Nice timing
And, speaking of the 71st anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz – Iran is holding another “Holocaust cartoons” contest.
Just in time for International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Iranian government has announced that it will be holding another “Holocaust Cartoons Contest,” in which the cartoonist who most viciously mocks the Nazi genocide will be awarded $50,000.
But wait, isn’t that figure buggering the bovine a* spitting image of PM, pbuh?
* one of many possible candidates
https://www.facebook.com/144310995587370/photos/a.271728576178944.71555.144310995587370/1112272045457922/?type=3&theater
And to think that all those centuries ago The Persians liberated the Jews from Babylon. 25 centuries ago the Cylinder of Cyrus The Great ( a kind of constitution) contained the first know written laws calling for freedom of belief.
Today’s Iran is but a shadow its past. How depressing it is to know that human societies can evolve backwards.
John @3
Yes, however those Persians were mainly Zoroastrians not Muslims, that’s the difference. We can also read too much into the Cylinder, throughout history Persian government has been authoritarian, despotic and brutal, but generally less totalitarian than the current regime.
@4
There are still communities of Zoroastrians around. I was surprise to learn that Toronto has a large community.
Though far older than Islam, Zoroastrianism seems to produce individuals that are far better in terms of their behavior, their morality, their treatment of women etc. I’ve seen paintings from pre-Islamic Persia that depict the hunt. Not only do these paintings portray women, they portray women hunting alongside men.
Like I said, a society can evolve backwards
John @5
There are also depictions of unveiled women that were painted during the 16th and 17th centuries, the famous “Persian miniatures”, presumably they were members of the aristocracy, so it’s not necessarily indicative of the way most women in Persia dressed at the time. Iran was never thoroughly “Arabised” like most of the populations in North Africa and the NE, however that didn’t save the Iranians from the current theocratic nightmare.
“Like I said, a society can evolve backwards’
Agreed, in fact that appears to be the trend with Muslim majority nations, so I’m pessimistic in regard to Turkey’s future and I wouldn’t put any money on Indonesia remaining as a semi-secular democracy either. My point was a caution in regard to projecting modern concepts onto past cultures.