Reading Azar Nafisi's book "Reading Lolita in Tehran," I was disturbed to find that the superiority/inferiority complex of the guardians of the revolution representing the Shia faith in Iran extends to its Armenian population, at least as late as the late 1980s:
"Another urgent meeting was set up, for late afternoon in a favorite coffee shop. It was a tiny place, a bar in its pre-revolution days, now reincarnated as a cafe. It belonged to an Armenian, and forever shall I see on the glass door next to the name of the restaurant, which was in small letters, the compulsory sign in large black letters: RELIGIOUS MINORITY. All restaurants run by non-Muslims had to carry this sign on their doors so that good Muslims, who considered all non-Muslims dirty and did not eat from the same dishes, were forewarned." (2004, p. 180).
~ Excerpted from "Reading Lolita in Tehran" by Professor Azar Nafisi of John Hopkins University.
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