(CHN)
-- Recent Arab fabrication that the Yazd's
windcatchers are of an alleged Arab Heritage, now
is being cherished by UN too.
UN
has named the Dubai
International Award for Best Practices to improve the
living Environment as the Arabic Windcatcher!
Previous to this UN mockery of Iranian heritage, Mohammad Ansari, an Iranian
living in
Dubai in a letter to CHN expressed his concerns and stated
“the Arab people of Dubai
have started spreading a false history, that windcatcher or
Barjeel is a symbol of Arab’s Heritage and history.
However,
the history of Windcatchers in Dubai starts when the first group of Iranians from Bastakiyans (residents of
one of the villages of Hormozgan province) migrated to
Dubai. They have built their own quarter in Dubai and
named it
Bastakiya. The architectural style of Bastakiya is purely Iranian, and it was inspired by Persian
Heritage of the ancient city of Yazd.
Windcatcher is used
frequently by Bastakiyans and this quarter in Dubai became
an Opened Museum for tourists.”
Since 1996 Dubai Municipality with the cooperation of UN,
has awarded a prize each year called “Dubai
International Award for Best Practices to Improve the
Living Environment”. As it shows from its name, this prize is awarded to
a groups that have tried their best
to improve the quality of living. This year’s prize is
in the form of an Iranian windcatcher which will be
awarded as a symbol of Dubai city!
Less than a year ago, National Geographic called the
historical waterway of Persian Gulf as the “Arabian Gulf” and now the Arabs
have set a new step to adopt another Iranian identity as
their own.
A windcatcher or Baadgir in the Persian language is a
traditional Persian architectural structure that has been
used for many centuries to create natural ventilation in
buildings. So effective has been the windcatcher in the
Iranian architecture that it has been routinely used as a
refrigerating device for ages.
Many traditional water reservoirs are built with catchers
that are capable of storing water at near-freezing
temperature for months in summer. Furthermore, Persian
houses in central Iran were designed to make use of an ingenious
system of windcatchers that creates unusually cool
temperatures in the lower levels of the building. Thick
massive walls were designed to keep the sun’s heat out
in the summertime while retaining the internal heat in the
winters. It is not known who invented the windcatcher
first, but it still can be seen in many countries today.
