Professionalism!

[Ali Chicago]

Ali E Aziz.........
I always enjoy our exchanges.......and happy new year,by the way !!
what is it we are talking about ?.....if you are saying, people have no fault, and are the product of thier system, then I agree 100%.....and if, you are saying in time, our players become profesional,I agree with that too....
but, if you are saying, We are same as any where-els, I disagree.....as I believe,we are just a little harder nut to crack !!......We are just a little more " MAN ", as " I ", in our blood !!, we are little more " Raees " as " BOSS ", we are little more self centered , and we are little more " EDDEAA " !!
And , if you are saying, not all are like that, I also agree....., but if you say, other cultures have that too, I disagree, as I believe, they do not have it to our extend......if you say some similar issues can be seen in other cultures,I say, not to the extend of ours, as ours, is so wide spread, and exit in every facet of life,every day.If you say, we are used to put ourseleves down, I disagree ............for many reasons : One, because, if we do it, we disclude our personal self out of it !, ( again another Eddeaa,and another "MAN " ),or if we do it, we do that to forigners too, as deep down, we think,we are smarter ( another " Man ").....,
I have met, some Rich Iranian business owners ( They own hand made oriental rug companies in India,pakistan,and china ),which when I asked them ( I meet them in annual shows ), why would n't they open a manufacturing plants in Iran, they say, it is much easier in India,or China, or pakistan.....as they belive, they can not manage in Iran, ....one because the Governmenr interfiers , another because Iranian workers are not manegeble,and are all " Raees ", as they put it !!!..............When you ask them to do the job " A ", they either do not do it, or they do the job " B ".....and when you ask the workers,why did you do the " B "?, and not "A "?, they say, the job "B" is better !!!!!, and they think they found the improvement !!!!!!!

Happy new year to you as well and pleasure for exchanges is mutual.
Well history gives everyone enough enough to argue for or against anything. I am not sure quoting a few rich business man opinion about Iran as if running a sweatshop in India or Pakistan is the only road to success is countring my argument. I just say this. Iran after a bloody revolution, 8 years of war where the whole world was almost against them, with the leadership of bunch of Mullahs that didn't know Crap when they came to power, is rising up and catching up in the region. Today, Iran's industry despite all the sanction and religious nutcases who run the country is looking for the market in the region. Where all of this came from? Bunch of people full of Eddea? Who stoold against Iraqi's army, where two months earlier Nozheh Coup de tata had happened and commander of one regiment of 92 Tank division in Ahwaz fled to Iraq and told them exactly where Regiment 1,2,3 of 92nd division where located? When Sepah wasn't even fully formed. Bunch of the socalled People with Edda stood against an up to teeth armed armies in the middle east. Today, Iranian students do very well in Physics, math, Chemistry at the world level, despite not having access to technology and living under one of the most restrictive regimes in the world. Why you go too far, look at our football. With the sheer to sheer situation we have in Iran, the fact that our team competes at the top level of Asia, is nothing but short of miracle by many Iranians (namely our players). All of these are Edda? You yourself are an Iranian, so is many other people I know on this forum (Mansoor, Yashar, Purple Haze, Regina, BehzadB, DD, etc. etc.). All of these people are an Iranian and very logical people with a good head on their shoulder. I said in the other thread about Ghotbi. There are two exterems. One exterem is the Pan Iranists who say anything Iranian is the greatest and Iran is the cause of anything good in the world. The other exterme is anything Iranian is bad and we are bunch of bullshitters, Eddea, etc. etc. I think the truth is somewhere in between. We Iranians as many other third world countries have many problems, lack fo team work, very proud nation, lack of respect for individual rights vs. collective, etc. etc.. But we are not bunch of bullshitters and full of Edda. We demand to get treated better than people around us, cause we know everyone deserves better. If we aren't behaving like bunch of sheeps that people tell us to do this and that and we dont' follow that, is it supposed to be a bad thing?


