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.
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| Arab slave market |
For those Iranians who lived in the
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
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
Also read:
Also read:
داستان
ابوسلیم
داستان
کوتاه زندگی یک ایرانی
در زمان
یورش تازیان
And:
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