Anonymous wrote:Not the same thing, but I've seen East Coast Armenians complain about West Coast Armenians for being like the Shahs of Sunset. Is there a similar divide among the Persian/Iranian diaspora?

I still think the Armenians need to trade Kim Kardashian to another diaspora for an annoying celebrity to be named later.

Anonymous wrote:I'm married to an Iranian. The Iranians in LA are mostly, wealthy and educated. They can be very sophisticated people. But there are also a lot of very materialistic Iranians on the fringe of the uber-wealthy ones who seem like they are always trying to keep-up. They seem, to me, very insecure people who think if they aren't wearing designer or driving a luxury car, they are worthless. They are the types who live in mediocre rented apartments but buy $5000 handbags. These are the ones depicted in the show. Maybe not college educated, trying to make big bucks in real estate, etc. Some do it. Others just hang in. My inlaws are this type- except they are all in car dealerships.
But do you think the educated, sophisticated Iranians would agree to be on a reality show? Of course not! Same for DC Housewives. The actual power players of DC would never agree to something so cheesy. You need to be very insecure and desperate for 15 minutes of fame. The producers sniff these people out to capitalize on their insecurity. That makes good reality TV!
But it is too bad for the Iranians who are educated and sophisticated because too often many Americans have no idea what Iranians are like. They stereotype them as poor or fanatic or from some third world existence. Now middle-america will have a new stereotype: greasy, materialistic and shallow.

Anonymous wrote:Happy New Year!

Anonymous wrote:Please don’t take this the wrong way, I don’t want to start a historical discussion, but west really fears another Persian empire. If you ask Westerns or Americans about Iran, some of them even don’t know where Iran is situated. The Persian empire conquered 80% of the civilized world but You generally don't learn about the Persian empire in schools simply because of politics. They never wanted a powerful and successful Iran (I’m NOT talking about nuclear bomb sort of things, Iranian PEOPLE think knowledge is power), they are trying to introduce Iranians as superficial and non-modern people). After the Arab invasion of Persia, the islamic hordes burnt all books in the Persia libraries, destroying the knowledge that took Europe 1000 years to re-invent. Now they want the world to forget everything and think WEST IS EVERYTHING!
Do you remember any historical movie about Persians? Cyrus the Great figures in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) as the patron and deliverer of the Jews. He is mentioned 23 times by name and alluded to several times more. From these statements it appears that Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, was the monarch under whom the captivity of the Jews ended, for in the first year of his reign he was prompted by God to make a decree that the Temple in Jerusalem should be rebuilt and that such Jews as cared to might return to their land for this purpose. But west made the film 300 in which Iranians are some wild people and Westerners are some angles! Cyrus the Great declared the first Charter of Human Rights known to mankind. He took the title of “King of Babylon and King of the Land”. Cyrus had no thought of forcing conquered people into a single mold, and had the wisdom to leave unchanged the institution of each kingdom he attached to the Persian Crown. In 539 BC he allowed more than 40,000 Jews to leave Babylon and return to Palestine. This step was in line with his policy to bring peace to Mankind. He liberated nations from slavery. Why they don’t make any film about this?!

I don't think the U.S. wants any other country to be more powerful and successful than them, but that should be expected and I doubt any country would want to be humbled in that way. Does Iran enjoy that the U.S. wields the power that it does today? Probably not. And it's true that the U.S. deems Iran in some ways to be irrelevant (lacking the world influence in terms of economy and trade) and in some ways highly relevant (in terms of being a security threat to the world). I think Iran's time may be better spent not fretting so much over what the U.S. thinks of them or their history and instead putting their energy on improving the lives of their people.