Beware of Historical Revisionists – (Updated)

The post below was originally published in June 2007.  I have found it necessary to once again highlight the content.
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The endeavor to revise Iran’s history is not a new initiative by those who are the Islamic Republic’s direct or indirect supporters. Essentially, the new Islamic revisionists’ efforts, at least informally, began prior to 1979 Khomeinist revolution, in turn, contributing to the rise of the Islamic Republic by deliberately deceiving the population in favor of an Islamic Utopia.

The short-sightedness of the Shah’s government & advisors, who tried to prevent the communists/marxists from speaking out, but largely allowed the Islamists to disseminate their propaganda, in a still deeply religious and traditional Iranian society – not quite ripe for a full democracy, ensured the success of the cunning Mullahs and their ilks in overthrowing a mostly secular government under the pretext of ”Democracy” 

Since 1979 the efforts of the Islamists to incite hatred towards Iran’s pre-Islam history have continued unabated.  This time the Islamists also trash & equate Iranian nationalism to people such as Hitler and Saddam.  No doubt only Khomeini et al vision and mission of establishing an Islamic Ummah can match that of Hitler’s ambitions. 

In the case of pre-Islam history of Iran, no country can claim to have had a perfect trackrecord of continuous peace and prosperity, nor infallible “saintly” leaders and rulers, particularly those nations such as Iran with its complex history stretching well over 3000 years.  Empires rise and fall; this is not unique to Iran.  And, history is often written by those who win or are influenced by the conquerers.

But, to solely focus on, and select events, present them out of context, generalize and compare them to today’s situation in Iran, mixed with a few blatant lies and many half truths, can only be construed as a malicious attempt to paint a negative picture in order to purposefully mislead.

Whilst Iran & Iranians, for the past 1400 years of Islamic domination, and, more recently past 30 years under the Islamic Republic, have been subjected to unspeakable savagery, the vicious Islamists & their masters still persist with diverting attention by turning the spotlight on Iran’s pre-Islamic heritage and history.

Since the Islamists in Iran know that they would lose their tight grip on the population should they loosen the leash on people, they, therefore, actively teach Iranians to hate their pre-Islam history.  I can only assume they are feeling unequivocally threatened.

Unfortunately for these pseudo intellectual Islamic “analysts”, the Iranian People have become increasingly knowledgeable regarding their past, as well as quite astute in identifying the hidden agendas of those who openly or surreptitiously misrepresent Iran’s pre-Islam history through their own selective accounts, interpretations, lies & half truths.  Their attempts are doomed to fail. 

After all, in my view, the purpose of history is to learn from it in a balanced manner (bad and good).  However, I don’t think one can expect to change peoples’ attitude, nor justify the barbarism of post Islam history in Iran by slandering and insulting a nation’s original culture, heritage and identity.

Here are two good posts by Aryamehr which I suggest you read.

The first entry is dated May 31, 2007 – has lengthy extracts from Dr. Kaveh Farrokh’s book -  Shadows in the Desert – Ancient Persia at War

The second entry is dated - June 21, 2007 - Historical revisionists pertaining to Iranian affaires are on the rise – excerpts below:

“The revisionists are targetting the Iranian identity, culture, and history. This is not limited to just revisionist history in regards to the Pahlavi Dynasty which have been exposed to some extent previously on this site but goes also back thousands of years back to the times of Cyrus the Great and the Persian Empire before the forceful imposition of Islam.

Today I received a very disturbing report by acclaimed Iranian historian Dr Kaveh Farrokh which dealt with this topic. Re-writing history to produce a false outcome that fits ones political and social agenda is a great threat which the Iranian Nation is having to deal with in light of Islamists trying to eradicate any pre-Islamic links of the Iranian people….”