May 19, 2006
THE NEW GOTH:
A colour code for Iran's 'infidels' (Amir Taheri, canada.com, 5/19/2006)
Islamic legislators are unanimous that Islam is incompatible with "gay, wild, provocative colours" such as red, yellow, and light blue, which are supposed to be favoured by Satan. The colours to be imposed by law are expected to be black, brown, dark blue and dark grey.Some Majlis members have been trying to lift the ban on green, which is, after all, the colour of the Bani Hashem, the family of the Prophet Muhammad, and thus regarded as the colour of Islam. The majority view, however, is that green is not "serious enough" to underline the gravity of a Muslim man's position.
Hardly surprising that a dark spirituality should suppress color. Posted by pjaminet at May 19, 2006 2:45 PM
There are Jews in Iran?
Posted by: erp at May 19, 2006 3:14 PM"Islamic legislators are unanimous that Islam is incompatible with "gay, wild, provocative colours" such as RED, YELLOW, and light BLUE, which are supposed to be favoured by Satan."
"Jews would be marked out with a YELLOW strip of cloth sewn in front of their clothes while Christians will be assigned the colour RED. Zoroastrians end up with Persian BLUE"
Um, can we stop pretending these are people we can deal with now?
Wikipedia:
Iran's Jewish community is officially recognized as a religious minority group by the government, and as with Zoroastrians, they are allocated one seat in the Iranian Parliament. Maurice Motamed has been the Jewish MP since 2000, and was re-elected again in 2004. In 2000, former Jewish MP Manuchehr Eliasi estimate there were still 30-35,000 Jews in Iran, other sources put the figure as low as 20-25,000.
There used to be a lot more Persian Jews, but most of them have moved to Israel.
Posted by: Mörkö at May 19, 2006 3:32 PMIran's Jewish population dates back to the end of the Babylonian exile, when, after Babylon was conquered by Persia and Kings Cyrus and Darius let the Jews return to Judea, not everyone chose to return. Or so tradition holds.
Posted by: pj at May 19, 2006 3:42 PMI'm told that one effect of mushroom clouds is remarkably colorful sunsets.
Posted by: H at May 19, 2006 4:06 PMI've met several Iranian Jews over the years. Most left in 1979 but I met one guy in college who was a combat veteran of the Iran/Iraq war. It's a complex place I guess.
Posted by: JAB at May 19, 2006 4:10 PMOT: Can someone tell me if Gore Vidal's Lincoln: A Novel worth reading?
Posted by: RC at May 19, 2006 4:15 PMRC:
I liked it considerably when I read it some years ago; my recollection is that it was a fast read despite the density of the text.
Posted by: Mike Earl at May 19, 2006 5:04 PM