06/11/08 – Jahangir Golestan-Parast – The Scott Horton Show

My friends, that was Stephen Kinzer, the author of All the Shah's Men and Overthrow, a New York Times correspondent, his speech at the Future Freedom Foundation Restoring the Republic Conference 2008.
The video is available at cspan.org and soon will be put out by the Future Freedom Foundation.
And I'm really glad that a major focus of that speech was, well, first of all, on the unintended consequences, like we spoke about with Patrick Coburn, and now specifically on Iran, which is the topic of our next interview here.
It's Jahangir Golestan Perast.
He is an independent filmmaker who has put together this movie called BAM 6.6.
And it's about the earthquake that took place in Iran in 2004 and the lives of some Americans caught up in the catastrophe there.
Welcome to the show, sir.
Yes, good morning.
Thank you very much.
Well, I'm very glad to have you on the show here, and I congratulate you on this incredible piece of work that you've put together here.
I appreciate it.
So you did watch the film yourself?
Yes, sir.
I watched it this morning, in fact.
And what was your outtake?
Well, I'll tell you, obviously, the most important thing to me is simply that this is footage of Iranian civilians walking around Iran.
And I believe, because at some point in my life, people in the Middle East, to me, in my imagination, only existed as the cartoon characters from the Disney movies that I had seen as a child.
And they, you know, a cartoon character clearly is less than a human being and okay to do, to manipulate however you want, right?
And I think that, unfortunately, that's the view still of maybe even a majority of adults in this country, is that foreigners aren't quite really human beings in the same way that we are.
And what I like, especially about your movie, is not only can you tell that Iraqis are human beings just like us, not, you know, great holy creatures, just plain old humans, just like Americans.
But in fact, a lot of these people look just like folks I went to high school with, or knew in the neighborhood, or knew at jobs that I had here in Austin, Texas.
And I think that really makes a difference in humanizing the dehumanized.
Because frankly, Iranians, I think, are quite dehumanized in American media and popular culture, sir.
Thank you very much.
I appreciate it.
Well, I just have to say that I'm honored to be in this show.
And I just wanted to start by saying that a little phrase about really love and compassion that I wanted to start my interview with you.
Sure.
Often, we learn to love others only as our expectations are met or fulfilled.
But that is not love.
That is forcing our expectations upon others.
That's what I thought that I should really say.
And of course, this quote is from Love is the Solution, Peace is Possible by an Iranian writer by Mr. Nasser Zoghi.
And you know, that kind of sentiment really comes out in a situation like featured in your movie, which is a terrible earthquake, any kind of natural disaster.
I remember a few years back up the road in Gerald, Texas, just a massive tornado came.
Well, maybe it was 10 years ago now or more.
Massive tornado came like as wide as a Texas freeway came through this town and destroyed it.
And people came from everywhere to try to help in any way that they could.
And this is the same thing that happened after this earthquake and bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb.
Right.
I'm sorry.
I didn't mean to sound like John McCain there.
Bam.
Is that how it's pronounced?
Yeah.
That's what happened.
People came from all over the world, including the United States, to come participate in the rescue efforts.
And in a situation like that, there are no expectations of even necessarily a thank you.
The person you help might be unconscious.
It's its own reward.
Absolutely.
And I think you you mentioned a very important key here, Mr. Horton.
When the earthquake happened, we saw the compassion and love of all the world that poured into Iran.
And I wish you would have stayed that way.
You know, it's so sad that a natural disaster has to happen to bring us one another close to each other.
I wish we could see more film like this.
So that way we understand that we're all human being and we should have respect for humanity.
It doesn't matter where we are born, really.
That's it.
You just that's the key.
That's that's what this movie does, is it brings us that same spirit without an earthquake.
The earthquake's over, but we get to remember that, hey, you know what?
Everybody's just like everybody else.
People are people.
Same difference.
Absolutely.
And I'm very, very grateful to that American tourist, Tob Deluro.
And of course, I don't want to tell the viewer what happens to Tob, who wanted to show to his young Jewish fiancee who truly Iranian are.
And I think I'm very fortunate that I was able, with the help of my tour guide and all the people who told their various story that who truly Iranian are, especially in today's word that there is hardly any positive.
We hear hardly any positive image about Iranian people.
Now tell us a little bit about this city, Ban.
This is an ancient temple shrine city.
Is a citadel twenty five hundred years old, I think is probably one of the oldest adobe that existed.
It existed.
Many invasion existed, different earthquake.
