Persian jew here: you are giving these people way too much credit. It’s a revenge “fantasy” because it’s completely detached from any reality and disgustingly enough, detached from the calamities of war and the innocent people who are going to die in this. These people don’t care at all about the Iranian people or Iran; history and politics ended in 1979 for them.
That might be a little tough, no? One of the things I didn’t really touch on in my post is that a lot of the expats have family in Iran, presumably now in harm’s way. I’m curious about the condition of such a long period of exile, but also for many it’s not as if all bonds with present-day Iran were severed.
An overgeneralization sure, but at least amongst LA Persian Jews there are almost no family connections left in Iran at this point. I won’t speak on non-Jews because that’s not my community, but Persian Jews don’t travel there and identify with Israelis more than Iranians. The guy in the article basically admits it; he was born here, he was taught this, it’s about his self identity. I went to a wedding where folks had the shah and Israel flag around in the summer too.
Imagined indeed. I cannot blame them for rejoicing in the killing of leaders who have been responsible for the disruption of their lives and families, and who have been so utterly tyrannical. But, seriously, Pahlavi? Another tyrant? Would they like SAVAK back too? And that happens how? The Iranian revolution happened for a reason, and that traces back to the CIA sponsored overthrow of the democratically elected Iranian government in 1953.
Bombing almost always strengthens regimes, unless there is already organized armed resistance in place. And the Iranian regime has just shown it has no qualms about murdering tens of thousands of civilians without having an active war as an excuse.
I understand wanting revenge for this, and revenge has been had. But people are fooled if they think revenge or justice was the motivation behind the US and Israeli strikes. These are designed to destroy Iranian military capability but more importantly to create as much chaos as possible. Cheering Iranian demonstrators back onto the streets in war time to be slaughtered, imprisoned, and tortured from the safety of Washington is just a cynical ploy to further that aim, and the equally safe expatriates should be careful what they wish for. The best case scenario is civil war. The roadmap is Syria, not a restoration of a unified Iranian monarchy.
Anderson's excellent book, which I first read in 1984 and taught at Berkeley 2005-15, needs some updating for these times.
His spot-on thesis ties nationalism to the rise of print capitalism, and the consequent hardening of languages across broad areas to create consistent markets. Thus, being a standardized French speaker became an interesting thing, deserving of political organization. (though the transition was neither quick nor universal; as late as the French Revolution census takers found pockets of the country still speaking something closer to Latin than contemporary French, and a national form of Italian didn't exist on a mass level until movies, radio, and TV.)
Today's situation is dramatically different. People can migrate and still follow hometown soccer online. They can exist within another country speaking their own language. They have illusions of being part of a transnational group of expatriates and locals who don't really know each other, but have ties of various sorts. At an elite level, physical nations matter far less than ever. Currency is transnational, everywhere and nowhere. And politicians act like their plans can be upended and switched on the fly, like it's cloud software.
It's at times like these that I'm glad that my ancestors came from all over Europe; many members of my immediate family, including my own children, are multi-ethnic and/or multi-racial. My sense of community comes from shared values and ideals, not from accidents of blood or national origin. That's what being American has always meant to me: E Pluribus Unum.
I didn’t get into this but there’s a whole other essay to be written about the American example, which Anderson touches on in his book - when 1776 happened, there was an embrace of universal humanistic values and no talk of historic peoples or historic identities. Of course the American story in reality was more complicated than that, but that is distinct from how many other nationalist revolutions or anticolonial rebellions happened.
Persian jew here: you are giving these people way too much credit. It’s a revenge “fantasy” because it’s completely detached from any reality and disgustingly enough, detached from the calamities of war and the innocent people who are going to die in this. These people don’t care at all about the Iranian people or Iran; history and politics ended in 1979 for them.
That might be a little tough, no? One of the things I didn’t really touch on in my post is that a lot of the expats have family in Iran, presumably now in harm’s way. I’m curious about the condition of such a long period of exile, but also for many it’s not as if all bonds with present-day Iran were severed.
An overgeneralization sure, but at least amongst LA Persian Jews there are almost no family connections left in Iran at this point. I won’t speak on non-Jews because that’s not my community, but Persian Jews don’t travel there and identify with Israelis more than Iranians. The guy in the article basically admits it; he was born here, he was taught this, it’s about his self identity. I went to a wedding where folks had the shah and Israel flag around in the summer too.
Good distinction.
Imagined indeed. I cannot blame them for rejoicing in the killing of leaders who have been responsible for the disruption of their lives and families, and who have been so utterly tyrannical. But, seriously, Pahlavi? Another tyrant? Would they like SAVAK back too? And that happens how? The Iranian revolution happened for a reason, and that traces back to the CIA sponsored overthrow of the democratically elected Iranian government in 1953.
Bombing almost always strengthens regimes, unless there is already organized armed resistance in place. And the Iranian regime has just shown it has no qualms about murdering tens of thousands of civilians without having an active war as an excuse.
I understand wanting revenge for this, and revenge has been had. But people are fooled if they think revenge or justice was the motivation behind the US and Israeli strikes. These are designed to destroy Iranian military capability but more importantly to create as much chaos as possible. Cheering Iranian demonstrators back onto the streets in war time to be slaughtered, imprisoned, and tortured from the safety of Washington is just a cynical ploy to further that aim, and the equally safe expatriates should be careful what they wish for. The best case scenario is civil war. The roadmap is Syria, not a restoration of a unified Iranian monarchy.
Re: Syria roadmap - do you mean the recent elevation of al-Sharaa and the conciliatory noises his administration has been making in some respects?
No I'm sorry not to have been clearer... I meant the post-Assad path through years of civil war.
Anderson's excellent book, which I first read in 1984 and taught at Berkeley 2005-15, needs some updating for these times.
His spot-on thesis ties nationalism to the rise of print capitalism, and the consequent hardening of languages across broad areas to create consistent markets. Thus, being a standardized French speaker became an interesting thing, deserving of political organization. (though the transition was neither quick nor universal; as late as the French Revolution census takers found pockets of the country still speaking something closer to Latin than contemporary French, and a national form of Italian didn't exist on a mass level until movies, radio, and TV.)
Today's situation is dramatically different. People can migrate and still follow hometown soccer online. They can exist within another country speaking their own language. They have illusions of being part of a transnational group of expatriates and locals who don't really know each other, but have ties of various sorts. At an elite level, physical nations matter far less than ever. Currency is transnational, everywhere and nowhere. And politicians act like their plans can be upended and switched on the fly, like it's cloud software.
I took a stab at updating the idea here, but it's hard to talk about things when you're still in the middle of them: https://thenewcuriosityshop.substack.com/p/the-new-class-future-20-eternal-beta
It's at times like these that I'm glad that my ancestors came from all over Europe; many members of my immediate family, including my own children, are multi-ethnic and/or multi-racial. My sense of community comes from shared values and ideals, not from accidents of blood or national origin. That's what being American has always meant to me: E Pluribus Unum.
I didn’t get into this but there’s a whole other essay to be written about the American example, which Anderson touches on in his book - when 1776 happened, there was an embrace of universal humanistic values and no talk of historic peoples or historic identities. Of course the American story in reality was more complicated than that, but that is distinct from how many other nationalist revolutions or anticolonial rebellions happened.