Iran and Tajikistan: How Culture and Civilization Fade in the Shadow of Politics and the Political

Abstract

Taking Iran-Tajikistan cultural relations as its case study, this article tends to say that despite the important role of culture and civilization in foreign policy, politics and the political factors also have a vital place in shaping the relations between states in global and regional levels. Moreover, as the author argues, political factors play even more important role and are able to somehow overshadow the common cultural and civilizational ties. The destiny of Iran-Tajikistan cultural cooperation, especially the efforts in reviving the ancestral Arabo-Persian alphabet to replace the Russian (Cyrillic) one, explains how politics in general and political differences in particular, brought those enthusiastic and cherished efforts into a stalemate if not a deadlock.