Posts tagged : "Culture"

Kourosh Ziabari - ODVV: Although France has recouped some composure after the maelstrom ignited by the murder of Samuel Paty, a popular middle school teacher who had shown cartoons of Prophet Muhammad in his class on freedom of thought, the republic is still finding itself in the middle of an uncomfortable debate about the compatibility of secular values and Islam. The comments of President Emmanuel Macron who defended the reprinting of the controversial cartoons by the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, and his tongue-lashing of Islamic “separatism” and “radical Islam” sent shockwaves across the Muslim world and infuriated leaders and the general public in Islamic countries where huge crowds turned up for street protests and a...

Kourosh Ziabari - ODVV: Canada’s reputation as a cultural mosaic that enables the mingling of people from different backgrounds and pedigrees and empowers them to actualize their potentials has been a popular attraction for the dreamers aspiring to live more dignified lives in a country that values their capabilities and offers them opportunities for growth. The Liberal government of Justin Trudeau, in power since 2015, has been endeavoring to depict Canada as a welcoming nation that is receptive to skilled labor force and international students planning to transform their future in a multicultural, inspiring environment, and happy to shelter refugees fleeing persecution, war and insecurity at home. But contrary to the conventional...

Kourosh Ziabari - ODVV: Islam is now the world’s second largest religion after Christianity and the fastest-growing faith tradition globally. Spiraling fear of, and antipathy toward Muslims, which some scholars argue is a historical phenomenon with a pedigree stretching back to the 18th and 19th centuries, has been intensified and elevated to new heights in the recent decades, particularly with developments that have brought the Western civilization and the Muslim world into closer contact, including the rising tide of immigration from Muslim countries to Europe and North America in the late 20th century, and the 9/11 attacks and the ensuing project of War on Terror. A 2019 survey by the Pew Research Center found people in...

Kourosh Ziabari - ODVV: On March 15, the International Day to Combat Islamophobia, the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres voiced his concern over the spiraling surge of anti-Muslim discrimination and bigotry worldwide, calling on governments and stakeholders to play a more consequential role in containing this byzantine form of racism that has impaired harmony and stability in multicultural settings. As far-right discourses gain traction and ultra-nationalist politics pick up steam internationally, fissures between the Muslim communities and Western societies tend to become deeper and more resistant to healing. Throughout the European Union, aversion to Muslims is cropping up in a panoply of ways and shapes....

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: Iran’s carpet industry, once a rich trademark of Persian culture and a key source of non-oil and gas export revenues, is coming unraveled under the double whammy of US sanctions and a Covid-caused recession. Without meaningful government relief and investment, the fast-fading export industry that normally employs 2.5 million people and provides livelihoods in associated businesses to as many as 10 million will soon be decisively overtaken by rival nations’ wares in regional and global markets, experts and analysts warn. Local media reports suggest as many as one million Iranians involved in the rug industry have already lost their jobs. Iran’s carpet industry survived the chaos that...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: The coming weekend marks the Persian New Year. Nowruz, or New Day, heralds the advent of spring and jubilantly injects life into the frozen veins of nature. Even those who don’t celebrate it agree that this festival is an exceptional opportunity to enshrine the rejuvenation of the Earth after a chilly hibernation and embrace sights in our surroundings that manifest themselves on scarce occasions like the vernal equinox, which coincides with Nowruz this Saturday, March 20. It is true that Nowruz was originally the New Year festival of Iranians and a cohort of countries in Central Asia and the Middle East, but thanks to recognition by the United Nations and UNESCO, its venerable pedigree has been...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: Much of what the global media report about Iran these days revolves around its unpopular nuclear program, its involvement in proxy conflicts across the Middle East, and its human-rights violations. Yet the concealed face of Iran is that it is the inheritor of one of the most magnificent art heritages in the world history, reflecting a 5,000-year-old cultural tradition that many people are incognizant of as the nation’s artistic and cultural contributions are eclipsed by its political isolation. The London-based Victoria and Albert Museum, which bills itself as the world’s leading museum of art and design, has announced that it will stage the UK’s biggest exhibition on Iranian art, design and...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: It is disheartening, but the adherents of the world’s first monotheistic religion appear to have been consigned to oblivion in their ancestral homeland, and as their numbers shrink, it is not only a religion that is disappearing, but the building blocks of a civilization. Zoroastrianism is believed to have been founded in ancient Iran 3,500 years ago. It was the dominant religion of the Persian Empire until the Muslim conquest of Persia starting in AD 633 capsized the cultural and religious configuration of the nation and ushered in new values based on Islamic law in a society that initially perceived the arrival of Islam as unwelcome. Iran’s 2011 census found that there were only around 25,000...

Kourosh Ziabari - Fair Observer: Iran’s unpopular quest for nuclear energy has dominated news headlines for decades. This has left little room for reporting on less-discussed topics about the country. One of these is tourism. At a time of a pandemic, Iran continues to face grueling international sanctions and domestic divisions. But it is an uncontested fact that the country has a long revered civilization, and getting to know the nation with all its intricacies and complexities is a challenging task. Universities around the world offer Iranian studies courses so students can learn about Iran and its history.  In recent years, growing demand to explore Iran has led to more travelers visiting the country, which is not a popular...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: Anti-Muslim bigotry is on the rise globally. Let’s call a spade a spade. Islamophobia, even though some people prefer to tiptoe around using the term so that they don’t acknowledge the gravity of this gruesome form of racism, is an undeniable reality in the 21st century, casting a dark shadow over the lives of the nearly 1.8 billion Muslims dotted across the four corners of the globe. From burning down and vandalizing mosques to physical attacks on people appearing to be Muslims walking down the streets, hate crimes against Muslim students on university campuses, verbal abuse and death threats directed against Muslim citizens and the Islamic faith being constantly slandered in the media,...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: Relations between Iran and the United States have followed a bumpy course since the 1979 revolution that set the stage for a metamorphosis of Iran’s foreign policy premised on the mantra of “neither Eastern, nor Western.” As the Islamic Republic gained more statecraft experience, that adage surrendered its sanctity, and it is now fine to be pro-Eastern, even though unexplained hostility toward what is geopolitically identified as the West, as a whole, remains in currency. Unlike the second term of Barack Obama as the US president, when Tehran and Washington made major strides toward resolving some of their many differences, culminating in the monumental Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: To Shia Muslims scattered across the world, the first month of the Islamic calendar, Muharram, is a fateful time. Whether they are young or old, Shiite adherents set in motion the preparations of the mourning ceremonies of Muharram at least a couple of months in advance, drape entire cities in black and gear up for commemorating the martyrdom of the third Shia Imam Hussein, a grandson of Prophet Muhammad, who was killed by the second Umayyad Caliph Yazid in the Battle of Karbala on October 10, 680. The mourning rituals of Muharram are perhaps the most pronounced manifestations of the communal consciousness of Shiites, who currently make up around 15% of the global population of Muslims. Iran,...