I just found out that the French aunt with whom I am in contact (for the first time in 27 years)... her husband will be going to visit Iran. Pleasure trip. My mother said "wow, foreign concept." That's putting it lightly. I may never be able to go in my life time! Uh, now, why would I want to go? Well, that's where the Baha'i Faith started. And, once upon a time, there were Baha'i holy places there - though most have now been desecrated and demolished by the State, including homes, temples, and cemeteries. Yup, cemeteries - bulldozed and replaced with a parking lot... Not a very nice thing to do.
For those of you who don't know, Iran doesn't like Baha'is. In fact, just by being a Baha'i you are breaking the law in Iran because you believe in someone 'after' Muhammed (He was the 'Seal of the Prophets'). Many Iranian Baha'is have been martyred simply for being a Baha'i. Many more have lost everything because Baha'is are technically not considered human beings there, so their property is 'up for grabs'. They also can not hold jobs with the government, get an education, etc., etc., etc. Recently, Iran has changed tactics. Since they haven't managed to 'eradicate' the Baha'is (350,00 some odd in Iran), they've decided to make it very, very easy to leave the country, whereas it used to be nigh unto impossible to leave. Of course, we don't really want all the Baha'is to have to leave - we want conditions to improve... we shall see.
On the other hand, erm, I'd love to meet my new-found French relatives. Unfortunately, the French government seems to think I owe them taxes from when I worked at the Universite d'Angers. I asked the university about it, and they told me that had never happened to any other lecturer before - and left it at that. Grr. And 1000 Euros (and compounding) is a lot of money. I need to look into whether I can enter France without, well, running into problems... How frustrating!! I tried explaining to the government that I didn't owe them money. Yeah, you can imagine how successful that was!! Oh well. We'll see.
You know, Mara(?), we have a lot of lawyers in our family. Do you think maybe one of them might be willing to look into the situation for you? You could ask Isabelle for suggestions.
Well, I don't really want to start our relationship that way.
By the way, what other name would I go by?