I came to Australia from Iran as a skilled migrant. A country with complicated and sophisticated history and people. Iran is the oldest multicultural country and yet the most unknown one.
Zahra Pedram Jafari
Iran’s portrayal in Western World
People in Australia hardly know anything about Iran. There is no information available even at school libraries or in history books!
They teach the history of Iran by showing the 300 movie at high school!
You come to a new country on another continent and suddenly Iranian/Persian saffron becomes Spanish. Iranian rice is not even known let alone sold. Iranian caviar becomes Russian. Iranian Pistachios and pomegranates originate from ‘America’. Iranian cucumber and zucchini are ‘Lebanese’. Iranian korsi is known as Japanese kotatsu and even though your carpet and cat are still Persian, nobody knows where Persia (Iran) is and the genetically purest Persian cats if there are any left are only found in Japan!
And of course, Rumi with all those Farsi/Persian poems has become Turkish for many years now!
Also, the beautiful tales of one thousand and one nights which is an Iranian book is now known as Arabian nights!
If only we had the habit of making notes and records of our belongings like Europeans who invented copyright and patents then we had Bryanis’ chain stores like Colonel Sanders’ KFC.
We never even considered the importance of signing off every recipe and building Iranians created and instead trusted others to remember.
I personally admire the “Taj Mahal’ calligrapher who signed his name on the building. Otherwise, scholars would have thought the work was from either Turk or Arab calligraphers despite the building’s Persian name and the fact that the building was built for a Persian princess ( later queen).
God bless “Amanat Khan” who prevented a cold and predominantly online war among nations with his very wise action!
Don’t believe me, just google it!
Cyrus The Great
Even if Cyrus the great‘s name, the creator of human rights known as the Cyrus cylinder, is mentioned in a classroom, it is just because a teacher might have a broader knowledge of the world but he refers to such a wise and inspiring man as a guy from the middle east!
I find this extremely shocking because Cyrus had the best publicity, he was mentioned numerous times in the bible!
Eventually, you become confused and wonder if you had hallucinated Iran’s huge contribution to human history.
Then you decide to take it easy and let it go. After all, we are all from one planet. Others can have all the glory, it is only a recipe, a poem, a building, a scholar!
“Let them feel better about themselves and their so-called contributions to the world. There are more important things to care about” you’d think.
But do you know what the most devastating thing is?! The fact that the media is depicting Iran as a country way far from what it is. It is shocking to see a country that has achieved such great things not only for its people but all of mankind be treated so harshly.
Well, you know what…I have had enough…I am not going to let such silly political games among governments ruin a nation’s identity!
The above photos are just showing a very small part of beautiful Iranian architecture that in many sites and books is referring to as Islamic architecture incorrectly. These photos are from various artists and gathered from Internet and Facebook groups like :
