The
death of John Tirman at mit should be a wake up call to the Iranian community’s
presence in the academic community, for they lost a good friend who was hen
pecked by influential critics in the academic institution he taught at. Tirman attempted to create a space at mit
where members of the Iranian community could interact on important issues,
however many Iranians and their allies were harassed at mit by staff who used
the campus pigs to ban those they disagreed with, while the administration at
mit openly encouraged Iranians who are associates of the terrorist rajavi,
including many with access to nuclear materials on campus. Such an incident must make us Iranians
consider our presence on college campuses.
Iranian studies first gained traction
at harvard with richard frye, who founded what is now the center for Middle
East studies at harvard, though he had a checkered past. My father’s uncle served with frye in Khalj
in OSS, however my father’s uncle knew little of his Iranian heritage having
grown up around Slavs and jews who told him Iran was simply a land of fairy
tales, and frye made no attempt to help him reconnect with his Iranian heritage
during their service together. While
frye’s department became a repository of knowledge and information about Iran
it was not publicly accessible. Instead
it was accessible only to harvard staff like mottadeh and their approved
associates, doing the public little good.
And to add insult to injury one of frye’s relatives works at fort
devens, where he has deprived those of Iranian heritage held there of their
basic human rights. In other words,
frye’s work on Iran was little or no benefit to the Iranian community overall,
so it should be no surprise that frye’s request to be buried in Iran in 2014
was denied.
It should be noted that as a result of
frye’s actions many Iranians were welcomed on Harvard campus for research and
events, though access was and is mostly private, and many of frye’s associates
began copying this model at other Boston Metro area campuses. As a result academic access for Iranians soon
morphed into community events on campuses, thus turning universities and
colleges into de facto community centers for Iranians in the Boston Metro area,
which since 9/11 and occupy have made Iranians visiting those campuses the
targets of bigoted staff who use campus security in a praetorian guard manner
to menace Iranians on those campuses, a model which came into prominence at
brown university.
At brown university Iranian affairs
gained prominence when Iranian born Vartan Gregorian became that university’s
President. Though known for putting
brown on the map by reforming it, his focus on Iranian affairs simply made
Iranians and their supporters targets for the ire of bigoted staff in the long
run. While Iran experts like Beeman and
Biersteker, both of whom I had the opportunity to work with, gained prominence
thanks to Vartan, his successes gave a false sense of security to Iranians
invited to campus, which is alarming due to the small Iranian population in
rhode island where brown is located.
Once he left Vartan’s work gradually became undone and after 9/11 the
new president of brown used that incident to crack down on Iranians and their
campus patrons, shunting people like Beeman and Biersteker into positions on
other campuses and using the campus security to ban and harass Iranians who had
once been welcome. That behavior had got
so bad that in 2008 Vartan resigned from the board of brown’s watson institute
because of his disgust at this behavior by brown that he did not want himself
associated with the actions of his successors.
That year brown also reorganized it’s Middle east Studies Department,
which hosted access for the public including the few local Iranians, into the
center for Middle east studies, which is closed to the public and is more ivory
tower elitist than frye’s offshoots.
Partly as a result when Vartan died shortly after his birthday in April
2021 there was little notice from the Iranian and Academic communities, even
the pahlavi’s were silent on Vartan’s death despite the fact he had taught
Princess Leila, the youngest daughter of Mohammed Reza Shah and farah diba,
before Leila was hazed off campus in 1990.
The only other campus where Iranian
studies gained traction was at columbia university. There, shortly after frye began his work at
harvard, eshan yarshater, and Iranian of jewish heritage, founded columbia’s
center for Iranian studies, now better known for it’s Iranica project. However, that institution was even more
elitist than frye’s creation and was of little benefit to the Iranian community
which came into the New York City Metro area as a trickle before the 1970’s, as
it was not public accessible. An
excellent example was my paternal grandfather and his siblings, who grew up
around Slavs and jews in the New York City Metro area who although he and his
siblings knew they were of ethnic Iranian origin, thought because of those Slavs
and jews they grew up around that Iran was some fairy tale land, and as a
result spoke almost no Farsi and were cut off from the greater Iranian
community. Unlike harvard, brown, and
their offshoots, columbia hosted very few community events, and the only New
York City academic institution with any public access for Iranians was New York
University, however NYU’s kevorkian center, founded in the 1960’s, was managed
in such an elitist manner it was not until after 9/11 that it gained public
traction for Iranians. Even then, that
public traction was decades late for Iranians like my father and his blood
relatives, who remain on the fringe of the greater Iranian community because of
the lack of community resources in the New York City area as do most Iranians
who came to america before the islamic revolution. Like harvard and brown, columbia drew people
hostile towards Iran, even some while claiming to be neutral, such as gary
sick, who repeats dated information about Iran without major interaction with
those influencing Iranian affairs at present.
Throughout american, and some
Worldwide, academic campuses, the same pattern emerges; some altruistic faculty
member takes an interest in Iranian affairs, invites Iranians to campus for
research purposes, Iranians made to feel comfortable and bring their associates,
increased presence on campus makes Iranians a target for detractors, some
targeted by campus/community security groups for harassment, creates friction
between Iranians and the community. The
sad part is that many Iranians throughout america do not seek out alternatives
to community events held on college campuses, like the skittish retards in the Boston
metro area, fucked up ingrates in the New York City metro area, and
marginalized fuckwits in rhode island and New England.
