Kaveh Ahangar

When I was a child, living in a small village, somewhere between the Dasht-e-Kavir and Kavir-e-Lut, I was fortunate to be favored by the honest, kind, hard-working, and simple local people of that village. Though not religious in the typical sense and common understanding, they would treat me different because I was a "seyyed" from both my paternal & maternal sides. This differentiation used to bother me, even as a kid. When I would ask to be treated like every other kid, they would tell me that I should respect my heritage since the "blood of Seyedoshohada" was running in my veins. There was little I could do to change their views. So when I came to U.S. at young age of 15, I decided to equalize the field and so I began to regularly donate blood. Today, I again, 8 weeks after my last donation, donated blood at work.

After having done this for 35 years, I can imagine multitude of Americans of various ethnicities and religions are running around not knowing that they are "seyyed" too, thanks to my blood donations. And should a war break out between the Islamic Republic and the United States, I shall notify the Islamic Republic's authorities that since shedding a seyyed's blood is a sin in Shia Islam, they must take special care to make sure that their American adversary is not one of those who have been turned into a “seyyed” through my blood donation.

Wishing you all a pleasant 4th of July!