America must help Islamic countries to reclaim their own past

This is Ali Sina's second response to Terrence Robertson. Mr. Robertson's second message, at his own request, is not published.  

Dear Terrence,   

Thank you again for your fight. Please promote our site in anyway you can. This message must be heard. I know America has some radios reaching the Middle East. Although I think this is something positive, I doubt they really know what kind of message people there, need to hear. Last I heard they were thinking to promote American culture and named Jennifer Lopez and the other sexy teenager American pop music icon (Gosh now you know how much I am into this stuff that I do not remember even the name of that pretty diva).  

I shook my head at this much naiveté. As far as I know. The young boys and girls in Iran, although do not mind American pop music, what they really yearn for is to find their own lost identity. After 1400 years of Arab/Islam domination and cultural alienation. What the Iranian young generation wants more is to find its own roots. They are glued to the Iranian TVs and radios broadcasting from LA via Satellite listening to Iranian historians such as Bahram Moshiri and Naser Engheta who talk about the Iranian history, the Arab invasion and the Iranian language. What boring subjects! But lo and behold, it is the Iranian youngest generation that devours these programs.  

I appreciate the intention, but I really question whether the American politicians know how to approach and win over the youth in Islamic countries. They will not become American lovers after they become hamburger eaters and coke drinkers. If really America wants to help these people and win their trust and friendship, she must elevate their own native cultures and pump up their own identity vis-à-vis the Imposed Islamic barbarity. They have to be weaned from Islam and feel proud for who they are. To impose its own indoctrination, what Islam did is to humiliate them and their cultures, to the extent that they loathed their own ancestral culture and called it “the age of ignorance”. Recall the Taliban's destruction of the statute of Buddha in Bamian. At the beginning of the Iranian revolution, the statue of Ferdowsi, the Dante of Paris language was dragged down from its pedestal and Khalkhali, the butcher of thousands of Iranians drove tanks to Persepolice to erase that site, which was already demolished by Alexander 2500 years ago. It were the population of the nearby villages who stood in front of the tanks and impeded the destruction of this archeological jewel.  What Islam does is to make people despise their own culture, heritage and nationality. It humiliates everything to establish itself as the only alternative. Doesn't it amaze you how the Pakistani and Indian Muslims despise Hindu religion, Hindu people and Hindu temples? This is their own root that they hate so much. 

Today what is needed is the reversal of this cultural alienation. People in Islamic countries must feel proud for who they are so they stop clinging to Islam for their identity. Implanting Americanism instead of Islamism is a lost contest. First of all, after centuries of Islamic domination, Muslims have developed a Stockholm syndrome kind of love for Islam. Americanism is an alien culture to them. Americans have their own spiritual heritage. Fast food and Madonna is not their culture. It is the facade. But when you brandish these glitters without making them understand what makes America, America, you are giving a very misleading message. The lure of Americanism in Islamic countries is short lived. Soon they will look for something more meaningful than Hollywood and MacDonald. Islam offers them afterlife. In its skewed way Islam gives them otherworldliness. That is why people gravitated towards Islam in the first place and that is why Islamism is gaining ground even in the West. What concerns me is that in their shortsighted effort to export American popular culture, they end up alienating those whom they want to win, even more. Thus pouring more water to Islam’s mill.  America would do much better by helping the local people who believe in the higher American values such as its constitution, its first amendment and its democracy to convey these messages to their people in their own language. This costs less and is far more effective. 

To combat Islam, America must not try to impose its own, often perceived as a decadent, culture in Islamic countries. This will backfire. The Iranian Islamic revolution was in part a revolt against Americanism. It was in part to stop the invasion of Hollywood. America must help these nations to rebuild their own autochthonous cultures, revive their own original identities. Be proud for who they were before they lost their selfhood to Islam. We Iranians are on the right track. We are digging out our own past, dusting it and cherishing it once again after it was trampled, scorned and discarded by Islam. The surge in our nationalistic sentiment has nothing to do with racism. Iranian nationalists are very much humanists and especially pro Americans. Our nationalism is our expression of rebellion against Islam. When Iranians do not greet each other with the traditional “salam” but instead after 1400 years have started to greet each other the way their pre Islamic ancestors used to do it and say “dorood” when they meet or say goodbye, they are tacitly but loudly saying, enough with Islam, long live Iran.    

I understand your views about the position of the President Bush re Islam. I actually agree with his approach and think he is doing a fine job. My criticism of him was not actually directed at him and his policies but mainly at the media and the brainwashed western apologists. 

I thank you again for all you do. Keep up the torch burning. The break of the day is very near. 

With kind regards 

Drood  

Ali Sina