Davood Rahni
Inspired by the surreal and uplifting TEDxTehran Women© Talk accompanied by the sublime operatic solo performance of maestro virtuoso Ariana Vafadari, I remain in awe sitting in my nook on a gloomy and frigid autumnal day and amidst the COVID-19 catastrophe. As I glare at the dusk silhouette of the pregnant clouds, high above in the sky of the lower Hudson Valley of New York, I find myself interspersed in a twilight zone of a void at the infinite crossroad between space and time.
In dire hope of snapping out of my somber melancholy and its accompanying heart wrenching emotions, encore, I again listen to Ariana’s divine songs. While her Gathas song, inspired by the ancient Zoroastrian poetic hymns of Iran in the Avestan language performed in D-Minor is immensely sad, her Anahita song named after the Goddess of water, mother-earth and fertility leading the listener’s soul to a transcendence toward the ultimate and only source of one’s inner-consciousness, is jubilant. Sortie out my trance in France and as I wake up from a state of conundrum kudos to Ariana, and after nearly twenty years of my having remained timidly silent about when it all began, I find myself in an elating state of ecstasy and the impetus to eventually share this reflective prose herein.
Her video is the latest in a series of Ariana’s fine artistic expressions that I have watched with mixed melancholia and euphoria since her father Kasra Vafadari, a stellar professor of social studies, history, Iranian and contemporary western studies and law was beheaded most horrifically in Paris back in 2005. Whether or not her father’s slaying as surmised, was due to certain family feud triangulation that went spiral haywire into the deep end, instigated by a third party assassin or by both, is irrelevant to the core heart of this essay. While humanity should ethically remain most sympathetically compassionate to, and learn much from their two daughters and alike, especially Ariana who despite all odds of despair stood up again and are strolling through the rough terrain of life. Five years after heinous crime, a French court convicted an Iranian national for his despicable and hideous crime of killing Professor Vafadari in 2010; the convict jailed for life, has no parole or clemency (France has a ban on the death penalty). Kasra was a most outspoken civic activist scholar and the steward protecting human rights, due process and the rule of law especially as endured by the indigenous people pf his native country, the Zoroastrians to whom he also belonged.
A genuinely forthright human being though, his professorial but pontificating oratory style that frequently crossed the social decorum when he frustrated, used vulgarity and disparaging or pejorative remarks to impart his points across, cost him pay the most precious price, HIS LIFE. The proverb “never mind his barracuda face, but instead, mind his Persian Pussy cat heart deep down,” was most fitting to Kasra’s expressions of his emotions.
What is most startling however is how his daughter Ariana, who fled Iran along with her binational family at five and caught in between the 2 cultures since and detached from it all, has now triumphed to define and embrace her sense of higher calling and purpose in life. She has moved on far beyond the myriad ordeals and injustices in her own still beautiful life, such that the loss of her father has led to an epiphany of drawing from her Persian Zoroastrian ethos and her innate and acquired artistic talents to compose and sing the divinely sublime and humanistic operatic music. Her expression truly integrates what the fine arts, cultures and ethos of the orient-vis a vis Iran-and its interconnectedness with the Occident’s opera and music, can seamlessly offer humanity as a whole.
Ariana’s outreach to the very inner-essence of human consciousness has conjured up vividly the memories of my journey home back in early 2000’s. A dozen of us, Iranian professors and physicians from across the globe, were serendipitously fortunate to get to know Kasra Vafadari and as we were rudimentarily familiar with his scholarship and legacy beforehand. We fortuitously crossed paths with him and the other Iranian expatriates as we spent a week giving lectures in several mother universities in Shiraz, Esfahan, and Tehran while visiting archeological monuments in Iran interspersed with attending music concerts.
We literally lived together for a week that in retrospect now seems like only a quantum lightning leap. Kasra resided outside Iran since age ten whereby his last twenty-five years was in Paris the Bastion City for stewardship of “humanity, liberty, fraternity and solidarity.” As a result, the expression of his state of mind and actions came across to most as somewhat “flamboyantly eccentric.” Well intentioned, when speaking to large audience, his righteous candor quickly threw most, especially the authorities, peers and students in Iran, over the edge into the gutter and out of their comfort zones. Consequently, his oration monologue came across as a bit too far-reaching and nerve-racking.
The above notwithstanding, the late Professor Vafadari was a well-read, well-trimmed, well-dressed and boat tied, and prolifically published scholar having swum across the turbulent seas of a half dozen languages of classical and contemporary literatures and cultures on the three Nordic continents. Although forward-looking, he lamented with melancholic nostalgia the loss of much of the past glories of ancient Persia aka Iran and as perhaps innately felt by most Iranians.
