Dear Mr President

Over a month ago, on learning that the Iranian government was going to sponsor a conference on the veracity of the Holocaust, I decided to email the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran to express my concerns. What!? You were going to email the President of Iran, you might be asking with incredulity? Amazingly, I had discovered while living in the United Kingdom in 2003, you could write to the President of Iran but not the great democrat, Tony Blair. Only now has Mr. Blair figured out how to set up his email account to the relief of his 60 million constituents. So yes, I could email the President of Iran at my leisure, in English no less (though a reply, like with my country’s politicians, was not likely to be forthcoming).

In choosing to email President Ahmadinejad, I was hoping to respectfully express my concerns about the proposed conference. There is little use denying the Holocaust. It happened. My grandfather saw some of the death camps when he fought in World War 2 and I’ve been told by my mother never to forget this tragedy. I never will.

I had hoped to pass on this personal message to the president. Most importantly I wanted to warn him not to directly or indirectly create an association between Iran and genocide, fascism and racism. The skinheads and neo-Nazis that will travel to this conference are not welcome company especially for a nation of brown people, like me. I anxiously await news that the first Iranian has been stamped into the ground by a gang of neo-Nazis in Tehran for daring to be himself around superior Aryans (ironically Iranians hold more of a claim to that title than Bavarians). This conference, if it ever happens, will be nothing short of ridiculous.

Ahmadinejad knows that Europe’s unprecedented and grotesque violence of the 1940s provided Israel with the manpower and moral power to crush the Arab armies that invaded British mandate Palestine to “drive the Jews into the sea”. His argument therefore should be with the Europeans, not their victims. Ultimately the victims turned victors would form one of the strongest states in the world. Israel continues to do very well out of the Holocaust, silencing criticism of itself with 6 million arguments called anti-Semitism. The president is attempting to undermine this infinite interest-free moral credit advanced by Europeans by challenging its solid foundation as opposed to its exploitation for political ends. He will convince no one by employing this tactic.

On the surface of this conference is the pretension of academic debate, though I doubt Holocaust-believing (strange term right?) scholars will be invited. There is to be no discussion, no sharing of perspectives; the outcome has already been decided. According to Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi, Iran had a right to "hear all opinions" on the Holocaust "and chose the best one". So I was discouraged from writing and haven't since I wrote this short piece. Maybe President Ahmadinejad will read my blog . . . I doubt it.

I am sympathetic to Iran’s arguments. If we in the West are allowed nuclear weapons and show no signs of disarming as we are obliged to do under international law, then all nations have rights to these worst of weapons and we should get on with scouring the earth of our hypocritical infection. Israel holds the Middle East hostage through its nuclear arsenal and must be disarmed. The Palestinians should have their state now. But to persist in promoting these falsehoods around the Holocaust is indefensible.

I long for the day Muslims reject the rotten doctrine of an eye for an eye and embrace the nonviolent side of their natures. That day Israelis, Europeans and North Americans will fall upon their knees before the true heirs of the Prophet Muhammad and Imams Ali and Hussein and beg forgiveness.