Why do they call themselves Persian?
The first time someone asked me this was on Harvest Day at my kids' school. I had just been introduced to a blonde, green-eyed American Jewish woman. I didn't understand her question.
"Why does who call themselves Persian?"
"The Iranians in LA. When you ask them where they're from, they don't say they're Iranian."
"I just told you I'm Iranian."
"Yeah, but the others say they're Persian."
"Persian and Iranian are the same thing."
"Yeah, but I think they say Persian because they don't want people to know they're Iranian."
"Why not?"
"Well... you know."
Oh. That.
It's been nearly ten years and still, I feel the sting of that woman's condescension every time the subject comes up. I've been asked the question a few more times since then, except now I know it's not really a question at all; it's just someone's way of telling me what she thinks of us -- Iranians, Persians, whatever.
"I think they prefer 'Persian' because it predates the Islamic Republic," I say.
I've never had occasion to investigate the matter directly because I don't know any "Persians," just "Iranians," but I can see why some people, here in the West, may not wish to be confused, in the eyes of people they've just met and who are (because it's human, no point pretending otherwise) bound to judge them by traits such as race, ethnicity, and the kind of car they drive, with a bunch of terror-sponsoring, Holocaust-denying, suck-the-country-dry-and-wreak-havoc-around-the-world-so-you-can-mak-your-own-nukes men in bushy beards and dirty turbans in Iran. Still, I don't think that's the real motivation behind choosing "Persian" over "Iranian."
I think "Persian" is more about what one is, than about what one isn't.
To be Persian is to descend from the oldest civilization known to man -- one that predates Egypt's by 500 years, India's by 1000 years, China's by 2000 years. It's to trace one's lineage back to a culture that gave the world poetry, pomegranate, and art, rug weaving, chess, and wine, algebra and tulips. It's to be made of the same stock as people who invented money and anesthesia, windmills and ice cream, trigonometry and peaches, the use of alcohol in medicine, and the guitar.
To be Persian is to be as much, probably more, a victim of the mullahs' crimes, as raped and robbed and exploited by their so-called faith, as anyone else, anywhere in the world.
Most of all, to be Persian, I believe, is to be tolerant of diversity and accepting of change, able to embrace religious and ethnic differences, accept opposing points of view, allow dissent. It's to carry the legacy of the first declaration of human rights in history, issued nearly 3,000 years ago and, in many parts of the world today, still ahead of its time.
In 600 B.C. the Persian king, Cyrus the Great, created the largest empire the world had yet known. His rule extended from the ancient Near East to most of Asia and the Caucasus, from the Mediterranean Sea in the west to the Indus River in the east. He governed through a centralized administration that was founded on the principle of respecting the customs and religions of its subjects. The Jewish bible refers to him as Mashiah -- anointed one. A replica of his official declaration of human rights, carved onto a clay cylinder and buried in the foundations of a Babylonian temple, is on display at the United Nations headquarters in New York.
The original Cyrus Cylinder, discovered in 1879 by a British expedition and on permanent display at the British Museum, has been on tour in the United States for the first time this year. It will be on display at the Getty Villa in Malibu until December 2. It bears a decree from the "Persian" emperor that people who had been captured and enslaved by rulers before him be allowed to return to their homelands and worship in whatever shrine, and to whichever god, they please. This meant that exiled Jews could return to Jerusalem and rebuild their temple. Just as significantly, it meant that those Jews who chose to stay in Persia were able to live and die with the same rights as all others.
"All this," I want to tell the politely insulting men and women who imply, with their question, that Iranians in the West are ashamed of their origins, "is as much a part of our history as the little bit that is more commonly known in our times." The mullahs, after all, have been in power for three-and-a-half decades; what is that, really, in the context of three thousand years?
In the end, though, it's not about what we call ourselves but what we, an ancient people that has endured and outlasted every natural or man-made calamity many times over, have given to the world over the millennia. It's about what we, faithful and upstanding immigrants, grateful for this nation's generosity and loyal to its laws and customs, are able, and eager, to give back to this country now.
To recognize that there's strength in diversity was the great wisdom of the empire that Cyrus built. Two thousand years later, his doctrine would be part of the education of Thomas Jefferson, and adopted by him and other founding fathers. At the time, the cylinder was still buried in the earth where it would remain for another century, but the ideas it embodies, the values it represents, prevailed over time and circumstance and will prevail still -- over all the mullahs and Hezbollahs of the world and all the other tragic little blips in history.