The irony is this

We don't watch TV...in fact, we don't even have one anymore, so it was only today that I came to learn about this interview on 60 minutes with the president of Iran which aired in late September.

It is, sadly, another example of agendized media, with the interviewer hardly even listening to his guest, asking blatantly biased questions, and generally botching another opportunity to learn more about Iran, it's philosophies, it's culture, and it's place in the global scheme of things - political or otherwise. Ahmadinejad, as always, was quiet and respectful in his replies; never giving on that he was the subject of yet another farce marquerading as diplomacy.

I've really struggled with my feelings about Iran these past few years - it's a beautiful country with ugly laws that strangle the voices and souls of it's people. It's a modern place with the latest technology and fashion but shuttles itself into the darkness of an age passed with a bizarre control on art, music, information, and the internet. I've also struggled with feelings about my own government - the war in Iraq, the way Bush came to office, the strange mythology we're building around Islam where now the very word is mutually exclusive with 'terrorism'...
But the crucial difference is, I feel entirely comfortable writing and talking about the American government; penning the name of the president and attaching all manner of frustrated, pointedly negative sentiments. He may not like what I have to say if he ever took the time to read it, but he certainly wouldn't question my freedom to have done so, and no one would punish me for it in any sense of the word.

These latest public interactions with Iran's leader have left me both disappointed and utterly confused. On the one hand I have questions of my own, and they can never hope to be answered if the only people Ahmadinejad ever speaks to are under-the-table henchmen for the Bush team or media personalities with government hands making deposits in their pockets. But on the other hand, I'd be pretty damn scared to actually voice my questions if given the opportunity. That fear itself would be the basis for one of my most important questions: Does it mean something to him to know that I am afraid to ask the very questions I am most curious to learn the answers to? Does it mean something to him to know that I am afraid to write, that I actually hesitate before every word I type, when the topic is the Islamic Republic?

There are many things I never wrote while I was there - oh, nothing major. There were no big scandals I kept hidden. No observations of mythic proportion. But there were a number of little things I kept to myself; feelings about what it was like to be a woman in Iran in particular. I've been there and experienced life in Iran, at least as much as I could in the brief two and a half month visit, and I don't think Iran is an evil place or that it's government is the axis of anything at all, other than itself. It's people weren't any different from anyone else I've ever met in my worldly adventures. I see Iran more as a strange, exotic place with even stranger regulations...but still, I'd like the opportunity to know why some things exist as they do. Why women ride in the back of the bus, even while traveling with their husbands, who sit near the front. Why my hair is illegal. Why my voice is illegal. Is my voice such a terrible thing? Is my opinion such a weapon? But most importantly, I'd like to know why I must feel afraid to ask those questions in the first place.

My questions aren't based in anyone's political camp. I'm not aiming to control, or manipulate, or even change anything with my questions. I just want to know 'Why', because I'm curious, like a child. I have similar questions for the leaders of Singapore where it was illegal for me to chew gum in public. Or the leaders of Thailand, where it was illegal for me to speak against the king. I have a multitude of questions for my own nation's leaders, and I'm dead certain those will never be answered; not truthfully anyway.

But, I'm really very proud of my connection to Iran and I was blessed to have been able to go, to have been treated so well and to have experienced one of the most feared nations on the planet from the inside and come out the other end unscathed and all the more educated. Many people openly said that they thought I was crazy to go there; but many people said the same thing to me about India, for different reasons obviously...but I chalked it all up to their own fear of the unknown and went anyway. Iran is an amazing country centered around a beautiful religion - nothing like what we've been conditioned to believe...still, I have a few questions that want to be answered. I'm just afraid to ask.