Cynthia, I googled around and found out that Paisley prints are named for the Scottish town of Paisley where the manufacture of these Indian patterns began, inspired by soldiers of the British Empire who returned home with shawls and similar items bearing the same patterns. I think if the Persians wanted a clenched fist to be their symbol, they were talented enough to have just drawn a clenched fist, using the last phalange of the pinkie finger when viewed sideways in a fist would not have conveyed the message at all. Personally, I thought the design came from nature and would be a leaf, a flower petal or a tear-drop. Never in a million years would it occur to me to associate that design with a clenched fist.
I know lots of Iranians here. They're all kinds. Mostly refugees from the Islamic Revolution and admirers of the Shah, one of the worst torturers and murderers of recent history and a puppet of American and British interests. We argue a lot about the Shah but pretty much agree on the current regime. None of them has anything against the State of Israel, which they all seem to admire, and can't understand why I have any objections to Jewish policy on the West Bank. Some of the older ones seem to see the injustice of it, but have extremely negative opinions of the Arabs which I think they use to mitigate their objections to the injustices. A lot of the younger ones are completely apolitical or at least have no interest at all in Middle Eastern politics.
Your comments on hate are interesting. I think they're probably true, but you lost sight of one important consideration: to really hate, you have to be an underdog. You have to be somebody who is fucked over repeatedly by more powerful interests, treated with contempt and disrespect, seen relatives and friends just like you tortured and murdered, exploited and cast aside. The Iranians and the Arabs have been sucking it up for years from the Americans, British and Jews and they are naturally filled with hate. Even so there is no evidence of American, British or Jewish prisoners of the Arabs or Iranians being tortured. There is not a single instance of Americans taken prisoner in the war in Iraq being tortured. But it is Americans and British who torture THEIR prisoners. It is the Supreme Court of Israel which has legalized torture of Arab prisoners.
The torture used routinely by U.S. troops and then hidden from public view is not an expression of their hatred so much as it is a cold-blooded instrument of domination, of inducing fear among potential Resistance fighters, of racism (showing these "ragheads" or "hajis" or "sand niggers" who is the boss.) It's also, to the effect that it's used as a military tactic of dubious effectiveness, an indicator of the moral collapse of America, as obviously the moral scruples that prevented them from using this tactic in both World Wars has by now totally evaporated.
