 |
.American
Free Press |
| |
| ..Vol
VII. .#1/2 Jan 1 & 8, 2007. americanfreepress.net |
| |
People of Iran Want Peace, Prosperity, Progress, Stability
By Michael Collins Piper
|
. The most important thing that I can convey
about Iran in general—my most memorable
reaction in retrospect—is this simple concept:
Americans need to ignore anything and everything
they hear about modern-day Iran, its leader, its culture, and its people from the mass media in America.
. . .It wasn’t until I actually arrived in Tehran and spent a
day or so there that it became so apparent to me that even
I—who fancied myself as being reasonably well informed
about that country—had come to Iran with a lot of misconceptions
(prejudices, that is) that were imposed on me
(and yes, it’s a type of brainwashing) by the major media
in America: everything from the nightly “news” broadcasts
to the feature stories and other information (largely propaganda, both subtle and not-so-subtle) in the major news magazines.
See FACTS & MYTHS ABOUT IRAN, page B-2
B-2, AMERICAN
FREE PRESS * January 1 & 8, 2007 Behind the Scenes at the Iran Conference
with
Michael Collins Piper
Facts & Myths About Iran . . .
 REACHING OUT. President Ahmadinejad says all peoples of
the world must respect one another to co-exist peacefully. Here
he greets one of the rabbis from Neturei Karta USA. Rabbi
Weiss of the same group spoke at the AFP Conference. The
group’s presence underscored one of the themes of the conference,
namely, that all the people of the world can live together
harmoniously. Iran also invited many “pro-Holocaust” scholars
to tell their side as well. Contrary to what you heard on the
mainstream news, the conference was a testament to freedom
of speech, the very thing (via “democracy”) we are supposed to
be bringing to the people of the Mideast. What did most
Western governments do? They condemned it.
|
. .As our plane prepared to land in Tehran, a message across
the loudspeaker was rather jarring. It said that “by government
decree” all women were required to cover their heads
upon arrival in Iran. I knew this was the case, but to actually
hear it broadcast over the airplane’s public address system
was, even for me, somewhat un-nerving. The mass media’s
image of oppressed women, being beaten and abused and
forced to cover themselves from head to toe in dark, mysterious-looking garb, immediately came to mind. But I looked
about the plane, at the array of women—Iranian and otherwise,
dark-skinned, light-skinned, blonde and brunette,
Eastern and Western, you name it—and I didn’t see a single
one of those ladies flinch. Not even the richest looking
women aboard, Iranian ladies in elegant clothes and dripping
in expensive jewelry, seemed to be fazed in the least.
. . .And it was then, as I surveyed the people aboard that
plane going to Tehran (from Frankfurt, Germany, my connection
point from Washington, DC), I realized in my own
mind, for the first time, that these were people who might
soon be dead: innocent victims of a reign of fire from the
sky (a very real Holocaust) either from American bombers
or Israeli bombers or both. These Iranian people, living
their lives, traveling freely back and forth from their country
to others, are in the gunsights of America’s George Bush and
his Zionist allies in Washington and Tel Aviv.
. . .Those Iranians are among the people whom 1,000
American Jewish rabbis—representing, by their sheer numbers,
an overwhelming proportion of the synagogue-going
American Jewish community—recently petitioned
President Bush to attack, using American military resources
(and risking the precious lives of American men and
women) to do it. “If those rabbis, supposedly ‘men of God,’
want to wage war against these Iranians,” I thought, “then
let them do it. But they had better stop pestering Americans
to fight another needless war for Israel.” The realization that
these living, breathing human beings from all walks of
life—these Iranians—were the targets of the wrath of those
war-crazed rabbis stayed with me throughout my entire
time in Iran, a great burden for me as an American, knowing
that the president of the United States is more in line
with the thinking of those 1,000 war-mongering “religious”
leaders than he is with the vast numbers of peace-loving
Americans.
. . .Although I was in Iran—and only in the capital city of
Tehran—for some five days (arriving early Sunday morning
and departing early Thursday morning) and spent
most of the time at my hotel and at the meeting
hall for the Holocaust conference (both of which
were in the northern part of that expansive, sprawling
city of 14 million people), I did get the opportunity
to see much of Tehran, as did the other foreign
speakers and attendees at the conference.
. . . At the close of the conference on Tuesday
evening, we were shuttled to a government center
in central Tehran where we were formally greeted
en masse by President Ahmadinejad, who later
graciously posed for photographs and signed
autographs and spoke (through translators) with
the attendees who enthusiastically surrounded
him to personally thank him for having dared to
face global media assault for his comments about
the Holocaust and (even more so) for having
convened that controversial gathering.