Bahram jaan, as for your commments about the Iranian carpet sellers mark my words, after the fall of Soviet Union the so called market fundementalisem (As Goerge Sorus put it) and full fledge capitalisem was drunk with success. I hope both of us are alive in 30-40 years and you will see the extermes of today (running sweatshops and call it a success and economic progress) will be a black period in the history.

On that note, let's just close the book on this topic. It seems we can't find common points here. I was hoping the refrences I gave you (both Goerge Soros's book and Dr. Kazam Alamdari's book "Why west went ahead and we stayed behind" provides all the arguments in detail that I tried to make here. Guess we just agree to disagree on this.

[zzgloo]

Ali E Aziz.........
I always enjoy our exchanges.......and happy new year,by the way !!
what is it we are talking about ?.....if you are saying, people have no fault, and are the product of thier system, then I agree 100%.....and if, you are saying in time, our players become profesional,I agree with that too....
but, if you are saying, We are same as any where-els, I disagree.....as I believe,we are just a little harder nut to crack !!......We are just a little more " MAN ", as " I ", in our blood !!, we are little more " Raees " as " BOSS ", we are little more self centered , and we are little more " EDDEAA " !!
And , if you are saying, not all are like that, I also agree....., but if you say, other cultures have that too, I disagree, as I believe, they do not have it to our extend......if you say some similar issues can be seen in other cultures,I say, not to the extend of ours, as ours, is so wide spread, and exit in every facet of life,every day.If you say, we are used to put ourseleves down, I disagree ............for many reasons : One, because, if we do it, we disclude our personal self out of it !, ( again another Eddeaa,and another "MAN " ),or if we do it, we do that to forigners too, as deep down, we think,we are smarter ( another " Man ").....,
I have met, some Rich Iranian business owners ( They own hand made oriental rug companies in India,pakistan,and china ),which when I asked them ( I meet them in annual shows ), why would n't they open a manufacturing plants in Iran, they say, it is much easier in India,or China, or pakistan.....as they belive, they can not manage in Iran, ....one because the Governmenr interfiers , another because Iranian workers are not manegeble,and are all " Raees ", as they put it !!!..............When you ask them to do the job " A ", they either do not do it, or they do the job " B ".....and when you ask the workers,why did you do the " B "?, and not "A "?, they say, the job "B" is better !!!!!, and they think they found the improvement !!!!!!!

[Ali Chicago]

...
Ghotbi previously has said, he would not like to get close to the players, because it is not profesional.....but, he is finding out, in Iran, he needs to ,accommodate the Players' EDDEAA, and be responsive to what they think.
And professionalism has to wait, until, players such as Shays and nikbakht,are accommodated !!

Bahram Jaan;

I reserve the right to go back to the first part of your post later, but for Ghotbi and PP players please consider two things:
First of all, consider our players aren't raised in a pro environment. It has mostly problems but a few advantages. By pro environment, I mean, player who play pro football, since their childhood or at the latest 14 year old (99% of them), played in the youth program of a club, may of them had armature contract etc etc. In Iran, we didn't' have any of that. All of a sudden, 6-7 years ago, thanks to Mr. Dadkan bold step, we had the so called Pro league. So many of these behavior you see is the result of that lack of pro culture. Even these players (Iranian in general) are very fast learners. Remember Azizi and his drama with TM. Nowadays you see our fans, players learned that they need to respect the coaches decision. They grumble but for the most part they follow. This grumbling and discord between play rs and players and coaches is very common in the football. Just follow the current saga between Ronaldinio and Barca and Ricard. Etto's comments, Ronaldinio Etto Quarrel last year. We think our sport papers are bad, read the ACE in Spain that writes about football.
Read English sport papers and grumbling between coaches and players. Read the latest duel of Zi Roberto and Oliver Khan in Germany (since Bayren isn't doing well in the last 5 games). Point is all of these issues are everywhere, but since we are used to put ourselves down and overestimate anything from outside, we magnify our own faults and put ourselves down. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying Iran is perfect or a heaven far from that, but so is everybody else.
Ghotbi/players issues for a team at the caliber of PP (as one of the most popular team at the world level or the most popular team at least in Asia) is minuscule.Our players/fans are learning and learning fast. Remember when Abedzadeh went to PP from SS or Hashemi Nasab went to SS from PP. Compare that to Nikki's transfer today. Fans and players both dealt with it much better.

