Iran

watch original V-Blog in Persian

Yesterday I had coffee with a journalist. He asked me about the Persian language. I told him what a delicate, fine and refined language it was, expressing such nuances that I couldn't imagine communicating in any other tongue. I told him, for example, the meaning of "ghorbunet beram" – which translates into "may my life be a sacrifice to yours", a phrase that sounds much more natural in Persian and which we use as casually as "see you soon!" He was fascinated by my accounts of how compassionate and poetic our culture and heritage is. He then paused to ask me something that I was not prepared for. He asked, "with such compassion and love in their veins, why then, do Iranians treat Baha'is so badly?"

I looked at him and admitted that I had no sufficient answer for this. But his question reverberated in my head the whole day. Of course there were many answers: any nation and people is capable of great good and great bad. Pick any nation, including South Africa, and you see in it a microcosm of both man's capacity to destroy and his capacity to nurture. Another answer might lie in theology, another in politics. Yet another answer might lie in the incredible power of ignorance that is born of backbiting and lies and is spread by a few and accepted by many. But none of these were really sufficient in my heart. Because deep down I am touched by the warmth and selfless attitude of my Persian friends, regardless of their religious background, and it is hard for me to understand why such a great people can be so petty.

And often this pettiness is all that people see. I thought of myself growing up in Austria. I was always Austrian on the one hand, but darker, more ethnic on the other. And when people asked me what my background was, I couldn't say "Persian" and much less "Iranian" with the same kind of pride that my other friends would say "Spanish!" or "Japanese"! It was so much easier to be from those countries. On top of that I was a Baha'i, "a what?" a Baha'i. It was so much easier to say "Roman Catholic". After all, every second building in Austria was a breath-taking cathedral.

And yet I knew, in my heart, how amazing, unparalleled, great and cool Iran really was. I knew how grand its history was, how delicate its art and literature were, I knew how beautiful and divine its mosques were, how blessed its soil was. And the inability to relay that to my friends hurt me a lot growing up. All they ever saw of Iran was people with beards, dressed in black, looking very angry and protesting in the streets - chaos and dust all around them. This was not Iran.

I was born in 1979 and grew up in Europe in the 80s at a time when most people did not see any bright sides to Iran. But I am almost 30 now and in my relative and limited wisdom I believe that any pettiness or ugliness coming out of my home country comes as a result of not knowing its worth. Iran had not yet recognized the glory and grandeur, which is hers. She is resorting to fundamentalism and materialism out of a sheer lack of vision.

But my vision for Iran is bright. I was raised to learn about her past, but more importantly about her future! Iran's future will be glorious, colorful and I am happy to say that I have a Persian, Iranian heritage. In one my earlier blogs I mentioned that culture is an illusion in so far as it is not a static, absolute entity, but an ever-evolving process of relativity. In His book, The Secret of Divine Civilization, Abdu'l-Baha praises Iran's history and points to its glorious future, while illustrating the reasons nations rise and fall and highlighting how important the dynamic process of progress is for any people. I recommend this as an important read for anyone who has experienced ambiguity about their Iranian heritage and is keen to understand more about humanity and its evolution in general.