I swear if I see that Cyrus the Great scroll one more time, I’m going to hurl. That and another Rumi celebration. The obsession we seem to have with our past may seem adorably cute to non-Iranians at a cocktail party, until they suddenly realize that we actually have a particular ADD-like problem when it comes to the great culture of Persia. This awkward pause usually occurs after we have dominated the entire conversation, informing and educating the quieter and quieter crowd, as to how Persia has given the world the following, (in no apparent order);
Beer
The concept of a holy trinity: Father, Man (the Son), Angels (The Holy Ghost)
The Halo as the commonly used identifier of Angels
The concept of gift giving during the Winter Solstice (Christmas)
Ice Cream
Aqueducts and long range irrigation
Indoor Plumbing and the Sewer System
Air Conditioning
Coinage
The Postal System
One of the first written languages
The Battery
and Ok, FINE! The first Human Rights declaration. Sort of.
No matter how benevolent we have painted Cyrus the Great over the many years we have been forced to worship him, I can’t help but remind us all of the relatively high number of graves dug as a result of his undoubted eagerness and enthusiasm in bringing human rights to all he waged war on. “You are going accept freedom, even if I have to enslave you!” One thing is certain that in the eyes of Cyrus everyone was equal. To say it another way, everyone paid taxes equally. The film 300 (and eons of Greek propaganda aside) illustrated, rather elegantly what happened to you if you didn’t.
So how did we get from being the world’s tax collectors and first organized protection racket, to this? Actually I don’t even know what this is? Trying to define Homo Iroonius is about as easy as trying to understand what the hell GW is saying during any press conference. Looking back a mere 100 years and it appears even more confusing. The Qajars, oft blamed for selling off the country to the West to feed a Monarch’s depravity, sounds bad until you look at the Pahlavis who replaced them. The same level of blame can be attached to the Pahlavis, only this time selling off the country’s oil, not to feed depravity per se (Ashraf’s pornography collection excepted), but more and more as it is uncovered, a deeply complexed and increasingly paranoid Monarch. All apparently the result of not enough Daddy time. And finally, to this latest incarnation of “Monarchy”. Some diseased blend of bizarre self flagellant voodoo. Organically grown to be sure, yet infested with a blight so deep, to create an entirely new species, that simultaneously gives fruit to and feeds off of self-perpetuating apathy.
A prime example of this is the claim, that everything is America’s fault. Anti-regime Iranians abroad, angrily wave the Pro-Iranian flag (albeit lion adorned) and claim it is America’s fault (specifically Jimmy Carter’s) that today’s Iran is not the airline-pilot-after-shave infused Iran of the 70’s. Pro-regime Iranians inside (and apparently some in Canada) wave the Pro-Iranian flag (albeit allah-trimmed), and claim it is America’s fault that today’s Iran cannot become a true if unnatural islamic Iran they claim it is ordained to become.
So it’s certainly not getting any better. We’re not evolving. Shit, compared to this tracking path of the devolutionary journey of Homo Iroonius, the previously thought historical embarrassment of the Qajar period was a fricking enlightenment!
