Posts tagged : "Persian culture"

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Why the Iranian government neglects the nation’s cultural heritage

Why the Iranian government neglects the nation’s cultural heritage

Persepolis Kourosh Ziabari - Stimson Center: Modern-day Iran is the inheritor of a hallowed civilization and ancient monuments that have survived millennia of invasions, natural disasters, and political upheaval. While Iran’s current diplomatic and economic isolation discourages foreign tourism, the country’s cultural heritage remains one of the nation’s key distinctions, cherished by Iranians and many others around the world who hope to be able to explore it in person one day. There are presently 26 registered UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Iran, more than in Japan, the United States and Greece on the roster of places catalogued by the United Nations’ cultural and educational agency. Among them are well-known...

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Delving into Hawraman, Iran’s unexplored historical gem

Delving into Hawraman, Iran’s unexplored historical gem

Kourosh Ziabari - The New Arab: UNESCO World Heritage Sites are natural areas and cultural, man-made structures judged to be outstandingly paramount to humanity, designated by the United Nations’ cultural agency as landmarks that merit international attention and conservation at home. Iran, however, as isolated and cornered as it might be these days, hosts 26 such properties dotted across the country, and is the world’s 10th country in terms of the frequency of World Heritage Sites. The last Iranian monument to be inscribed on the World Heritage Sites inventory in 2021 is the cultural landscape of Hawraman. Encompassing an extensive area in Western Iran, spanning the provinces of Kurdistan and Kermanshah, Hawraman is a...

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Remembering Siah Armajani, the late Iranian-American architect

Remembering Siah Armajani, the late Iranian-American architect

Kourosh Ziabari - The New Arab: Many residents of Minneapolis, Minnesota, cross over the Irene Hixon Whitney Bridge every day or move past it. It offers a unique vantage point to the well-liked Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, epitomised by the iconic $500,000 Spoonbridge and Cherry sculptural design. Most of the locals recognise Whitney, a Twin Cities philanthropist and civic leader who was married to the 1980 Independent-Republican gubernatorial candidate Wheelock Whitney and passed away in 1986. But to many Minnesota denizens and visitors of the Garden who happen to walk over the bridge spanning an interstate highway, or at least catch a glimpse of it from afar, the story behind the structure is almost undisclosed, unless one is...

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‘ManoFarsi’ not an innocent debate on language education

‘ManoFarsi’ not an innocent debate on language education

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: It is common knowledge that the Iranian government is in an acutely vulnerable position and that a blend of draconian international sanctions, public discontent at home, corruption and unremitting power struggles have drained its resources and resilience, stripping it of political leverage on the world stage. To the constellation of the Islamic Republic’s adversaries and opposition parties in exile, this fragility presents a unique opportunity to prey on and see if a coup de grace can be administered to what appears to be a languishing, heavily wounded antagonist. One day, a terror attack is orchestrated in the restive south of the country and when the suspected mastermind is arrested to stand...

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The other side of Iran we are taught not to explore

The other side of Iran we are taught not to explore

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: For nearly two decades, the global media coverage of Iran has functioned in such a way that the name of the country has been bracketed with a pernicious nuclear program and malign conspiracies to destabilize the Middle East and beyond. That Iran has been receiving bad press for a long time is not a mystery or the allegation of a jingoistic mind. It is an inevitability attested to by the pundits and commentators of media organizations that let bias sweep through their reporting. There are plenty of reasons to feel bitter about Iran, perceive its regional role as counterproductive and consider its brand of statecraft as erratic. The Islamic Republic’s foreign-policy adventures have been...

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Rug pulled from under Iran’s carpet industry

Rug pulled from under Iran’s carpet industry

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...

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Prepare for the light of spring: Nowruz is coming

Prepare for the light of spring: Nowruz is coming

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...

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Iranian arts reveal the unseen face of a nation

Iranian arts reveal the unseen face of a nation

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...

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Zoroastrians: Iran’s forgotten minority

Zoroastrians: Iran’s forgotten minority

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...

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Iran’s neglect of its cultural heritage backfires

Iran’s neglect of its cultural heritage backfires

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: Modern Iran, known as Persia until 1935, is the inheritor of a revered civilization, which according to some accounts is at least 7,000 years old. There is consensus among scholars that Iran boasts one of the most esteemed historical lineages of any modern state. The first Persian Empire was founded by the Achaemenid dynasty in 550 BC, and at its greatest extent under King Darius I, its territory stretched from the Aegean Sea and Libya to the Indus Valley. Iranians are credited with making seminal contributions to the sciences, culture and arts, contributions that are deplorably eclipsed by the plethora of unfavorable media coverage of Iran’s tumultuous politics and its poor relations with the...

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Mohammd Reza Shajarian: a music icon cherished by a nation

Mohammd Reza Shajarian: a music icon cherished by a nation

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: Few artists in modern times have been able to connect Iranians of different generations as dexterously as Mohammad Reza Shajarian has done. On the surface, he is a singer like hundreds of vocal artists worldwide who release albums, perform concerts and entertain their audience. But the sublime heritage maestro Shajarian has left throughout six decades of practicing arts at the highest levels makes him an icon more special than a normal artist with limited skills and a limited discography. For Iranian art connoisseurs who listen to and study music professionally, and for Iranians who happen to listen to random tracks from time to time, the name of Mohammad Reza Shajarian resonates with the craft of...

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Iran’s leaders should embrace Nowruz diplomacy

Iran’s leaders should embrace Nowruz diplomacy

Kourosh Ziabari - Responsible Statecraft: Iranians across the world, joined by communities in countries as diverse as Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, India, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, are celebrating the beginning of Persian New Year and the arrival of spring. Nowruz is a set of festivities that mark the Vernal Equinox and the commencement of the solar calendar year. The ancestral feast is believed to be 3,000 years old, and is inarguably the most revered holiday of Iranians reinforcing their national identity and giving them a rare chance to feel proud of their history and culture at a time their country is effectively a pariah state shunned by friends and foes alike....

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