But this time, unfortunately, was completely ruined in December twenty six, two thousand and three and not two thousand and four, of course.
So it was a very, very unique place.
And it was also recognized by UNESCO that it was such a remarkable place.
And I'm sure people, although we don't emphasize much about the citadel because their story is not really about the citadel, their story is about the humanity of the world and humanity of the Iranian.
That's why we didn't really much emphasize on the history of the citadel itself.
Mr. Horton.
I see.
And yeah, my mistake.
Thank you for correcting me.
It was 2003.
I said 2004.
And now.
So, yeah, that's what this movie does.
It basically follows the story of this man, Tob Del Oro, and his young fiance, Adele.
And there's really just a lot of great footage of people on the streets.
I notice, honestly, and I don't know if you, you know, cherry picked the footage this way or not.
Believe me.
You know, forgive me.
I don't mean to accuse you of it or anything.
But the footage of Tehran that you show, it doesn't look anything like, you know, I don't know, Baghdad at war or something.
It looks like an American city.
The streets are the same.
The stop signs are the same.
You know, the streets are just as wide and the shops look just like, you know, downtown Austin, more or less, maybe cleaner than that.
Absolutely.
And believe it or not, there are some some remarkable places in Iran that we didn't focus our camera because the story was focused on Tob and Adele's story.
But I think the viewer should go to Iran.
And I think another challenge that I see here is people should just just like what Tob did, get out of their comfort zone, go to those countries, go to Middle East and see it for yourself.
Iran is a very, very ancient places.
In every city that you go, you would be amazed with the history of the Iranian and the hospitality of the Iranian.
And this film is what it what it really does.
And I'm not saying that you see only kindness and hospitality just in Iran.
You see it everywhere.
I'm sure if I go to my and last night I went to my neighbor and I asked for some flower and they were very happy to give it to me.
So I'm really not saying that the American are also wonderful people.
We see it through the eyes of Adele.
We see it through the eyes of Tob.
We see it through your eyes that you're interested in getting the story of BAM 6.6 out.
So I am really saying that people should really a bit travel.
And I think that's the that's the problem or challenge that I see, that American people unfortunately do not travel.
And of course, we don't see much history of Iran, as you mentioned earlier, to talk about in schools, you know, 93 percent of the world exists outside United States.
So we need to focus if we want to have a little bit understanding of other countries.
We need to read about them.
We need to travel to those countries.
We need to reach our hand and experience it for ourselves.
And by the way, what's your story?
Where are you from?
It's I think I read that you studied at UCLA, right?
Well, I went to UCLA.
You know, I took courses in the industry, but I am from Iran, Isfahan, and I'm proud to say that I work for Prudential Life Insurance Company, that they've been also very supportive of the humanity.
And I want to also the viewer know that Prudential played a very important part of this because many, many insurance agent supported this film.
And they have a matching program that they match.
If somebody gives hundred dollars, Prudential match hundred dollars equally.
So I've been in the life insurance business for 20 years.
But my passion from when I was a little kid was always, always in movie.
And another reason why I made BAM 6.6 Humanity Has No Border, Mr. Horton, was I'm married to an American wife that I really, truly adore.
And I'm learning every day about life through her and also through other people here.
And what I noticed that there wasn't any Iranian documentary that truly portrayed the love and compassion of the humanity of the Iranian.
And that's why I focused my four years of life to bring this film alive.
And I'm glad that we were very, very successful.
And we see the love of people from all over the world.
We see love of that the lady, Sheila Kasha, who was working, who is still working for Sony Entertainment and who had cancer, I think.
And she went to Iran and she supported this children in Iran.
I'm also very happy to my editor, Bill Woolery, the editor who I think the editors are amazing because these are the people, these are the one who really put this story together.
And I'm also very honored with all those people who help us financially to bring this film alive and to my Carol Bean, executive producer.
And this is truly not my story, Mr. Horton, but I'm really honored that I'm part of this story.
Well, you should be.
It is certainly an incredible accomplishment.
Now, I want to focus on one thing you said there about Prudential Life Insurance.
You're telling me that Prudential, this giant American company, does business in Iran all the time.
No, I'm not saying that.
No, no, no.
I didn't say that.
OK, I'm sorry.
No, no, no.
I didn't say that.
I said Prudential.
I'm so honored to Prudential for supporting this documentary.
Oh, I see.
But I'm an agent working at Prudential.
OK, so they didn't do anything for the Iranians other than helping in your movie.
