Peace and Pride
By Ali Sina
2006/06/28
Dear Ali Sina
You have said somewhere that you were proud to be Iranian. What makes
you proud of being Iranian? Isn’t the greatness of a nation measured
by what its people have to offer? It is the collective wisdom of the
people that makes the nation great or small. You could have a handful of
Iranians who have contributed enormously to the world. They may be among
the top intellectuals in the world. But that is overshadowed by the
majority who still uphold a repressive ideology. It is the majority that
represent the nation. Others judge us on how the majority behave. I
would be ashamed, and not proud, to call myself an Iranian just as much
as I am ashamed of my own country where I live.
I commend your desire and effort to free the people of Iran, to bring
about real changes there that would make the nation great, but is your
patriotic fervour justified when you say you are proud of the nation the
way it is now?
I don’t think we have to remain attached to our country just because
we happen to be born there. I have lived here practically all my life
but I hate everything about this place. It’s not the landscape or
climate that I find unappealing. It’s not the natural resources of the
land or our wealth (or lack of) that I complain about. We have no
control over these but to accept what nature has set aside for us. I
only wish the attitude of people would change. It is their culture,
mental attitude, values and general outlook on life that I find
reprehensible.
What do you have to say about this? Do we really have to be attached to
our place of birth? I think not. I think we are a citizen of the place
we dream of. If I admire the Dutch, say, for their unrestricted freedom
and open society and yearn to live there, that is where my loyalty
should lie and not with a place I do not sympathise with.
Taqqiya Tactician
Dear TT:
A nation is like an individual. What holds true for an individual also
holds true for a nation that is composed of millions of individuals. Each
individual has great potentials and is capable of reaching to great
heights. You can only tap into your potentials if you have self respect.
You are who you think you are. If you believe in yourself, there is
nothing that you cannot do. To a great extent we are all made equal. We
might have different talents but each one of us is designed to succeed.
Those who excel are those who trust themselves, are aware of their
potentials, set goals and strive to achieve them. Those who fail are those
who waiver, doubt their abilities, don’t’ believe in themselves and
because of that they don’t set high goals and don’t strive to achieve
anything. The only difference between those who succeed and those who fail
is in how much they value themselves; in other words how much self worth
they have. This sums up the difference between an achiever and a loser.
It’s self worth, self esteem and pride.

Just as individuals can become sick, perform poorly
and fail, also nations can go through periods of decrepitude and malaise
that could last many centuries. What does addiction do to people? It
affects their perception and disturbs their personality. It impairs their
thinking and feeling, as well as their behaviors. A person who becomes
addicted to brain altering chemicals will certainly fail in life. His
addiction becomes his obsession. He loses touch with reality and instead
of setting goals in life he strives to feed his addiction. Meanwhile he
loses his self worth, he believes less and less in himself. He becomes so
dependant on the substance to which he is addicted that this becomes his
primary object of his concern and the focus of his life. Everything else
becomes secondary and insignificant, including his honor, his loved ones
and his own life. Such an individual is hopeless. He can become
destructive and even dangerous. Of course if you look at him in that
state, you find nothing in him to be proud of. But, what will happen if
you rescue him, wean him from his addiction and return him back to
normalcy? He can become a whole person again. Once the monkey of addiction
is off his back, he can tap into his potential and become a successful
person.
Marx said religion is opium of the masses. Islamic
countries are suffering from addiction to Islam. They are obsessed with
it. They can’t think of anything else. They bring Islam into everything,
including their constitution and let it control their lives. Saudis don't
have a constitution. The Quran is their constitution. As Muslims foolishly
brag, Islam is their way of life. Addiction is the way of life of an
addict. Just as addiction set the pace of life of an addict so Islam
controls every aspect of the Muslim's life. An addict needs his regular
doses or he will go nuts, Muslims need their fix five times a day or they
become filled with guilt and panic, terrified with the fear of punishment.
The difference between you and I is that you see them as worthless
brainless addicts that they have become and I see them as what they once
were and what they can become again. It is not that I don’t see the
despicable people that they have become. It is not that I can’t see that
they have become a bunch of, miscreant,
uneducated, savage,
low brained, insecure morons.
But I do not judge them by what this addiction has done to them. I see
their potentials and who they can be again. I do not intend to give up on
them and write them off.
I am not proud of what has befallen to my people, but
I am proud of my culture, my heritage and of the genius that is within my
people. Even today, if you go to far off villages in Iran, where ancient
traditions have been resilient, they will invite you to their house, kill
their only egg laying hen and literally “force feed” you, because they
believe guest is the mercy of God. I still run into these kinds of
Persians even in the West once in a while. How can one not love them?