As for the Edda, today there is a several pieces report about Turkey and specifically Istanbul in "The World" on NPR tonight and the following nights. I strongly suggest you listen to it. The World is the BB C's international news that is broad casted in US. You will understand the root cause of some of the cultural issues you brought up (Eddaa).

And finally, if it is about dirty laundry of our family problems, you think in US or Europe these issues aren't there? Watch Jerry Springer's show to see the dirt of the dirt of the American society. Iran's society is having a metamorphism from a traditional society to a semi- (so called) modern. Lot of values and habits are changing. Iran and many developing countries is at a very special moment right now. This transition happed in Europe 100-200 years ago. Keep that in mind.

I strongly suggest you read the book by Dr. Alamdari "Why west progressed and Iran stayed behind". While I don't agree with everything in the book, I think Dr. Kazem Alamdari started a very good discussion. This exchanges between you and I are just another indication that we Iranian need this dialog.

[zzgloo]

Ali jaan.....this is a very deep,and complecated issue........
1- The vollyball,bascketball...these are new pheniminas, and do not count against tradition of wrstleing and weight-lifiting......
2-the modesty of most Iranians are themseleves,EDDEAA !., it is fake !!
" Ghabeli naderh " is fake,they do not mean it.
" chekeram, mokhlesam,etc, are fake, and do not mean shit.
"In Toos,where ferdosi's memorial is, one can find a small 20 centimeter by 20 centimeter stone,behind, public restroom, where is the grave of " mehdi,akhavan e sales ",as he had asked for,in his will..........; believe me, it is a EDDEA, wraped in a exadurated modesty paper.!!!!
3-Our culture, is that every body has oppinion on every thing,and has suggestion for every body !....Where have you been ? have you not noticed this ?..........Every body is a " Motekaleme Vahdeh " !,......
4- In addition to EDDEAA, we also have what you may call, " TAVVAGHO " which is a by product of EDDEAA, and you must have encountered that.....
have you, or anybody you know, in some dispute with of relatives and other friend ,............if you go through to the core and deep base of all problems amongst us, it is the " TAVVAGHO E BIJA ".
.............................................
To relate our excahnges with today, and the topic of this thread....just look at the situation , now, between ghotbi, and his players , and the Iranian media...............................
Ghotbi previously has said, he would not like to get close to the players, because it is not profesional.....but, he is finding out, in Iran, he needs to ,accomidate the Players' EDDEAA, and be responsive to what they think.
And profesionalism has to wait, untill, players such as Shays and nikbakht,are accomidated !!

[Ali Chicago]

Ali Jaan, I am not sure our persian empire,and gloriouse past is the cause of our " EDDEAA ".......
China, Eygpt,Ethiupia,....had similar past as well.....
The issue,is very complicated...as it has something to do,with, socio-psycological-historical phenomina..................
One may ask,...............

Bahram Jaan,
How do you measure these things (EDDEA thing)? How do you measure that we Iranian have more EDDEA than Chineese or Egyptions. When I was in Korea back in late90s they hate Japaneese (in big part due to the WWII occupation of Korea by Japan and Japanees atrocities). They kept telling me they are competing with Japan and this and that and I thought to myself what a BS. Japan is leaps and bounds ahead of you. Look today. Korea is pushing further. So Korean's have EDDEA too?

