of invaders. --- I am not even going to talk about the magnificent military power, which we claim we had at the time of Arab invasion--- I do believe that Iranian accepted the Islam, because they had nothing before that.. Mr. Pour-Pirar in his twelve volume “ davazdah gharneh sogkot--– which 4-5 of them is already published. had shown that how we looked like before the arrival of Islam. Think about it, just couple thousand Bahai’s had not changed their belief; also they went through the hell. How come all Iranian embraced Islam, if they really had a faithf?
In my opinion the idea and discoveries of Mr. Pour-Pirar is as power full as an atomic bomb and not only the entire region but also the rest of the world would feel it’s effect pretty soon. He has demolished the fake skyscraper, which was build upon a big lie, and there is no doubt in my mind that there is no power could stop it. The ices are melted and are advancing inch by inch. As Victor Hugo had said” No army can withstand the strength of an idea which whose time has come.”
Mr. Mehdi Jami in the BBC conversation accurately had touched the issue of declining father’s power over their children. These same phenomena is also accurate in the national scale. The big lie (big Other, as Lacan calls I) has lost its grasp over his children. We the Iranian Turks, Kurds, Arabs and others had made up our mind. It is up to Persian people and its intellectuals how to deal with this problem. In the past unfortunately vast majority of Persian intellectuals were at the camp of oppressors. They talked very internationally but did not give a damn to what was happening at their own home Open any high caliber Iranian magazine, book etc and you will see how our dear Persian intellectuals are dying for others causes. They translate thousands of songs, article, form other oppressed people but were blind to their own. They ended up either totally at the camp of the West, communism or at the camp of backward religion. I think it is time to us Iranian to take a second look at our history and think from our point of view. Our Iranian intellectuals works reminds me an Azerbaijani riddle (chistan) which asks” what it is that, cover every body but it is naked itself,” ? The answer was needle. According to Mr. Mohammad Gholi Majd’s research the biggest holocaust had happened in Iran between 1914- 1919, which its population dropped from 20 Millions in 1914 to 11 Millions in 1919, dues to famine which was d by British. We are too busy translating Pablo Neruda’s poem and others, thinking that we are doing our intellectual duty to our people, not seeing the crimes, which not only had happened in the past but also was buried, so that no one would dig it out. For more information on this book and Mr. Pour- pirar’s idea please visit www.naria.persianblog.com.
To make it short, in my opinion there is a line, which is drawn. This line is the line of modernity. This line separates the old fashioned; rotten way of thinking from the more dynamic, progressive one. The history will show who was thinking clearly at this moment of chaos and confusion and it will sieve those that are at the camp of the truth from those that are at the camp of the lie. Without solving this problem, talking, defining modernity is useless. These are just my opinion and history will show who was right and who was wrong. Spending trillions of hours discussing whether or not we Azerbaijani were Persian in the past, or the name of Northern Azerbaijan was Aran and other nonsense has no meaning what so ever fo us. It is time to every body to show their rainbow. By the way for those that might think how it could happened that we were so blind for the truth of our past, I would refer them to simple saying of Heidgger which said” thinking, knowledge is what is given to think about,”
