@@ Evil intentions - Death to the Western savages @@
Arash
September 19, 2005
Letter to Guardian: "The Evil Empire" or Evil Intentions
Dr. Abbas Alizadeh
Reading Mr. Jonathan Jones’ article, “The evil empire”, in your reputable newspaper
(http://groups.google.ca/group/soc.culture.iranian/msg/d70635dc3de5a9cd?hl=en) one is
left with the feeling that Mr. Jones knows very little, if any, about history, art
history, and archaeology.
In fact, on a par with the title of the article, he immediately reveals his political
agenda in his first paragraph and continues his political ramble in a thinly wrapped
critique of the British Museum’s ongoing exhibition of Persian Achaemenid “Forgotten
Empire”. Lest readers may be ambiguous about Persia, he duly reminds them that it is
the same as Iran.
This is unfortunate because at this critical time when the polarization of the world
is increasingly becoming nasty, ugly, and dangerous, Mr. Jones’ article would simply
serve as fodder to the attitude that in part has been responsible for today’s
geopolitical quagmire we are witnessing now.
Mr. Jones’ primary source of information to bash Persian Achaemenids—and by extension
the East—seems to be Herodotus. First, the Greeks, as Jones claims, did not invent
history. History is a process. In his monumental work, The Persian Wars, Herodotus
invented historical narrative, peppered with an attempt to explain historical events
by appealing both to divine intervention and logic.
It is important to remember that Herodotus spent most of his time in Athens and wrote
his book for the Greeks, and certainly with Athenian bias. While Herodotus’ book has
historical value, most of his narrative consists of hearsay. To the Greeks, everybody
was a barbarian, including the Macedonians and their upstart leaders, Philip and his
son Alexander, who destroyed Greek city-states, robbed the Greeks of their cherished
freedom, and frustrated the rapid development of Greek civilization.
Prior to the mid-fifth century BC, the heart of Greek intellectual achievement was
not in mainland Greece but in their former colonies on the eastern Mediterranean
coast. These internally independent colonies constituted the westernmost part of the
Achaemenid Empire. What other colonial power could claim the development of a superb
civilization in its colonies on their watch? This is not to an accolade for
colonialism, which throughout history, particularly from the seventeenth to the
twentieth centuries, caused unspeakable atrocities around the world. The flourishing
of Greek philosophy, mathematics, and geometry, to name a few, was made possible
perhaps because the Persian Achaemenids, the “baddies” and “original villains” of Mr.
Jones, were a tolerant nation and civilized enough to appreciate and respect cultures
and nations other than their own.
While Darius I was busy improving the infra-structure of his empire by building
highways, establishing postal service, digging a canal connecting the Nile to the Red
Sea, regulating measures and weight for commerce, to name a few, Alexander kept
himself busy conquering and plundering one nation after another until his death.
But the greatest contribution of the Persian Achaemenids was the preservation and
development of the millennia-old ancient Near Eastern civilization they inherited.
This brings us to Mr. Jones childish criticism of formal Persian art. Mr. Jones does
not understand that ancient Near Eastern art is defined by a set of conventions that
developed in the course of thousands of years, and that the Persians preserved and
improved upon it. Movement, portraiture, frontal views and overlapping figures, as
Mr. Jones claims, are not necessarily strong criteria to judge formal, monumental art
and architecture. These characteristics can, however, be found in the minor art of
the Persian Achaemenids, particularly in the gold work and utilitarian objects and
glyptic.
While the British Museum is admirably trying to acknowledge the past achievements of
a modern nation and thereby create an amicable atmosphere of good will, Mr. Jones
attitude in his article has blinded him to deny the achievements of an empire that
existed 2500 years ago. His political agenda, on the other hand, has led him to
vilify an ancient nation and by extension the modern-day nation of Iran.
Abbas Alizadeh (Ph.D.)
Senior Research Associate
Director of Iranian prehistoric Project
The Oriental Institute
The University of Chicago
1155 East 58th Street
Chicago, US 60637
http://www.payvand.com/news/05/sep/1156.html