Iran, "New Pangaea - An Evolution into the Fifth World" and the Immigration Ban

Like many people in this country I have watched the news coming from the new White House Administration with deep concern – as the intent of President Donald Trump becomes clearer in the Executive Actions he has taken along with appointments to key positions in his Cabinet.  I have added my voice to numerous petitions both group and self-initiated and participated in three peaceful protests in the Louisville area.

Much of my interest in current events stems from my long career as a teac her of government, history and English in public schools all over the country. My initial book “The Peacemaker” is a generational saga that tells the “true” story of American history in fictional form. This book tells the stories of disenfranchised members of American society from the days the Western European “invaders” came to North America to establish freedom for only one small group of people – the white Anglo-Saxon male.  When I decided to write a sequel to this story, the natural movement was to find the connection between what happened to the indigenous people of North America and take it to a global level of American imperialism that began after the completion of Manifest Destiny.

   

Manifest Destiny was the cry of the American industrialists who supported all the land grabs of the 18^th and 19^th Century that enabled them to take control of all the land and mineral resources from “sea to shining sea” by virtually destroying all the indigenous cultures that stood in their way. And there was a lot of cooperation from members of the press whose desire to sell newspapers rather than report the news led to the establishment of yellow journalism as the way of informing the public. 

 In the late 19^th and 20^th Centuries the American war machine turned its interests to third world countries and the wealth that existed there for the voracious needs of American factories and consumers to build the American Dream or a “chicken in every (American) pot.”  At the dawn of the 20^th Century the vast oil reserves in the Middle East became the object of interest among all the newly established nations of Europe as well as the United States. Enter World War I, World War II, the Cold War, the Persian Gulf War, the Iraqi War and Afghanistan.  “The Peacemaker” ended on September 11, 2001 and it took 10 years for me to find the way to connect the events of September 11, 2001 with something that was happening on the global level to bring everything full circle. The acquaintances and events in my life in Florence, Oregon during those ten years finally led me to the setting and connections in my current book “New Pangaea – An Evolution into the Fifth World.”

In 2011 I was commissioned by a female doctor living in Seal Beach, California to ghost write a book for her about her experiences growing up as an entitled female in the Middle East and Pakistan and the horrific circumstances that led to her seeking sanctuary in the United States. I was paid for the writing so the book belongs to her and her husband, but aside from earning a bit of money, I earned a wealth of information from behind the scenes of political headlines coming from these countries. At the same time, I established a close friendship with a woman of the Bahia faith living in Florence. Through her, I learned the story of a young woman of the same faith who fled Iran when her best friend named Mona was executed for not swearing allegiance to the Islamic Faith that became the only faith allowed in Iran after the Revolution of 1978.   I began to read about the Bahia faith and its founders who were from Persia (Iran) and the atrocities committed against them for hundreds of years. I found “A Cry from the Heart” by William Sears, http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2316155.A_Cry_from_the_Heart , most enlightening. The thread of a story began to develop.  

I began to read more stories coming from the refugees from Iran and found that most of the refugees were women because the men unfortunately fell to a more undesirable treatment.  One book was especially enlightening. This is Daughter of Persia http://www.storydriven.net/work2.htm.  In compiling a profile of the main character of New Pangaea, I relied on a fictional profile created by studying the story of the wife of Mark Perry who wrote “A Dress for Mona” https://www.amazon.com/Dress-Mona-Mark-Perry/dp/1931492026 and the story of a journalist who came to the United States after the Iranian Revolution and settled in New Mexico and who works for NPR (National Public Radio). The name of the book is “My Name is Iran,” https://www.amazon.com/My-Name-Iran-Davar-Ardalan/dp/0805087273. 

The setting emerged as I began to learn about the Hopi Prophecy and the collaborative work done by members of the Bahia Faith not only with the United Nations and human rights but in seeing and finding connections to their own spiritual philosophies that have developed over the centuries. That, combined with the current indigenous people’s attempts to regain land and water rights and stop the destruction to the environment from mineral leases and corporate collusion with the federal government gave the setting and story line of the book. “New Pangaea – An Evolution into the Fifth World” is now available at http://xlibris.com as well as amazon.com, Barnes and noble.com and also available in signed print form by going to the contact Brenda Duffey page at http://angelbandproductions.com. 

As someone who has researched the history of Iran and the true story of American and Western European involvement in Iran, I must now comment on the restrictions to Iranian immigration the United States in the name of combating terrorism. Last night, Rachael Maddox revealed a study done by someone interested in knowing the true reason for the ban on certain immigrants to the United States in combating terrorism in this country on “The Rachael Maddox Show.”  Ms. Maddox showed a study done of all the terrorist attacks in the United States conducted from September 11, 2001 through the recent attacks in California and Florida. The study revealed that not one of the perpetrators of these attacks came from the countries affected by the ban on immigration.

 In addition, my own research has revealed that the extreme killings and torture that have occurred in Iran for the most part came first from the radical treatment of the Shah’s secret police force that was established in concert with the American CIA.  It was this treatment that led to the reinstatement of the Ayatollah Khomeini and the radical mullahs who seized control after the Revolution of 1978. The refugees that have come to the US from Iran have come as a result of the aftermath of the 1978 Revolution. To date, and I am not as current as I need be, I have seen no connection between the beheadings of Christians pointed to by Donald Trump as the basis for his concern about terrorism and also the use of torture, and ISIS and Iran. What I have seen is a man whom I believe is causing much alarm all over the world in countries such as Iran who now have nuclear weapons walking onto Air Force One followed by a man with a black box that contains the nuclear codes, and this is a matter of grave concern to me.