Inside Iran's Fury

Warmest Greetings

I was inspired to do this piece after hearing an interview today on Ring of Fire Radio with Stephen Kinzer, author of All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror. I know that I have been among the majority of Americans who have not understood the roots of anger directed by Iranians toward Americans. Among those who deeply know the history between our nations, Stephen Kinzer clearly describes why the relationship between the United States and Iran went from cordial to hostile... It is so helpful to me in an on-going way to do the footwork of actively seeking to replace, as best as possible, my ignorance, judgments, misinformation, and fears with understanding, knowledge, empathy, compassion and caring. President Obama further fuels my passion to open my heart toward others, to identify and let go of the prejudices which have taken root in my fears and ignorance, and to instead embrace respect and caring and the values of my highest self. I share this article in the spirit of working toward a world that works and cares for all beings.

Peace & blessings ~ Molly

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Scholars trace the nation's antagonism to its history

of domination by foreign powers
By Stephen Kinzer
Smithsonian magazine, October 2008

No American who was alive and alert in the early 1980s will ever forget the Iran hostage crisis. Militants stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran, captured American diplomats and staff and held 52 of them captive for 444 days. In the United States, the television news program "Nightline" emerged to give nightly updates on the crisis, with anchorman Ted Koppel beginning each report by announcing that it was now "Day 53" or "Day 318" of the crisis. For Americans, still recovering from defeat in Vietnam, the hostage crisis was a searing ordeal. It stunned the nation and undermined Jimmy Carter's presidency. Many Americans see it as the pivotal episode in the history of U.S.-Iranian relations.

Iranians, however, have a very different view.

Bruce Laingen, a career diplomat who was chief of the U.S. embassy staff, was the highest-ranking hostage. One day, after Laingen had spent more than a year as a hostage, one of his captors visited him in his solitary cell. Laingen exploded in rage, shouting at his jailer that this hostage-taking was immoral, illegal and "totally wrong." The jailer waited for him to finish, then replied without sympathy.

"You have nothing to complain about," he told Laingen. "The United States took our whole country hostage in 1953."

Few Americans remembered that Iran had descended into dictatorship after the United States overthrew the most democratic government it had ever known. "Mr. President, do you think it was proper for the United States to restore the shah to the throne in 1953 against the popular will within Iran?" a reporter asked President Carter at a news conference during the hostage crisis. "That's ancient history," Carter replied.

Not for Iranians. "In the popular mind, the hostage crisis was seen as justified by what had happened in 1953," says Vali Nasr, an Iranian-born professor at Tufts University's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Massachusetts. "People saw it as an act of national assertiveness, of Iran standing up and taking charge of its own destiny. The humiliation of 1953 was exorcised by the taking of American hostages in 1979."

This chasm of perception reflects the enormous gap in the way Americans and Iranians viewed—and continue to view—one another. It will be hard for them to reconcile their differences unless they begin seeing the world through each other's eyes.

For the entire article, please go here : http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/28393684.html

For Stephen Kinzer's website, please go here: http://www.stephenkinzer.com/

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Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.