My Hope for Iran: Hassan Rouhani

I picked up a copy of the New York Times on my way to lunch and looked at the front page. My heart started racing after reading a headline: Iran’s Leaders Signal Effort at New Thaw.

Iran has been antagonistic with the west ever since the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and the following hostage crisis. Iran was becoming more amiable around the second millennium, but soon reverted to its 1979 self. Iran’s refusal to disclose information about its nuclear program and proliferation of anti-western sentiment has pushed them further away in the eyes of our people and our government. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei and former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2005-2013) were leaders responsible for the direction Iran has recently taken.

Yet reading today's New York Times article gave me hope that I hadn’t felt in a long time. Recently-elected Iranian president Hassan Rouhani is promising the change that can improve and fortify relations between Iran and the US: he is emphasizing flexibility in negotiations, releasing political prisoners, and promising that Iran will never seek nuclear weapons. Already working on the reforms he promised during his campaign, Hassan Rouhani seems like he truly wishes to repair and strengthen Iran's ties with western nations. Even the anti-western Supreme Leader (who is the true ruler of Iran and much more powerful than any president could ever be) is endorsing his plan.1

Rouhani at a press conference before his inauguration.

So why am I so happy about this? I am happy that America may reconcile with one of its biggest adversaries, yes. But I’m excited for the people of Iran and the US. 

Though some Iranians are anti-western fanatics who believe nothing but the creed the revolution was founded upon, many Iranians understand that the West, and in particular the US, is comprised of good people. It’s the US government the Iranians don’t like, not the people. Unfortunately, we Americans do not view Iran and Iranians the same way. Believing that every Iranian imitates the ideals their government displays, many Americans develop an internal mistrust or dislike of Iranians that is rooted to our core.

When many US citizens hear about Iran, they are only capable of seeing the image of the enemy.  We hear speculation about Iran’s ongoing nuclear program and fear for the worst. We see an American flag-burning on TV so we denounce them terrorists. These scenarios are real in Iran, yes, but it is imperative to realize that they are not representative of all Iranians. It’s representative of a tiny minority, and Americans judge nations like Iran off of those small moments that receive disproportionally large media attention.2 What if Iranians saw the Westboro Baptist Church protesting the Sandy Hook vigil? Iranians would conclude that Americans believed that those murdered kids got what they deserved.3 Those scenarios are not at all representative of our beliefs or attitudes, but they are used as a foundation for judgment and condemnation.

In regards to Iran’s nuclear program, it is likely that it was initiated for harmful purposes. But the same way that it wasn’t individual Americans’ faults that we sent troops into Afghanistan or Iraq, it is not Iranians’ fault they have that program—Iranian citizens do not even know how developed it is because the government keeps that information classified. I’ve studied the Iranian political scene; the institutions are not democratic and citizens have much less influence than we do over policy and policymakers. It’s not the citizens’ fault, and we must recognize that to break the stereotype surrounding Iranians like a dense smog.

I think I have these viewpoints and am particularly interested in Iran because two of my best friends are Iranian. I became friends with them before I knew too much about Iranian-US relations, but I don’t think it would have mattered. Becoming friends with someone who differs from us illuminates the humane, relatable side they had all along—the side often ignored when minorities or potential enemies are depicted. I was fortunate to have been exposed to diverse people from a young age. Sure, their skin color and religion and culture are different, but they have the same feelings, sense of humour, and basic wants we all have. We cannot continue to stereotype and condemn a people because their government follows policies we don’t agree with. It is not fair to them and to ourselves.

This is why I’m so happy that Hassan Rouhani is bringing Iran closer to the US. Though ideally we should appreciate the Iranian people for who they are, many Americans are blinded by the stereotypes they're consistently exposed to. But if Hassan continues to bring Iran closer to us, we see Iranians up close and recognize that they are no different from us. With increased exposure to them, the attitudes once held will vanish to but a whisper of our biased past. A world full of growth and friends is out there. We just need to let ourselves see it.

