Roughneck USA
“All of the foreigners who ride in my taxi, French, German, Spanish, they all love Iran. I am curious, so I ask them.”
“They love Iran because they expect something much worse.”
“What do you mean?”
“They expect to be frightened and see people living in fear.” (Forgive me if I am not nuanced in my conversations, I am not a fluent Persian speaker. I do the best I can with my limited abilities.) “We are afraid of you.”
The driver laughs. He thinks I’m joking. I must be joking. Us afraid of them?
“Why is it that foreigners have such a bad impression of Iran?” the taxi driver asked me.
“The only images of Iran that we see in the west are of thousands of people shouting, Down with America, Down with Israel, and then burning flags. This scares us.”
“Yeah, but that does not mean that we dislike Americans. We like Americans. It’s the government we don’t like.”
“Americans do not understand that difference.”
“Don’t they ask why we burn their flag? Don’t they want to know?”
“We do not want to know why. It just makes us angry.” [Our 'friends' dislike us the most, it seems.]
“Why don’t you want to know why?”
“America is a big country. Our neighbors are Canada and Mexico. The rest of the world is very far away. We are not so aware of foreign policy or of other countries. Iran, Iraq, it makes no difference to us. In America, we worry about our own lives. We do not worry about the rest of the world.”
“Ah hah, the driver says. “You are too simple.”
“Yes. We are simple.”
“It seems that Americans want to attack us.”
“Most Americans do not want war.” [Majority expects war (different from supporting it]
“People never want war. It is the leaders who want war. When war comes, and I am a soldier and you are a soldier then I have to fight you.”
“That’s the job of a soldier.”
“America is thick-necked. Do you know what that means?”
“What does it mean?”
“It means that they want to get their way through force.”
“Ahh, we say that too. Roughneck.”
War scares me. It should scare me. What scares me even more is that there are many people in the world who do not fear war. I cannot help but be reminded of what an old biker told me when I told him that I was fascinated by motorcycles and terrified of them.
“So am I,” he said. “It’s when you lose that fear that you get into an accident and die. I have sworn to myself that if I ever get on my bike and feel no fear that I will stop riding forever.”
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“Yeah, but that does not mean that we dislike Americans. We like Americans. It’s the government we don’t like.â€
“Americans do not understand that difference.†”
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“It seems that Americans want to attack us.â€
“Most Americans do not want war.†[Majority expects war (different from supporting it] ” ”
So, Why should Iranian understand that difference?
There are lots of similarities between these two societies that ones who have lived in both, such as you, can understand. When somebody reads Social History of US feels reading iranian newspapers!
Speaking of any similarities, I thought this post might be of interest. It’s funny how things drastically change. Even Hezbollah at some point was supposedly pro-Israel.
The last part of your post really says a lot, and it’s why military institutions seriously scare me. They make you fearless, and when that happens, they turn you into a worthless tool that they are willing to use to further some dumb political policy. And then the soldiers (a lot of whom don’t participate willingly) get brainwashed into thinking that they’re dying for their country, when really, they are willing to die for no apparent reason. I’m not saying military forces in general are not necessary. I’m saying they are being highly misused and they are brainwashing youth into believing something that isn’t necessarily real or true. It’s that whole “bring it on” mentality that makes me lose hope in humanity, like we’re a bunch of clueless animals running around in a jungle killing each other in the name of some crap ideology. But people have been saying this for decades now, and technology makes it much easier to just eliminate entire nations without actually having any human relations to the so-called “enemy.”
Soheil, Unfortunately for Iranians, the onus is on them to understand the image that is being portrayed to the rest of the world: particularly (but not solely) to America. Why? Because they are the ones who have the most to lose. If war comes, it will be on their territory, and it will effect them more than anyone who may attack them.
And Esra’a, you know I agree. I hate the “bring it on” mentality. It’s strange how fear makes us behave badly and how it makes us more careful. Hmmm…