{"id":1081,"date":"2006-05-04T14:30:23","date_gmt":"2006-05-04T14:30:23","guid":{"rendered":"0"},"modified":"2008-03-21T03:11:10","modified_gmt":"2008-03-21T03:11:10","slug":"an_iranian_talk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=1081","title":{"rendered":"An Iranian Talks About Cole’s Farsi Skillz"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the comments to my post on Army-of-Juan Cole’s deranged reply<\/a> to Hitchens<\/a>, Tino Sanandaji, an Iranian (apparently living in Chicago) drops by<\/a> to shed some light on things (note that our comments “bozes” don’t have spellcheck and my comments usually have more typos than his):<\/p>\n

I am Iranian, and I can tell you Cole is wrong.<\/p>\n

Let’s start with simple fact, that is not directly relevant. He writes that Khomaini said the Shah government “must go”. But “az bain bayad berad” does not mean “go”, it litterarly mean something like “must cease to exist”, and the most direct translation would be “must be destroyed”.<\/p>\n

Now to the latter part:<\/p>\n

“bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad”<\/p>\n

The translation is not perfect, the dear Professor is not convewing the action implyied the sentence, as I or any Iranian would read it. <\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I am not a translatior, but I can tell you that here is a clear note in that sentence that Israel must be made to wanish from the face of time.<\/p>\n

Maybe this is not a theat, as it was not directed to Israel, but to his followers, but it clearly is an decleration of intent. The intent is to make Israel cease to exist.<\/p>\n

The word map is not litterarly in there, but “wiped of the map” is a less exagerated translation that Professors Coles translation is underreporting the wording.<\/p>\n

Now to the context. Here Cole is not a little of the mark, he is insane and ignorant.<\/p>\n

Exactly as Hithens wrote the qute is not that “the occupation of Jerusalem must end, just as the occupation of Gaza ended”, implying that Iran want Israel to give Jerusalem to Palestine. The qute is that the “regime that is occupying Jerualem” must be destroyed.<\/p>\n

Iranians clerics often use this way of talking, they always don’t say “Israel”, “US” or “the war”, they make some negative phrase and use it as a synonym. Khomeini could have an entire speech and never say amrika, just “the great satan” etc. They would almost always take the effort to say “the war that was emposed on us” instead of the war.<\/p>\n

Any student like me student with no academic credentials could tell you “een rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods” would best be translated as “Israel”.<\/p>\n

As hichens wrote (presumably with the help of some iranian), the sentence is not about the occupation, it is about the state. Cole is completely missrepresenting this (which seems to be his main point) in the letter. Either he is intentionally lying for a good cause (stop a war), or he is just blind because of ideology.<\/p>\n

The Ivy league professor, earning his 200 k or whatever it is, writes “He said that the occupation regime over Jerusalem must be erased from the page of time.”<\/p>\n

WRONG. The currect translation would be “the regime that is [defined by] occupying the holy city of Jerusalem” must be “erased from the page of time”, or must be “destroyed, or must “be wiped off the map” (I agree that eased from the page of time is closer than whped of the map, but neither is perfect, and the underlying meaning is not in dispute, The State of Israel be destroyed).<\/p>\n

Factually the “western journalist” Hichens is right and the western academic wrong. It is NOT just a question of context, it is a question of substituting the Presidents refrens to an entity (Israel, the state the occupyies Jerusalem) to a refrens to what Israel is doing (occupying Jerusalem, as they occupyed Gaza).<\/p>\n

Cole writes that the Iranians have not called for a nazi-style exterimation. I would say this is true, they have not done so. Destrying Israel could be done by invading it and forcing the population to move to say Madagascar or Manhattan, it does not by itself imply extermination.<\/p>\n

On the other hand I don’t know if people have reported the qute this way, they say Ahmadnejanian wants Israel off the map (a non perfect but acceptable translation, substituting one figurative phrase with another) and leaves the level of violance open. This is by the way exactly what Ahmadnejanian said after the press asked him, he said we don’t want to kill the jews, we want Israel gone, Europe can take them.<\/p>\n

Lasty I really have to questions Coles knowledge about Iran in two points, one in the letter and one in the angry answer to Hitchens.<\/p>\n

1. That the phrase is “A decades old quote Khomaini” is hardly something that would reduce the seriousness of using it. Khomeini is to the hardliners what Washington, Lincolns and all the founding fathers are to Americans combined, and than some. His quotes are as close as you can come to a ideological program for the Islamic State as anyting.<\/p>\n

I can’t come up with a good example, from the lack of knowledge of quotes, but if Americans declared to Japan in WWII “give me liberty of give me death”, the Japanese wouls hardly say “don’t take them seriusly, they are just quoting Patrick Henry”.<\/p>\n

2. That Ahmadinejad is not the complete ruler hardly means he has no power. If you say that you are completely ignorant of Iranian politics, which is very complex, and where there are multiple competing layers of power. Basically the President through his institutional role has control over a large part of the massive civilian Iranian state, and in this case through being a hardliner additional power, for example over the Bonyads, the “builders”, the Guard.<\/p>\n

It is also context specific, just like America. Bush had more power in march 2003, not only because he is president, but because he used this role and though a political agenda and alliances moved the project of invading Iraq. In May 2006 Bush has more Republicans in Congress and is still the President, but has much less power.<\/p>\n

Conlcluding that Khatami became powerless after the hardliners broke him (or after he willingly gave up, that is a question of dispute) and therefore Ahmadinejad is powerless is idiotic.<\/p>\n

PS.<\/p>\n

I hope this conflict can be resolved without violance, for example though sanctions specifically on the regime. If America feels that it must use violance I hope it is only arial bombardment against millitary targets and against the regime. But my hopes in this question have no bearing on what Ahmadinejad said, which Cole also should understand. <\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Facts are such harsh things to a gentle soul like Juan’s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An Iranian student takes Juan Cole to school on his Farsi.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1081"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1081\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}