“In reality, in our society, those who ask, `Who am I? 'Who should I be?' or `What is my identity?' are of two types. One type is a person who is attached to out‑dated, existing traditions that are called religion and ethics, which that person wants to impose upon others. He can't. Even though he knows he can't, he still sticks with them, he still retains them. He tries to impose them upon the young people.
There is another type who is afraid to act even under the pseudo name of intellectual, modern or freedom seeker because he thinks, 'If I interfere or if I negate or agree and control the `ifs', I will be condemned as being old-fashioned, eastern, backward and religious. So against the social changes, changes in the types of young men and women, he plays the role of a `dead person'. In other words, his child acts while the mother and father create possibilities for him. They are called intellectual parents. But their silence and surrender does not stem from their intellectual abilities. It does not come from their beliefs but rather from their impotency and weakness. He says to himself, 'if I interfere, I will give up my outer, external strength and my inner emptiness will show.' Prestige, Papa!
These are two types, two types of people who can be molded. One is attached to the traditions of the Chahar Bagh in Isfahan ‑ huge, ugly, crooked and decayed. The second is a product of European brick kilns ‑ straight; subtle, without endurance, hollow and absurd.
These are two types and two ways, both are incorrect and lost. Why? One stands against the roaring flood of realities which is about to ruin everything. He tries to turn back the waters with his hands. He tries to stop the flow. He swears, cries out, laments, sobs, and cries at the flood which builds up and flows out and takes everything in its way.
The other one stretches himself out next to the flood waters, like a dead person, like a useless observer. This dear man who has no personality of his own, is quiet, works from morning until night, commits murder, rips people off, is a pickpocket, performs a thousand dirty deeds, praises, tricks people and then fills his pockets in order to have them emptied by foreign companies and to have himself poured into their pockets.”
Fatima is Fatima - Dr. Ali Shariati
