Iranologie

 
Travel

Just a quick note to tell everyone that I am off to a short trip to Texas and will be back after the Iranian New Year (this year it falls on early morning of March 20th, 2004 GST). I will probably not be able to update until this coming Saturday, but will tell you all about the land of Dubbya and John Wayne!

Also sorry for not writing and continuing the discussion. I will follow-up seriously in the new year. Meanwhile, have a look at Cappuccino Magazine's Norooz Issue (to be published March 18, 2004).

Happy New Year and Norooz Pirooz.

 
Divisions of History

I guess a positive side-product of studying history, or rather a fascinating sort of history, is finding out about the history of ideas. Many of our everyday norms are actually quite amusing and are based on ideas of very ancient people. Indeed it is a great question to as why there are 12 months in a year? Why 24 hours in a day? Who created the seven day week? Who came up with the idea of chronology?

Obviously, "History" and "Time" are very much dependent on each other. History is the story of the passage of time and how that time was spent. However, dividing that history into time periods is not as natural. We are quite used to dividing everything in history into three periods: "ancient/old", "middle", and "modern/new". We have ancient history, medieval history, modern history, as we have Old English, Middle English, and Modern English. These divisions are quite convenient, and at the same time can be misleading. By nature, they dictate a breaking point. People expect to find a point when the world stopped being "ancient" and became "middle", or when "old english" became "middle english". The problem is, it really never happened like that. What is known as the ancient world did not all of a sudden stop and change directions! Old English gradualy developed into the Middle and the "modern" English of Shakespear; no one stopped one day and said:"Alright, I think I am going to stop speaking this language of Beowulf and start speaking like Chaucer!"

However, this very convenient division of time has been prominent in most Western historiography and has been used to denote different periods of European history. It has been partly successful, since the division was originally based on reality of European history with sometimes quite visible fault-lines like the Fall of Rome or the Reformation. By extension, the same division has been applied to non-Western histories. Iranian history, for example, is divided to ancient or pre-Islamic, Middle or post-Islamic, and Modern History from the late 18th century, the Qajars and beyond. The division does not stick by any means though! Iran has a history of at least 2000 years before Islam. The breaks did not happen as divided by these time periods; the big break was not the Islamic invasion, but the rise of the Sasanian military machine 300 years before. The alien nature of this historical division is evident when one looks at the histories written by historians of the old times like Bal'ami or Ibn Khaldun. They did not think of history in these divisions, and I think they would have found the idea quite amusing and probably useless.

I think our first attempt to untangle the web of misunderstanding between "The West" and "The Middle East" (Us and Them), should be an attempt to break free of this superficial historical division.

 
Iranian

My friend, Pinkfloydish, started a discussion in her English weblog which caught my attention. The subject -knowledge of Iran among Westerners, particularly Americans- is what I have been involved with for a long time, both personally or professionally.

I have lived among Amricans on-and-off for the past 9 years, and due to spending parts of my childhood and adulthood in Europe (Germany, Switzerland, England, the Netherlands), I can say I have a pretty good idea of both the American and European attitudes and their knowledge.

Professionally, I have been studying historiography, economic history, and ancient languages. Again, I can see the level of knowledge and also bias in the academia. But more importantly, I encounter ideas and theories that try to explain and analyse what shocks many Iranians, and that is the lack of interest in anything beyond everyday life in many people.

For us, it is natural to learn about other countries, know the name of their capitals, and have some general knowledge about them. Unlike what one of the commentators in Pinkfloydish's weblog said, I find the Iranian knowledge of America much more accurate than the American information about Iran. For example, how many Americans on average can name the capital of Iran and two more cities, identify the Iranian flag, name the language we speak, and can add anything more about Iran? On contrast, your average high school educated Iranian can easily answer these questions about the US, and not only because of the Holywood! They can also do this for most European countries. I have never seen an Iranian who didn't know that Paris is the capital of France (believe me, I have met more than a few college educated Americans who told me they are going to Paris, and when I said they should also try to see other parts of France, they said they are not going to France, they are going to Paris!!!!).

Still, I am not suggesting that Americans are somehow stupid or have a hard time learning, what I think is the cause of this lack of knowledge is the general attitude of the American society. This attitude is the the absence of interest and a general mistrust in anything foreign, maybe going back to the famous Isolationist policies. Also, despite the theoretical possibility of writing and saying anything in the Media, American television and newspapers are largly uninterested in foreign affairs as well. Television, the most influential media source in the US, seldom mentions other countries. For an Iranian, or a European, it is usual to hear about different news from Zimbabwe, Australia, Argentina, or Mongolia. In contrast, CNN would only mention Columbia or Italy if a large coup takes place or if a lot of people die!