I'm sorry.
I misunderstood you.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm glad that you clarified that.
No, no.
I'm really, truly honored.
My boss, Jay Skolnik, there are there are beautiful people.
All I'm saying that there are beautiful people every every corner of the world.
You see beautiful people.
Sure.
And now I wanted to ask you also, it comes up in your movie that this couple that you focus on, the woman is a Jew.
And I guess she talks about how she was kind of scared of what it might be like in Tehran.
And he finally persuaded her.
And there's another person talking in the movie who says that they grew up in a neighborhood surrounded by Iranian Jews.
And I wonder if you can talk about the Jewish population in Iran and whether, for example, they're terribly oppressed and so forth.
You know, good question.
But the main thing was that what made this story interesting was that Adele is a Jewish.
She comes from a Jewish family and her mother had a lot of hesitation.
Her young Jewish girl going to Iran, she thought that she was going to be kidnapped, sabotaged, all the negativity that they have been listened during the last probably 20 or 30 years.
But when they get there, even prior to the earthquake, they see the compassion and love of the Iranian.
I don't know the figure how many Jews are in Iran.
And that was not, again, the focus of the film, the focus of the film was, again, on the humanity of the word and that you should not listen to the media, just like what happened to Adele.
And look what happened.
She goes to Iran.
She's a Jewish and she got the first class treatment.
And we could see in the film that when came to a hospital, she was not charged one dime nor to Adele Friedman's or Todd DeLauro's parents.
It was completely the treatment was first class and it was completely free.
That's what I'm getting at is that she was welcome there and that there's already at least some sort of I don't know the numbers either.
But there is some substantial Jewish population in Tehran whose rights are protected on a daily basis.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And I think if people don't believe me that they should take a trip to Iran and see for themselves or at least they could go to our Web site, which is W W W dot essence of Iran dot com, which is E W S E N C E O F Iran dot com and review the film and don't take my word.
See if you really like this film and get out of your skin, get out of your comfort zone and go to those beautiful places that they welcome you.
Not just only Iran.
This goes.
This message goes about everywhere on the planet.
We find good people everywhere.
One thing that strikes me is that this terrible earthquake, I guess, as the Republicans in these past few years have said over and over, crises are also opportunities.
And it seems like if the administration had just made a major push on the national government level to immediately go and send as much help as absolutely possible and open up diplomatic relations at the same time and try to slap the old Ayatollah on the back and say bygones are bygones.
Let's try to get along now that that would have really in 2003, George Bush could have healed everything over with these guys just by acting like the humanitarian Christian he pretends to be.
Well, again, I'm not much involved in politics, so my answer is law.
If you love someone, you don't put any condition.
Oh, you do this.
I do that.
You do something because you want to do something and love should be unconditional, in my opinion.
And we see that that's, again, evident in BAM 6.6, that there is no condition.
The key to any negotiation, in my opinion, is number one is love and respect and harmony and talking, talking, just a very simple conversation.
Break bread with them.
Go and eat with them.
Understand those people.
I think that's what is really important.
You know, well, what else could I tell you?
This film is really nothing to do with politics.
I'm not a politician.
I'm not getting involved because I don't have that expertise.
I'm a simple filmmaker.
I made this film for the humanity of the world.
And I'm grateful to all those countries who helped Iran.
And I hope that we could stay that way always, helping one another.
I do not like to see any bloodshed around my own neighborhood here.
I don't like to see bloodshed anywhere, not just only in Iran.
I don't want to see bloodshed anywhere.
I think it's a waste of energy.
That will not bring us closer.
What brings us closer is understanding and love and compassion without any condition.
Well, I think this film could go a long way, if seen by enough people in this society, to really change people's outlook on what it means to be an Iranian, what those people are like, and maybe they could have an opportunity to share some compassion for some people who have mostly served as abstractions before.
And I really congratulate you.
I think you've done a great job on it.
And I thank you very much for joining us on the show today.
Everybody, the movie is called BAM 6.6, EssenceofIran.com.
It's Jahangir Golestan Perast.
Thank you very much for your time today on the show, sir.
Thank you for having me.
And my last message for all the people who are listening is, if we could learn, we could take one message from this film, is not to have hatred or anger towards anyone.
If we do have hatred or anger towards anyone, while those people are still alive, we should go and shake their hand and, you know, say hello to them.
Because once they are gone, it's just too late to say that you are sorry.
Do it while you can, while we're alive.
Thank you again for your show.