"جوابي به" يك مسئله " دوست عزيز" خوش خبر

شهرياران بود و خاك مهربانان اين ديار
دوستي پس كي سر آمد, شهرياران را چه شد

Once we had sovereigns, and this land (Persia) was a land of kindness and beloved ones
Tell me if you know, what happened to those amities and friendships, and what caused the greatest realm to fall

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In order to answer to the question of “whether Canada is a good country to live or not?” I must raise some historical facts in our mother land to help you making your decisions easier.

When Rostam Hormozd was writing his goodbye and final letter to his brother, he never thought, one day, Ferdowsi would translate that to poetic words for us (the future generation) to know what our social status was at the time of our sovereignty before Islam.

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I read this poem when I was a teenager, and I really never understood why Rostam Hormozd, almost 1000 years ago, found Persia in a downstream of human integrity after the fall of empire.

It took me almost 10 years to prove this bitter reality to myself. If any of us just spend a few seconds and shed some lights on the increasing hostile and deceitful behaviors between people of our own race and language, we will realize the drama of these drastic changes.

I am not really sure that I am using the right words for what I want to convey. When I say “us Iranians”, I am not trying to bring down the society which I belong to. I do not mean in the sense that we are the only nation which suffers from this troublesome issue, i.e. look at Western Europe. When I talk about the lost integrity, I mean the way that integrity as a measure of individual’s quality has slipped from our common awareness. This decreasing trend of mannerisms makes life less attractive to some of Iranians who still live in Iran.


One of the examples of human integrity in Persia was the man of honor, King Cyrus. He founded the great Persia by uniting the two original Iranian tribes, the Meds and the Persians. Cyrus declared the first Charter of Human Rights known to mankind . He was not just known for his charter, but mostly was known to be a great and fair conqueror. He is best remembered for his exceptional tolerance and noble attitude towards those he defeated. (Look at us today, we cannot even tolerate our beloved ones for their diverse opinion, forget the enemy.)

Here, I really do not want to give a lecture over integrity and ethics, but indeed, I would like to get your opinion on how us, Iranians, when the time comes for our eulogy to be sung, the word integrity does not become one of the clear notes. A witness to my argument is the news coming out of Iran about the spread of vice; For example, the city of “Ghom”, ones, was referred to as the “city of faith”, now has changed to the “city of vice”. Ironic, isn’t it?

Now, my answer to the question of “whether Canada is a good country to live or not?” is “Yes”. Canada is a society that does not create many normative unwritten rules, dislike Iran. Under the logo of “multiculturalism”, the social norms relatively are fairly even for all races and faiths (there are always some exceptions).

In my opinion, living in Canada is much easier than in our home-land just because there are no (at least not feasible) unnecessary restrictions on people, consequently, the social norms does not become highly restrictive as different faiths gets misinterpreted.

At the end, I would like to here your opinions too.

Yours truly,

Alireza B.

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[1] The most respected Iranian military general at the time of Arab invasion of Persia. Being known for his wisdom and intelligent military tactics, he was also an astrologer. He predicted the defeat of Persia by the Muslims but fought loyally until his army was defeated; after that, the last Sasanian king, Yazdegerd, was murdered by a miller. This was almost the end of glorious era for Persians.

[1] One of Iranian greatest poets; who basically is one of the reasons why Persian Language (Farsi / Parsi) has not been forgotten. Arabs put a lot of pressure on Iranians to speak Arabic rather than Farsi, after they conquered Persia. The Shahnameh (The Epic of Kings), to which he devoted most of his adult life, was originally composed for the princes of Khorasan, who were the chief instigators of the revival of Persian cultural traditions after the Arab conquest of the seventh century.