Fundamentalism

"Wise Blood." MCA. $59.95. Considering the product Hollywood has been turning out recently, John Huston's 1979 adaptation of Flannery O'Connor's first novella seems a minor miracle. Without commercial consideration, Huston translated the comic-tragic drama, centered on the gripping power of Bible Belt fundamentalism, into a screen version that fully captures O'Connor's complex vision and style.

Your article by Reza Pahlavi ("The People Will Be Heard," Commentary, June 30) was quite a surprise. Pahlavi has failed to realize that no matter what transpires in Iran and how the events unfold, the righteousness and virtue of the 1979 revolution in Iran is irrefutable. What happened in Iran 14 years ago was a historic event that crushed a tradition of three centuries of exploitation and repression. If there is unrest in Iran, it is quite unthinkable to imagine that the rule of monarchy is the request made by the demonstrators.

The Pope wrings his hands over the plight of poor native tribes in Brazil while attempting to gloss over his church's role in their genocide. Mahony's letter condemns abortion as "one of most evil sins." Try this for another of the most evil of sins: The largest church in the world recommends nothing beyond "rhythm" and celibacy as the answer to the world's most pressing problem, the population explosion. Just say no! Abortion as murder? What do you call the degradation and starvation of overpopulation?

I was discussing with my wife your March 31 Column One article ("Testing Darwin's Teachers") about beleaguered biology teachers trying to teach evolution, and her succinct comment was "what's the difference between this sort of Christian and the fundamentalist Muslims?" I thought that question brought a good perspective to the issue. If we decide to turn every public school into the Western equivalent of a religious madrasa, we will all lose. If some decide they want their kids to have an exclusively faith-based education, there are plenty of private Christian schools in which to enroll those children.

Your editorial, "Evening the Balkans Odds" (April 1), hit the nail right on the head. Unfortunately, it will take strong leadership for that to occur. This is an area in which our President seems to be lacking regarding the former Yugoslavia. Lifting the arms embargo would allow the victims of this brutal genocide to fight for themselves and perhaps put the aggressor back in his place, but without strong leadership this war will go on endlessly. President Clinton's on-again, off-again, policy toward the Balkans sends a very strong signal to nationalist thugs across the world.

"Afghan Path to Peace Goes Through India, Pakistan" (Opinion, Jan. 11) was quite accurate in its analysis of Afghanistan's challenges. There is no doubt that the peace dividend generated from the normalization of India-Pakistan relations will be very conducive to the growth of Afghanistan and South Asia as a whole. However, neither the bloody partition of the subcontinent in 1947, which displaced tens of millions of people, nor the subsequent 56 years of conflict between India and Pakistan, has been the significant factor in destabilizing Afghanistan.

Any list of epochal dates in human history would be incomplete without Oct. 15, 1951, when chemist Carl Djerassi, working in Mexico City with his partner Luis Miramontes, created the oral synthetic hormone progesterone, which became the building block of oral contraceptives. For the first time, women could decide when sex would part company with procreation. For Djerassi the writer, that was another life ago. Although he keeps his hand in as a professor emeritus at Stanford University, his passions have moved on. He endowed the Djerassi Resident Artists Program in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

Re "Unlikely Candidate for Car Bomber," April 15 The story of suicide bomber Raed Mansour Albanna is horrifying -- but not particularly surprising. Despite this administration trying to pretend that the enemy's grievances are primarily political, the reality is that our enemy is an ideology: Islamic fundamentalism. Would Albanna's actions have been any less reprehensible if he'd killed 132 Iraqis with more conventional methods rather than with a car bomb? It is not their method that should scare us, it is their desire to force the world to return to the 14th century.

Growing up female in Iran during the reign of the shah and through the 1979 revolution and its aftermath, when wearing the veil became mandatory and all education was separated by gender and the universities were later closed, was not an easy thing.