A comment by Siamak.

I liked Amir's post, and I agree with Leili more than the writer of this post. Not that she/he was wrong... but how can we think of solving a problem without first knowing and understanding what the problem is? The writer of this post, as far as I understood is older than most of us, and probably doesn't realize the problems (I would call them "Trauma") we, the Children of the Revolution (and oppression) should tackle, even when being lived for a while in a foreign country. Personally, when I came here (Finland), I had a hard time figuring out what the hell is wrong with me. My biggest "cultural shock" was that I can freely laugh in the street and spend time with my friends without being worried of something! Now, you tell me, how can I even think of helping other people having a humane living condition if I even don't allow myself to have such a living condition?

My point is we should be able to discuss about everything (I mean EVERYthing) freely. That's the point about freedom of speech: to understand the problems. And that's why corruption and censorship always come together.

Regarding Leili's comment about why Iranians should always be afraid. Of course they're afraid of SOMEthing... many things... like excommunication [I looked it up in the dictionary; it means "takfir"], being put in jail, being mysteriously killed, etc, etc (not to mention numerous fears that the media induces in people and those people, themselves, develop to adapt to their abnormal, deformed society). Americans and Europeans have also experienced such fears, but long times ago.

Incidentally, the original post of this thread sounds amazingly like the way my mother writes! I don't mean every single aspect of his/her opinion, but the way of thinking... like "there are as many paths as there are human beings" and so on. :-)