[Audiobook Review]
This is a great book, in a way it is the kind of book I have always been looking for. It is written by an Iranian professor investigating and describing Iranian culture. It uses some polling data and his own opinions, but the most fascinating information are all the past descriptions of Iranians from various people, especially non-Iranian outsiders. We not only view Iranians as they are today, but before the revolution, and decades ago, and a century ago, and such.
And through it all, there are always certain uniformity about it all. The Iranian emotional characteristics, the way we look at things in short term rather than long term planning, the “zerengi” aspect of us Iranians, the hidden aspects of our thoughts which can be construed as double-faced, or a phrase I liked when I looked at one his sources, our “flight from responsibility”. The author, of course, doesn’t link these attributes to a DNA or any form of racial genetics, but says that is derived from our historical events and the environment we live in, such as past wars, instability, famine, and so forth. So, it is not something ingrained in us, but something created due to circumstances, which means it is something that CAN be changed.
All this is very close to my heart as I have been struggling with this for a while now, specially recently. I feel I am in the middle of a country where my countrymen generally find it much more comfortable to blame the issues of their lives on outside forces, it is either the politicians, or sanctions, or maybe even their boss. This is reinforced by local and international, where the blame is always placed upon a third party (the local media might blame the west, while the international media blames our leaders).
And as you sit among your colleagues, friends, family, or even in a taxi ride, you keep hearing the same narrative again and again, as if we are not in control of our destiny.
Instead I feel very strongly, and this feeling has been on the rise within me, that real change only happens when WE change. If we change everyone at the top, the only people who will replace them are the people around us, and that are the same people. The only difference between a politician that steals millions of dollars and the Iranian driver who bypasses other cars on the emergency lane is only circumstances opportunity. The only reason the latter hasn’t stolen the millions is because he is not in a situation TO steal that amount, otherwise his crime comes from the same place, the selfishness of a person believing that he is in the right, or is a form of “zerengi”.
I strongly believe that as a nation, our first step is equivalent to an individual with a personal problem, like addiction. We first have to acknowledge our OWN problem. I am an Iranian, and the problem is with ME.
Once we acknowledge that, we then have to see what are the cultural problems we Iranians share that has created the social world we currently live in and how these cultural traits are holding us back in the 21st century. Once these traits are acknowledged and raised awareness for, we then look for solutions for them, and then, have practical plans (such as campaigns) to change them for the better.
Books like this shed a light on these cultural traits of us as Iranians. If it was up to me, I would make books like this an essential reading among us Iranians, and to hopefully, have a vibrant, public debate on such topics, and hopefully, more research done into it.
The book has a lot of great historical non-Iranian sources that I will try to hunt down and read them first hand. To see how various outsiders saw us throughout different eras is fascinating and eye-opening.
In the book, one of my favorite parts was based on an article a foreigner wrote before the revolution. That author mentioned that the ideal person, according to the Iranian thought, was something she perfectly summarized it as a “Sufi Luti”. This is a beautiful turn of phrase, combining two important aspects of Iranian model, the spiritual sufi such as Hafez and Rumi we all love, and the honorable, tough person who believes in “namoos”. The combination of these two, the Sufi Luti, is something both the article author and this book’s author claims we are obviously dreaming off but that doesn’t generally exist.
For me, this Sufi Luti is an attainable goal, not only for myself, but as a society.