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Comment by walrus01 | Hacker News Reader

For what it's worth many early European cultures also considered the start of the year to be at the start of spring, generally the same idea as Nowruz, which is where we got Easter from as a conglomeration of "pagan" rituals and Christian religion. Unfortunately we ended up with this weird Dec. 31st at the end of a year in the middle of winter which doesn't make any logical sense.

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There’s more similarities than just that. Iran was founded by Indo-Europeans.

Many similarities in languages too. Persian (Farsi) has the same root as some European languages (and should not be confused with Arabic, which is totally different than both).

    In Persian | In English
    mädar      | mother
    barädar    | brother
    dokhtar    | daughter
    pedar      | father
    bad        | bad
    ...

I’m familiar. It is fascinating. Same with Sanskrit. I don’t know if we’re all descended from the same people exactly, or if the Indo Europeans were just an extremely successful core group with a culture that all of us adopted as the natives wherever they spread to. But they certainly had a successful culture. Iran should really be an ally with the western democracies. Those people are actually pretty advanced and modern, considering where they are placed in the world.

I say that to my American and European friends, that Iranians have a lot more in common with them than with the rest of the middle east. There are exceptions, of course, but the general public is really well educated, open minded, and leaning towards Western values and culture.

Too bad that the country has received such a negative reputation over the past 4 decades due to its (non-Iranian) regime.

I’m American and that’s my perspective. I can’t be the only one. I never even understood why Iran and the US were at odds. Seems entirely based on politics/elites. From what I see, Iranians would be my first pick as allies in the region. We certainly chose poorly with Saudi Arabia.

Non-Western values and culture are a great portion of why we need Iran. A shelter from and an antidote to global liberal hegemony.

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