. . . Later, that evening, we were taken to a banquet
at the modern and functional headquarters of the
Iraqi foreign ministry, high atop the city on the
mountainside with a magnificent overlook of
Tehran. There we had the opportunity to meet and
speak personally with Iraqi foreign minister
Manovchghr Mottaki who hosted the dinner and
there pledged continuing support for foreign political
dissidents who dared to continue to speak out
on the issue of the Holocaust and regarding the
global influence of the Zionist power bloc.
TOP: Britain’s Lady Michele Renouf (who also spoke at
AFP’s Labor Day weekend conference in Washington) is
shown at left at the podium addressing the international
conference on the Holocaust held in Tehran.
BOTTOM: Iran’s very cordial Foreign Minister Manovchghr
Mottaki (left) poses for a photograph with Portuguese
journalist and researcher Flavio Consalves (right) at the
end of the gala dinner Mottaki hosted for the foreign visitors
to Iran who attended the conference on the
Holocaust. The dinner was held at the Iranian foreign ministry
where a lighted Christmas tree was on display. |
. . .And believe it or not, right there on the grounds of the
foreign ministry of the Islamic republic of Iran was a lighted
Christmas tree. Yes, folks, Jesus Christ is revered by the
Muslim people, and his birth is celebrated and honored in
the capital of one of the world’s most dedicated Muslim
nations.
. . .This is a point that will confuse and fluster Muslim-bashing
pro-Israel Christian fundamentalists in light of their
steadfast devotion to a foreign entity (Israel) that would
never, under any circumstances, raise a Christmas tree and,
in fact, does all it can to suppress celebrations of Christ by
Christians (and Muslims) in Palestine. So there it was: a
Christmas tree in Islamic Iran.
. . .So shuttling back and forth across Tehran, we got to see
the city (and its people) live, in action, so to speak. And what
a busy place it is, certainly the busiest city that I’ve ever seen
(and I’ve been to New York, Moscow, Tokyo and Kuala
Lumpur, very busy big cities all). In general, in my personal
estimation, the Iranians I met—ranging from waiters and hotel workers to diplomats and scholars—are good natured,
wry in their wit, very friendly and hardly “anti-American,”
except perhaps for a naturally developing antipathy to
George W. Bush and that small clique of his handlers and co-conspirators
who want to kill the Iranian people, destroy
their government, cripple their nuclear energy program, and
turn their historic nation—the very land of Daniel of the
Bible—into a cauldron of death and disaster as they have
already done to Iraq, once a thriving republic.
. . .Tehran is bustling, energetic, hardly the image that one
would expect from the media coverage that the Western
press conveys to its gullible audiences. There is no overhanging
sense of gloom in Tehran, no specter of oppression,
no feeling that secret police and observation cameras are
close by, monitoring one’s every move. People live their
lives, going to and from work, just as they do anywhere else.
Now, of course, the saloons have been shut down and certain
forms of dress and decorum are expected of visitors and
natives alike, but traveling through Tehran one doesn’t feel
any different than one might feel in any other major city.
. . .There is one notable and striking exception to this: the
fact that the traffic in Tehran is enormously overwhelming
and the pedestrians and the drivers seem to have overcome
the conflict and have forged a bizarre (if cooperative) way of
dealing with the mess.
. . .Thanks to the good offices (and good driving) of Iranian
film-maker Nader Talebzadeh—who was one of the featured
speakers at the American Free Press free speech conference
held in Washington over Labor Day weekend this past fall—I had the opportunity to get some additional travel time
throughout the amazing city, during which time Talebzadeh
interviewed me in his car on camera (with the city’s expanse
in the background) for a documentary he is making.
. . .Through Talebzadeh I also had the chance to meet the
talented Muslim actor who lovingly portrayed Jesus Christ
in Talebzadeh’s soon-to-be-released major motion picture
on the last days of Christ on Earth (financed by the Iranian
ministry of culture) that—by the estimation of critics who
have seen advance screenings—rivals even Mel Gibson’s
epic Passion of the Christ.
. . .Just a few thoughts and impressions about one of the
most misrepresented nations on Earth today. Much more
could be said, but this gives a brief overview of some things
that need to be said and understood.
(Issue #1/2, January 1 & 8, 2007, AMERICAN
FREE PRESS)
|
