2020.03 Iran Course Notes
When you think of Iran, what comes to your mind?
In the past two years, I have attended several salons introducing Iran. The common feature of every speaker is that they are full of praise for Iran!
This mysterious country is under the rendering of the international mainstream
It’s scary…. it seems that Iran is always involved with terrorists, or it loves to develop nuclear weapons in the madness of endangering mankind… However, looking at the pictures of Iran in the book, those fascinating geometric pattern
A mosque and ancient ruined buildings standing in the desert
But it gave me a desire to know more about this country…
In the process of preparing this country introduction, I decided to start from history and bring my children to know the past and present of Iran. …
I will spend two classes introducing each country
In fact, it is also because the previous part of the current affairs will take a long time
Although the age of the child
We will spend more time discussing and expressing opinions
Start learning the ability to “learn now to sell”. My generation belongs to the age of information explosion
However, today’s children are not only facing an information explosion
It is even more necessary to receive information at any time and immediately absorb, digest, remove and save the essentials in the brain, and convert them into their own language.
“The era of super-light speed of human brain CPU” (named by Lara himself~)
So this ability to learn and sell now is really important~ (Eh…suddenly a bit off topic….)
The first class in Iran, we do not introduce Iran, but introduce “Persia”
In fact, not long ago
I still have a vague concept of Persia in my mind…. Where is Persia?
Why can’t I find it on the map?
But in the textbook, we have all memorized
“The Persian Empire was the first great empire to be established across Europe, Asia and Africa”
Those in the history textbooks with white heads and big gold heads and big pointy noses are all very familiar.
But they didn’t know each other…. Maybe it was too messy in the previous student days
The teacher should have said that Persia has disappeared
Iran is now Persia
I didn’t hear it…
The two river basins are the origin of human civilization, this sentence is also very familiar
The names of those two rivers are even more difficult to remember {Euphrates} & {Tigris}
But what exactly happened there
God knows…. so
We start with the story before the unification of the Persian Empire…
Founder of the Persian Empire – Cyrus the Great
(Yes~ We have all seen his pictures in history textbooks, but we are not familiar with him at all….)
My grandfather is a power-obsessed, paranoid man
He has two strange dreams in a row
A dream of grapevines growing out of his daughter’s womb
I dreamed that my daughter was peeing all over the place (the place here is the whole of Asia)
When the monk who interpreted the dream heard this, he said, “Oh, it’s incredible~ King, you will have a grandson who will snatch the throne from you in the future~
and not only that
He is still an emperor who will unify all of Asia~” In ancient China
may be a good thing
But the old king of Media who lived in 585 BC didn’t think so…. He thought of the same tricks as the “stepmothers and queens” that were often heard in Europe later…
That is.. get rid of the person who is prettier/stronger than you…. whoever he is… of course, as in all fairy tales
Weak protagonists will always find their way in the end
The protagonist of this story is the later unification of three small countries on the Iranian plateau
Founding of the Persian Empire – Cyrus the Great
Cyrus conquered the Babylonian Empire in 539 AD
Freed all slaves and Jews
and declares that all people have the right to choose their own religion
The command was inscribed in cuneiform on a clay cylinder
Such a representative historical moment
I think it deserves more space to explain
Many things are not so for granted
Only by understanding the context of history can we better understand the origin of the present
Iran in the second church, we are back in modern times
The Iran of the past 100 years is no longer the Persian I knew in the last lesson
After the First World War, the United Kingdom and the United States came to this place because of the discovery of oil.
The British established the Anglo-Persian Oil Company here
That is, the predecessor of the later BP British Petroleum. The United States even supported its own power after World War II
established the Pahlavi dynasty
The discovery of oil made Iran the richest and most advanced country in the Middle East at the time
It was the first industrialized, automated Middle Eastern country and built the region’s first highway
However, resources can carry a boat or capsize it….because wealth comes too fast
Excessive luxury made the king overwhelmed, and some of the reform and opening-up policies of the young king made the vested interests unhappy
And the reform could not help the common people, so the wave of revolution came
It finally broke out after the king of Pahlavi held a 2500-year-old Persian birthday that was not rejoicing in the whole country!
The Islamic Revolution of 1989
The Iranians drove away the extravagant shah and welcomed the ultra-conservative Khomeini. …
from now on
Iranian women can no longer walk in the streets in trendy clothes
Wear a burqa all over your body or at least a headscarf
Become the standard equipment when going out
Women’s rights and interests fell to the bottom in an instant…
40 years of reform, what kind of impact has it brought to Iran?
We’re not in the middle of bad reviews
But we know a lot of things “for granted”
for iranian girls
It doesn’t seem so for granted…. World Football 2 years ago
an event happened
An Iranian girl disguised as a boy went to the stadium to watch the game
be exposed
The court sentenced the girl
More than the above to no avail
The last time she came out of the police station she decided to set herself on fire in protest…
Because of this incident, the Iranian authorities have been severely criticized
Finally, in October 2019, the rules for girls to enter the stadium to watch the game were opened.
for our girls
Such a thing is far away yet so close
many things we can’t imagine
Happening in the same time and space…
However
I don’t want my kids to only know this side of Iran
Whether in the process of listening to a lecture before or searching for a video
I found the warm and open side of Iranians,
It’s worth mentioning
When a country isolated by the world, a group of people restricted by the country
but not cynical
Instead, they are very willing to help and understand others, such a philosophy of life
I can’t help but put Iran in my pocket list for deep travel…
