Notes on Identity, Gharbzadegi, and the Azizam Effect
Yesterday, a Persian friend casually asked me if I was Sri Lankan. I wasn’t offended. Startled, yes — but not offended. I take pride in being Desi. And truthfully, there isn’t a stark difference between many South Asian and Persian phenotypes at the human level. But the interaction stayed with me.
Because while I can understand a Scandinavian confusing Indians and Iranians — my Danish friend, for example, couldn’t reliably tell them apart — it hits differently when Persians, especially non-Muslim, Westernised Persians, make the same mistake.
Immediately, another half-Indian, half-Iranian friend interjected:
“Zach doesn’t look Sri Lankan at all.”
For what it’s worth, when I was in Colombo over New Year’s, I fell in love with Sri Lanka — the island, the people, the everything. Also the phenotype range in Sri Lanka is extensive since there is so Dutch, Portuguese & Moorish ancestry in addition to the native ones. Some Sri Lankans even thought I was Sri Lankan myself. Truly, it is Serendib.
The Azizam Effect
None of this truly matters — but it’s part of what I call the Azizam Effect, named after Ed Sheeran’s recent Persian-coded song and video.
Among light-skinned, non-Muslim, Westernised Middle Easterners, there’s often a deep — and sometimes unconscious — need to exaggerate the physical and cultural distance between themselves and their darker-skinned neighbours.
It’s a familiar longing for proximity to whiteness, and a soft erasure of the historical realities that tie Persians not to Europe, but to Asia.
The Complexity of Appearance
It’s a reminder that identity isn’t just about how you look. It’s about vatavaran — the atmosphere you carry. I give off a deeply Desi vatavaran in Bahá’í spheres.
In language, in movement, in sensibility. Even though my Persian is fluent, even though my blood is half-Iranian, what emanates culturally is unmistakably South Asian.
Identity is porous. It leaks out of you — not only through your face, but through your rhythm, your gestures, your breath.
Final Reflection
At the end of the day, being mistaken for Sri Lankan by a Persian Bahá’í isn’t a tragedy. In fact, it’s a badge of honour. Sri Lanka is Serendib — the beautiful island of layered histories and astonishing warmth. I’m proud to carry even a glimmer of that aura.
But encounters like these remind me:
For all the dreams of Western alignment, the future for Persians — and for all of us of the East — lies not in running toward whiteness, but in embracing the astonishing civilizational richness of Asia.
Bharat and Iran are neighbours not just on maps, but in spirit and siblings in history (Indo-Iranian is a singular language branch). And no amount of gharbzadegi can erase that truth.