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Father:
Eyn-ol Molk, Ambassador of Persia to Saudi Arabia
Mother: Afsar-ol Molouk, the wise aristocrat
Brother: Amir Abbas Hoveyda, Unique Prime Minister of Iran
Spouse: Gisela
Daughters: Mandana and Roxana
1924
- Fereydoun Hoveyda (FH) was born in Damascus, Syria on September
21sth of this year (Diplomatic Family). He studied in Beirut, Lebanon
and later he earned a Ph.D. in International Law and Economics from
the Sorbonne University in Paris, France.
1947
- 1951 - After his studies, FH had joined the Iranian Foreign Service
and eventually became Press Attaché of the Imperial Iranian
Embassy in Paris, France.
1948
- FH participated in the drafting of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights.
1952 - 1966
- FH worked in Department of Mass Communication in UNESCO.
1965
- FH's brother, Amir Abbas Hoveyda, occupied the office of Prime
Minister of Iran and devotedly served Iran for many years.
1965 - 1966
- FH took charge as Imperial Iran's deputy foreign minister in charge
of International Organizations.
1971 - 1979
- FH served Iran as the Imperial Iranian Ambassador to United Nation.
1979
- Amir Abbas Hoveyda were savagely executed by Islamist Baboons
and FH lost his spirit and went into a deep sorrow; however, he
regained control and got a hold of himself to not withdraw from
the society.
Later on in
exile, FH became a Senior Consultant at the National Committee on
American Foreign Policy. He started painting, lecturing and writing
books.
2006
- Fereydoun Hoveyda passed away at age 82.
Fereydoun Hoveyda The Painter!
Yes many do
not know that he was a painter! As an artist FH conducted many Art
Shows. FH had developed a different technique in painting via leaving
a very narrow white space between papers. According to Andy Warhol,
"FH combines his literary sensitivity, his cinematic instinct,
and his international experience, to create images that are beautiful,
perceptive, and funny."
Cinematic Instinct?!
Fereydoun Hoveyda The Cinematographer!
I bet many of
you are not aware of Fereydoun Hoveyda's cinema career or shall
we say hobby! For instance:
* FH
was an Actor in "Le Signe du Lion" (1959), Directed by
Eric Rohmer (Product of France)
* FH
was a Screen Writer for "India: Matri Bhumi" (1959), Directed
by Roberto Rossellini (Product of Italy and France)
* FH
was also a founding contributor of "Cahiers du Cinema,"
the influential French film magazine.
Fereydoun Hoveyda The Author
Fereydoun Hoveyda
has left us some valuable books:
1956 - "Histoire du roman policier" (History of
the detective novel), was given a preface by Jean Cocteau.
Mystery and
Sci Fi Articles - FH became a regular contributor to Mystery Magazine,
the French counterpart of Ellery Queen's magazine Fiction, a science-fiction
monthly.
1962
- "Les Quarantaines" (The Quarantines), the plot was of
a French-educated Arab, living in France during the Algerian war,
caught between his traditional Arab culture and his Western education.
Using cinematic and psychoanalytic techniques, FH describes accurately
and vividly the emotions of the growing group of multicultured Middle-Eastern
people and their problems. The novel succumbed to polemics in the
heat of the Algerian war, but was eventually honored as a "healer"
between Western and Eastern cultures.
1965
- "The Airport", recounted the production of a script,
in two weeks, by a Paris-born American film director. In the course
of his writing, many questions concerning the coming of the age
of image and the relationship between cinema, literature, and metaphysics
were illuminated for the filmmaker.
1968
- "In a Strange Land", is the story of a child who feels
cheated by his own parents. In this novel FH applied to literature,
the techniques of comic books to underline the distance between
the words of adults and children.
1969
- "Le Losange" (The Lozenge), a collection of science-fiction
stories (once again FH escaped to Sci Fi).
1973
- "Les Neiges du Sinai" (The snows of the Sinai). This
novel concerned a French-born American writer drifting towards alcoholism.
