Following a press conference in which he repeatedly dodged questions about Donald Trump’s threats to blow up Iranian cultural centers, Mike Pompeo continued his chest-beating on Twitter, where he sneered at the foreign minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran, mocked him for being “suddenly” concerned about Persian culture, and declared, “No one has damaged Persian culture more than the Islamic Republic — disrespecting Cyrus and holidays like Nowruz, prohibiting dancing, and putting an end to religious tolerance. Iran’s regime has defiled everything Iranians hold dear.”
Nowruz is a genuine holiday, one that involves a two-week celebration marking the beginning of spring. It includes a character called Amu Nowruz, a Santa Claus equivalent, who brings gifts for children. Following the 1979 Iranian revolution, there were attempts by religious extremists to stop the celebration on grounds that it was pagan—the same reason that Christmas wasn’t celebrated in many New England colonies founded by religious groups. These days, Iran does celebrate Nowruz, but there are generally speeches delivered to warn about getting too damn festive.
But Pompeo’s touching concern about the War on Nowruz isn’t the best part of the tweet. That goes to the claim about “disrespecting Cyrus.” The idea that the Iranian government is disrespecting Cyrus appears to have grown out of an incident that occurred on October the 29th, otherwise known as Cyrus the Great Day. This venerable holiday, celebrating the man who single-handedly formed the Persian Empire and brought his people from obscurity to a dominating role that lasted for centuries, was sadly interrupted last year by Iranian officials who forbade celebrations out of concerns that they would be overrun by Iranians protesting the government. As many Christian-right sites will inform you, this is violation of a great tradition celebrated every year by Iranians of all ethnicities.
Except … none of that is true. Cyrus the Great Day is a made-up holiday, invented on the internet and celebrated in Iraq exactly once, in 2016. In other words, Mike Pompeo is attacking the Iranian government for its failure to support a holiday with even less relevance than International Talk Like a Pirate Day.
Arrr, that’s pretty bad. But worse is that Pompeo keeps trying to draw an equivalence between the Iranian government frowning on a fake holiday, and Donald Trump threatening to blow up forever the cities built by the actual Cyrus the Great. What Trump is threatening isn’t some tradition belonging only to Iranians; it’s the heritage of the world.
The tomb of Cyrus still stands in Iran, as it has since the 6th century BC. The tomb was visited by Alexander the Great, and by many historical figures throughout the ages who came to see the resting place of a man who came seemingly from nowhere to turn an obscure tribe into the masters of a vast kingdom. There are many different accounts of the words that were once carved on a sign by the tomb, but according to some accounts they were, “Stranger, I don’t know where you come from, but I knew you would come here. I am Cyrus, the founder of the Persian Empire. So spare me this patch of earth, which covers my body.”
That’s not Persian culture. That’s world history. Which Trump has put under threat.