History

Where were you on Aug 19, 1953?

On the occasion of 28 Mordad (Aug 19, 1953), I thought that by translating and summarizing parts of these recollections, some of which are quite fascinating and moving, we might see the past from different perspectives. In many ways, while Iran is being targeted on all fronts, whether right or wrong, the events of Aug 1953 are still with us in the most haunting way. Writers, scholars and people in general, Iranians and Americans alike, continue to be mesmerized with what really took place on those days when a nation’s destiny was changed overnight, trying to analyze these events and to find answers to the many questions they raise. Above all, more than that of any other Iranian political figure of modern times, Mossadegh’s legacy lives on>>>

The good monarch

In a recent article, titled “UN Treasure Honors Persian Despot,” Spiegel Magazine criticizes the United Nations for recognizing an ancient artifact believed by many to be the world’s first declaration of human rights. The “Persian Despot” of course is Cyrus The Great, the author of the doctrine inscribed on the outer surface of a clay cylinder housed at the British Museum in London where it’s simply known as the Cyrus Cylinder. When this cylinder was discovered in 1879, amid the ruins of Babylon, it made huge headlines in the Christian West. It was the first time a biblical story had been confirmed through archaeology. But the euphoria quickly wore off. The democratic age had no room for a celebrated monarch>>>

نامحرم با تاریخ

ما ایرانی‌ها دو خصیصۀ متنافر داریم: یکی اینکه وقتی به ما بگویند که بالای چشممان ابروست بی‌تامل می‌رنجیم و دیگر اینکه همواره این احساس را داریم که خدنگی چشممان را می‌خلد غافل از اینکه این خدنگ از ابروی خودمان است. کم کم دارند این دو خصیصۀ ظاهرا همزاد، در عرصۀ تاریخ (امروز همراه جامعه‌شناسی) به خطری جدی تبدیل می‌شوند: انتقاد تنها از دشمن مجاز است. در نتیجه «عیب‌بینی» بی‌لحظه‌ای درنگ «عیب‌جویی» تلقی می‌شود و بینندۀ عیب در خط مقدم نبرد جای می‌گیرد. پس لازم است که لشکری برای رویارویی با دشمن خط مقدم نبرد انگیخته شود. از سوی دیگر، چون عادت ما بر این است که هر کس در برداشت‌های سیاسی و اجتماعی و تاریخی راه خود را برود و جناحی برای خود راه بیاندازد، تکان بخوری، با دلتای هزارشاخه‌ای رو‌به‌رو می‌شوی، که در مصب هم آرام نمی‌گیرد. از این است که شمشیرهای پنهان و از روبستۀ ما از شدت چکاچک همیشه کند هستند.>>>

Ray of light

Iran is suffering one of the darkest cultural periods in its history. The old fruitful tree which once survived the coldest seasons is slowly withering away, her roots invaded by internal and external diseases. Our national identity is invaded by cultural agents of Arabs making us alien to ourselves as a nation. But there are always Iranians who endure the difficulties to remind us of who we are, and connect us to our roots and make us proud of ourselves, as a nation which has influenced world culture throughout history. In my opinion, “Iran the Forgotten Glory” is a very well crafted and innovative documentary film which serves this purpose>>>

Oldest Living Iranian

On the Silk Road from Yazd to Shiraz, in the desert city of Abarkuh, stands the oldest living being in Iran (perhaps in the whole world) . It is at least five thousand years old, and some say eight thousand. Ancient and mysterious even to botanists (who cannot decide on its true age), the Cypress Tree of Abarkuh is surrounded by legends and revered by countless visitors. To anyone approaching it, the tree appears more mineral than vegetable. You are confronted by a wall of massive trunks - 19 meters thick - packed together tightly like the tentacles of a giant squid, each one vying with others for space and for sky>>>

The weak against the strong

“My own conviction is that the mere tyranny of an autocrat would hardly have driven the patient and tractable people of Persia into revolt had tyranny at home been combined with any maintenance of prestige abroad or any moderately efficient guardianship of Persian independence. It was the combination of inefficiency, extravagance, and lack of patriotic feeling with tyranny which proved insupportable; and a constitutional form of Government was sought not so much for its own sake as for the urgent necessity of creating a more honest, efficient, and patriotic Government than the existing one.” >>>