It opens with the protagonist reading the Sunday edition of the
New York Times. In this work FH used in many ways the techniques
of the stream-of-consciousness.
Other Articles
and Novels - FH also wrote a number of other French novels and articles.
1979 - 1980 - "The Fall of The Shah" (La chute
du Chah), a personal account of the events that led to the tragic
death of his brother, the long-time Prime Minister of Iran.
1983
- "The Feudal Nights", is basically an autobiographical
piece.
1985
- "The Sword of Islam" is his first historical novel.
In this book, FH discusses the rise of Islam in the 7th Century
and its first sixty years.
1991
- "Que veulent les Arabes " (What Do The Arabs Want?),
this hook is an essay on the Middle East.
1992
- "Les Miroirs du Mollah"
1993
- "L'Islam Bloque"
1994
- FH released a study in English on various subjects.
1999
- The Broken Crescent
The "Threat" of Militant Islamic Fundamentalism
This is a very important book. This book was originally published
in English rather than French! In this book, Fereydoun Hoveyda explores
and talks about the historical and contemporary causes of the current
wave of militant Islamic fundamentalism. Despite their terrorist
attacks in the West, he also shows why fundamentalists are even
more dangerous for Muslim countries that are desperately trying
to catch up with the incipient global economy and alleviate their
accumulated social and economic problems.
2002
- Studies on Islamic Fundamentalism
2003
- "The Shah and the Ayatollah: Iranian Mythology and Islamic
Revolution"
Allow me to
quote from a friend:
"Fereydoun
Hoveyda's Novels concentrate on characters pertaining to two or
more cultures simultaneously. People whom have two completely separate
cultures. FH in his work searches for the ultimate unity of all
human cultures."
Fereydoun Hoveyda's Greatest Work
His greatest
work in my opinion was to create and operate an informative website
on Amir Abbas Hoveyda, to keep his memory alive.
Amir
Abbas Hoveyda Website
I certainly
hope that someone would continue operating this informative website
and it will not end up fading away!
Great Quotes from Fereydoun Hoveyda
I can write
a various number of pages on quotes from FH, yet allow me to stick
with some good ones. Quotes from Fereydoun Hoveyda's famous Interview
with Mark Dankof.
Mark
Dankof
http://www.markdankof.com/
Fereydoun
Hoveyda:
On Iran and
Iranians
"I will repeat what has already been said by others about Iran.
And that is that no one, not even Iranians themselves, understands
Iran. . . . At one level, the 1979 Islamic Revolution was the outcome
of a personal struggle between two men, Shah Mohamad Reza Pahlavi
and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The Shah won the first round in
1963 after riots provoked by the latter. He arrested Khomeini and
later exiled him. Then, of course, 16 years later, Khomeini triumphed
in the second round and returned to Iran after the flight of his
enemy. Each of them partially represented one of the key, basic,
contradictory trends that agitated the nation since the early years
of the twentieth century-secularist modernization on the one hand,
in juxtaposition with religious orthodoxy and traditionalism on
the other."
On Khomeini
"Khomeini's 1979 revolution in Iran is both obscure and baffling.
In November of 1978, it is noteworthy that Khomeini received an
offer in Paris to return to Iran with international guarantees of
freedom of speech and physical safety. He refused and followed this
refusal with a demand for the departure of the Shah. One must remember
that it was the Americans who put pressure on the Shah to leave
Iran. But when Khomeini finally returned to Iran, he attempted to
demand the Shah's return along with a trial by Islamic tribunal.
In 1979, the world was stunned by the fact that the Shah's dictatorship
was overthrown by Iranians, only to be followed by the Iranian people's
acquiescence to the harsher dictatorship of Khomeini and the Islamic
Republic."
