Metropolitan State College of Denver, located in downtown Denver, publishes a weekly electronic news bulletin called @METRO. The April 23, 2008 edition carried a headline that proclaims:
“A lecture by a prominent Iranian revolutionary”
The synopsis of the bulletin states;
Lecture on US-Iranian Relations - The Political Science Department is sponsoring a lecture by Ebrahim Yazdi, secretary-general of the freedom movement in Iran, on Wednesday, April 30 at 1 p.m. in Tivoli 320. The lecture, titled “After the Votes are Counted: The Impact of Elections on US-Iranian Relations,” is part of the department’s Countdown to the Election series.
The Political Science Department at Metro State would like you to believe that this man is an Iranian George Washington. Somehow, I get the feeling that he’s not. He was, it seems, a revolutionary and participated in the revolutionary movement that toppled the government of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi in 1979.
On February 16, 2008, Michael Slackman wrote a New York Times profile about Ebrahim Yazdi titled; An Iranian Revolutionary, Dismayed but Unbowed
(click here to read the profile)
In that profile Slackman writes that;
“Mr. Yazdi was an adviser to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the moving force behind the ouster of the shah, the larger-than-life cleric who forged a nation that sought to merge religious governance and republican ideals. Mr. Yazdi was the first deputy prime minister and the first foreign minister.”
Slackman also wrote that Yazdi now has “white hair, a white beard, and a face softened by time, barely resembling the tight, stern young man who strode beside Ayatollah Khomeini in the early days of the revolution. He has a nice house in a nice section of Tehran, with crystal chandeliers in the living room, a large collection of parakeets that sing all day, a study lined with books and old photographs — and time, a lot of time."
(emphasis added)
What a quaint little picture Slackman paints of Yazdi as he is today. Let’s just forget about how brutal, barbaric, and utterly fascist and repressive the regime is that he helped put into power.
The New York Times profile also described photographs of Yazdi in the good old days. Slackman described one in which Yazdi, Khomeini and Yasir Arafat are shown taking over the Israeli Embassy in Tehran. “Mr. Yazdi held Mr. Arafat’s hand as they faced a sea of cheering men and women.” Slackman wrote.
Ebrahim Yazdi, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and Yasir Arafat, holding hands and having a Kumbaya moment.
The Political Science Department of Metropolitan State College of Denver paying U.S. dollars to this muslim Che Guevara to condescendingly lecture to American students about how America should submit to the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Ebrahim Yazdi (Left) w/Yasser Arafat, Israeli Embassy, Tehran, 1979
