The Islamic Republic of Iran cultural office in Pretoria has reached out to South Africans to bolster more understanding about the nation’s way of life.
Iran has recently joined intergovernmental organisation BRICS that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa.
From early this year, the organisation extended its membership to what is now known as BRICS+ that includes Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates.
Titled “Exploring Iranian culture and connectivity”, the country’s cultural wing hosted the media in a meet and greet on Friday as efforts to join the two countries in understanding one another's cultures.
Addressing the media, Iran’s Cultural Counsellor, Seyed Mostafa Daryabari, spoke on a range of issues including the glaring intervention of his country intervening in the Israeli and Palestine conflict.
Last year, Israel attacked Palestine in Gaza after Hamas, a military wing linked to the Palestine government, bombed and killed scores of Israeli people.
To date, Israel has been on the attack in Gaza, killing thousands of Palestinians in the long-standing war.
South Africa has since hauled Israel to the International Court of Justice, while Iran has also intervened in efforts to halt the war.
“We are not against Israel or the Jewish, but we act in the interest of justice,” said Daryabari.
He added that there should be no country in the world that would want to oppress the other.
“Maybe we have different tastes, colours, religions etc, but we should strive to get justice ... All these differences don't mean that one must oppress another. We are not saying that Israel is not our neighbour. Human beings are from one family,” he said.
Daryabari said Iran considered Israel as their cultural partner, and the only reason they intervened against them was because they are family,
“The only reason we are against Israel is because we are family, because they are our brothers and sisters.
“You see, in a family, for example, when you are five, your brother or your sister starts to oppress one of the brothers or sisters. What would you do? You would intervene because it's your family,” he said.
“The issue of Palestine is not a religious issue. It's not because they are Jewish. We have Jewish people in Iran and they have had their worship place before and after the revolution.
“For more than 3 000 years, Iran has had the Jewish in the country in many cities…Even though they are a minority, one of the rules that we have in our constitution after the revolution is that because they are the minority, they cannot vote for a person that they like to be a member of parliament … We have one member for them in parliament. So they have a member of parliament for the Jewish and another minority has their own member of parliament,” he said.
“All I'm saying is that one soul is a soul of all human beings, so if you kill one, all human beings are affected. But if you save one person, you save millions of people.
Asked why Iran was interested in joining BRICS+, Daryabari said it was because BRICS+ was a coalition that discouraged domination.
“Let me express my gratitude to SA for making an effort to support us to be a member of BRICS+ … What attracted Iran to join is because it's a kind of coalition that discourages any country to dominate another, like in my culture.
“So I don’t say my culture, my tradition. It's a matter of working together to develop the society that we are, and that's why we came to Brics,” he said.
Daryabari said the country had many cultural activities in the pipeline targeting education, sport and the arts.
Pretoria News