Dear Iran,

Hi.

How are you?

I am not sure if you know who I am or not. I’m Beatrice. I write this blog. It’s mostly about the happenings in my life here in Toronto. My loves, my laughs, my friends, my heartbreaks, you know, the usual.

I’m an Aquarius and my favorite colour is green… grass or hunter as opposed to lime (in case you ever wanted to buy me a gift). I have a cat. He’s pretty cute except he keeps me up an awful lot at night. I’m single, but not really looking. I mean if Mr. Right fell from the sky then of course I’d be all over that. Anyway, enough about me…

I hear you have an issue with my boyfriend’s new movie. Something about it portraying Iranian culture as barbaric and war mongering? Hmmm, well yes it may have done that, but just in case you missed that class in Ancient History (or that part was simply omitted from your text books completely), Persia was quite the little Conqueror Nellie in its heyday. I am not saying that’s a bad thing. Goodness knows that Canada could stand to be a little more aggressive from time to time. It does tend to get a little boring being the nicest country on the planet. I am led to believe that we would monger except that our military doesn’t have enough gas to really travel anywhere. Maybe you could help us out with that? But this isn’t about Canada and our evil ways, this is about you Iran.

So you think that 300, which has never claimed to be the most historically accurate film ever, is a plot by us westerners to further drag your name through the mud? T’is true, the Persians were the baddies in the film, but they were not the only baddies. The Spartans had their fair share as well. They also had to deal with the strong homoerotic undertones that were oh so prevalent throughout the film. I have yet to hear Greece express outrage at being portrayed as bi-sexual leather undies wearing blood-lusting men with funny helmets…

Further to my point yesterday about people being particularly sensitive about an issue when one comes uncomfortably close to being caught in a duplicitous act…

Iran, are you planning on taking over the world? The reason I ask is that you seem particularly sensitive to the fact that a movie set thousands of years ago, during a time when you were hell bent on taking over the world (or what you knew existed of it anyway), may or may not have caused people to think bad things about your modern-day culture which, for all intents and purposes is really nothing like the Persian civilization from so many millennia ago. Because honestly Iran, until you made your stink, I really never put two and two together. When I think Iran, I think oil. I think fundamentalist Islamic regime. I think Holocaust denial. I think potentially dangerous nuclear program. But I can honestly say that I have never thought highly sophisticated, albeit ruthless ancient civilization.

But now you’ve got me thinking. I’m thinking that is isn’t so much that you are pissed that the world will discover things about your past that have been readily available in history text books since Allah knows when, but that you are pissed that the world will discover something about your present that you were hoping to keep secret just a little longer… say until you were ready to, like, you know… try and take over the world again?

Just a theory.