Wishes for a new Persian year, 1391.

In a couple of hours, 1390, the year that I turned 40, will come to end. 1390 was the most enlightening of all my life. I ( and my whole family) were given a hard test, and the stoicism of our culture, the strength of character of my parents, and the many years of defiance in the face of impossibly strong adversaries (like the opportunists who ran our country in the name of fanaticism, the imperialists who supported bombing us and attempted--still attempting--to starve us, the war and the fascism or even our mammoth culture which is often too sluggish to move at the pace demanded by modernity) paid off ... We pulled through, and learned how to fight the ultimate adversary.

I am back in America now; with my sister, in a house full of flowers and laughter, trying to joke and play photos until the equinox.

I am back in America, where I am in a perpetual ambivalence about liking this land of opportunity, land of genuinely hard working people, land of kind, caring and warm people, but one which is built on exploitation and meddling in the affairs of others, others who sit on the black gold of oil ...

I am somewhat happy by the poll Americans generated: they don't want war with Iran.

I am happy about the Israeli "We love Iranian" campaign.

I am somewhat happy by the Iranian leadership tempering its absurdism.

I suspect the Saudi Arabians and the Russians and maybe a few Oil monsters in Texas would be happy if this bickering between Iran and Israel and the US goes on, the war agitation continues and their revenues accumulate. I suspect the Israeli leadership may be happy to keep the bickering and the presumed threat of Iranians alive, if it is going to translate to ensuring that the American aid will continue flowing in the form of military aid to fight the Iranian bogyman! I suspect, if the almost-shattered conservative ranks of the Iranian rulers get into real trouble, then they would be more than happy to heat up the air in the balloon of their Anti-Zionist threats to provoke the west and create a sense of danger that would give them an excuse for cracking down dissenters in the name of national security.

But, I suspect war is not in the horizon.

I suspect the external meddlers have given up on assuming they can mobilize an internal revolt to get rid of the Iranian regime. Truth is, Iranians have no real penchant for revolution; for bickering and waving the tides of a movement maybe, for partying and glorifying and symbolizing and creating songs and poems and banners around notions of heroism and justice, yes. But for amassing courage and cause to build a united front? Naah!

In fact, I think a united front is growing gradually out of common interest, out of a need for all parties to compromise in order to survive and remain relevant. Luckily, the Iranian diaspora is beginning to understand that their radical views are little more than theoretical absurdities to people who have real lives in Iran, in all fairness living in complicity with the corruptions and untidiness of the current system, but also full of real paranoia and distrust of the "political" men and their rainbow promises, in general--and that is a FACT of Persian psych, explaining why democracies in Iran have been so vulnerable since inception.

In any event, as 1391 begins, I am jotting down these notes to tell you (if you are still a reader of my neglected blog) that my new year wish is for

P E A C E

Happy Nowrouz; Happy spring; and thank you for not having given up on NeoResistance.