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February 09, 2005
"I know best!"
What I am writing here might be a universal human trait, or it might be just limited to some people. There are many Iranians who complain about the behaviour of other Iranians as if they themselves are from another planet. I am, however, ready to admit that I might have exactly the same character flaw I am criticising here. The reason I am singling out Iranians here is because I am more familiar with that behaviour, although the same thing might be seen in other communities.
I am specifically refering to the behaviour of Iranians in university classes and professional lectures. Anyone who has been in a lecture whose subject is somehow related to Iran, has seen an Iranian that will raise his/her hand in order to ask a question. These "questions", however, turn out to be lengthy speeches, outlining the ideas of the "questioner", ideas that are usually at odds with the speaker and try to present the "questioner's" superior knowledge of the subject. They do not add anything to the discussion other than boring people and making the "questioner" sound like a pumpous, under-read idealogue.
Particularly in lectures about politics and history, subjects on which all Iranians apparently are born with a PhD (!!!), this episode is common. The questioner, usually someone who is not in the field, gives a long talk based on their readings in the highschool or in the latest popular magazine, and they think that they are presenting fresh ideas that people in the academia have not heard about.
Sometimes, when some people politely remind them of the fact that the information based on which they are arguing have been conclusively discredited, they answer by saying that "academia is acting exclusive, and when it does not like something, it discredits them." They agnore the fact that this "acadmia" is also made up of real people who read those popular magazines, PLUS the unpopular Journals that other people don't read!
The reason I am writing this is the incident that happened tonight. A friend of mine who is a professor of Ancient History and a well-known scholar of pre-Islamic Iran, is teaching a class on the History of Zoroastrianism. Most of the students in the class are Americans who are either directly interested in the subject or just curious about an exotic religion!
Among the students are two Zoroastrian Iranians. These two, armed by bad translations of the Avesta and bachelor degrees in psychology and philosophy, constantly ask "questions". Their speeches last for at least 10 minutes, during which, by relaying on what they have learned as children and their "new found" awareness of their religion, they try to discredit the professor. They intrupt him, shouting at the American students that the professor is mis-representing their religion.
When the professor tells them that he is not teaching a theology class, rather a class in the history of a religion and his quotations are from the Avesta itself, and he is just trying to explain the historical background, they still do not listen. They in fact did not stop until one of the other students turned back and told them to stop wasting the class time. Then, the professor told them that this is his lecture, not theirs, and invited them outside the class and had a talk with them, saying that they are wasting the time of other students. How immature and ignorant one has to be not to understand that?
After this, they still kept on asking "questions", and they would always start with "in my opinion...". I was tempted to tell them that no one asked for their opinion. If they are so opinionated on the subject and so knowledgable, why don't they grace us all by starting their own classes and guiding us all to the true way?
Someone should ask people like these why they even bother taking the class? If you are so knowledgable about the subject, why are you wasting your time and money? You already know everything and without having studied anything, already know more about the ideas in the Avesta and seem to be closer to the Prophet Zarathushtra than his own son! Your knowledge of a complicated language like Avestan, on which five scholars are spending their lives, is already more complete than someone who has studied Sanskrit and Avestan and Old Persian for twenty years, so why do you come to this class? If you are so grand and you are so knowledgable about everything, why do you lower yourself to the level of us mortals who are struggeling to learn?
This is the ever repeating subject. Always trying to show off our meager knowledge and our reading, always trying to prove we know more than everyone else, always trying to discredit those who spend their lives on learning something, constantly trying to bring others down.
When will we learn?
Posted by Khodadad at February 9, 2005 11:52 PM
Comments
Khodadad, my personal opinion is that these two students behavied the way they did not because they were Iranian, but rather because they are religious Zoroastrians. (Btw, I didn't know that there were any practicing Zoroastrians. How many Iranians are Zoroastrians today?) I think that they behaved as they did because they felt in some way that the professor was threatening their beliefs by exploring the history of the religion. Some true believers don't like to think that there was a time when their sacred beliefs did not exist. Others may feel very uncomfortable with discussions that involve the evolution of their sacred beliefs as ideas in the minds of mere human beings. Thus, I think that if you put hard core believers of any religion, be they Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, etc., in a history class objectively discussing the origins of their religious faith, a similar reaction would probably occur. Does this make sense?
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Posted by: David at February 12, 2005 12:00 AM
David, you're probably right, and as I said, this might be a universal trait, but I see it most among Iranians. As for Zoroastrianism, of course it is a religion still practiced. There are Zoroastrians in Iran and India (where they are called Parsees) and also in UK (many of them, including Freddie Mercury, the late Queen frontman) and USA.
Posted by: Khodadad at February 13, 2005 10:13 PM
It must have really pissed you off, and for quite a while, because you have the same long post in both Enlish and Persian.
I don't ever say a word during lectures, but in a way, I say nothing, because I fear witnessing the same tendencies in myself. The trouble with Iranians, as I have observed it in myself and others, stems from the fact that we are not used to speaking freely, and once we get the opportunity, we want to make up for all the times we have been shut up... In the political discourse this leads to throwing up obscenities, and in the lecture hall, we'll you have discribed it quite well...
Apart from not knowing how to deal with the free and open teacher/student relationship, we also have the bagage of wanting to correct the misperceptions of others about us... We want others to see us, the way we want to be seen... But when religion enters the whole thing, then all bets are off... We have a long way to go.
But the classroom matter can and should be controlled by the professor. And if he does a good job, chances are there for your friends to really learn something and begin to grow. They just need to be broken down first, but not in front of the class. I would call the kids to my office and slap them around a bit metaphorically, but in a way that doesn't hurt, just wakes one up...
Posted by: Amir at February 15, 2005 12:21 PM