Bush's New Years "Fireworks"
by Damion Matthews

Call it an ironic coincidence or, if you like, a strange synchronicity, but President George W. Bush's deadline for war falls during the most significant time of the year in Iranian culture. March 21 marks the Iranian New Year, known as No Ruz, a time of festivities and fireworks. It's also the spring equinox, a time to celebrate new life. The date has been celebrated in the Persian Gulf region for at least 5,000 years; Sumerians, Babylonians and Akaddians all honored the day in one form or another.

Celebration of No Ruz became deeply rooted in the rituals and traditions of the Zoroastrian belief system during the 6th century B.C. One of the great religions in world history, Zoroastrianism became the state religion of the Persian empire. It is in this ancient tradition that No Ruz is now celebrated in Iran, though in that country it is a secular holiday. (It is estimated today there are currently between 150,000 and 200,000 followers of Zoroastrianism worldwide, most of them in India and Iran.)

Much has been made of Bush's claim that Jesus is his favorite philosopher, but in saying so, he also implicitly honors a man who influenced Christianity perhaps as greatly as Jesus himself: Zarathustra, the founder of Zoroastrianism.

Zarathustra's teachings were strongly dualistic. He said that life is governed by good and evil, "two primal Spirits" who are "twins renowned to be in conflict." Because of this, he is said to have invented the notion of Satan as an evil entity in distinct opposition to God. He said that "In thought and word, in act they are two: the better and the bad. And those who act well have chosen rightly between these two, not so the evildoers." In doing so, Zarathustra created the first world religion to make ethical demands on people.

Zarathustra taught that "the aim of life is to lead a happy and joyful existence," according to Dr. Khosro Khazai, president of the European Centre for Zoroastrian Studies. "Individual happiness depends on the happiness of society, and society cannot be happy if all beings in that society, including animals and plants, cannot lead a peaceful and a fulfilled existence."

Equality between all men and women is frequently mentioned in the central Zoroastrian text — its Bible — known as the Avesta. The Avesta strongly condemns oppression; in Zoroastrian thought, everyone should take it upon himself to relieve others of oppression. Fittingly, it was as a Zoroastrian that Cyrus the Great, who ruled the Persian empire in the 6th century B.C., made what has been described as the first human rights declaration. On a clay cylinder now preserved at the British Museum, he wrote: "I have granted to all humans the liberty to worship their own gods and ordered that no-one could ill-treat them for this. I ordered that no house should be destroyed. I guaranteed peace and tranquility for all humans. I recognized the right of everyone to live in peace in the country of his choice..." Indeed, in his "History of Zoroastrian Philosophy," Paul du Breuil claims that thanks to Zoroastrian government reforms, "Persian women enjoyed unprecedented liberty through the whole of Antiquity."

Another Zoroastrian concept was the "Kingdom of God" or "chosen government," which held that all virtuous people should be free and be able to choose leaders for their righteousness. No doubt, Zarathustra would have been opposed to a dictatorship of the kind practiced by Saddam Hussein, favoring instead a democracy of informed and good-hearted individuals.

And so while President Bush may see the impending war as a personal diktat from his Christian god, it is worth bearing in mind that his is not the only religion that teaches freedom and good government, and that the liberation of Iraq may appear to others as vindication for a set of beliefs far removed from his own by space and time — though not by moral principals.

E-mail Damion Matthews at damionmatthews@yahoo.com.

— graphic by Mike Fisher (crspeedy@crspeedy.com)