(June 11, 2014 at 3:56 pm)Minimalist Wrote: Well, who would want to buy our version of democracy? Talk about a clunker!
I lived in Iran as a boy, from 1974 to 1978, and I wrote a book about my experiences there, which included witnessing the revolution which overthrew the Shah.
In that book, there's a germane passage:
Quote:It wasn't until much later, after we returned to America, that the thought crossed my mind that my dad's behavior that night may encapsulate the reasons why Westernization in general and Americans in particular were so terribly resented by Iranians. To his son, of course, my dad could do no wrong; even though he tried to tell me otherwise, in his own fashion, I still at the time regarded him as pretty damned close to infallible.
But looking back on it later, I could see that the appalling arrogance of his actions were really synecdoche for the way our country treats most of the rest of the world, particularly the under-developed parts of it. And that was certainly the case in Iran, where we forced an autocratic monarch upon a people, for our own ends, with little thought and less concern for the will of the people there. In this case, our thirst for cheaper oil and our geopolitical goals regarding Russia combined to damn the Iranians to the fear of secret police and, eventually, to an equally dreaded and despised religious government.
I'm still of the opinion that if we as a country truly desire peace for that troubled part of the world -- or any other -- then we should export democratic principles and respect for human rights along with missile batteries and the jet fighters that they shoot down. As trite and simplistic as that may read, I firmly believe that a major reason for the terrorism directed against us is the fact that our high words and ideals rarely are matched by our deeds. We talk a great deal about freedom, equality, and the rule of law, and we point to the ideals ensconced in our Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights; but when these principles collide with our economic or geopolitical goals, they are invariably shunted aside in favor of a convenient alliance with a tyrant, who ends up in the scrap-heap of history along with our long-term goals. This is borne out with dismaying frequency in our history.
I was to see this for myself in 1978.
