Monday, February 20, 2012


Culture of Slavery

          The ancient Iranian culture was the culture of Aryans formed by their belief in Mithraism long before emigrating eastward. Mithra was the god of love, bravery, truthfulness, compassion, cleanliness, respect for other human animals and environment.
Around four thousand years ago Zarathushtra, himself a product of culture of Mithraism, has perfected the said culture by emphasizing on pursuit of knowledge, for social advancement, and coined the three mottos of “Good Thought, Good Word, and Good Deed” and all his life preached on those mottos with the intention of creating a society with strong moral values. This had created a society which became exemplary in the ancient world.

          Obviously the Aryan culture, in its long history, has come in contact with number of other cultures. While mostly it had influenced those other cultures in positive ways, for better or worse, it has been also influence by them. Unfortunately the 7th century AD Arab invasion had a devastating profound adverse effect on the Aryan culture which has created character problems for us the Iranians. Today while deep down in our gene we still carry a few valuable Mehrian values, the Iranians society as a whole is suffering from a badly corrupt culture which I call it “the culture of slavery”.

Why the culture of slavery has developed among Iranians!

           In my book "Daastaneh Abusalim", written in Persian, I explained that our ancestors, after the defeat in 7th century AD, were taken slave by the barbarian Arabs. The first 120 to 130 years, under the Bani Ommayeh, full slavery laws (Mavali law in Arabic) was being enforced and after that, under the Abbasied dynasty, it became a partial slavery. Meaning while the Mavali law was still being enforced but it was greatly relaxed. You may find “Dastaneh Abusalim”داستان ابوسلیم on my blog http://maziaraptin.blogspot.com/ and also On IPC (Iran Political Club) website.
Arab slave market


For those Iranians who lived in the United States, they have observed the existence of culture of slavery among the African Americans, the recently freed slaves.

Culture of slavery does not flourish in any given society overnight; it takes several generations of continues social, economic and individual oppression on the said society by those in position of power.   








How the Culture of Slavery develops

          A slave works all day and at the end of the day has to handover all the result of his/her labor to the master and receive a small ration just enough to keep him/her alive for the next day's hard work and is not able to object to this injustice. But deep down the slave knows that, at least, half of the product of his labor that he just handed over to the master actually belongs to him/her. Consequently when the master is not looking the slave will take part of those products for him/herself. This would be considered “Zeranggi” not stealing.
 On the other hand, according to the rules that the master has set, this constitutes stealing and punishment is in order. But in slave's mind his act was not stealing. Consequently the ugliness of stealing does not register in slave's mind. In other word stealing is okay and it would not be considered a vice.
But at the same time the slave knows that he/she has broken the master's rule. In order to avoid punishment he must lie. But the slave also knows that this lie was a necessary lie and in his mind he did not steal and the lie is not a real lie. Consequently lying will lose its ugliness as well. So in the eye of slave lying is not a vice either.
As provider and protector of his/her family the slave is a hero in the eyes of the children. In order to provide the best for his family, due to lack of power, he/she must resort to flattery and deception. So; in the mind of slave, flattery and deception are not considered vice either. 

           The notion of Zeranggi has stayed in our culture even though we are not slave any longer. For the above reasons if a person in our society is honest and truthful, he/she is a nerd, “Pakhmeh, khol, cholofti, etc” but if he is a thief, con artist and lies his way to riches, he is Zerang.

           With above in mind in most of my writings, both in Persian and English, I have pointed out that we Iranians must wipe out the culture of slavery (lies, stealing, flattery, and deceptions) from our society. I even, while addressing to the future secular government of Iran, made a few suggestions.
In one of my article titled "There is no need for religion", and it can be found on my blog and also in PayameAshena, I pointed out that; just ousting the IRI is not going to solve all of our problems. The root of our problem is our infested culture. As a matter of fact about fifteen years ago I wrote an article in Persian published in "Kourosh-e Bozorg" magazine, which I do not know if it is still in business, titled "In Darakht as Reesheh Bimar ast". In that; I suggested a cultural change in our country and emphasized that the cultural change clause must go into the constitution of the future government as a blue print so it will be followed vigorously without any gap.

          Again I insist that overthrow of the IRI alone is not going to solve our problems, it is only the first step. Before the emergence of the IRI our country was already in the “third world status” category. Our main problem is our culture.
It is the culture of a society that determines the quality and worthiness of the people of that society and consequently the quality of the government that they deserve.

          Our country had fallen into a “third world status” two or three centuries after the Arab invasion of the 7th century AD when the majority of Iranians genuinely had accepted Islam. And we remained in that status ever since. Savage demonstration of a large segment of Iranian people in Khomeini’s funeral is the proof of our ignorance and our polluted and poor culture. It had shown what kind of government we really deserve.

           It does not matter how much and how often we remind the people of the world that what a rich culture we used to have and what a great people our ancestors used to be and talk about their great achievement and contributions to the world. Those days are gone. The people of the world will see us, judge us, and treat us for what we really are today, not for what our ancestors used to be.

           With above in mind, in my opinion, Cultural Revolution in Iran is more important than the political revolution that we need at the present time. Of course in regard to the present circumstance the political revolution must take place first immediately followed by the Cultural Revolution. Please read my article; "There is no need for Religion". http://maziaraptin.blogspot.com/2012/02/there-is-no-need-for-religions.html

Also read:

داستان ابوسلیم
داستان کوتاه زندگی یک ایرانی
در زمان یورش تازیان



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