EDDEA to certiani level at the ambition level is good. On the contrary in our Iranian culture, modesty is promoted heavily. Even in our taaroff we have terms like "koocheeke shoma hastam, mokhlesam, chakeram". In English greeting you dont' see similar terms? Among Iranians there are many people who have EDDEA many are without EDDEA. Unless there is a scientific polling done that shows me this EDDEA thign among Iranians are way higher than other nationalities, I wouldnt' accept it is more prevelent among us than others.

Part of this EDDEA comes from teh fact that we don't like to be treated like third world less developed conutries. Even shah despite being supported by America and all, talked about "those with green eyes can't tell us what to do" Remember he sold Gas to USSR and bought military equipments from former USSR and steel industry friom USSR when American and westerneres refused to give us the steel technology.
Islamic Republic with its no west no East followed the same path in a different way of course. The point is we Iranians know we need and should do better and not happy with where we are, so maybe some of us masquarading it with a bit EDDEA (which is the wrong manner).

1- Why in all sports, we are Good,at wrestling ? wieght-lifting ?.....which belong to individuals with EDDEEA..

Iran recently has been succesful in Volleyball (world stage) and Basketball (Asain level). Both are team sports and when there was a good orgnization and time taken to develope we were succesful. Eariler I posted about Volleyball how the Serb coach went and gatehred talent at the Rahnamyee school levels. Volleyball isnt' in the eyes like football, so there is time to develope. Football is a different stroy.

2-Why,we have so many poets,? and evey body seem to want to teach others.?.......which is indicative of individuals with EEDDEAA..

We have so man poets because we were among the most civilized people on the Earth where Europeans were nothing. In Pasargad we had libarary that Arabs and Alexander burnt our libraries when they caputured Iran. Having peots is nothing bad. Furthermore, many of these poets that we consider Iranian are part of the so called Islamic empire. Many of them lived in the land that isn't part of Iran today. So the commonality is Persian language since they wrote poetry in Farsi.
Plus at that time, there was no Renaisence in Europe and no industrial revolution, so intellectual power was directed toward poetry and literature.

3- Why,our good manner,is just a front,and we want others to guess ?,and forigners have hard time figuring us out.?

These are individual traits. How do you generalize like this Baharm jaan. Can you say 1 million Iranian comapred to 1 million East Indians are harder to figure out?

4-Why , turkish culture,has similar charactoristics?" EDDEEAA,and all ?, they also are good in wrestling and wieght lifting ?!!


..................................
The point is not to put down our own culture, which as you indicated,has lots of positive aspects as well............the point is, are all these,realistic,and helpful ?...in today's global world ?

Turks have a similar socio econmic and development past as Iran, and I am not surpirsed there are a lot of similiarites between the two conutries.
I am not saying everything in Iran is good or great. I am saying we need to understand why things are like this. The lack of deomcracy and individual rights have made us "hard to figure" as you put it. In our culture the group has priority over individual, which I think is a good thing overall. Still we need to allow individual rights to grow and group dont' suppress individuals.

All of these human rights and individual rights and environement and equality of sexes you see in the west didnt' come all of a sudden. These are results of the struggles for 2 centries of European masses. Iran and middle East missed the whole Print machine by Gothenberg and Renansience and Indsutrial reveloution. We fell behind. We need to realize this and stop self admonishing. This is a culutre of a defeated people. Self admonishment and blame ourselves for everything. While we realize our shortcomings and need to work on them, we need to realize:
1- It takes time (100s of years to over come this).
2- See the cause not the effect
3- learn from other people and don't reinvent the wheel.

