Events & Personalities
"Laughter, derision..."
Writing on "The Future of the Parsi community" this Navroz, Harvard PhD candidate Dinyar Patel made reference to the reactions of academics to the assault on Russian Zoroastrian Herbad Mikhail Chistyakov by a group of around 40 Parsis on February 19, 2010 in Sanjan. The mob was enraged that Chistyakov was undergoing the navar ceremony and wished to stop the investiture.
"I recall being at an academic conference in Istanbul in August 2012 when discussion of recent community antics — such as the assault of a Russian, Mikhail Chistyakov in Sanjan (condemnable regardless of what one thinks of conversion) — elicited laughter, derision, and ridicule from an audience composed of eminent professors and researchers who have spent their working lives studying our religion and culture. As a Parsi, I felt deeply embarrassed by the proceedings. But I do not blame academics for their response. In many cases we rightly deserve such mockery."
Herbad Mikhail Chistyakov: reviled for religion
◆ ◆ ◆
From the archive