(Please note that this post is not based on my personal opinion & hence means no offence by any means to anyone. Please take that in mind that this just my observations.)
To put it bluntly: YES! Most Iranians tend to think that they are of a "different blood" than others. It doesn’t mean that they don’t respect other races, visa versa.... It's just that they are 'different'. & being different doesn’t necessarily mean 'being better'.
It doesn’t matter how long one may live with Iranians & it doesn’t matter how many real-blood-Iranian does one have as friends or in-laws, s/he would never be IRANI. S/he would be treated respectfully, would be loved & befriend with & would feel at home around Iranians yet there would be a boundary that s/he cannot cross. I don’t know how I can explain it... it's not that the person would be treated out of the ordinary... but s/he remains a guest (a beloved & appreciated guest on that).
My late great-grandmother was from Russia & she, still, after 4 generations is referred to as 'Russian Princess'. Even in my family- which happens to be very broad-minded about other races- the boundary shows when it comes to certain aspects like getting married. Recently a cousin of mine was about to get married to an American & surprisingly some of the elderly people opposed it! She got married anyway & we the younger generation supported her. However she is lucky that she is accepted into the family; when my great-aunt decided to marry a Swiss, she was banned from attending any kind of family union.
Nevertheless the case is really cool with Westerners (Europeans & Americans) when it is compared to Arabs or other nations. I have Arab friends & I also know people from other nations & I don’t mean to put down anyone here. However most Iranians tend to think really low about them & that is due to some historical conflicts between the two nations. I know that most of us get a bit prejudiced over the nationality issue especially when we are compared to or taken for Arabs. & as a very small part of Iranian society, I try to change that.... if I would ever have any children, I shall teach them to love everybody regardless of the nation, religion & race.
Tonight we discussed the question over our dinner & my father answered the question: definitely! He said that he might 'tolerate' & befriend with a foreigner but he can never think of him as Iranian. This kind of shocked me since my father is known for his hospitality toward strangers. Then he explained himself & I'm trying to translate his words as accurate as I can. He said that being friend & respecting another human is one thing & ignoring the differences is another thing. Accepting a foreigner as someone who is grown up on our culture is like forcing a black to change his skin color (either because one do not like the color or thinks it goes more with the person). When it comes to differences we must accept people they way they are not the way we want them to be. Then he asked me that if I would live in another country (e.g. America) would I be American or Iranian? & my answer was clearly the latter then he asked if I wanted to be known as 'American' in the situation which I definitely not. Thus he concluded that if I respect human beings the way I claim to, then I shall respect the diversity of cultures & nations & not to 'uncategorize' people. Honestly, I never thought about the matter like that before so I thought I would share my dad's word with you. He sometimes can get rather philosophical as you can see. But all in all that's why I love him so much.
Sunday, January 09, 2005
Are Iranians racist? (Please note that this post is not based on my personal opinion & hence means no offence by any means to anyone. Please take that
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4 comments:
Your father is absolutely correct. I would go even farther and say that ignoring diversity and trying to pretend that everyone is the same is just about the most cruel way that one can insult another person.
As a father and a teacher i have always tried to encourage young people to recognize, and celebrate the different races, religions and the cultures that are unique to each of them.
I'm ashamed to say that I've had limited success in trying to teach others to "...love thy neighbour..."
You don't have to spend much time browsing blogs to realize that hatred of our neighbour is much more common than love for our neighbour.
The worst culprits are governments. When any government decides to go to war against another country the first thing they do is flood radio, tv and the press with propaganda urging people to hate the "enemy". A very striking example can be seen in the way the Soviet Union was changed, almost overnight, from a bosom friend to a treacherous enemy by (mostly) American and British propaganda. I can recall seeing posters of Stalin in 1944 showing him as a kindly, lovable man and calling him "Uncle Joe". I suppose that was to make him seem like a Russian equivalent of the American "Uncle Sam". By 1946 the posters portrayed him as a monster in human form, and we were being served a barrage of propaganda telling us that "Russians" were evil people. Then it was the Cubans, the Koreans, the Vietnamese, the Chinese, and certain Latin Americans who were the "enemy". Now, we see the propaganda machinery at work trying to demonize all Muslims.
The U.S., U.K., Canada and their allies are trying to create a new World War; a religios war against all Muslims. You know, I don't believe that there is a single Muslim in the world who wants to do me a personal injury. I certainly have no desire to kill or injure, or harm in any way, any Muslim. Nor do I have any desire to do any harm to anyone else in the world. Yes, I'll defend myself if anyone comes into my yard (or country) as an aggressor. But I will never answer my governments call to supoport an war of aggression against any other nation.
So Proshat, I repeat, your father is 100% correct. If everyone in the world had his attitude and belief then peace would cover the entire world. Thank you for this very thought-provoking post.
its true that we should all know nd recognize the differences between ourselves, our culture and other's cultures but that doesn't mean that we should allow ourselves to make fun of other races. me, myself I have been a witness to many persian racsist comments towards arabas and afghans specially. I don't believe that there is in anyways, any sort of justification for this. yes, there have been conflics among races in the past but that doesn't give anyone the right to be cruel and disrespecful to others. if we think a little bit, regardless of where in the world we were born or raise, we as human beings, are all the same. just to clear things, i am iranin myself and i do feel ashamed when i notice that there are so many iranians who tend to to be racist towards others and even state that they are better than other races.
I agree with the author, we iranian espcially persians call other aliens or in persian "khareji" no mather how long we live with them or even got married with them. They always reference them khareji. I do not blame this attitude because it kept aryan persians race from start of time until now.
Iranians are the worst racists in the world. You guys treat Hazaras and other Afghanis so badly. I think that is just another side inferiority complex. How many Nobel price winners you produced? How much you contirbuted to human knowledge. You hate Israel b/c you envy Jews. You guys were invaded by Mongolians and Arabians despite being far more numerious. That just shows Iranians are coward, lazy and incompetent. Despite having so much oil, Iran is still a third world country.
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