[zzgloo]

True, but the same Edda at historical points kept our country independent mind you Afshin Jaan. I am not saying our EDDA is good, but again our EDDa is the effect of long history we got not the cause.
During the 16-17th century this kept us standign against Ottamn Empire. Later against Tzarist Russia and Biritish and lately during the Iran Iraq war where Iran pretty much single handedly stood against Iraq's aggression.
PLus, if you look we Iranians have led the progress in the Asia. First constitutional reveloutin in 1907. Oil Nationalization movement in 1947. Even today our people are fightign tooth and nail against Islamic Theocracy. Look at how our nation responded to 9/11 event Vs. how majoirty of middle Easterners did. Compare us even with Turks (who consider themselves European and how they treated Armenian. In Iran while natioanl minorities are discriminated againt, overall there hasn't been atrocities the way in that scale against Turks or Kurds).
Again, I am not saying it is good, but I saying look at the root cause not the symptoms.
DD jaan, even today, Iran is a power in the region. Despite all the shortcoming of the Theocratic government in Iran, Iran is looking at other countries in the region to sell its products and export techonlogy and know how (despite the sanctions).
Even the mere fact that you yourself have such a high expectation from Iran should tel u something. Comapre yourself with other minorities in the US. Where they come here and totally forget their roots and want to get melted in this so called melting pot.
Iran has risen always. Under Moguls, Arabs, Brits, Tzarist Russia, Alexander. We always found a way. We will find a way against the Islamist Fascits as well. It takes time maybe 50 years maybe more maybe less. Deer ya zood dareh valley sookt va sooz nadareh.

Ali Jaan, I am not sure our persian empire,and gloriouse past is the cause of our " EDDEAA ".......
China, Eygpt,Ethiupia,....had similar past as well.....
The issue,is very complicated...as it has something to do,with, socio-psycological-historical phenomina..................

One may ask,...............

1- Why in all sports, we are Good,at wrestling ? wieght-lifting ?.....which belong to individuals with EDDEEA..

2-Why,we have so many poets,? and evey body seem to want to teach others.?.......which is indicative of individuals with EEDDEAA..

3- Why,our good manner,is just a front,and we want others to guess ?,and forigners have hard time figuring us out.?

4-Why , turkish culture,has similar charactoristics?" EDDEEAA,and all ?, they also are good in wrestling and wieght lifting ?!!

..................................
The point is not to put down our own culture, which as you indicated,has lots of positive aspects as well............the point is, are all these,realistic,and helpful ?...in today's global world ?

[Ali Chicago]

Exactly! Couldn't have said it better myself. It has always puzzled me how much exessive arrogance we iranians usually have. As we say in persian "yek ghatar EDDEAA darim".

True, but the same Edda at historical points kept our country independent mind you Afshin Jaan. I am not saying our EDDA is good, but again our EDDa is the effect of long history we got not the cause.

During the 16-17th century this kept us standign against Ottamn Empire. Later against Tzarist Russia and Biritish and lately during the Iran Iraq war where Iran pretty much single handedly stood against Iraq's aggression.

PLus, if you look we Iranians have led the progress in the Asia. First constitutional reveloutin in 1907. Oil Nationalization movement in 1947. Even today our people are fightign tooth and nail against Islamic Theocracy. Look at how our nation responded to 9/11 event Vs. how majoirty of middle Easterners did. Compare us even with Turks (who consider themselves European and how they treated Armenian. In Iran while natioanl minorities are discriminated againt, overall there hasn't been atrocities the way in that scale against Turks or Kurds).
Again, I am not saying it is good, but I saying look at the root cause not the symptoms.

becoz we hark back to 10 to 20 centuries back to boast about something !!
and that makes us look ridiculous.

"persian empire". "cyrus the great". "dariush the conqueror", .... !!!
till when are we going to rely on a 1000 yr old achievement?
what about NOW?
what do we have NOW?
what have we done NOW?

although, having said that, I must say we do reasonably well in scientific ventures, given the amount of brains that have left Iran.
but even this, does not justify our massive ego !


even all that poetry and gol o bolbol is not exactly of today's.
( and btw, lets face it. we are a "soft" people. all poetry and literature and beauty, ... .
melancholic poet , getting drunk in some baagh, served by pretty young things ! very soft, I say !!
how on earth Bush thinks we're gonna attack anyone?
what? we're gonna throw our wine bottles at them? ... to permanently stain their cloths? OOOOOOOoo! We're scary ! )

DD jaan, even today, Iran is a power in the region. Despite all the shortcoming of the Theocratic government in Iran, Iran is looking at other countries in the region to sell its products and export techonlogy and know how (despite the sanctions).