On Fundamentalist
Islam
"Many years ago, well before the Islamic Revolution in Iran,
my studies brought to me a number of observations. When looking
at Latin America, it occurred to me that these societies were stuck
in the late 19th and very early 20th centuries. There were problems
with both nationalism and internal in-fightings. In contrast to
the Indo-European tradition, which kept the military out of internal
political machinations and interventions, one sees the military
constantly involved in domestic political meddlings in Latin America.
"However, when you look at Islamic societies, it occurs to
me that they are far more troubled than even the Latin American
groupings. Islamic nations are stuck in the 12th century. During
my studies in Paris years ago, I would ask myself, 'Why is this,
when during the Middle Ages, the Islamic nations were largely ahead
of the Western ones in many scientific, technological, and commercial
developments-and possessed a largely multicultural society and ethos?
……
But I believe I discovered the reason for the decline of intellectual
achievement in the Islamic world after the Middle Ages, and the
subsequent rise in influence in this arena on the part of the European
West, during my studies 40 years ago. I discovered that it was around
the 12th century that fundamentalist interpretations of the Islamic
Quran won the upper hand. With the exception of astronomy, the caliphs,
in their alliance with the fundamentalist interpreters of the Quran-and
the military-began to extinguish the free, open-ended, inquiring
scientific mindset that had previously existed in the Islamic world,
much to the long term detriment of everyone. The only reason astronomy
didn't get completely extinguished is that the fundamentalist scholars
and caliphs needed it to determine the beginning of Ramadan. All
the rest of science was rejected."
On Arafat
"Arafat is no statesman. He is incorrigible, an opportunist,
a trouble-maker. He is a totally duplicitous man, a terrible person,
and yes, a terrorist. ……, Arafat became the first foreign
dignitary to visit and kiss the hand of the Ayatollah before joining
forces with Saddam Hussein in the war against Iran! This is the
caliber of man and human being we are talking about here, who brings
misery and bloodbath to Palestinian, Lebanese, Iranian, American,
and Israeli victims alike."
On Clash
of Civilizations
"The notion of a clash of civilizations between the Islamic
world on the one hand, and the Jewish and Christian worlds on the
other, is completely absurd. The real clash should be understood
as one between a dangerous medieval mindset, which expresses itself
in the most aberrant fundamentalist religious expressions employing
mythology in all of these religious traditions, and a modern, scientific,
technological approach to the world and global civilization.'
On Mohamad
Reza Shah Pahlavi
"Now, in terms of this man [the Shah], I remember my last conversation
with my brother on the telephone after the Shah's departure. My
brother was appalled that this man would run away from his historic
responsibilities to defend the interests of his nation during a
crisis, and to argue the merits of his own motives and legacy. A
captain of a ship must be willing to go down with it, if he must.
This is his responsibility. Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, in history,
will always be tainted because he abdicated his responsibilities
at a most crucial juncture in the history of the Iranian nation.
He will never escape this historical evaluation-ever.
On His Excellency
Amir Abbas Hoveyda
"Amir, like many of us of the same generation in Iran with
Western educations, believed that the development of an economic
infrastructure in Iran was the necessary ingredient and prelude
to the development of a political superstructure that would sustain
political reform and the development of a Constitutional model along
the lines of the European ones, with special deference of course
to Iranian culture and mythologies. Despite his, and our best efforts,
the subsequent failures in this regard made me aware of what I had
begun to see in the early 1960s-that ultimately Iran was a prisoner
of its own mythologies. Now in terms of my brother's death, he understood
that he must remain in Iran, to defend his record and to continue
there as a positive presence for reform for the people of that country.
He also believed, mistakenly, that there would be a fair trial in
which he would demonstrate that he had nothing to hide, and plenty
to testify about in terms of his role and motives in history. It
is this legacy of remaining, and testifying, at the ultimate cost
of his life, that will forever distinguish my brother from Shah
Mohammed Reza Pahlavi and the others in his Court who fled for themselves
and gave up the Ship."
