I mean think about it. You're forced to worship (I don't even know what that means) a being that they tell you exists, that sent a highway thief to conquer your land a thousand years ago, a general who transcribed older poetry into a very invasive personal regiment of thought control fashioned after military training: absolute obedience, severe punishment for transgression, the impossibility of refusal or abandon, inhumane treatment of women (and other sexes), disregard for other cultures, art or forms of thought, any alternatives.

If it worked at all it was because art and science are resilient. They find chinks in the Armour, cracks (start by a praise then go to town) a la Irfan. You can't paint faces? Let's do patterns instead. Let's pretend this inhebration is a metaphor for divine love, this wine in this bowl poured by the beautiful maiden a prayer.

But at some point you take a look, elsewhere, places on the periphery where the various Borg invasions didn't quite reach. Where the body isn't considered a sin. And you find that nothing happens. People are not turned to salt columns (so specific to the desert!). Life goes on at a more relaxed pace. Knowledge progresses and somehow shields against violence.

The curse of location has shifted in the virtual age. The center of the world is no longer this bridge of a land called Persia. It is wherever the most underwater optic cables and gold converge. And from there the new all encompassing and intolerant (in)visible being, the new compassionate and merciful, will be killing away to subjugate a world that is not peripheral to itself.

I won't be alive (who knows?) But I sincerely hope to see the day when Noor or Iman get the reign. I don't know much about their competency or whom they've married. I'm willing to suspend my reservations for the sake of the incredibly brave revolutionaries that are putting their lives on the line for a secular future.


Jam26