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Since the June elections, I have heard many criticisms levied against the Islamic Republic of Iran from the Iranian Diaspora community living in Western Europe and North America. Any objective observer will note that the shortcomings, failures, and yes, crimes of the Islamic Republic, could fill a library. But there is one critique that worries me the most and disheartens my hopes for a better Iran. It is the idea that this government is illegitimate because it is an Islamic government run by leaders of Arab stock.
I hear this criticism often and I ask myself why, and more importantly, what does it imply? Is it directed from the same people who boast that true Iranians are of Aryan descent because of the Indo-European roots of the Persian language? After all, Iranians come in different shades. There are many Iranians whose whiter complexion differs greatly from the darker complexioned Iranians of the south, who are ethnically Arab and have coincidentally not done too well under the Islamic Republic. There are also Iranians who are Lori, Kurds, Azeris, Baloochi, Turk, and many others, who are neither lesser nor greater Iranians than the Iranians of Persian ethnicity. And whether these other ethnicities claim some form of Aryan supremacy over Arabs because of their own languages and dialects, I simply do not know; though if they did. I would say that they too are trapped in an outdated frame of mind.
The Iranian-Arab animosity, typically traced back to the Battle of Qadisiya where the Arab Islamic army crushed the Iranian Sassanian Empire, nearly brought the end of Zoroastrianism religion and changed the face and complexion of Iran. This was approximately fourteen hundred years ago and Iranian politicians, authors and intellectuals are still trying to make sense of it today. When I was in college a classmate of mine asked me why Iranians have not yet forgiven the Americans for the 1953 Mossadegh coup. I told him it was because we are still coping with the victory of the Arabs in 637 AD, and then we have to work our way through to Mongols, the Turks, and don’t forget the British.
We Iranians have a long list of races and nations who have invaded, occupied, and exploited our land, our people, and our culture. Whenever something is wrong with our country, we look at that list and point our finger. It is an easy thing to do and it alleviates any sense of responsibility we might have had. At this point in time, because of the veneer of the Islamic Republic chooses to rule its people, there are critics who attempt to delegitimize this government by accusing it of being Arab, or run by leaders of Arab descent, though I’m not sure why. Perhaps it is, because some of these leaders wear black turbans to denote that they are seyyeds, or descendants of the Prophet Mohammad and his grandsons, thus making their lineage Arab. Or perhaps, they believe it is because these leaders are imposing Islam, originally an Arab religion, on the Iranian people, who had their own monotheistic religion long before Islam. Either way, neither argument holds much weight inside Iran today.
In contrast to the Diaspora community, Iranians in Iran are by and large respectful of Islam, even if the younger generation is politically secular and not religiously devout. Most of the protestors today in Iran see the need of separation of church and state, but most are actually demanding the end of the domination of church over state. They have found peace with the Battle of Qadisiya in a manner we in the Diaspora community have not. They turn their anger and rage at corrupt politicians, while we are still blaming a fourteen hundred year old foe for the state of our homeland and our thirty plus years in exile in foreign nations across the Western hemisphere. Some in Iran are even giving their lives for leaders who use the Prophet and his descendants as examples to resist injustice, while some of us here allow ourselves to think that what they are really fighting for is a monarch, a monarch who is secular, and most of all, not of Arab descent, as if there were some kind of way of realistically tracing that kind of lineage.
Though the people of Iran are imprisoned by fascism, some of us Iranians in America and Europe are prisoners of an even older idea: racism. It is the same ideology that sent twelve million Jews, gypsies, and minorities to the gas chambers in Europe. It is the belief that in order to go forwards and find a better future, one must go backwards, even back to a time that may have never existed, a time before races mixed, and religions changed, a time when everything was pure. The farther one must go back to find a time that they approve of only shows how much further forward they still must go in order to reach a point they are satisfied with, if such a point exists at all. Those who are waiting for the Aryan renaissance in Iran will be waiting for quite some time. Those who are working for a freer Iran where all ethnicities, religions and sexes are recognized equally under the law are, God willing, getting closer and closer to their desires each day.
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