Zoroastrian heritage in Iran has dwindled; a respectable volume of it persist since 1500 years ago, not only among current the 150000 Zoroastrians worldwide, but also among the nearly 200 million Iranians and the regional brethren of Iran. His Zoroastrian heritage from the isolated Zarthusti community complemented his scholarship on pre-Islamic through modern Iran, and instilled in him a crisp calling to pursue and “proselytize” on the Persian culture and heritage, LOUD and CLEAR! After all, Ksara Vafadari had embedded into himself and onto others a long-standing Persian ethos (one could yearn the same for the whole humanity) that had ethically compelled him to avoid cursing futilely against utter darkness or lashing high seas or windmills, but rather instead, hold the LIT torch of enlightenment and truth against the darkness.
Kasra and Laurence raised their two daughters Ariana and Afsaneh. The couple had for the most part raised and nurtured their children in a universal, humanistic, and Persian culture and ethos and anchored on Zoroastrian spiritualism. Their lifestyle resonated well with French humanistic liberalism, in particular. A number of siblings, uncles, aunts and cousins, scattered on three continents in the northern hemisphere, have survived him, too. The trials and tribulations endured by Ariana’s Zoroastrian family remain inextricably unbearable; nonetheless, one should realize that Vafadari’s ordeals are somewhat similar to the same fate borne by five to six million Iranian expatriates in the past few decades.
Then again, one could not fathom the same excruciatingly painful sentiments when the ancient nation of Iran formerly Persia, currently 83 million strong, still struggles to step into the secular and democratic modernity of the 21st century? Yes indeed, Iran has yearned for freedoms, democracy and the secular rule of law for the past 150 years. In fact, it was such yearning that led to the overthrow of a modern dictatorship, just to witness it hopelessly replaced overnight with an opportunistic theological kleptocracy. What has remained most uplifting though is how Ariana has moved on from her faith to actualize humanistic spiritualism thereby transcending closer to the invisible and never proven source: Farvahar the ultimate ascension to Parvardegar, the creator if not the originator of it all and more…
There indeed has existed a historically rich plethora of Persian mythologies comprised of vast volumes of poetry and prose as well as heart-to-heart transmittance against the backdrop of Iran’s recorded history of 10,000 years. This is exemplified by Ferdowsi’ Shahnameh, the epic 30,000 verses poetry book of the Persian Kings of Peshdadian and Kayanian Dynasties written 1000 years ago based on legends from millennia earlier. The invading Arab desert dwellers and some among them the Caravan raiders, who brought with them one book which claimed to have “answers” to all questions, literally set ablaze the massive collections of Persian manuscripts and, in essence led to weakening Iran’s previous faiths of Zoroastrianism, Judaism and Christianity. The sporadic little literature left from the pre-Islamic era and what has since been regenerated especially amid the past decades, has become a magnificent source for fine composers and performers like Ariana, her peers and her protégés to generate operas, theaters, and movies that could easily surpass the impressive European and American performances.
Each of the Persian poetic stories or mythical tales in the Shahnameh is narrated in four cyclical solar seasons: Fall, the joyous era of egalitarian approach to communal protection and survival, peace, bounties and health of the nation. Winter, the saddened era of injustice, tyranny, pain, pillar and plunder famine and diseases afflicted by darkened forces. Spring, the era of triumph of light over darkness, enlightenment, justice, equality, fairness, harmony, tranquility and peace. Summer, the era of transforming or eradicating forever the darkness and injustice, thereby eating the fruits and drinking the juices in the paradise of mother-earth.
Hominids and Homo sapiens including the ancient Persians/Iranians had instinctively recognized the most crucially pivotal role of women in the continuation and sustenance of life since the beginning of time and place. They had grasped and revered the role of bearing, fertility and productions as they depended on the sun, moon, earth and its many bounties of flora and fauna, and women. Therefore, it is not surprising that throughout the history of Iran and her Persian cultures, mythology and ethos, that the celestial objects, earth, moon and sun among others in Persian language and cultures have remained female since the beginning of time. In fact, deities and goddesses, as evidenced by smaller and larger figurines and statutes and sculptures collections in Museums as Louvre and as in the book the Royal City of Susa, are women. Historians surmise the three Abrahamic religions, transposing the icon image of their prophets over the sun to use it as sacred halo, transformed matriarchy into patriarchy. Somewhere along the historical timeline, around five to three thousand years ago, Goddesses become gods and then one god as believed by the three Abrahamic religions. This power transfer from female to male became the pinnacle of socio-economic, political and military power.
Hushang the second king of the Peshdadian Dynasty, amid his reign in the Stone Age when hunting alone once, is said to have serendipitously discovered the power of fire when he struck off another lint boulder when his aim was to scare off an incoming humongous venomous snake toward him! This led to keeping the fire eternally sacred in temples harnessing its light, energy, heat, cleansing, disinfecting, and deterrence effects against wild animals, and for metallurgy and material making. The evolution of thoughts, that led to the cognition of the four basic elements essential to safeguard for creating and sustaining life, namely fire (sun), water, earth, and air, followed.
