Why Be Opposed to America?
The actress playing the role of the famed French singer, Edith Piaf, received two prestigious international awards in the past few days: the Cesar Award and an Oscar. But it would not be an exaggeration to say that what aroused the “pride” of the French nation was the Oscar and not the Cesar. The footage of French actress receiving the Oscar was broadcast dozens of times by French television networks. This was accompanied by video clips of another French actress – Juliette Binoche – who had previously received an Oscar in the best supporting actress category. When accepting her award, Binoche had said, “This is the dream of the French.” So here is the story: the American dream-making machine works really well. So why should we, the unpaid workers at the nightmare factory, be opposed to America?
We would be uselessly repeating ourselves if we again recounted the evils that America has committed in the world. Which one of us has not already said times and times again that America is built on the corpses of native Americans? Or is it not? Which one of us has not heard of the horrific story of Hiroshima tens or even hundreds of times? Or have we not? What about the massive bombs that plowed through Vietnam? Have we not spoken about it, heard about it? Have we not heard about the plight of black Americans, women, the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, Iraqi children, or coups d’etat? We have all said and heard these stories. But, so what?
Are we not repeating these stories to make the point that imperialism, colonialism, theft and pillaging have set the world on fire, and that one must stand up to this “evil?” Stand up. We will stand up. But how? Can anyone tell that worker from Sanandaj (a remote Kurdish town in Iran) who feels ashamed in front of his family because he cannot provide them with food, and who is humiliated in front of his neighbors because he has been publicly flogged for pursuing his legitimate demands, to stand up against evil America? Can anyone expect the 16 year-old adolescent, who is still struggling with his brother’s execution at the hands of the regime and who himself has been detained in the darkness of the night, to stand up against evil America?
Can a courageous woman who has spent her youth fighting for equality, and has now been awarded with the prestigious Olaf Palme Prize, be summoned to the same court whose judge has already murdered another woman with a “shoe,” and still talk of standing up to America?
How is it that those who charge the United States as being anti-human and immoral, discover intricate drug trafficking networks in their own maximum security prisons – precisely where hundreds of our nation’s youth are subjected to the most brutal tortures because they seek freedom.
Yes, it is horrific that American soldiers rape a 14-year old Iraqi girl and burn her dead body to ashes. Which free human being can accept such injustice? But on the other hand, are the violations perpetrated against Zahras and Ibrahims in Iranian prisons by a regime that claims to liberate humanity any less than these crimes? When a writer in Iran is given a court punishment for using his imagination, and then an even harsher punishment when he appeals the first sentence, does this leave any respect to a regime that claims to be critical of American crimes? Is the fact that a civil activist in Iran is haunted by the noose because he is a fighter against human injustice, demonstrate America’s crime or that of those who issue these sentences in Iran?
We have said these things many times in the past and their repetition is simply useless. So let us also say that, if America commits crimes, it also creates dreams; dreams that are no less real than reality: it leads the world in science, in arts, in innovation, and it has been ruling the galaxies for years. And this is precisely why it hosts millions of people who have fled “nightmare factories” to live in its “dream machine.” Including millions of Iranians. Iranians who have fled their homes; Iranians who could have set up a dream factory on their own land.
How do those who operate these nightmare factories in Iran expect their victims to be anti-American? Especially as that very America sells dreams, not nightmares, even if those dreams are not real, while in fact they are.