By Shavana Abruzzo
Iran’s iron-fisted Shiite government is fast gaining momentum as one of the planet’s most dangerous regimes, openly fueling terrorist activity and secretly stockpiling a nuclear force to be reckoned with. President George W. Bush’s tepid warnings that the Persian Gulf country stop “killing our soldiers” – and his forlorn commitment to tread “a diplomatic path” with the bonkers nation – are to sure to have had President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad snickering through his vampire fangs as his bloody country folk writhed in the streets during a gory orgy of pain and pleasure at last week’s Day of Ashura observance. Each year, at the end of January, the civilized world gets a potently recoiling peek at the psyches of Iranian Muslims and their unquenchable thirst for blood and murk. Commemorated on the tenth day of Muharram – the first month of the Islamic lunar year – the ancient rite of atonement has malfunctioned into an annual day of self-flagellation in mourning for the murder of Prophet Muhammad’s grandson Hussein in 680 AD. Copying local Jews, who would observe a holy fast around that time, the prophet had recommended that Muslims also abstain from food and water, so impressed was he by the Jewish ritual. Yet, Muhammad’s death brought with it poisonous divisions as Muslims sought a new leader and Hussein was killed in a battle against the ruling caliph on the tenth day of Muharram in Karbala, now modern-day Iraq and a vital Shiite pilgrimage stop. Since Hussein’s death and continuing today, there is no love lost between Sunni and Shiite Muslims – the latter’s status in the Muslim community can be loosely compared to Oliver Cromwell’s Puritans and the former’s to Bonnie Prince Charlie’s Cavaliers. On the Day of Ashura, a grim river of doom, gloom and blood snakes through Iran, pock-marked by mourning rituals, passion plays recalling Hussein’s martyrdom, plus a wolf-pack of black-clad Shiite men and women pounding the pavement, beating their chests and chanting nonsense like rabid dogs. Anguish and torment reign supreme as the truly wacky imitate Hussein’s torture by whipping themselves with chains and slitting their foreheads with knives, their blood-soaked faces warped with the wails of the wanton. So backward and barbaric is the act that some Shiite leaders and groups have spoken publicly against the blood-letting, encouraging people to donate blood instead. That humane move has yet to be adopted in favor of the vulgar one, which appears to more suit mainstream observers. Violence begets violence. That much history proves. And continues to, courtesy of such nations as Iran, which cannot expect to be taken seriously when their appetite for blood has transformed a revered ancient rite into a modern-day wrong. E-mail “A Britisher’s View” at BritView@courierlife.net. All letters become the property of Courier-Life Publications and are subject to publication unless otherwise specified; please include your name, address and daytime telephone number for verification.