On Reza Pahlavi
II
"He will suffer from two deficiencies. I think he is probably
a nice man, but his father's legacy of avoiding responsibility and
fleeing his own country will follow the Prince as well, even if
that is ultimately unfair. This is the way it is. He has the legacy
of the last name. Second, I must confess that I find this young
fellow to be somewhat superficial in the things he says about Iran's
future and his own role in it. Talking about democracy and economic
reform are fine, but I can't say that I truly believe that this
man has any constructive, deep ideas about how to achieve this,
or how to spearhead such a movement through his personal leadership.
These are ultimately fatal flaws in any analysis of Reza Pahlavi's
chances of leading Iran into a new way, a new era. That is my verdict."
On Future
Salvation of Iran
There must be a political and cultural alternative in Iran that
is neither Achaemenid kingship nor Islamic theocracy, but the development
of an honest Republic. If this change does not occur, Iran is doomed.
The economic downturn and the well publicized brain drain from Iran
to the West will be accelerated if there is not a third alternative
to these elements of a failed, tragic past. But it must not be an
attempted copy of European or American constitutional models, but
a constitutional republican model that takes account of the unique
role and influence of Iranian mythologies.
Fereydoun Hoveyda, The Scholar
"Many are
schooled, yet only a few are truly educated," I always say
that! Well, FH was surely one of the educated ones! Amir Abbas Hoveyda
was my GodFather and my memories of him are sweet yet vague. I know
Amir Abbas Hoveyda; however, I truly did not know Fereydoun Hoveyda,
because during the 16 years which I lived in Iran, he was barely
there! He was always the absent Hoveyda! He was in Iran when I was
a child, and then Specifically from 1971 - 1978 when I was grown
up (Early Teen Years), he was out of the picture and in UN. So I
never got to know the man, yet I have known of him through third
parties. From what I have known of him and heard of him, I can state
that he was a great scholar and a gentleman. Like myself, he believed
in a Republic as the final solution; however, he emphasized on the
element of Nationalism.
In exile, we
also did not get to visit each other. He was residing in East Coast
(New York, Virginia, etc.) and I was residing in West Coast USA.
I really did not know the man in person and never had the pleasure
to get to know him.
Since 2000,
when I found IPC, I started my contacts with Fereydoun Hoveyda.
We traded E-mails and discussed various issues.
A Dialogue with Fereydoun Hoveyda
Fereydoun Hoveyda
was a scholar and a gentleman; Fereydoun Hoveyda was an optimist.
I have a digital memory and I clearly recall this particular dialogue:
X:
I wish you health and happiness
FH: Thank
you, same goes for you.
X:
Fereydoun Khan, you are "The Last of The Mohicans"! You
are the last of the Statesmen with backbones! The story is finished
and you are it and then we are done!
FH: Come
on, there are others to take charge.
X:
Have you read my letter to Reza Phlavi where I stated,
"Even though Hoveyda did not want to leave, your father could
easily force him to leave or send a couple of guys to drag him out
of jail, put him on the plane to leave Iran. Your father took his
Doberman Pinchers, yet he left Hoveyda to rot in prison! Your father
cared about his dogs more than he cared for his close comrades like
Hoveyda! When they opened the prison doors (right before Mullahs
took over), and everyone had left (statesmen and military-men),
Hoveyda decided to stay and defend himself in an International Trial!
In my opinion, Hoveyda was not in the right mind when he stubbornly
chose to remain in prison and wait in Iran for a trial. This resulted
in his death only after a show trial! The least Alahazrat could
do was to force Hoveyda to leave, even if he had to kidnap him and
drag him out of Iran! The reason Hoveyda was in the prison at the
first place, was because Alahazrat put him there to save his own
neck, so the least that he could do was to save him rather than
saving his dogs!"
FH: Yes
I read the whole letter.
X:
Have you read the part where I asked Reza Pahlavi: "How do
you expect us to be your comrades when your father done such with
his comrades? Are you going to do the same with your comrades?"