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1. There is a good chance this is just because the sanctions have crippled Iran’s oil income.
2. So does the media control our perception of the world around us? Another time, passion blog.
3. If you’re curious why the Westboro Baptist Church protested the vigil, it’s because they believed the murderer’s acts were judgement from God —judgement we deserve for allowing gays and lesbians to live in our society (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/16/westboro-baptist-church-picket-connecticut-school-shooting_n_2312186.html).

Riddle Me This: The Challenge of a Riddle

Why are riddles and brain teasers popular in our culture? What do people get out of hearing confusing, contrived scenarios that sort of make sense in the end? Are they just fun, or is there something more at play? I was thinking about these questions a while back and drew some conclusions that might just make sense.

To start with, humans are naturally competitive. We have sports teams, business, and even games to illustrate this (you could argue that games are just entertainment, but doesn’t some of that entertainment derive from winning and losing?). So as competitive beings, when someone comes up to us and says “I have a riddle,” what we’re essentially hearing is, “I have some knowledge that you don’t, but I’m going to test you to see if you can figure it out.” The riddle is interpreted as a challenge and we must prove ourselves to the riddler by completing that challenge.

After initially conceiving this idea, I asked my brother, Nick, if he wanted to hear “something confusing that sort of makes sense.” He said, “how long?” I responded, “never mind, do you want to hear a riddle?” He instantly said yes. This made sense to me: why should Nick have wasted his time hearing something confusing that sort of makes sense? There was no potential benefit for him, no positive incentive. But when I instead offered him a riddle, the incentive appeared: he could prove to himself and to me that he possessed the same knowledge I did. The challenge had been accepted.

Unfortunately for Nick, I did this for the sake of the experiment and thus had no riddle or confusing tale prepared for him. But wait, isn’t a riddle “something confusing that sort of makes sense?” That’s exactly what a riddle is. Changing the phrasing of something that had no personal benefit to a riddle was all it took for Nick to go from an unenthused “how long” to an instantaneous “yes.” His inherent competitiveness took over and he eagerly awaited the riddle.

On TV shows and in movies this hidden aspect is not only understood but made obvious. Many scenes involve heroes unable to advance unless they can solve a riddle. Whether it’s simple wordplay or the thing with the twin brothers (one always lies, the other tells the truth) the riddle determines whether or not the hero is worthy of passing. In viewing these scenes, we assign the “challenge” of the riddle only to the specific cinematic scenario, but in reality a riddle’s challenge grips us more often than we realize.

I’m going to show you one of my favorite “riddles.” Below there’s a white sheet of paper with a dot in the middle.

What is it?

Give up?

It's a polar bear blinking in a blizzard, of course!

Now what do you feel? You’re probably thinking that that was pretty dumb and there’s no way anyone could have guessed that correctly. If someone tells a riddle or presents a problem with a bad or unsatisfactory solution, we’re likely to call them out. By having us hear the answer (and thus admit defeat) we have given up the challenge. So when we learn that the challenge didn’t make sense or was un-aswerable, we want to redeem that moment of intellectual inferiority by calling out the riddler and discrediting their entire problem. This also explains why we don't readily welcome hints. A hint provides assistance, so if we solve the riddle with a hint then we don't feel as if we truly match up to the riddler.

So what is my point here? Should we stop telling riddles altogether? No, they’re good fun and can be quite clever. I’m not suggesting abandoning the competition. I’m merely offering up why we are interested in them. They provide us competitive humans with a little challenge, a little brain exercise that measures and compares our abilities. The Riddler wasn’t a good Batman villain just because he threatened to kill someone; he was a good villain because he’d keep you entertained with a riddle while threatening to kill someone. That’s probably taking the competitiveness aspect too far, but at least now we know why he was so entertaining.

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Also, watch Batman face off against the Riddler in this collegehumour video!