Major media outlets like the CNN or the BBC or the notorious Fox News seem to have memory spans of no more than two months. Nothing that occurred a few decades ago is of enough relevance to be discussed (except September 9/11 which runs the propaganda machines by the energetic horror that it invokes in the audience every single time that it’s mentioned.)
But I can’t think of a single phenomenon in a single field which can be explored without historical perspective. The following short video teaches an important history lesson for anybody interested in what relates to Iran and American foreign policy in the Middle East and beyond. You may as well watch it every time you’re about to turn on the TV for the evening news or look at the front page of the New York Times!
The phrase above puts a smirk on the face of many Iranian women when pronounced by the white man. They think their beauty is being complimented and compared to some unique quality (i.e. ‘exotic’). Not many would notice the derogating tone in the voice of the while man, the bouts of testosterone in his blood driving his laryngeal muscles, shaking his vocal cords. Many miss the fact that ‘exotic’ is a quality of nothing of greater worth than a stupid little object to be used, misused, abused.
Many of them congratulate themselves for being promoted to the honor of being disopsable objects for the white man. They hear voices from the Western hemisphere telling them they would be set free from the the patriarchial bounds of their society. They know nothing of the implications: the agressiveness, the deceit, the emptiness, the insincerity…Some go as far as writing Reading Lolita in Tehran to support the cause that would strip them of their last layer of decency and lead the demise of what truly made them unique.
Yet, some have their eyes wide open; they tell us a different story. We should listen to them.
