A 2,500-Year-Old Idea That Still Haunts Today’s Politics
Growing up Persian, whether in Iran or Irangeles (aka Los Angeles), London, New York, or San Francisco, you probably have heard of Cyrus the Great. Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump made it clear he knows nothing about Cyrus or why he was Great. While bragging about reportedly stopping 837 hangings by the Iranian government, as human rights groups reported death toll estimates climbing into the tens of thousands during the crackdown, he told reporters and the world:
“This is like from a thousand years ago. This is an ancient culture. Very smart people, by the way. But it’s an ancient culture.”
Trump equates an ancient culture to brutality – while his ICE and Border Patrol agents are being accused of brutality and murder in 2026. He’s right that Iran is filled with ancient culture – and that the Iranians are smart people – but he’s miles off about what the ancient is all about. Current day headlines don’t tell the full story. You need to look at the dirt. Literally. Beneath it lies Cyrus’s clay cylinder, and a radical idea that power should protect people, not crush them.
From the Dirt of Babylon
In 539 BCE, a Persian king named Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon, the most powerful city in the ancient world. Conquests back then usually meant destruction, forced worship, slavery, and erasing cultures.
Cyrus did something different.
Instead of burning temples, he reopened them.
Instead of forcing religion, he allowed people to worship freely.
Instead of keeping prisoners and slaves, he let displaced people go home.
All of this was recorded on a baked clay cylinder, written in cuneiform, now known as the Cyrus Cylinder.
No swords. No threats. Just a declaration:
People should live according to their own beliefs.
That idea – that power shouldn’t erase identity – was radical for its time. It is what modern democracy claims to uphold today.
Why People Call It the First Human Rights Document
Fast-forward 2,500 years.
Historians argue about labels, but here’s the simple truth:
The Cyrus Cylinder contains ideas we now recognize as core human rights principles:
- Religious freedom
- Cultural tolerance
- Protection of conquered people
- Restoration instead of punishment
In 1971, the United Nations displayed a replica of the cylinder at its headquarters. In 2025, UNESCO formally recognized it as one of the earliest known documents expressing values tied to freedom, justice, and human dignity.
Not Western.
Not modern.
Ancient. Persian. Iranian.
But here is the tragedy: while the world honors this Iranian legacy, the people living in Iran today are being arrested and killed for trying to reclaim it.
The Simba Moment: Reclaiming the Lion
Ancient Iran gave the world a ruler who preached tolerance.
Modern Iran is governed by a system often accused of doing the opposite.
This contradiction isn’t lost on anyone – especially Iranians.
In 1979, the regime didn’t just change the laws; they tried to overwrite the nation’s identity. They rebranded the country as the “Islamic Republic” and replaced the Lion and Sun – a symbol of courage and enlightenment dating back to the 15th century – with a religious emblem. They stripped away a secular symbol of the people and replaced it with a mark of theocratic control.
Today, young activists are reclaiming those older symbols not to restore a monarchy, but to demand a future. Like Simba in The Lion King, they are looking past the “shadowland” of the current regime and hearing the spirit of their ancestors whisper: “Remember who you are.”
They aren’t remembering to return to a crown; they are remembering that their culture’s truest roots are in the dignity and freedom Cyrus once put into writing. They aren’t looking to the past for a crown; they are looking to their roots for a future. They refuse to choose between autocracy reborn or theocracy preserved. They are building the People’s Path: a secular democracy where power finally belongs to the citizens, not the state.
Photo: ABC7 Los Angeles / Reuters
The Borderless Demand for Dignity
This isn’t just a debate over symbols; it is a matter of life and death.
We see this in the story of Javid Khales, a young Iranian soldier reportedly sentenced to death this month for the “crime” of humanity: he refused orders to fire on his own people. He is part of a growing roster of those who choose conscience over the rifle. The Cyrus legacy lives.
What Trump called “ancient brutality” is not buried in the dirt. It is alive – and it has uniforms, badges, and press briefings. For many Iranians who fled the 1979 regime and came to the United States, it is a chilling sense of déjà vu. What they are watching now is not foreign. It is familiar. Different language. Same script.
We know the names of Renee Good and Alex Pretti – U.S. citizens killed by ICE and Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis, Minnesota, while peacefully protesting for the rights and freedoms of others.
Before trying to slowly drive away from a confrontation on January 7, Renee Good looked at an agent and said: “I’m not mad at you.” Seconds later, she was shot and killed.
On January 24, Alex Pretti – a VA ICU nurse – never touched his licensed weapon while being pepper-sprayed, tackled, and shot ten times. He was helping up a woman shoved to the ground by an agent, and asking: “Are you OK?”
In the aftermath, the administration reached for a familiar dictator’s playbook. Secretary Kristi Noem and Commander Greg Bovino didn’t just lie; they added insult to injury and assaulted the integrity of the victims.
The Propaganda Script
They labeled Renee and Alex “domestic terrorists” and “assassins,” and even turned their sights on Renee’s widow, launching a baseless federal investigation into her personal life to justify the state’s violence. Vice President JD Vance stood in the White House briefing room to call Renee Good “brainwashed” and her death a “tragedy of her own making,” while dismissing Alex Pretti’s killing as the result of “engineered chaos.”
It is a haunting echo of Iranian propaganda: kill the innocent, then broadcast a script that turns the victim into the villain.
Minnesota Nice vs. Operation Metro Surge. Kindness vs. Brutality. It is not just between one state and one government’s policies, but many states, united. There will be a clear winner – and it won’t be the side that relies on fear.
Change is Coming
Iran didn’t just produce oil and poets – it produced a radical, enduring demand: that power serve the people. That demand didn’t stay buried.
Political scientists have a name for what happens when this “ancient” demand for dignity hits a breaking point: The 3.5% Rule. Based on the landmark research of Erica Chenoweth, history proves that no regime – no matter how many “armadas” it commands or how much “ancient” brutality it claims – can withstand a movement once just 3.5% of the population stands together. It is the mathematical tipping point where power shifts from the palace to the pavement.
History doesn’t disappear. It waits. It fights back – in the voices of those who refuse to kill, and who stand for those who are targeted, in the movements that move from “me” to “we”.
From the baked clay of ancient Persia to the streets of today, the demand for dignity refuses to be silenced.
The dirt is speaking. And the world is listening.
For those in Irangeles, New York, San Francisco, and across the country:
- Tomorrow, Friday, Jan 30: Join the National Shutdown. No work, no school, no shopping.
- Saturday, Jan 31: Join the ICE Out of Everywhere National Day of Action.
Stand with Javid, Renee, and Alex, and all the others who refuse to let a ‘modern’ cruelty bury an ‘ancient’ truth.
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