{"id":86746,"date":"2017-02-13T12:01:20","date_gmt":"2017-02-13T12:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=86746"},"modified":"2018-12-20T09:54:02","modified_gmt":"2018-12-20T09:54:02","slug":"we-need-more-leaders-like-ayatollah-khamenei-in-this-world-american-author","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2017\/02\/we-need-more-leaders-like-ayatollah-khamenei-in-this-world-american-author\/","title":{"rendered":"We Need More Leaders like Ayatollah Khamenei in This World"},"content":{"rendered":"

Leader Khamenei stressed a \u201cdignified\u201d response to threats and bullying. We need more leaders in this world who will stress the importance of \u201cdignity\u201d for the triumph of the human spirit. <\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a>

Iran\u2019s Supreme Leader, Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Hosseini Khamenei – Washington Times<\/p><\/div>\n

8 Feb 2017 – <\/em>I have just read the speech by Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei<\/a>, delivered to \u201ccommanders, officers, pilots, and staff members from Iran\u2019s Air Force and the country\u2019s Khatam al-Anbiya Air Defense Base in Tehran, Februay 7, 2017.\u201d<\/p>\n

Let me first say that I do not pretend to be an \u201cexpert\u201d on US-Iranian relations.\u00a0 In fact, I do not \u201cpretend\u201d to be anything.\u00a0 As the cartoon character \u201cPopeye the Sailor-man\u201d used to say: \u201cI am what I am, and that\u2019s all what [sic] I am.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0 I mention this cartoon character from my childhood because too often it seems to me our contemporary world is cartoonish! Cartoons, of course, can be funny and unreal, but they can also be nightmarish and too real<\/em>.\u00a0 Especially in the United States of America, in 2017 and for too many decades now, we have been living in a cartoon world of\u00a0vast exaggerations and distortions.<\/p>\n

I do not \u201cpretend\u201d to be anything, but I do claim to be a fairly good observer of human nature.\u00a0 I have made my observations as a teacher in US public schools and prisons, and as a professor in the US and Japan.\u00a0 Also, in my writing and publication of poems, articles and fiction and in productions of dramas and public performances of my work (at the Carter Presidential Library, and elsewhere).\u00a0 The task I set myself from the age of 8 onward was to know the world through careful observations; through listening and questioning.\u00a0 From my teen years, I have been keenly interested in the Arts, History, Politics and Philosophy.<\/p>\n

Broad subjects!\u00a0 And I am constantly refining and honing my world-view, my understanding.\u00a0 At 70, I am still trying to understand better, to feel my way into the secret, often sacred,\u00a0corridors of the mind and heart.<\/p>\n

So, truly, I am honored to have an opportunity to express myself about Leader Khamenei\u2019s speech.\u00a0 It is especially important to seize this opportunity now because there has been so much misunderstanding and ugliness between the United States and Iran\u2014since the time of the CIA\u2019s overthrow of the democratically elected government of Mohammad Mossadegh; through the decades of support for the pretentious impostor \u201cShah\u201d; and, more recently, since the Islamic Revolution of 1979.<\/p>\n

The problem, as I see it, is that the United States has been an \u201cEmpire\u201d for a long time\u2014really from its beginning (our 3rd president, Jefferson, the principal author of our \u201cDeclaration of Independence\u201d waxed metaphorically in his post-revolutionary days\u2014or was that daze?<\/em>\u2014about an \u201cEmpire of Liberty\u201d!\u00a0 And there\u2019s the rub!\u00a0 We contradict ourselves and hate to admit our contradictions!\u00a0 An \u201cempire\u2026 of liberty\u201d!\u00a0 Was there ever a more blatant oxymoron?\u00a0 Supposedly disseminating \u201cfreedom and democracy,\u201d we cast our net to draw in authoritarian regimes to ourselves\u2014in order to make our imperial system stronger.<\/p>\n

Now, concerning the recent US presidential election: this, too, has something of a cartoonish nature; a businessman-oligarch (Trump) ran against a very incompetent Secretary of State (Hillary Clinton), who was clinging to the coattails of an articulate but incompetent President Obama.\u00a0 Ignorance was widely and wildly on display for the year and a half of this seemingly endless, made-for-TV-and-twittering campaign.\u00a0 If one expected any depth of insight, one waited in vain\u2026, and waited\u2026 and waited\u2026.<\/p>\n

I could not bring myself to vote for either candidate (and neither could half of the US population!).\u00a0 The savvier among us (so I like to think) were fed up with all the nonsense, all the war-mongering!\u00a0 Towards the end of the campaign season, I admit to favoring Trump over Hillary.\u00a0 Trump was promising rapprochement with Russia, working with Putin.\u00a0 Hillary and her Democratic Party squadrons kept talking about Russian interference\/hacking in the US election (but, of course, it was all bombast; no evidence!).\u00a0 On the other hand, I was nervous of Trump\u2019s talk of the \u201cworst deal ever\u201d that the Obama Administration had made with Iran!\u00a0 (Actually, I believed the best thing Obama had achieved was an accommodation with Iran: an accommodation that allowed both sides to face the world with some dignity.)\u00a0 So, the absurd election boiled down to a candidate who advocated heating up conflicts with Russia (probably involving NATO expansionism, and, possibly even nuclear war!) and one who wanted to ignite a conflict with Iran (one that would engulf the Middle East, decimate populations and destroy the lives of millions of people worldwide!).<\/p>\n

In his February 7th speech, Leader Khamenei has wisely rejected the \u201cthreats\u201d already issuing from the Trump Administration.\u00a0 Leader Khamenei stressed a \u201cdignified\u201d response to threats and bullying.\u00a0 I wholeheartedly applaud the emphasis on \u201cdignity\u201d and respect\u2014respect for treaties between democratic governments, respect for the cultures and lives of citizens of this fragile, shrinking planet.<\/p>\n

In its 200 years of expansionism, the US has paused too seldom and too briefly to consider the culture, history, lives and dignity of other lands.\u00a0 Someone I am honored to know, peace-activist, Kathy Kelly, wrote a fine book called \u201cOther Lands Have Dreams.\u201d\u00a0 (She visited Gaza and Iraq and Afghanistan in times of war!)<\/p>\n

We need more leaders in this world who will stress the importance of \u201cdignity\u201d for the triumph of the human spirit.\u00a0 We need more leaders who can hear and interpret the dreams of others\u2014and make those dreams comprehensible to those residing too long in cartoonish worlds of stereotypes and nightmares.<\/p>\n

In her superlative book, \u201cThe Ornament of the World,\u201d about the Andalusian Caliphate, historian Maria Rosa Menocal wrote: \u201cA great people in a historically central civilization\u2026must speak a language to history itself.\u201d\u00a0 Persia\/Iran has, of course, been a \u201chistorically central civilization\u201d for millennia.\u00a0\u00a0 It is my sincere hope that it will continue to speak its beautiful language to history, and to our modern world, and that we all may learn to better hear and understand each other.<\/p>\n

____________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Dr. Gary Steven Corseri is a m<\/em>ember of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment.<\/a> He has published and posted articles, fiction and poems at hundreds of venues, including,<\/em> TMS (Transcend Media Service<\/a>)<\/a>, The New York Times, Village Voice, Redbook Magazine and<\/em> Counterpunch.\u00a0 He has published 2 novels and 2 collections of poetry, and his dramas have been produced on<\/em> PBS-Atlanta and elsewhere.\u00a0 He has performed his poems at the Carter Presidential Library and Museum and has taught in universities in the US and Japan, and in US public schools and prisons.\u00a0 Contact: Gary_Corseri@comcast.net<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 english.khamenei.ir<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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