The enemy of an Iranian was ‘evil thoughts’
The Greek were in search of an earthly enemy
The enemy of an Iranian was ‘evil thoughts’
TEHRAN (Amordadnews): “Based on his faith and beliefs, an Iranian knew evil thought to be his enemy and knew it his duty to fight with harmful thoughts. But the Greek did not have such an understanding of life. Therefore, he was in search of earthly patterns. The Greek was looking for an enemy to fight with and thus find himself and his social status. This became possible for the Greek when Xerxes attacked their land. It was from then onwards that the Greek created an enemy for themselves by the name of Iran and did a great amount of exaggeration about it.”
Above was a statement with which Bahram Roshanzamir, a scholar of Iran’s history and culture, started his speech in a meeting on “The history of Iranology in the West and Iran”, and spoke about the roots of the wars and confrontations of the Greek with Iran. He added: “2400 years ago, a conflict started between Iran and Greece. From the psychological and social point of view these two countries had basic differences. Iranians believed in Ahura Mazda and monotheism and knew that the duty of all human beings was to fight with evil and those who encouraged evil. But the Greek were entangled in a complicated atmosphere and their fear from their gods and goddesses, whose role in creation and existence was not clear, had kept them living in fright and apprehension.”
According to this scholar Greece also had changing political conditions and was divided into governments/cities, each of which was governed with a different system. Some places had oligarchy system and some had republic system. In some places power would change hands. These ruptures, various unions and treaties had weakened the Greek unions.
The behavior of eastern nations seemed womanish in the eyes of the narrow minded Greek
Roshanzamir continued: “When Greece and Iran faced each other and wars took place between them, the Greek wanted to know about the Easterners. They would see the luxuries of easterners and would compare them with the primitive living conditions of the west and in order to satisfy their feeling of jealousy and narrow mindedness, would accuse the East for being lustful and displayed the west as innocent and infallible. In their eyes the East had womanish nature and the western people manly. The Greek would say that women like art and men are artistic; women are not strong in body, but men are strong. Therefore, the easterners, who have womanish behavior, cannot be powerful politicians. But, since the Greek have manly behavior they are born to be politicians. Their imagination went as far as saying that the women would trick the men to win over them. So, it is not surprising that it was said that eastern people are tricky and deluders.
They even said that the victory of Iran over Greece was because of the Iranian deceits, and not their military power.
Seeing Iranian women in battle fields provoked the anger of the Greek.
Roshanzamir, who was speaking in Jamshid Foundation, referred to the malicious perceptions of the Greek about the life style of Iranians, and said: “For them nothing was more shocking than seeing Achamenian ladies involved in political and government matters, neck and neck with men. Seeing Iranian women in battle fields had provoked their fury. They could not bear seeing women in the war front face to face with them. The Greek, in general, would keep away from women and were homosexual, while this unnatural and indecent habit was unknown in Iran. The Greek thought even the Achamenian kings, especially Xerxes and Darius III to be womanish and effeminate. Assuming easterners to be womanish and giving the empowering characteristics to the western men rose from these false ideas.
Another assumption that western people had about the easterners was that they thought the East was drowned in superstitions and whatever is called wisdom and knowledge belonged to the people of the West. In the following centuries the western philosophers were under the impression of the Greek mentality and built Utopias for themselves in which the Greek had outstanding traits and an easterner was corrupted and degenerated. It was not without reason that Walter, the French philosopher, said: “If the Greek would be beaten by Xerxes we would not have any of today’s civilization signs.”
They pretended that Zarathushtra’s hymns were copied from the Jewish religion.
According to Roshanzamir, while researchers like Anctil de Perone, worked on translation of Avesta there were false ideas like those of Darmesteter who pretended that the hymns of Zarathushtra were inspired by the Jewish religion. Darmesteter had said: “As though an easterner, and that even 1000 years back, could ever think and possess ideas?
He referred to researches of those like Walter Hintz who was under impression of the biased statements of Darmesteter.” He added: “A question comes to our mind: What have Iranians themselves done about knowing the history of their ancestors? The truth is that there are not many books left from the easterners, but the stone and clay inscriptions have remained for us. So, we see that from ancient ages Iranians have paid a lot of attention to know about the geography and history of their past. Great men like Tabari, Balaami, Ferdowsi and others did not let the Iranian to get cut from his ancient past. It is true that at a time of backwardness, we reached the state where we even lost trace of the Medes and the Achamenian dynasties, but after constitutionalism, men like Hassan Pirnia, with his book “Ancient Iran” and Ebrahim Poordavood with his translation of Avesta into Farsi, took large strides to awaken the Iranians, and their works are
priceless.”
Roshanzamir finally spoke about the efforts of researchers after the period of the above two scholars, like Amir Mehdi Bahar and Alireza Pour Shahbazi and said: “They were world scholars but had Iranian spirits.”
Translation by Rowshan Lohrasbpour