The Fighting Cocks of Iran

Effects-laden war epic 300 has been criticised as an attack on Iranian culture by government figures.The Hollywood film, which has broken US box office records, is a retelling of a battle in which a small Greek army resisted a Persian invasion.

 

Javad Shamaqdari, a cultural advisor to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said it was “plundering Iran’s historic past and insulting this civilization”.

 

He branded the film “psychological warfare” against Tehran and its people.

 

But Iranian culture was strong enough to withstand the assault, Mr Shamaqdari insisted.

 

“American cultural officials thought they could get mental satisfaction by plundering Iran’s historic past and insulting this civilization,” he said.

 

“Following the Islamic Revolution in Iran, Hollywood and cultural authorities in the US initiated studies to figure out how to attack Iranian culture.

 

“Certainly, the recent movie is a product of such studies.”

 

Daily newspaper Ayandeh-No carried the headline “Hollywood declares war on Iranians”.

 

The paper said: “It seeks to tell people that Iran, which is in the Axis of Evil now, has for long been the source of evil and modern Iranians’ ancestors are the ugly murderous dumb savages you see in 300.”

Iran is threatening to retaliate in Europe for what it claims is a daring undercover operation by western intelligence services to kidnap senior officers in its Revolutionary Guard.

 

According to Iranian sources, several officers have been abducted in the past three months and the United States has drawn up a list of other targets to be seized with the aim of destabilising Tehran’s military command.

 

In an article in Subhi Sadek, the Revolutionary Guard’s weekly paper, Reza Faker, a writer believed to have close links to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, warned that Iran would strike back.

 

“We’ve got the ability to capture a nice bunch of blue-eyed blond-haired officers and feed them to our fighting cocks,” he said.