There are many, many Iranians in my business and many more
living in this part of the country. It used to be I risked a certain faint condescension or at times, real disgust by mentioning my Baha’i identity. Sometimes I mentioned it because it explained who I am. Other times I mentioned it to create awareness. Thank God it appears that I no longer have to do the latter.

Everybody had be something else to become something better, something more tolerant.

To achieve unity, we have to listen to each other, we have to suspend judgment, realizing that no one group has a special purchase on suffering in Iran. Every viewpoint is valid and meaningful.

As mature people one of the most important things we can do is to overlook the faults of one another. The rarest phrase in any language is: “I am sorry.”
Second rarest is “I was wrong.” I submit that we have to be able to say these things in order to save the world for our children.

The endless recitation of blame and shame is not what will ultimately bring us together. The desire to know and understand each other will bring us to together for the sake of our children. Baha’is need justice because the world needs justice.

There is so much confusion whenever a new religion is Revealed. The Prophet Muhammad went through so much antagonism and persecution from followers of Moses and Jesus and idolaters. I have read an English rendition of the Holy Quran and there is an entire description of how Prophets were persecuted when they Revealed a religion. There are Prophets that are non-existent in the Judeo-Christian tradition such as Hud. In the Western countries, some more conservative Christian elements consider formerly Christian individuals who convert to religions that were birthed after or before Christianity as apostates. So a person converting to Islam or the Baha’i’ Faith is viewed as an apostate. There was a time in Western history when people who were from a Protestant Christian sect or weren’t Christian or were persecuted (ie the Inquisition). Western civilization has been through the throws of a Protestant Reformation and the Enlightenment since that time, so individuals who are perceived as apostates are no longer persecuted though the prejudice is still evident. People have been killed because of their religion in our societies, but this is rare because of secular civil laws protecting minorities, and the worst that can happen is a person losing employment. But then there are appeals under civil rights laws. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard that I am going to hell, and in slight sarcasm each time I tell the person saying this that I will be in good company.

My father’s brother is the same way. He chose to spend his life chanting slogans in the streets and following Mollah directives instead of educating himself or his family. He turned against my father multiple times and even tried to have him arrested and put in jail so he could show his power. Now that the bankruptcy of the Mollah ideology has sunk into his thick head and he has found that he had wasted his life, he is back again using my father’s good name to trick people into trusting him and wants to be on good terms with us. I’m not Baha’i but my father who is not Baha’i either always calls his brother “Azal.” Now that I read this article I understand why every time my uncle came to visit us, my father would tell us “aamadeh beshin keh Azal dareh miyad inja” (get ready that Azal is coming here). Then as now my father always helps him out but “uncle Azal” is never happy. He even calls himself the elder of our family and he tells us that my father has told him that when he dies, we should turn to my uncle for guidance and moral values:-)

I admired Dr Nafisi’s courage to put his convictions in writing. Hopefuly hundreds of Iranian intelectuals will sign his letter too so that even more minds can be pollinated back into life.