FH: Yes
I did
X:
The Letter That Reza Pahlavi did not answer! What could he say?
Nothing!
FH: Yes
I recall. The problem with you is that like many Iranians you live
in the past. You need to forgive and forget. You can't carry the
burden forever.
X:
It is not easy.
FH: I
know very well that it is not, but we need to move on. What's done
is done. That's the past. Let's look at the future.
X:
What future? Do you know how hard and for how long I have tried
to unite this opposition? And where did it take me?
FH: I
know, I know …………
X:
Let me be very frank with you, in the past, we had Great Statesmen
with backbones, great scholars with large conscience and small egos.
Today we have small men with large egos and barely any conscience!
In the past we had "Legends" but now we have "Sewer
Rats". The Sewer Rats in dreams of becoming Legends; yet, Sewer
Rats are only rats and can never become Legends, because they do
not have the means to become Legends!
FH: You
are working yourself up, you are too hard on yourself. You need
to relax and collect your thoughts.
X:
In the past we had Bakhtiars, Hoveydas, and Aryamaneshes, but now
we have Sewer Rats with large heads! We have useless bums like Reza
Pahlavi and then we have hand kissers and illiterate baboons all
around the political spectrum of Iran!
FH: You
need to be positive, look forward and be an optimist.
X:
Fereydoun Khan, show me a shred of hope, show me a gleam of light,
show me a slight chance of unity, show me a group of devoted nationalists
who are willing to put their money where their mouths are, and show
me soldiers who are willing to lie down their lives for Iran; show
me these factors and then I will have hope and become an optimist?!
FH: Something
must give. I believe soon or late something must give. We cannot
become disappointed and distracted.
X:
Yes something gave but then he got killed! If Shafiq
(Shahryar Shafiq) was alive, then it was a different story, but
instead, Shafiq is dead (assassinated by Hezbollah) but useless
Reza Pahlavi is alive! Mullahs surely know who to kill and who not
to! They only kill those who are relevant to create a change! Why
would they bother killing Reza Pahlavi, Kebrit-e Bi Khatar (The
Safe Matchbox)?
FH: Captain
Shafiq was a different story.
X:
Isn't it ironic how a half-breed from an Arab father (Shafiq) could
truly make a change, yet a pure Aryan (Reza Pahlavi) is a waste
of oxygen?
FH: Forget
what occurred and forget the past. Concentrate on the future and
concentrate on yourself. Have optimism and look forward.
X:
I try
FH:
Be positive
X:
I try. Best wishes to you Fereydoun Khan.
FH: Take
care, do good and be positive, always positive ………..
Final Days
Few days ago
I E-mailed him and I never received a response! It is not like him
to not get back right away! Right there I knew that something was
wrong! Obviously Cancer had finally launched the last offensive!
Fereydoun Hoveyda
was a down to Earth scholar and a gentleman. He made a change for
the better. He was a true nationalist and he was a reformer from
within the Imperial Regime. This is really ironic! When I was old
enough to really get to know The GodFather (Amir Abbas Hoveyda),
they kicked me out of Iran into Exile and next thing I heard was
that they killed him! Now, as soon as I had a chance to really get
to know Fereydoun Khan, he also passed away!
Tears are dropping
down on my face, but I cannot be certain if these tears are for
Fereydoun Khan, for myself or for Iran and Iranians!
……
It is now 9 AM and a beautiful sunshine lights-up the sky outside.
I am still sitting behind my computer and typing this article in
my home-office. From time to time, I get distracted from my writings
and go in deep thoughts! I look outside the window of my second
floor home-office into the street. It has a good view; I stare into
the light and into the sun, but all I see is the dark and the fading
moon ….., so I stare into the abyss, The Last of The Mohicans
Has Left Us!
Fereydoun Khan,
I promise to continue the struggle, I promise to stick with the
cause, I promise to remain positive ………….. I
promise to remain positive ………………
I promise ……………
Dr. X
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