Popular or not, Iran's revolution differs from America's

To the editors:

Nura Hossainzadeh’s praising of Ayatollah Khomeini (Opinion, “Individualism in Iran,” Oct. 8), if anything, serves to demonstrate the strength of intellectual diversity at Harvard. Indeed, where else would I be able to find a classmate so in awe of a man who, upon coming to power, held 53 American Embassy workers hostage for over a year, instituted laws decreeing death for homosexuality and stoning for adultery, and jumpstarted Iran’s program of funding terrorist organizations throughout the Middle East?

Hossainzadeh’s belief that government-imposed dress codes are the product of a society that embraces individualism is confounding. Moreover, her contention that such dress codes protect the “public good” much as national security measures do represents the gross Islamist apologism that transcends campus dialogue today. The Iranian Revolution was only like the American Revolution insofar as both were popular revolutions; that the similarities do not extend past this is something I thank God for every day.

ERIC R. TRAGER ‘05

October 8