Hassan Rahimpour Azghadi of the Iranian Supreme Council for Cultural Revolution: The Values of America are Sex, Violence, and Melancholy

Following are excerpts from an interview Hassan Rahimpour Azghadi of the Iranian Supreme Council for Cultural Revolution, which aired on Jaam-e Jam 3 TV on August 18, 2008.

Hassan Rahimpour Azghadi: The history of the civilization is, unfortunately, written by the victors. Let’s take as an example World War II, which took place in Europe. The Europeans call their wars “world wars.”

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In all the books or films about that war, the characters are American. Let me remind you that America hardly had any casualties in that war. It entered the war only in its final stages, and joined [the victors]. In the many films about World War II, which you must have seen, the main characters are always American or English, and each of these characters kills 2,000 or 3,000 Germans singlehandedly. Eventually, he may be slightly injured, but with God’s grace, he quickly recovers. In addition, they produce hundreds or thousands of films about operations that never took place, heroic feats they never accomplished, and sacrifices they never made. They are highly skilled in this.

When I was a little boy – it was before the [Islamic] revolution – we would watch such films, and we would always identify with the American character, who was the hero in the film. We would wish he would kill more of them, because we identified with him. Even when the Europeans made films about the Crusades, and the enemies were the Muslims, we would identify with the Crusaders. We would say: “Kill those backward, barbaric Arabs.” Or we would say: “Let the Crusaders kill as many Arabs as possible.” These films presented the perspective of the Crusaders and the Europeans.

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If the allies had not won World War II, but instead, it had been won by the Axis – Germany and Japan – [the roles] in all these films would have been reversed. You would have gotten a completely different picture of World War II. All the negative things said about Fascism and Nazism, and all the talk about a free world – it would all have been reversed. If the Communists had prevailed, the regime of liberal capitalism would have disappeared, and everything would have been recounted from a Communist perspective.

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What are American values – are they really freedom and democracy? The values of America are sex, violence, and melancholy. Those are the values of America.