Even the mere fact that you yourself have such a high expectation from Iran should tel u something. Comapre yourself with other minorities in the US. Where they come here and totally forget their roots and want to get melted in this so called melting pot.

Iran has risen always. Under Moguls, Arabs, Brits, Tzarist Russia, Alexander. We always found a way. We will find a way against the Islamist Fascits as well. It takes time maybe 50 years maybe more maybe less. Deer ya zood dareh valley sookt va sooz nadareh.

[Ali Chicago]

I very much sympathize with what Afshin is saying. I have constantly experienced it and I beleive that change of mentalities is tottaly absolutely for progress of this nation.

Ba drood.

I totally agree Majid Jaan. That change of mentality has to happen. But what I am arguing is the mere fact that change of mentality is the result of time and social formation (please read my first post about the punctuality, farmer, woman equality etc.).

These habits and cultural issues are effect not the cause.

[Doctor DOOM]

becoz we hark back to 10 to 20 centuries back to boast about something !!
and that makes us look ridiculous.

"persian empire". "cyrus the great". "dariush the conqueror", .... !!!
till when are we going to rely on a 1000 yr old achievement?
what about NOW?
what do we have NOW?
what have we done NOW?

although, having said that, I must say we do reasonably well in scientific ventures, given the amount of brains that have left Iran.
but even this, does not justify our massive ego !


even all that poetry and gol o bolbol is not exactly of today's.
( and btw, lets face it. we are a "soft" people. all poetry and literature and beauty, ... .
melancholic poet , getting drunk in some baagh, served by pretty young things ! very soft, I say !!
how on earth Bush thinks we're gonna attack anyone?
what? we're gonna throw our wine bottles at them? ... to permanently stain their cloths? OOOOOOOoo! We're scary ! )

[purple_haze]

......In Iran, also, The long history og persian Impire,and excesive poetry,and litrture ( we have more poets than the whole world combined ),has influnced the culture,and given it a false arrogance, and believe of " we know better ", and "" EDDEAA ".Although, we as a nation, are smart pepole,because of those past history as well.

Exactly! Couldn't have said it better myself. It has always puzzled me how much exessive arrogance we iranians usually have. As we say in persian "yek ghatar EDDEAA darim".

[zzgloo]

Interesting exchanges by you all !!..............
Can I just jump in with my bare foot ??!!
To look at these issues,we need to step back,and see others,and how they do things....
The Africans, in general..are in deeper predicament than we are....some of them wish,the white people still would have colonized them...as they are just killing themseleves, and have no sence of progress,and far behind....

The latin America,is mostly a culture of ,"no culture"...although intelegent, but coruption, Drugs,sex, alcohol,dance, music,is more in thier thought,than progress,and had Europeans not set a democratic foundations for them, they would have been even in worse shap.

The Asians, under influence of Budism,and and thier own culture,are calm,and in general very conformist , ( perhaps,with some exceptions )...but,they are not very opinionated people in general.

The Europeans, although rich in culture, but ,arrogance and racism has dominated most thier cultures,as thier imperilist past,and racist wars, damaged thier cultures.

Americans,like most residents of American continenet,lack culture,yet,thier European civilization,and religon ,and Irish back ground in the begginings,has kept them more modest than Europeans, yet theire absolute capitalism has kept thier people in dark,about the world.

In Iran, also, The long history og persian Impire,and excesive poetry,and litrture ( we have more poets than the whole world combined ),has influnced the culture,and given it a false arrogance, and believe of " we know better ", and "" EDDEAA ".Although, we as a nation, are smart pepole,because of those past history as well.

[maij]

Dorosteh Ali Jan...... But why we take the negative experience of people and cultures???? Why we do not benefit from the bright and the positive sides of others ?

