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Dramatic changes are taking place in lran. This
ancient
and
oil-rich land
-
long a
crossroads
between East
and
West
-
has risen
from
a
deep
slumber
to become
a new
force
in the Middle East.
"WE
HAVE
emerged from the
world of the dead
!"
This triumphant "rebirth
announcement" was heralded in the
Kayhan lnternationai,
an English lan–
guage daily published in Teheran, Iran's
bustling capital.
The occasion was the beginning, last
October 12, of the undisputed "Celebra–
tion of the Century" - the 2,500th an–
niversary of the founding of the Persian
Empire by Cyrus the Great.
lran, proclaimed the same newspaper
proudly, "was back on the map as a liv–
ing country." From now on the revived
nation is destined, it said, to have "an
important role to play in the contempo–
rary world."
Fabled Past
The purpose of the lavish seven-day
festival,
in
the words of Iran's monarch,
Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, was to
"reawaken the people of Iran to their
past and reawaken the world to Iran."
Few nations still in existence can
Ambsss1dor College
boast of a past as long and as sigoifi–
cant as that of lran or Persia, its ancient
name.l The greats of ancient history fill
its annals - from Cyrus the Great who
conquered Babylon in 539 B.C., thus
establishing the Persian Empire, to
Cambyses, Darius 1 (who was the first
Persian king to rule at Persepolis, site
of the anniversary celebration) and
Xerxes.
Due to íts pivotal locatíon between
East and West, a weak Persia has always
meant trouble for its people. In 331