Hamilton Spectator, Canada
June 24 2006
Keeping the faith in Iran
Minority Rights; Zoroastrianism, Christianity and Judaism: Opening a
window on religious tolerance
By Karl Vick
The Washington Post
YAZD, IRAN (Jun 24, 2006)
The legend describes one cloud of dust chasing another across the epic
desert landscape. Arab horsemen were gaining on the Iranian princess,
it is said, when she reached the looming cliffs, slipped into a seam
in the rock and disappeared forever.
As told by followers of the Zoroastrian faith which was on the run
along with the princess, the tale nurtures not so much hope for the
return of royalty as the survival of minority religions. In a country
whose government is based on the Islamic faith that Arabs carried to
the Persian plateau, that survival is enshrined in law.
The same constitution that created the Islamic Republic of Iran
explicitly protects three other faiths: Zoroastrianism, Christianity
and Judaism.
But how their followers, especially Jews, fare provides a barometer
of actual religious tolerance in Iran and a window into a national
culture with shadings far more subtle than the extremist caricature
its leaders both decry and occasionally encourage.
Iran’s Muslim theocracy reserves one parliamentary seat each for
Jews, Zoroastrians and Assyrian Christians, and two for members of
the Armenian Orthodox community. The slots reflect both respect for
Zoroastrian’s deep roots in Persia, and for the faiths that, like
Islam, trace their origins to Abraham.
"They are the roots; we are the branches," said Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini, leader of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
That protection does not appear to extend to the Bahai, who practice
a faith the government regards as heretical. Human rights groups have
documented scores of cases of persecution, including executions. Last
month, 54 Bahai youths were arrested in the southern city of Shiraz,
where the faith originated in the 19th century.
In addition, some Iranian Jews complain of occasional harassment
since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad focused new wrath on Israel.
When Ahmadinejad expressed doubts in December that the Holocaust
occurred, Moris Motamed called a news conference in his role as the
member of Parliament representing Iranian Jews. "I said this kind
of comment is a way of insulting the Jewish community as a whole,
not only inside Iran," Motamed said in an interview.
Iranian officials emphasize that Iran objects not to Judaism but to
Zionism, the effort to establish a Jewish state in Palestine. Yet
in Tehran, Jews say Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric has prompted threats not
heard in more than 15 years.
"No, not ordinary people, but mostly the Basij," said a Jewish
shopkeeper, saying the harassment came from the paramilitary from
which Ahmadinejad emerged. "The thing they usually say is ‘dirty
Jew.’ But I believe these people are insane. They’re not real people."
Motamed said he had received few complaints and was working with
Ahmadinejad’s government to follow through with a deal negotiated
under his predecessor, former president Mohammad Khatami, to permit
Iranian Jews to travel to Israel for Jewish holidays.
He said police responded "right away" a week earlier when a Tehran
Jew reported being threatened. "And I say this with confidence: If
the same thing happened with Muslims, the police would not have been
as quick to act."
The situation of Christians appears more elusive.
"We have many problems," said the man outside St. Sarkis Church, the
Armenian Orthodox headquarters where officials twice declined requests
for an interview. He gave only a first name, Patrick. "Everyone has
problems, but for Christians it’s harder than others." Like other
Christians who spoke privately, he complained that government jobs
are off-limits.
Numbers tell part of the story. Since the 1979 revolution, Iran’s
Jewish population has dropped from more than 100,000 to perhaps 25,000,
Christians from 300,000 to around 100,000. But some say the exodus
reflects less specific persecution than the opportunity to escape a
country where almost everyone was being made miserable. The religious
minorities, with concerned sponsors offering relocation funds, had
a way out.
"Whatever the government does, they do it to all of us," said Ardeshir
Bahrami, 64, a Zoroastrian in Yazd.
Zoroastrians appear to enjoy the most respect inside Iran. Reasons
relate to Iran’s 2,500-year history. The faith claims to be the first
to recognize a single, omniscient god. Until its founder, Zoroaster,
emerged as early as the 14th century B.C. (the date is disputed),
people were paying tributes to pagan gods and grappling fearfully
with questions of cause and effect.
Zoroaster made it simple. There was good, he said, and there was
bad. Darkness and light. Zoroastrianism urges following the light,
symbolized in the open flame nursed for 1,536 years on the andirons
in the house of worship, called a "fire temple," on Yazd’s main street.
A plaque lists the creed:
Good thoughts. Good words. Good deeds. "It’s a simple religion,"
Bahrami said. "It’s really not very hard to observe."
In Yazd, a pleasant, desert city in the centre of Iran, Zoroastrians
are known for honesty. Prices in a shop owned by a Zoroastrian are
considered a benchmark that competing shops are compared against.
Children are told that when arriving in a strange town near dark,
seek out a Zoroastrian home to spend the night in.
"I’m sorry to say it and it might sound offensive, but these
Zoroastrians are better Muslims than we are," said Yazd driver
Mohammad Pardehbaf.
Iranians also respect Zoroastrianism as the faith of Iran’s heroic
age. It was the state religion under emperors as Cyrus, Xerxes and
Darius, whose tombs are adorned with the Zoroastrians’ distinctive
symbol of a bearded man in profile between outstretched wings. The
symbol is also atop a towering monument that Iran’s clerical
leaders erected in Yazd’s Zoroastrian cemetery to honour a hero of
the eight-year war with Iraq. Like others in the cemetery, the stone
lists not date of death but date of "second birth." Zoroastrians
celebrate funerals as birthday parties.
"There is no mourning. If someone dies, we celebrate it, because we
know what’s going to happen after death," said Payman Bastani, 27.
The faith was not always so simple. As the state religion,
Zoroastrianism spawned a priestly class that grew less popular as it
grew more corrupt. Zoroastrianism survived, especially in the deserts
of central Iran, where the royal family was said to disappear. And as
it returned to its essence, it also emerged as an example to faiths
supposedly fuelling a clash of civilizations.
"This is exactly what we believe," Bastani said. "Religion is not
here to complicate your life. It’s all about simplicity. God created
it to give comfort to human beings, not to frustrate everyone."