South Africa , a beautiful country with huge resources and rich culture , is infested with crime and social problems, why we should not learn from their experience of fighting apartheid and their marvelous struggle to win their freedom , rather than saying they are a bunch of con artists, thieves and dangerous people to deal with ???

Granted that other cultures have their problems , but that is not an excuse for a nation such as Iran with historically the richest culture in the world and wealth of human resources that has excelled in science , literature and human rights well before many nations even knew what these words mean , to act as we are doing now.

I very much sympathize with what Afshin is saying. I have constantly experienced it and I beleive that change of mentalities is tottaly absolutely for progress of this nation.

Ba drood.

[Ali Chicago]

I am not sure about the rest of the cultures, but at least the ones that I am closely associated with , I don't find such mentality in Europeans for example. Generalizing is of course , not very accurate , but from samples of people with differing backgrounds and social status , one can figure out the mentalities.


a little story
I was in Barcelona , Spain on my honeymoon in 1979 a few months after the revolution. I met a group of Iranians in the hotel and we started chatting. Although I normally try to avoid politics , but the Islamic revolution was too hot of a topic to avoid.

We definitely had differing opinions about the revolution with the Gentlemen and one of them kept saying that Ali Shariyati said this and Ali Shariyati said that...... I never heard of Shariyati , from the tone of his voice I thought that he is a religious leader or something. I promptly said , who is he ? Well........I felt that I have swore at his mother when I saw the reaction on their faces....!!!!! They were shocked that I don't know who Shariati was and never read his books....... !!!!!

I said to them decisively , I don't need to read a book of some leftist think tank to decide what is good or bad. God has given me enough intelligent to decide on my own , and I certainly do not form opinions by reading the thoughts of others , even if he was Socrates or Einstein. I am not a follower , I am a leader.

They were all bemused by my thoughts , and only one of them (out of 4) actually admitted that I have a valid point...the rest still wondering how come this Persian man has not read Ali Shariati

I advocate people judging by facts , observing , analyzing and then deciding for themselves and of course referring to relative materials for support and knowledge. Something we definitely lack in our culture.

Majid Jaan;

I heard you Majid Jaan. Europe's case is different. I would like to remind you the Europe went through inquisition and 200 years of religious wars, 2 world wars. If you read my lengthy 2 other posts, I tried to argue that all these events that occured in Europe and not in Iran made us what we are.
But as I mentioned to Afshin (purple haz), my personal experience with other nationalites who are more or less at the same level of development as our country more or less, they have the same flaws you mentioned.

[maij]

Maij jaan,

Isn't this a human characteristics in general and nothing specifically Iranian? Look at Veladimir Putin in Russia today how all the Russian go ga ga over him. See Goergy Bush in America, how he was revered after Sep 11 and Mission Accompolished back ni 2003 to today. I think what u listed is a human being flaw rather than something specifically Iranian.

I am not sure about the rest of the cultures, but at least the ones that I am closely associated with , I don't find such mentality in Europeans for example. Generalizing is of course , not very accurate , but from samples of people with differing backgrounds and social status , one can figure out the mentalities.


a little story
I was in Barcelona , Spain on my honeymoon in 1979 a few months after the revolution. I met a group of Iranians in the hotel and we started chatting. Although I normally try to avoid politics , but the Islamic revolution was too hot of a topic to avoid.

We definitely had differing opinions about the revolution with the Gentlemen and one of them kept saying that Ali Shariyati said this and Ali Shariyati said that...... I never heard of Shariyati , from the tone of his voice I thought that he is a religious leader or something. I promptly said , who is he ? Well........I felt that I have swore at his mother when I saw the reaction on their faces....!!!!! They were shocked that I don't know who Shariati was and never read his books....... !!!!!

I said to them decisively , I don't need to read a book of some leftist think tank to decide what is good or bad. God has given me enough intelligent to decide on my own , and I certainly do not form opinions by reading the thoughts of others , even if he was Socrates or Einstein. I am not a follower , I am a leader.

