Iranian identity versus religious identity
Since the establishment of Islamic Republic, principle-ists have initiated the policy of de-Iranianization of the Iran, by replacing the notion of Iranian Identity and Nationality with Moslem Identity, both inside and outside Iran. Ayatollah Khomeini has emphasized this goal in several of his speeches, for example, on Dec 1980 (as published in Kayhan):
"Those who say that we want nationality, they are standing against Islam....We have no use for the nationalists.
Moslems are useful for us. Islam is against nationality...."[115]
"These issues that exist among people that we are Iranian and what we need to do for Iran are not correct; these issues are not correct. This issue, which is perhaps being discussed everywhere, regarding paying attention to nation and nationality is nonsense in Islam and is against Islam. One of the things that the designers of
Imperialism and their agents have promoted is the idea of nation and nationality."[115]
Mehdi Bazargan, the first Prime minister of Islamic Republic, once said: "Imam [Khomeini] wants Iran for Islam and we want Islam for Iran." Due to the commitment to Pan-Islamism inherent in Iranian Islamic revolutionary ideology, the Islamic Republic's attitude toward Sunni Islam is positive.[116]
At the beginning of the Islamic Revolution, one of the most-notorious clerics in Iran, Sadeq Khalkhali known as the hanging judge,[117] who was renowned for his brutality and mass executions in post-revolutionary Iran, tried to destroy 2500-year-old Persepolis, and after that the mausoleum of Ferdowsi. He was stopped by the efforts of the locals.
Iranian government in several occasions constructed dams and rail roads in the vicinity of ancient archeological sites that date back to pre-Islamic era. In January 2007, the Minister of Energy, Parviz Fattah directly ordered the opening of the Sivand Dam. Referring to the critics, he said: "I will make a museum next to the dam with my own money!"[118] Sivand dam project has been one of the most condemned projects in post-revolution Iran due to its potential to destroy Iranian archaeological sites. Some Iranians are furious about the construction of the dam and argue that there is no objective in the world worthy to justify the construction of a dam, so close to Pasargadae.[119] Hossein Marashi, the Iranian Vice President for Cultural Heritage and Tourism said: "We can not sacrifice the dam for cultural and historical sites."[120] Sivand Dam became operational in 2007. Ahmadinejad's government, however, refused to buy the detectors needed for monitoring humidity of the Pasargadae.[121] Also "Karun-3 dam" was constructed during Rafsanjani's presidency which led to destruction of ancient archeological site in Izeh.[122][123]
Defaming Cyrus the Great, Islamist negationist Sadeq Khalkhali wrote an article entitled "Kourosh-e Doroughin" (Impostor Cyrus) shortly after the revolution. In 2001, Nasser Pourpirar wrote two books entitled "Twelve centuries of silence" and "A bridge to past", claiming that the Sassanid empire and Parthian Empires never existed, and are the fabrications of Jewish and American orientalists.[124] Abbas Salimi Namin attributed Persepolis to Russian civilization. Islamist negationists Abbas Salimi Namin and Purpirar were coworkers for the hardline "Kayhan Havaei" (a weekly review of the daily Keyhan in English) after the revolution. Namin, a computer engineer and former member of Haghani circle is a close ally of Ali Khamenei, the leader of the Islamic Republic. Ignored by Iranian scholars, such figures managed to enter and influence traditional clerical circles and the policy makers of the Islamic Republic.[125]
Interestingly several of these Islamist negationists were formerly associated with Marxist groups before acting as agents of Islamic Republic.[125]
Ruling clerics sought to stamp out many traditions, like Nowruz, a celebration with some Zoroastrian links that stretches back thousands of years to the pre-Islamic era, to mark the arrival of spring. The celebration is considered by many here the most Iranian of holidays.[126][127]
Several proposals have been made by conservatists to replace or shorten Norouz celebrations but rejected because of public protests. Ayatollah Khazali, a member of the powerful Guardians Council and the Experts Assembly for Leadership, has proposed that the celebration of Ghadir (Shiites commemorate these festivities as the day prophet Mohammad is recorded to have named disciple Ali to be his successor) should replace the traditional Iranian celebration of Norouz.[128]
Ali Khamenei in many occasions attacked the Iranian fire festival Chahar Shanbeh Suri and also called for shortening Norouz, claiming that the holidays are seriously damaging Iranian economy. Following an order by Ali Khamenei the fire festival has been banned by the regime since it is of Zoroastrian origins and is not Islamic. However, due to internal opposition, the government had to step back.[127]
Arabic vs Persian
The most detailed and explicit statement about Arabic was made by Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani in 1981 in an important Sermon linking the fate of Persian language directly to that of Persian nationality:
"both shall vanish as soon as Islamic unity is attained".[116]
The tradition of banning names dates to the beginning of the Islamic Revolution in the early 1980s, when Iran's conservative leaders sought to purge the country of both Western culture and its own Persian, pre-Islamic past. Fundamentalists consider it unfortunate that Iranians used to be Zoroastrians, or that the ancient Persian empire achieved its greatest triumphs before Islam's arrival. To that end, they compiled a long list of forbidden names that included Zoroastrians gods and goddesses, commanders of ancient Persian armies, and other such tainted, best-forgotten figures. Indeed, Arabic names, except for a handful of Sunni villains, were fine. Persian ones, despite originating from the language actually spoken in Iran, had to be checked against the official list. Along the way, other politically inconvenient realities were fought on the baby name terrain. Wishing to quell an uprising by ethnically Kurdish Iranians in the north, the government banned Kurdish names.[129] Street names had changed from old Persian names to Arabic and Muslim names .This whole shift of the Iranian identity toward a more Islamic one created a kind of crisis.[130]
Iranian society on the other hand, identify itself as Iranian. In Iran-Iraq war for example, all Iranians irrespective of their religions and ethnic groups defended the country. Abdolkarim Soroush, foremost Iranian religious intellectual, once suggested to adapt the religion to Iranian culture by organizing Ashura and other Islamic festivals according to Iranian calendar instead of Islamic calendar to avoid conflicts between Iranian identity and religion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_political_Islam_in_Iran
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