2024/03/21

The following is from Masayuki Takayama’s column in the latter part of Shukan Shincho, released today.
This essay, too, demonstrates that he is a journalist without equal in the postwar world.
A must-read not only for the Japanese people, but for people throughout the world.
An Iranian Spring
Is Iran a pro-Japanese country?
At least today’s Iran seems possessed by something, supporting terrorism and delighting in destruction.
Several years ago, Prime Minister Abe met Supreme Leader Khamenei and asked why he liked stirring up trouble in the Middle East.
The supreme leader’s answer was a missile attack on a Japanese tanker sailing through the Strait of Hormuz.
He has neither manners nor shame.
Recently, too, he used the Houthis under his control to seize a Nippon Yusen ship and has made no attempt to return it.
The current regime, which commits such acts of disrespect, follows in the footsteps of the Khomeini regime that suddenly emerged half a century ago.
When he returned from Paris, both the Iranian military and the people welcomed him enthusiastically.
Yet history suggests the opposite when asked whether the Iranian people—that is, the Persians—are such devout Muslims.
In terms of Japanese history, the Persians first encountered Muslims around the time Horyuji Temple was founded.
The Arabs, united by their devotion to Islam, overthrew the Persian Empire.
The Persians were essentially Zoroastrians.
Judaism arose from the teachings of Zoroaster, and its offshoots became Christianity and Islam.
Such a grandchild religion forced the people of Zoroaster to convert.
They told them not to drink alcohol, not to keep dogs, and to wrap their women in cloth.
But in Zoroastrianism, dogs are messengers of God, and Omar Khayyam loves wine and women.
So they brushed aside the grandchild religion, created a branch called Shiism, and made it possible to keep dogs and celebrate women and wine in quatrains.
Things had settled down that way, but then Khomeini once again said, “Do not keep dogs.”
The treatment of women was appalling.
They were told not to show their faces or wear makeup, and adultery meant an immediate death sentence.
I was stationed in Tehran at the time.
The war was in full swing, and Iraqi aircraft came to bomb the city every night, killing forty people in a single night.
In between these attacks, a woman who had committed adultery was stoned to death.
The Kayhan newspaper carried a photograph of a jubilant cleric and a crowd looking on.
I felt that I had wandered into a bizarre world without hope of salvation.
Yet as I walked through the city, I sometimes suddenly felt an inexplicable sense of nostalgia.
For example, I would go out for lunch.
There were few kinds of restaurants, and ninety percent were kebab shops.
Kebab consists of bite-sized pieces of grilled lamb served with buttered rice.
Grilled tomatoes accompany it.
The acidity of the tomatoes and the fat of the lamb create an exquisite harmony.
When I peered into the kitchen, I saw lamb threaded onto skewers and grilled over charcoal.
The way they occasionally turned the meat was exactly the same as the way kabayaki eel was grilled at Kikukawa.
The charcoal was hard.
When I visited a charcoal-making hut on the Caspian Sea side, I found that they were making charcoal from ubame oak.
They were using binchotan charcoal.
My assistant Masoud’s surname was Ashkari.
It means “warrior.”
The Shosoin houses a Persian-style lacquered ewer.
Around that time, the word “ashigaru” appeared among the ranks of the samurai.
Its origin is unknown, but “ashkari” may have arrived together with the “Persian-style lacquered ewer.”
My assistant asked, “Are ashigaru important?”
When I told him that there had also been ashigaru commanders, he was pleased.
Iran has used a solar calendar since the time of Zoroaster.
There is a custom of eating hendawane, or melon, at the winter solstice.
Come to think of it, in Japan we eat pumpkin on that day.
The Persian New Year, Nowruz, is celebrated on the vernal equinox in March.
Shortly before it, there is a fire festival called Chaharshanbe Suri.
It falls around the time of the Omizutori ceremony at Nigatsudo.
Fires are lit on street corners, and children jump over them.
It is said to be a prayer for happiness in the coming year.
I recall that Omizutori was something like that, too.
Iranians love fruit and also eat persimmons.
They eat persimmons, but they are astringent.
They eat them while still astringent, saying how delicious they are.
The lives of the Iranian people retain a Zoroastrian character.
A general election was recently held in that Iran.
Voter turnout was forty percent, the lowest on record, and five percent of the ballots were blank.
Many women walking through the streets had removed their hijabs, letting their hair flow and clearly saying no to Islam.
I have a feeling that Islam, which binds women, will be overturned by women.
When that happens, I would like to visit and teach them how to remove the astringency from persimmons.