Hooman Majd
Hooman Majd
Hooman Majd, born 1957 in Tehran, is an Iranian-American journalist, author, and commentator who writes on Iranian affairs. He is based in New York City and regularly travels to Iran...
NationalityIranian
ProfessionJournalist
government inside people quite reverse
Inside Iran, people are actually quite well-educated about America. There are things they don't understand, particularly in the government, but the people, by and large, know the American sensibility quite well, and the reverse is not true.
acts approved assigned foreign
Foreign journalists have to have an approved interpreter assigned them, which they have to pay for, who also acts as guide. As an Iranian, even writing for foreign media, I've been mercifully unrestricted.
emphasis islamic modern republic science technology tehran
The city of Tehran is a very modern metropolis, and there's an emphasis in the Islamic republic on science and advancement and technology.
couple money publishing stories
I got a couple of stories published, but the kind of money you were making for publishing a short story, I could see I wasn't going to make a living at it.
business fell great interested loved music reason
As a child, I was always very interested in music and had friends who were in the music business. I kind of accidentally fell into it and loved it. There was no reason not to - it was a great career.
dual grew home iranian parents thinking
I grew up thinking of myself as an American but also, because of my parents and the Iranian culture that was in our home, as an Iranian. So if there's any such thing as dual loyalty, then I have it - at least culturally.
born bumper drafting drivers faded popular sticker
A popular bumper sticker post-9/11, and pretty faded these days, proclaims drivers of the cars to be 'Proud to be an American.' It really should say 'Lucky to be an American,' for I doubt very much that the drivers had much say in having been born here, and are not old enough to have participated in the drafting of the Constitution.
country islamic turkeys
Turkey is viewed as a very modern country and a great place to go and visit and yet Islamic as well. Iran is in some ways like that ... with the difference that Iran is probably more influential than Turkey.
country turkeys iran
Iran is a huge country and much, much more sophisticated than most people imagine ... It certainly has the potential to be at least the way Turkey is to most Americans.
guy done ridiculous
If you are an [American] politician it's very hard to imagine "now we are going to treat these guys as our equals? That's ridiculous. What have they ever done to deserve that?"
country attitude thinking
I think there is an American attitude that is very hard to break which is "We're great. Who wouldn't want to be like us? Who wouldn't want to have the benefits of our largesse, handing out aid and having American companies based in their countries?" and "our culture is great," and all that. It's hard for us to imagine ourselves as not being the greatest country on earth.
military war media
The problem is that Iran has been identified as a dangerous enemy, and the longer the media forwards that proposition - and the media is guilty, just as it was in the Iraq war - then the easier it becomes for Americans to accept that we might just have to resort to military force to remove any Iranian threat.
phones cells iran
I know that my cell phone in Iran... is bugged, and they listen in, and my emails, I'm sure, are monitored inside Iran. They have my email address; it's not like they can't snoop on it.
real political intention
Americans tend not to distinguish between political rhetoric and real intentions, which can lead to great misunderstanding.