The First Iranian American

Mirza Mohammad Ali, better known as Hajj Sayyah (meaning the traveler), was born in 1836 in the town of Mahallat in Iran. His studies exposed him at a young age to modern and democratic ideas that were at the time spreading throughout parts of the world. The stark difference he observed between the treatment suffered by most Iranians under their autocratic rulers and the ideas he studied inspired him to see the rest of the world. At the age of 23, Hajj Sayyah embarked on a remarkable journey around the globe that would last for nearly 18 years. He began his travels by wandering throughout Central Asia and Europe for more than six years. Often he traveled alone and in poverty>>>

Islam, Nationalism and Democracy

Islam, like any other religion, has to wear the national dress of the people in order to enter a new land. The strict fundamentalists see only the religious dogmas and try to suppress the expression of any cultural nuances within the religious form. But life gradually removes their illusions and covers the religious dogmas with local colors. It seems that V. S. Naipaul, in his trip, was mostly surrounded by Islamic fundamentalists, especially the Wahhabi type. He takes the Wahhabi's approach toward Islam and extends it to all islamic factions. In Afghanistan, the Taleban destroyed the twin Buddha on Bamian rocks, but the Zoroastrian fire temples in Iran, and the holy Buddhist sites in Indonesia, still stand and resist religious conformity. >>>

Persia is under attack!

First came the 300 Spartans; and now the Spiegel article! The 300 were bunch of good looking and brave guys who fought this vast army of nasty looking and savage Persians. Ok. I can take that; even though from that savagery not much is left in me. In fact I could've really used a bit of that when confronting my neighbors, kids, manager, lender, ..., and above all my wife! But all that looks a distant dream now :-) But what has kept me going in the last few decades is the fact that the first human rights charter has been attributed to Persians. The Cyrus Cylinder, which is a magnificent ancient piece if nothing else, is supposedly inscribed with the human rights charter as decreed by the king of Persia, Cyrus the Great>>>

Going down the tube

Chalmers Johnson writes: “Most Americans do not recognize-or do not want to recognize-that the United States dominates the world through its military power. Due to government secrecy, they are often ignorant of the fact that their government garrisons the globe. They do not realize that a vast network of American military bases on every continent constitutes a new form of empire... Our country deploys well over half a million soldiers, spies, technicians, teachers, … in other nations… . Whole sectors of the American economy have come to rely on the military for sales.” >>>

New age martyr

This day, on 9 July 1850, at noon, the Bab was put to death by firing squad in the public square of Tabriz, Iran. Six years earlier, He had declared that He was a messenger of God whose mission was to prepare the way for the imminent arrival of the Promised One of all religions who would come to establish a new age of peace and prosperity in the world. In 1863, Baha’u’llah announced publicly that He was that Promised One. The Bab attracted tens of thousands of people to His teachings, thousands of whom were killed in persecutions that swept Iran>>>

Layer after layer

The general belief prevailing among common people, Zoroastrians or not, is that the Avesta constitutes the “Sacred Books of the Zoroastrians.” Looking at the sacred scriptures of other living religions, it should be so. Baha’ism, Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, and Sikhism, have their relevant sacred books. A closer look would, however, reveal that the conscious or unconscious founder of each religion or order had his or her inspired or thought-out message conveyed in person. Later the successors added much around the nucleus of the founding message and consequently produced a collection of writings, some of them in a different dialect or language>>>

History in limbo

For the past few months, the legal proceedings surrounding the sale of Persian artifacts on loan to American museums and universities had remained mostly dormant. That is, until, revelations occurred on three separate fronts of the issue. In the case of the Northern Illinois case Rubin et al. v IRI, two very separate developments have occurred. On March 29, new plaintiffs emerged seeking the clay tablets from Persepolis which are already targeted by the victims of a 1997 Jerusalem attack, Rubin et al. these additional plaintiffs want to lay claim to the artifacts so as to sell them and receive payment for a $2.7 billion decision in their favor>>>

Isfahan - City of Polish Children

The Polish Postal Service has commemorated the role Isfahan played during World War 2 in caring for Polish orphans. The new stamp, "Isfahan - the City of Polish Children", went on sale earlier this month. It depicts a pupil at School No. 15 near Isfahan (Stanislaw Stojakowski), standing in front of a Persian carpet woven at the city's Carpet School in 1944. In 1942, Isfahan housed thousands of Polish orphans released from the Soviet work camps of Siberia and Kazakhstan>>>