So, I have decided to tackle this issue from a fair point of view. I am tired of explaining different points of culture to people and sometimes I sound to myself as if I am justifying things. So, let's see if we can come up with a good way to reason and to describe, without being either offensive or defensive. Please let me know of your opinions.

 
This is AMAZING!

The denial of information, at least easily accessible information, to the public is not new in certain "democratic" nations, but this particular article: "Treasury Department is Warning Publishers of the Perils of the Criminal Editing of the Enemy" is amazing! This is a clear attempt to deny first hand account of the lives of ordinary people in other countries to reach the eyes and ears of the ordinary people in another. Please if anyone can suggest a solution or some kind of action, leave a message here.

 
Peace Sells...But Who's Buying?

What do you mean I don't believe in God?
I talk to him everyday
What do you mean I don't support your system?
I go to court when I have to!
What do you mean I can't get to work on time?
Got nothing better to do
What do you mean I don't pay my bills?
What do you think, I'm broke, huh?

If there's a new way, I'll be the first in line
but it better work this time!

What do you mean I hurt your feelings
I didn't know you had any feelings
what do you mean I ain't kind?
Just not your kind!
What do you mean I couldn't be the president of the United States of America?
Tell me something, it's still "we, the people", right?

If ther's a new way, I'll be the first in line
but it better work this time!

Peace sells, but who's buying?

(by Megadeth/Dave Mustaine)

(I don't like many lyrics, but this one sometimes really speaks to me!)

 
Destructive Minds?

It seems to be an integral, never changing part of Iranian subconscious to destroy and invalidate. All good things, all positive things, that happen in the life of Iranians are destroyed by themselves. Social reformers, scientific innovators, progressive thinkers, all are ridiculed, thrashed, pummeled into the turf, regardless of the fact that they might later be celebrated (does anyone remember Amir Kabeer?).

As a historian, I tend to see this as an epitome of the life of an average Iranian throughout history: it has always been unstable. Foreign invasions, barbarian attacks, oppressive rulers, and a very confusing system of ownership and division of labour have all contributed to a socio-psychological instability. There seems to be a subconscious call to destroy things before they are destroyed and spoiled by others. Something in the back of an Iranian’s mind tells him/her that the good things never last, that life is cruel, that someone somehow will rub you off what you have and you are going to mourn over it for the rest of your life. So, you better destroy the good thing yourself, to at least save yourself from the despair!

Constant criticism of political reforms, pessimistic look at progress, and even the condemnation of the advent of Internet and blogging itself, seems to be a result of this mentality. “This internet freedom of speech is too good! There should be something wrong, something will go wrong! So, to save ourselves from future mud holes and spoilage, how about just destroying it now?”

 
Extra-chronological Parallel History!

Caution: the following is rather boring, I suggest you don't read!

Does history repeat itself? We hear this phrase so often that it has become a cliche of all cliches. Can we in fact say that historical events tend to be repetition of some previous events. A strong argument against this very common belief is that "no two events are exactly alike", and how alike they are depends on how much of their details we are willing to overlook.

I am not sure what side to take in this argument, but I do have an idea myself, and that is that historical "environments" indeed seem to repeat themselves! If we accept that events are born of their environments, we should expect that similar events are born of similar environments as well.

When you read the history of Ancient and Antique times of the non-Western world, you see that many staple events and situations of Medieval and Pre-Modern Europe have parallels in those times. My example comes naturally from my own background in Iranian history, but they can certainly be better and more accurate examples found about this. In Iranian history, it is fascinating to see that the Parthian times (around 2nd century BC to 221 AD) remind us of the Medieval history of Western Europe: same patterns of land-holding, feudalism, soldier recruitment, loyalty to local lords, and lack of a strong and credible central authority. The era after that, the Sasanian times from 221 to around 700 AD, is very closely reminiscent of Late Medieval and Renaissance Europe. The formation of a strong central government, economic concentration, division of labour, economic growth, rise of knowledge and learning, and eventual fruition of new social ideas, and many other examples, are all points of similarities between these eras.

I call these similarities "Extra-chronological Parallel History". They are very similar in their formation, but their outcome is not at all similar. There is no way to say that if the Sasanian Iran was allowed to continue, it would have produced the same results as Renaissance Europe, but it certainly is true that in many points, they exactly match. I am sure these similarities exist in other places as well, maybe in Chinese industrialisation of 10th century and that of early industrial Europe. I also wonder that whehter if instead of studying isolated historical events, we start studying similar environments, we can have a better idea of both history and our future. Does anyone have further ideas about this?