These are unique qualities found nowhere. I have spent most of my life
outside
Iran
. I left home when I was very young. My memories of
Iran
are vague, but anytime I watch my people on TV I see my own self in them.
I am part of them. They are my extended family. They are my tribe. Of
course I love them.
I am deeply saddened for what has befallen to them.
How would you feel if your brother becomes an addict? You remember that at
one time he was happy, exuberant, outgoing and goal oriented. Now the drug
has robbed his soul. He is no longer the same person. He is irritable,
violent, dishonest and sometimes dangerous. That pains you. But you
won’t stop loving him. You will do everything you can to make him come
to his senses and free himself from his addiction. I feel the same way
about my people. I know there is goodness in them. I know about the
potential that there is in them. All I have to do is to wean them from
this drug called Islam and you’ll see that they will shine again.
Why there are no shining stars in the Muslim world?
It is not because we are less than others. We simply do not have the
opportunity to shine. What do you think would have happened to Mozart if
he was born in
Mecca
? Would he have become Mozart? Of course not! The most he could have
become was a good moazin. Would Einstein have become a great scientist if
he was born in
Peshawar
? Talent needs the right environment in order to manifest itself. Imagine
planting a seed from the best tree in a dried land. Will it ever become a
tree? Will it ever give fruits? At this moment, there are thousands of
potential Einsteins and Mozarts, Da Vincis and
Newtons
, Descartes and Howkings in
Islamic countries who will become nothing more than ambulant vendors. This
is a loss for all mankind.
Islam encourages its victims to despise their own
culture. Listen to the Muslim converts. They mock even their own selves
prior to becoming Muslims. They sneer when they talk about themselves of
yesteryears. This is comical but they do that unconsciously and get
encouraged for doing it. They mock their own culture and call their own
people enemy.
The first thing Islam does is that it takes away the
self pride of its victims. Indian Muslims hate Indian culture; British
converts despise
Britain
; American converts harbor the thoughts of destroying
America
and Jewish converts rejoice and praise Allah every time there is a suicide
bombing in
Israel
. In order to become Muslims they must lose their pride. They must view
themselves, their people and their culture with disdain. Naturally these
self loathing addicts will be also underachievers, which make them despise
themselves even more. Once everything is taken away from them, Islam
becomes their only obsession. Religion is indeed a dangerous mind altering
drug. Islam is the most potent and the most dangerous of them all.
This must be reversed. The victims of Islam must
regain their pride. There is nothing shameful to be an Iranian, a
Pakistani or an Arab. Look at
Iraq
today and see what has befallen to it. Now look back and you’ll see that
land was the cradle of human civilization. Of course Iraqis must be proud
of who they are. Of course Egyptians must be proud of who they are.
Pakistan
in my view is the most ridiculous country of the world. Imagine the
absurdity of creating a “secular” country inspired by religious
apartheid! Could anyone have thought of anything stupider than this?
Qaid-i A’zam was a clown. He deserves to be despised and scorned as an
egotistic ambitious man whose main concern was self glorification at the
cost of millions of lives. Pakistanis call him “Father of Pakistan”.
He is the father of their miseries. No one has done more harm to these
wretched people than this man. (With the exception of Muhammad of course)
Pakistan
is not a country; it is a joke. If you are Pakistani, you may have hard
time to find anything to be proud of. But instead of thinking of yourself
as a Pakistani, think of yourself as an Indian. That is who you really
are. Your ancestors were Hindus. They gave birth to one of the most
splendid and richest cultures of the world. The Indian philosophy is still
a beacon of light for mankind. Seeing yourself under this light can fill
you with pride. You should be proud of who you are, of your heritage that
has been taken away from you and of your ancestors. Meanwhile consider
Pakistan
or
Bangladesh
for that matter, as another symptom of Islamic disease.
You say “I don’t think we have to remain
attached to our country just because we happen to be born there”.
Yes, I think we must. We did not land there by parachutes or delivered by
storks. Our roots are there. Our flesh and bones come from those folks. We
can’t just cut our ties from our own people and pretend to be someone
else.
I am a world federalist. I believe that mankind must
be united through a world federal government. But world federalism must
rest on strong democracies just as a dome must rest on strong pillars.
India,
USA, Canada
and many great democracies today are federations of smaller independent
states or provinces. These federations would not exist if one of their
federate members is a dictatorship. This is not conceivable. The very
concept of federation implies democracy and power sharing. A federal
government cannot become dictatorial because its authority comes from
people. It’s the people who elect their federal representatives not the
local dictator and because each state is independent, abuse of power by
the federal government become impossible. Just as a pyramid is only stable
when rests on its wide base, governments of all levels must be supported
by the masses of the people. To eliminate wars and much of human miseries
we need world federalism, but to have world federalism we need free and
democratic countries.
