NEWS pholo Mike Wakefield

QUEEN MARY Grade 7 students (Nassim Tahmasebi-Rad holds up a poster entitled Our Class)
celebrate cultural diversity with a graph showing the ancestral origins of each North Vancouver

atudent. The largest group is from Iran.

_ Tran’s ethnic diversity
well-represented locally

Uniting multicultural community

In the secoud instalment of a
three-part News feature series an
the thriving local Iranian -com-
munity, Stephen Wisenthal sheds
some light on the diverse culture
of the people. The North Shore is
a popular place for Iranians to

. settle, and has become a focal
point for celebrations, such as
these associated with the lranian
new year.

By Stephen Wisentha!
Contributing Writer

THE IRANIANS have arrived on
the North Shore. As many as
20,000, according to some
estimates, with most of them hav-
ing appeared within the past five
years, But who are they?

' They all come from the same
country, and speak Farsi (Per-
sian), whether by choice or
because of iranian state decree.
But apart from those similarities,
iranians are culturally diverse.

‘The country has 14 different
ethnic groups, as many languages,
and a number of different
religions.

Politically, they range from a
small group which wants to see
the shah’s son restored as ruler of
Iran, to hard-left communists and
members of the Marxist Muslim
party, the Mujahidin.

Muslims, particularly members
of the Shi’ite branch founded in
Iran, make up the largest religious
group, but there are also Sunni
Muslims. Other religions in fran

_ include Baha’i, Christianity and
-the ancient Persian faith,
Zoroastrianism.

Persians make up the majority

of Iran’s population, but there are

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also Turks, Armenians, Kurds,
Arabs, Jews and a variety of other
groups.

And all of these diverse ethnic,
political and religious groups are
represented among the franian
immigrants to the Vancouver area.

That diversity may be the
reason the community has been
unable — despite at least two
determined attempts — to set up
an umbrella association bringing
in all members of the Iranian
community,

Kaywan Dashti, editor and
publisher of the recently founded
North Vancouver-based newspa-
per The lfranian, was director of
public relations for the franian
Community Association of B.C.

But the association has been
troubled by religious, ethnic and
political diversions,

not an easy task

Yet Dashti remains optimistic.
“There is no association right
now, but possibly very soon,”’ he
says. And other Iranians report
coutinued efforts to unite the
community.

One force which does bring
them together is national holidays,
which are observed by most Ira-
nians, irrespective of their
religious beliefs.

All of these secular Iranian
holidays. come from the 4,000-
year-old Zoroastrian religion,
which was the majority religion of
Persia before most of the people
converted to Islam.

There are only a few practising
Zoroastrians in Iran now, but the
influence of the ancient religion
remains a unifying part of the

See Holiday page 10

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