I played basketball with my Iranian next-door neighbors lots of summer nights when I was growing up. The smallest one – Hafez – stood about 4’6”. He embarrassed us all over the court with moves that made the basketball--which was about as big around as his chest--spin, slice, and float into the hoop.
I remember hearing Hafez speak Farsi to his parents and the beautiful, large picture of Tehran above their sink.
I learned from my parents later on that Hafez’s parents had been Maoist revolutionaries. They protested against the Shah and his Western supporters, but after the revolution they found themselves in the crosshairs of a newly installed Islamic government, which had started to crack down on the non-religious leftist groups. Reading the writing on the wall, Hafez’s parents began to plan their escape and encouraged their friends to do the same. But their friends couldn’t imagine that the revolution, which they had fought for and risked their lives for, would so quickly turn on itself. Hafez’s parents got out. But their friends were soon dead, killed by the regime. Like the family in the film Persepolis, Hafez’s parents were caught in the crossfire of revolution and fundamentalism.
Who is the Enemy?
Sometimes, when we talk tough about a country like Iran, whose nuclear program and support for terror has become an election year issue and world problem, we don’t put faces on what is described as a “security issue.” We talk coldly about “options being on the table,” but we often don’t consider who will pay the price when governments go to war or when terrorists strike. Families like Hafez’s who remain in Iran, our friends and family who live in Israel, and my own family here in the United States; we are the ones who will suffer.
http://www.jewcy.com/post/putting_face_iran
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