Other american campuses offer mixed,
but similar experiences. At yale and princeton
the Iranians tend to be New York castoffs and are marginalized to the point
where they have little community impact.
The university of Chicago has trained some fine Iran scholars yet
Chicago itself is not very welcoming to Iranians. Dartmouth at least avoids large scale
interactions in order not to provoke any confrontations, like most academic
institutions throughout america and the World operate. Campuses like georgetown and duke act as a repository
for Iranian academic castoffs like trita parsi and ali vaez from other academic
institutions, while the Iranian communities in texas and florida, which are
sizeable, have a minimal presence on campus and are barely noticed in the
community. While California has a
sizeable population of Iranians, mainly in the Los Angeles metro area and San
Francisco Bay area they repeat the same formula of regularly hosting community
events on campuses like stanford and ucla, the latter though a public campus is
fraught with the same dangers as other campuses, more so because public access
leads to greater feelings of community making any incidents on public campuses
all the more painful. Iranian academic
organizations off campus tend to be just as scatterbrained and out of touch, as
the Association for Iranian Studies recently demonstrated in their statement on
the recent riots in Iran where they could not even get basic facts straight.
There are so few community resources where
Iranians can gather in any location that it is only natural they search for
familiar places, and here is where academic campuses come in. The hard fact is there are too few community
resources for Iranians in most of america, and in searching out the familiar
academic campuses become de facto community centers, where Iranians are treated
like zoo animals who think they are something special. This feeling is reinforced when Iranians
spend more time off campuses and soon realize they are not as famous or as
special as those who brought them to campus made them feel. Outside of academia most prominent professors
and Iranian luminaries are little known, and they experience a shock adjusting
to life outside of campus environments, where they are nobody special, causing
more problems for them.
Overall, it seems the Iranian presence on
campus has more harm than good for Iranians, for it makes them dependent on a
lifestyle that does not prepare them for life, especially life in the World
where they are not sheltered from harsh reality. If Iranians in america and outside Iran are
to thrive they must learn not to be dependent on others and to stand up for
themselves, especially in a World where people still think Persia is a fairy
tale land and that Zoroastrians go around carving Z’s, for all we have done is
lead whores to culture who could not think.
من این را مستقیماً برای شما میفرستم زیرا نامهها و ایمیلهای اخیر من به سفارتهای شما در منهتن و واشنگتن دی سی پاسخی داده نشده است، حتی پس از اینکه در سفر رئیسی به سازمان ملل در سپتامبر نامهای را به سفارت شما در منهتن تحویل دادم.
نگرانی من موضوع مهمی است و عدم پاسخ دولت دلیل اصلی نوشتن من است، زیرا در دسامبر 2019 به دلیل اعمالی که در زمان نمایندگی آرتش انجام دادم توسط دولت آمریکا متهم و بازداشت شدم. در حالی که آرتش بلافاصله به اقدام غیرقانونی دولت آمریکا علیه من پاسخ داد، من و وکیلم هیچ تماسی از دولت در مورد پرونده خود دریافت نکردیم، علیرغم این واقعیت که این اتهامات اوج دو دهه آزار و اذیت قانونی من در آمریکا به دلیل اینکه من در آمریکا بوده ام. زرتشتی ایرانی.
با وجود اینکه اتهامات آمریکا رد شد و ایران همچنان در وضعیت جنگی به خاطر اتفاقی که برای من افتاد. همچنین در اردیبهشت 2005 نشان درجه سپه سالارم توسط کارکنان علی شمخانی به من داده شد و سایر اشیای قیمتی از ایران در زمان بازداشت دولت آمریکا از من دزدیده شد و هیچ تلاشی برای بازگرداندن نشان یا اشیای با ارزش ایرانی من صورت نگرفته است. من نیز تحت شکنجه بودم، 70 پوند از دست داده بودم و باید تحت معالجه پزشکی قرار می گرفتم، در غیر این صورت نیازی به درمان نداشتم، با این حال دولت در این مورد سکوت کرده است، در حالی که آرتش سکوت کرده است، و می خواهم بدانم چرا.
همانطور که به دولت نوشتم، از ژانویه 2003، ایالت رود آیلند، زرتشتیان ایرانی و سایر ادیان را با عبادات مشابه جرم انگاری کرده است، اما دولت در این مورد هیچ کاری نکرده است، آیا حقوق بشر ایرانیان در آمریکا برای دولت ایران هیچ معنایی ندارد؟ باید اشاره کنم که من و دیگران در آمریکا کمک هایی به جامعه ایران کرده ایم که به نفع ایران بوده است. من در دو دهه گذشته به تربیت افراد زیادی در آرتش کمک کردهام و در جلوگیری از تهاجم به ایران فردی جدایی ناپذیر بودهام و از دولت بیش از بهانهجویی انتظار و لیاقت داشتم.
نکته اصلی این است که دولت، به ویژه کارکنان سفارت شما، تقریباً هیچ کاری برای رسیدگی به نقض حقوق بشر انجام نداده اند، ایرانیانی مانند من در تجربه آمریکا، در حالی که آرتش به دلیل نقض حقوق بشر در آمریکا، اقدامی علیه آمریکا انجام داده است. شاید باید از آرتش بخواهیم کارمندان سفارت و دولت را با افراد شایسته تری جایگزین کنیم، زیرا همه کارکنان سفارت در منهتن گفتند که نمی توانند شکایت من را درک کنند اما به اندازه کافی مهارت دارند که قهوه تخصصی سفارش دهند.
منتظر پاسخ شما هستم
