"Spirituality Should be Personal" BUT "Iranians are dirty-minded people — they come here to drink and take drugs and wear their shirts open like women"

"Spirituality Should be Personal" BUT "Iranians are dirty-minded people — they come here to drink and take drugs and wear their shirts open like women"


By John Krich, TIME

Above the outdoor cafés of this city's trendiest suburb, some 60 exiles are busily dubbing Brazilian soap operas, Japanese cartoons and American music videos into Farsi. They work for GEM-TV, a privately owned, Dubai-based bootleg satellite station that beams the modern world into Iran from a broadcast station in Malaysia. This Southeast Asian nation is becoming, in the words of GEM-TV host Abed Randamiz, "famous as a place to jump" from Iran's harshly religious regime. "It's the best of three countries that freely give us visas," Rangamiz says with a shrug. "The others are Turkey and Turkmenistan."

The Iranian influx is small but growing fast. At present, there are about 60,000 Iranians, studying, working or waiting for visas in this relatively easygoing, multiethnic Muslim-majority country. Iranians hold shares in an estimated 2,000 Malaysian businesses and occupy about 15,000 spots in Malaysian universities. Tourist arrivals from Iran jumped 14.3% to 116,000 last year. And, observe new arrivals, words of Persian origin, such as dewan for hall and anggur for grapes, have long been part of the Malay language. Most Iranians in Malaysia bask in the comforts of a life free from ideological pressures and from, in one exile's words, "bribing the police every time you want to have a party." Malaysia has become the base for frequent "Persian Disco Nights" and glitzy concerts by famed singers — one earlier this year included a rallying cry against the current regime — during the Iranian New Year in March.(Read about Malaysia's new journey beyond race.)

But life there isn't without hassles. Many, including Ali Manafi, a radio anchor who recently fled Iran at considerable risk, are exhausted by religious rules. "Spirituality should be personal," he says. "Here there are too many mosques and imams." Few Malaysian mosques welcome Shi'ite Muslims, leaving Iranian Shi'ites to worship at their embassy. Iranian activists have also faced rough treatment for political protests. Five Iranian student leaders were arrested for carrying candles in a memorial for protesters killed in Iran. In 2009, a protest of Iran's recent elections outside the U.N. led to tear gas. However, most activists say they try to stay away from Malaysia's current unrests — though they are quietly pleased that the recent July 9 demonstration, in which 1,400 Malaysians were arrested, took place on the 12th anniversary of one of Iran's largest protests.

Iranians say locals often assume the worst of their community. The highly publicized arrest of 15 Iranian drug smugglers last year — and several others since — hasn't helped. "Iranians are dirty-minded people — they come here to drink and take drugs and wear their shirts open like women," scoffed one Malay cab driver. Indeed, Ali Reza, an Iranian teacher, says he sometimes tells locals he hails from the invented country of "Kerkovia" to avoid discrimination. Of course, prejudice goes both ways. "We bring 2,500 years of culture, but here 100 years ago they were still in the trees with the monkeys," says GEM-TV's Randamiz.

Safineh Motlaq, a photojournalist who explains Malaysian culture to Iranians in a local magazine, Monograil, says mutual understanding will take time. "In Iran, we follow everything about the U.S. and Europe, but Asia is completely unknown. So people tend to isolate themselves here." She, for one, calls Malaysia "the closest I've found to a utopia." Moved by her seven years there, Motlaq published a photo book, A Given Path, about the rituals of Malaysia's three main ethnic communities — Chinese, Indian, Malay — with Marina Mahathir, daughter of Malaysia's former Prime Minister, writing the foreword.(Read about the teargassing incident in Kuala Lumpur.)

Siamak Rezvan, 40, has, like many Iranian professionals, started his own business, Yummy Restaurant, switching the menu from burgers to kebabs. He's working in Malaysia to put his 15-year-old son in an international school. Business is slow and his job applications were turned down because employers favor locals, but he's happy to be in Kuala Lumpur. "This is the place where we can have a normal life without fear," he says. However, Rangamiz, ever the exile, scoffs in his recording booth: "Malaysia my second home? Most of us, we don't even have a first home."

Comments (5)

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written by NSTPravda, September 01, 2011 07:38:09

Read lah 1My Oaf 1My Qur'4n swearing pink pouting lip$

You are dead right (or if you are a kafir infidel, right dead) that we have the best "easy-going-ness" that Arab or Persian oil money can buy. Dollar akbar! ...

written by albert zacharias, August 31, 2011 21:08:11

They arrest some locals Muslims for practising Shites ways and they import real Shites!!!! How to reconcile ????? ...

written by Up Yours!, August 31, 2011 19:54:16

but they are Shiites, so illegal or not? ..

written by syd, August 31, 2011 12:40:32

i saw saudis walking in the rain. they have never encountered such rain before.

there are no dense jungles in iran, so i don't expect them to differentiate between monkeys and man.

jakim and jais cannot arrest nor interefere with them as they are not malaysians, although muslims, so iranians enjoy freedom malays are barred and punished.

maybe what the malays need are more modern shiite muslims to open up ther mind, like these iranians.

thank you airasia for the direct flights between tehran and kl. ...

written by SoundMan, August 31, 2011 12:19:44

With ALL that history and yet over threw their Shah to establish a Government of a diabolic brand of Shiite religious zealots in the Ayatollah Khomeini.
Gad, these Iranians think too much of themselves...idiots really.