Hello Salaam
WHO’S AFRAID OF IRAN? AZAR NAFISI, SHIRIN NESHAT, ROYA HAKAKIAN, AZADEH MOAVENI, SORAYA BROUKHIM, SUSSAN DEYHIM, NAGHMEH ZARBAFIAN, AND LILA AZAM ZANGANEH April 19, 2006 Celeste Bartos Forum The New York Public Library WWW.NYPL.ORG/LIVE SORAYA BROUCKHIM: Hello. Salaam. Hello. My name is Soraya Brouckhim. I will be reading from My Sister, Guard your Veil; My Brother, Guard Your Eyes: Uncensored Iranian Voices. I will be reading two excerpts. And here we go. “How Can One be Persian?” by Marjane Satrapi. “We are set, stuck, really, somewhere between Scheherazade’s famed 1001 Nights and the bearded terrorist, with his manic wife disguised as a pro. By way of flattery we are told that we are Persians, and that Persia was a great empire. Otherwise, we are Iranians. The Persians are in Montesquieu’s writings and Delacroix’s paintings, and they smoke opium with Victor Hugo. As for Iranians, they take American hostages, they detonate bombs, and they are pissed at the West. They were discovered after the 1979 Revolution. (laughter) To begin with, let me remember that ‘Persia’ is the Greek terminology for Iran. The Greeks chose this name for our country because when Greece became a powerful nation, Iran was ruled by the Achaemenids, who were Persians, since they dwelled in the regions of Persis. But, Iran, for the last four thousand years, and for all Iranians, has always been Iran and it was actually Reza Shah, the last Shah’s father, who in 1935 requested that every European refer to our country by its real name, Iran.
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