I believe Americans come first in their
patriotism. Japanese are very patriotic too. See how they rose from the
ashes of war and what they have achieved in just sixty years! Indians are
also patriotic. They call their country Mother India. That is the reason
India
is developing so fast and is soon to become one of the major world
players. On the other hand the poor Pakistanis do everything possible to
escape from the land of the Pure and the Islamic paradise that Jinah has
built for them. Every year
Pakistan
is becoming worse than the previous year. Europeans are becoming lukewarm
in this regard and they are in danger of losing their freedom to Islam.
There is a direct link between the success of a country and how much her
people love her, are proud of her and are willing to sacrifice for her.
We must not confuse patriotism and healthy
nationalism with tribalism and jingoism. There is a difference between
patriotism and chauvinistic patriotism, between nationalism and fanatical
nationalism – the same difference that exists between self respect and
narcissism. Narcissist is not one who loves himself too much. He actually
hates himself. Narcissism is a mask that he wears to hide his shame and
belittled self. He pumps his ego to feign greatness. It is all façade.
When a nation loses her self-respect and pride she will try to compensate
with bellicim and chauvinism. We saw this in
Germany
during the the thirties. That led to the World War II. Today we see it in
Muslims. This belligerence you witness in the Muslim world is the result
of hurt egos and shattered prides. It’s this intense feeling of
humiliation that manifests itself in chauvinistic and bigoted behavior and
erupts in violence. People who are self assured and proud, are not
chauvinists. Arrogance is the child of hurt ego.
Love of one’s country does not imply
disregarding the well being of other countries. We are all related and
members of one human family. We can’t have peace, happiness and
prosperity in one part of the world while in other parts people die in
wars, with hunger or in jails. We must understand that peace, freedom and
prosperity are human rights. Every human being is entitled to them. We
must think globally but act locally. When you love your family it does not
mean that you are careless about the well being of those who are not part
of your family or you would take away their rights. It means that your
responsibility is first to your own family. Charity starts at home. If you
have two countries, one where your roots are and the other were you
reside, your responsibility is to both of them.
Our job must be to return what Islam has taken away
from our people and that is their pride and self respect. We must give
them back their dignity. We must highlight their past splendor and the
fact that their ancestors were architects of glorious civilizations. Jahelliyah
(ignorance) started with Islam. We will never recover from the slum in
which Islam has dragged us if we do not restore our national pride. That
is why I am a proud Persian. That is why you should be proud of your
nationality, of your culture and of your people. The reason
America
is number one in the world is because its people are proud and patriotic.
They are proud of their constitution, of their struggle for freedom, of
their democracy and of their achievements. All the great nations of the
world are great to the degree that they are proud of themselves.
We must be proud of our assets not of our
liabilities. The former will elevates us to honor and dignity and catapult
us to the acme of greatness while the latter will demote us to
haughtiness, and hubris and make us fall into the abyss of barbarity.
Being proud of Islam is like being proud of one's ignorance. This leads to
conceit, arrogance and smugness that so vividly characterize the Muslims.
Marriages in which one or both partners lack self
esteem often fail. People who lack self esteem fail in any relationship
because they are insecure and don’t love themselves. When they don’t
love themselves they can’t love anyone else. They are always hurt,
always brood and withdraw to a corner to lick their emotional wounds, or
they erupt in violence. It's impossible to live with these people. This is
the state in which Muslim countries find themselves. People in these
countries lack self respect. They have lost their national pride. Until
they don’t regain that pride we won’t have peace in this world. They
will be always angry, always hurt, always offended and always ready to
explode and start a war. How can we live in peace with people who can be
driven to total insanity by a few silly cartoons? These are insecure
people. Muslims react in this way because they lack self pride. They are
ready to pick a fight, riot, burn and murder at a drop of a hat. They
can’t contain themselves or their rage. In lieu of self pride, they hide
inside gigantic inflated egos that can rupture with a slightest
provocation.
The world will not experience peace and these wars
and devastations will not end unless and until all the nations join
together in a world federal government. That won’t happen unless all the
countries of the world become democracies and respect the equality of the
rights of their citizens irrespective of their belief and gender. That
won’t happen unless Islam is completely eradicated. That won’t happen
unless Muslims regain their lost pride; take pride of their native
culture, heritage and of themselves and recover from their present state
of ignorance and collective sense of inferiority that Islam has imposed on
them. Restoring pride to all the nations is the key to world peace. This
won't happen unless you and I love our own people and feel proud of whom
we are.
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