The First Charter of Human Rights, By The Persian Emperor
Kourosh The Great Over 2700 Years Ago

"Power Corrupts, Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely"

Academia, Elitist Titles & Politics

- By Bahram Maskanian - April 7, 2004

I wrote this letter after receiving an e-mail (see below) from a Persian discussion group about the use of the title - Dr. -

- Regarding - Dr. - Title And Definition of Right And Wrong

Dear Fellow Persians,
I would like to thank you for sharing your thoughts with me in regard to whether or not someone obviously known to some of you, should have the right to use the title of - Dr. - or not.

The number of recipients between the two Yahoo groups and individuals involved in this quarrel are over thirteen hundred (1300) people. Taking into account an average of five minutes to read, another five minutes to think and five minutes to respond to the numerous e-mails, it is such wasted time and also costly.

It is a known fact that those who are truly wise, educated and worldly are humbled and would never find it necessary to place themselves in the ranks of the elite by using any kind of title. Titles are used to polarize, differentiate and discriminate.

Persian literature has made splendid contributions to world literature. Ferdowsi who composed Shahnameh, the Crown Jewel of World's and Persian literature, is cherished by all Persians / Iranians, including the Persian speaking societies of Afghanistan, Tajikestan and many other nations of Central Asia. So should we address Ferdowsi as Dr. Ferdowsi, or Professor Ferdowsi?

How about Abu Ali Sina, founder of the first medical university in the world? What title should be given to him?

Education is and should be an ongoing exercise for all, until the last days of one’s life. The rewards and signs of one’s accomplishments and personal endeavors are the wisdom, worldliness, humility and knowledge one acquires.

These silly elitist titles resulting from spending a few years in some educational institution are nothing but tools for self-promotion and self-reward, manufactured in the past few decades to justify the cost of higher education and enforce the doctrine of conformity among the so-called academia, experts, doctors or professors.

Having read a few books does not make anybody an expert in anything. It makes them more knowledgeable about the subject. In today’s world the corrupt corporate and government morons treat the rhetoric of the so-called experts as divine laws of Nature.

The true definition of the word - expert - is: a person with a high degree of skill in, or knowledge of a certain subject. To be an expert in whatever subject means one could also be dead wrong. As we all hear and see often prominent scientists changing their theoretical positions into an entirely new and opposite hypothesis of what they used to believe and advocate.

* * * * * * *

- - Where do we come from? How did the universe begin? Why is the universe the way it is? How will it end?

All my life, I have been fascinated by the big questions that face us and have tried to find scientific answers to them. If, like me, you have looked at the stars, and tried to make sense of what you see, you too have started to wonder what makes the Universe exist. The questions are clear and deceptively simple. But the answers have always seemed well beyond our reach, until now.

The ideas, which had grown over thousands of years of observation, have had to be radically revised. In less than a hundred years, we have found a new way to think of ourselves. From sitting at the center of the universe, we now find ourselves orbiting an average-sized sun, which is just one of millions of stars in our own Milky Way Galaxy. And our galaxy itself is just one of billions of galaxies, in a Universe that is infinite and expanding. But this is far from the end of a long history of inquiry. Huge questions remain to be answered, before we can hope to have a complete picture of the universe we live in.

I want you to share my excitement at the discoveries, past and present, which have revolutionized the way we think. From the Big Bang to black holes, from dark matter to a possible Big Crunch, our image of the universe today is full of strange sounding ideas, and remarkable truths. The story of how we arrived at this picture is the story of learning to understand what we see. - -

- Stephen Hawking

* * * * * * *

Elitist titles are nothing new. Monarchy and Religious establishments have been using and abusing these elitist notions and titles for thousands of years. Our country Iran and its culture is and has been under criminal and brutal attack by such elitist mullahs calling themselves Ayatollahs for fourteen hundred (1400) years and intensely for past twenty-five (25) years.

Mullahs of all Adam & Eve based religions are mostly men with no education and knowledge of the world around them. All they have learned is how to preach hate and fear. Some of them cannot even read or write and yet they bestow upon themselves titles, which literally mean - Command of God or Ambassador of God. -

Titles are awarded to people by other people usually in the same elitist class or profession. In my humble opinion, no one should have any title placing one in a higher plateau than the rest of the people in any society regardless of one's profession, politics, education, religion or any other affiliation.

Cooperatively, we need to spend our precious energy on getting our country back from the power hungry goons running it now. We are the most fragmented group of people in the world. Let us organize and set things right.

Our efforts should be based on common sense to succeed. Not on our emotions.

* * * * * * *

Dear Friends;
Like some of you, I have no idea how my email has got into this loop of never ending emails.  But, since we are in it now and more importantly, since this issue has been dragging for so many years, maybe a simple solution can shed some light on it.  Please consider the following as a proposed suggestion with the sincere hope of putting this issue in bed at least for our small group.

Mr. Sarosh Manekshaw and some other Zoroastrians have repeatedly said that Mr. Ali Akbar Jafarey does not have a Ph.D. or a doctoral degree, while he has been using that title for a long time.  The simple fact is that, Either Mr. Jafarey has that degree Or he does not have it.  It is a simple and clear case of a binary Either/Or.

If he does not have it, Mr. Manekshaw and others have been telling us the truth all along.  And if he does have it, I think it will be a small effort on part of Mr. Ali Akbar Jafarey in a reasonable time period if he simply scan his degree and email it as an attachment and prove once and for all that Mr. Manekshaw has not being truthful.  And for some who say it does not matter, I believe it does matter.  The issue has grown so high and so wide that it does need attention and a response, otherwise we are left to our imagination, inclination, speculation and frankly Doubts.

I hope all of you (including Mr. Manekshaw and Mr. Jafarey) look at this simple request in a positive and constructive way and act upon it.  I have included Mr. Jafarey's email in CC, since he was not part of the loop.
 
Sincerely;
Khosro E. Mehrfar
April 7, 2004