Later Jamshid the just King of the Peshdadian Dynasty instituted and ushered in the jubilant Nowruz, the Persian New Year heralded on the vernal spring equinox. He was however, killed and overthrown by the despot Zah’hak at the winter that followed. As soon as Angra Mainyu (aka Ahriman, Eblis, , Sheytan, Stan, Demon, Div, Djinns) wet kissed Zah’hak’s two shoulder calves, two grotesque snakes emerged from his extremities. The snakes, repeatedly, made love to copulate over Zah’hak’s hollow skull until their feeding time at noon was upon them. They required devouring a daily dose of the fresh flesh of a young newlywed Persian couple offered at them. The premise was that if this offering was not provided before each dusk that they would begin annihilating, in bits and pieces, the tyrant Zah’hak himself so to send his soul deep down to Douzakh the hell, until he was burnt to ashes at day-time and frozen over at nights, forever.
The majority serf populace, horrified of such repeated cataclysmic episodes, had all but lost hope and the impetus to live. Then on the last Tuesday night before spring, the blacksmith Kaveh emerged with his leather apron staffed on his tall javelin called since Derafsh Kaviani. He called on all Iranians and led them up Mt. Damavand where they dug up Zah’hak hidden deeply in his dark and swampy damp dungeon and beheaded him and his two snake companions with one mighty strike of the strongest sword ever made but himself. Despite the pleas of his compatriots, the patriotic Kaveh was not interested in ruling Persia and so he suggested Fereydun be crowned onto the Peacock Throne as the next King of the Keyanian Dynasty. Fereydun restored justice, peace and happiness again until the end of time. And, so, the Iranians lived happily ever after! (Or so they wished)
For Ariana as the child of only one Persian parent with a secular Persian/Zoroastrian culture, and with the dominant French mother’s ethos, to have her petty bourgeois comfort zone interrupted by her father’s grotesque death, and for her to achieve such a deep level of “Persian Zoroastrian” consciousness, is simply remarkable. What is even more startling is the same evolution of thoughts which has been only accelerated among the majority of Iranians, the “Muslims,” though Shiites are deemed “deviant despots” according to the more traditionalist Sunni’s and as led (ideologically and financially) by Wahhabism of Saudi Arabia.
Individuals, communities or a nation when feeling committed to the universal golden edict of moral ethical conducts, and as in spiritual Zoroastrianism pillared by the three tenants of good thoughts (visions), good words (dialogue and plan), and good deeds (actions) will have a humanistic sense of purpose that benefits the whole transcendently. After all, It is not any longer surprising when the first European Feminist, Francesca Speranza Wilde, wrote extensively on common mythologies between Iran and Ireland of nearly eight thousand year ago, and she relied on archaeological and anthropological evidence for the two common ethos and the central role women again played in the distant past.
Thence, matriarchy as the epicenter of human survival and as emulating the sun, moon and earth and their roles for the same purpose, has existed since the beginning of time. This has in turn, led to far more reaching evolutionary outcomes for women. As evidenced by recent brain imaging techniques such as MRI, women’s two hemispheres are more interconnected, thereby allowing them for life necessity to multitask more efficiently than men. Women with two XX gender chromosomes carry almost twice genes to pass on offspring compared to the two XY chromosomes in men.
History or better yet Herstory has taught us that the most profound lesson of global consequences in life is for communities and counties to safeguard the natural rights of individuals and uphold reverently to their own faith and rituals while respecting others’. However, when faith devolves into an entrenched politicized religiosity and in essence serves, as the other side of the socio-economic and political exploitations be it in the west or the east, then it must be subject to same scrutiny if not stronger as any other socio-economic and politicized acts.
In fact, such a paradigm shift from adherence to literal and superstitious religious dogma to a pragmatic and eclectic humane spirituality and ecumenical guardianship of Mother Earth, is also self-evident among Iranians born in the faiths of Mithraism, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, Mazdeism, Manicheism, Gnosticism, agnosticism, aestheticism, Islam (Shi’ism, Sunnism, Sufism, Bahaism) and above all spiritual humanism.
The Persian ethos is the distinct characteristics of a nation far above decadent secularism or ultra-nationalism; it serves as the common instinctive human conscience for lifestyle and rituals embraced and enjoyed by all humanity. Anchored on its vast and deeply embedded history, literature, music and culture, and arts and architecture, be it trampled or influenced by others over at times or adopted in part by neighboring nations, Iran’s ethos remains unparalleled worldwide.
Epitomizing, so long as Mother Earth outputs from her bosom and nurtures Arianas, there is still hope for humanity as a whole in the global village of life.