They were all bemused by my thoughts , and only one of them (out of 4) actually admitted that I have a valid point...the rest still wondering how come this Persian man has not read Ali Shariati

I advocate people judging by facts , observing , analyzing and then deciding for themselves and of course referring to relative materials for support and knowledge. Something we definitely lack in our culture.

[purple_haze]

I don't know your first name, so have to settle for Purple Haze Jaan. I totally agree with everything you said no argument there. My point was let's understand the cause and effect here. When one understands the underlying issue then he/she can at least explain to some degree why it is happening.
For example you mentioned that we are not working together, which is true. Having said that, you got to consider two things.

1- We iranians are a very young immigrant nation. Compare us to East Indians that for more than 300 years (at teh begining brought out by British colonists). They have learned as a nation after all this time it is better workding together. A lot of us still dream about one day going bacak and live in Iran (which I promise for most of us won't happen even if the current regime is gone). Nevertheles, the whole psychic of first generation Iranian immigrant is still different from most other immigrants. Iran was an independent country for more than 2200 years of its 2500 history. This makes us a very proud people. So even when we come to US or Europe, it is not like we have come to Heaven (if it is we don't want to admit it at least). comapre that with an immigrant from Pakistan, India or even Russia. When they come here, they proudly identify themselves as American, but to the date despite having a second citizenship most of us idenitfy ourselves as Iranian or Persian. This pride and nationalisem helped us to survive Arab's, Greec, Moguls, Ottaman invasions and withstand for most degree the overtake of Iran by Brits and Russians. So that pride that is with us, for most part, slows down our integration in the new country.

Second issue is the whole 1357 revolution. It is still a huge wedging issue for the first generation Iranians (like me). Some of us have nostalgy for the Pahalavi regime, some think it was a bad system, Mossadagh, oil nationalization, 1953 Coup de tat, ...... . People like you ( I assume you are younger than my generation here) and your generation who were born or at least raised outside Iran and dont' have the same baggage are much more immune to all these. Look at all the student organization of Iranians in the universites. They function very well at leaste comaprable with other ethnic students!!!

The other issue is neighbors grass is always greener. I played football with other ethnic teams (Chilean, El Salvador, Ecuador, Italians, Germans,....), beleive me, when you are inside you see they have more or less the same issues.

Can or should we do better? Of course we should. It all goes back to what I said in my first post. Time it takes to learn new behaviors and overcome old wounds of dictatorshiops that for most part has ruled Iran for 2500 years. We as a nation always were told what to do and if we didn't follow, we were severly punished. We as a nation haven't seen democracy (a few years here and there), so we haven't learned about personal responsibilty, tolerance, etc, etc. But give us time. If one characterisctics I consider specific to Iranian nation is it is our adaptability. We are proud and kick and scream, but we adapt well. Your and my grand paretns did the same thing to Arabs and Mogul rulers. In US at least, the Iranins are the amongst the most educated, most income , etc. etc among the immigrants. Give us time and we will improve in working togther as well. As you truly mentioned, we Iranian immigrants have a big responsibilty. To take these new ideas and new way of thinking back to our imprisoned comaptriots who are in a big prison called Iran right now. To let them see there are other ways. Internet, Sattelite TV broke the barriers and our comaptriots inside Iran see things. I am waiting for wind of change in Iran. It has already happened inside Iran. I would have never imagined a pop music concert or Philharmonic music group in Iran under the IRI regime. But it happened. Give us time and be patient. Change isn't happening as fast as we like, but change is happening.

Ali jan, may first name is Afshin and thanks again for your enlightment and encouraging words. I guess the frustration over attributes I mainly see as iranian has gotten the better of me and weakend my faith.
Although I think there still are apparent flaws specific to us, but surely as you mention there are improvements too. It's just such a pity that the revolution has set us back for 1/4 century in most aspects, even if I unwillingly have to admit it has improved some minor aspects too.