A pink taxi

A pink taxi

July 3, 2010

Ancien Regime

The Lion and Sun, the emblem of Pahlavi Iran
1979 was an eventful political year and a milestone year for me. I was nine and aware of what was happening in my motherland.

I was aware that my maternal family's lives had changed for ever. I was aware that they had to leave everything behind  to live in the USA and in Dubai. I was aware that my grandfather, and my aunts, had lost their homes, lands and that their wealth had been expropriated.

A revolution had occurred at our doorstep.

I didn't grow in a household or even in an extended family where events were explained to me. I witnessed them third hand, and interpreted the reactions and eaves dropped on conversations that never seemed passionate or biased. In fact, I hardly remember much criticism of a new regime that had transformed my family's life. They were just struggling with the pride of affirming their identity and preserving it.

"Where are you from?" The eternal American question.
"From Iran". They never hid behind the pretentious "Persian".
"Oh?......you must be from the Ancien regime?" I was French speaking and didn't need explaining.
The adults would reply: "not old or new regime, just Iranian". I think I heard my mom shock more than one with "new regime".

My aunts had a small picture of the Shah framed and put almost negligently on a coffee table in their Utah living rooms. A way of remembering times lost. Eventually those pictures made room for their own grandchildren's. I used to look at the picture of the Shah and wonder.


My grandfather had pictures of himself with the Shah. He had once even emptied the contents of his house in Shiraz to host the Shah (I think his ten kids had to sleep at his sister's). But hosting the Shah or receiving him at hospital openings didn't mean he was a supporter of the Shah. My grandfather was serving his country and developing the health infrastructure. He was his own man, never one to partake in personality cults.

I think I inherited that philosophy and have always questioned royalist feelings. When I was introduced to the late Shah's son Ali Reza, who was my classmate at Harvard, I spoke to him without any reverence, as an equal.
A few years later, I visited the palace of the Shah in Niaravan. I walked the cordoned corridors and peered into the Shah's bedroom, the way tourists pear into the royal bedroom at Versailles but here I noticed, in all surprise, that it wasn't a palace, just a nobleman's house. Perhaps, they had overspent at the Peacock throne party, but the house was a humble one.


Incidentally, I also visited Khomeiny's home and "arena" where he gave his most spectacular speeches. It wasn't an arena that could hold thousands of people as appeared in the historical photos, just a medium size amphitheater that could host a hundred spectators at most. Incredible, the  manipulative power of photography. Photographs can distort history: old or new regime!!

7 comments:

  1. It was summer '78!We used to spend all our summers in Tehran,since I married in '69!That last .summer,we took a 4WD and threw the kids and some of their cousins and went on a trip to "Shumal" or the Caspian north.On our arrival to the town of Karadj,I noticed shops shuttered,men dressed in black and over .grown beards.I felt as an experienced Lebanese,who lived through the civil war,that there was something wrong going on.We went on with our road trip and crossed the North from Ghonbad Qaboos to Chalus; which all confirmed my suspicions,that Teheran was hiding something.
    We turned back to the capital,after the blogger clumsily brok a pickled garlic jar and hurt her hand.Her grandfather was preparing himself to go on an official visit with the Red Lion and Sun Society.He had just sold a land in Isfahan,and wanted to buy an apartment in Tehran,becoming a fashionable trend then.I argued with him all night to give me a cheque,so that I can spirit the only savings he had,outside Iran.
    The second day I took the cheque denominated in the strong Iranian Rial,and went to withdraw it from Bank Melli Iran.The place was full with nervous depositors ,trying to do the same.After few hours,I was successful in getting the wands of currency into a paper lbag,and rushed to the nearby Bank Iranian,associated with an American bank.I requested them to issue a banker's cheque in my favor . In few days we arrived in Dubai,deposited the amount,that became the only asset my father in law had outside the country.In few days Iran imposed foreign exchange restrictions,and the rest is history.

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  2. 1979 was a life changer for many of us...the soviet invasion of Afghanistan, marked the start of a 21 year journey for many afghans as well. I didn't have to explain to people about where I was from as Afghanistan was a good place to be from then. But we had many more game changer years, 1989, 1994, 1998, 2001 and the period since then....thanks mina for making us think of those lost years....

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  3. When I think of Iran in the 70's I wonder how many people know what it used to be like. That is was once a liberal modern place, where people where openminded, forward-thinking and free. And that makes me think of Lebanon. How easily Beirut can walk into the footsteps of Tehran. How things can easily play out in the same manner, another example of 'history repeating itself'. I wonder how immune the Lebanese are to the Iranian experience. Could what happened there not be easily replicated. Aren't all the ingredients already present?

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  5. When I think of Iran in the 70's I wonder how many people know what it used to be like. That is was once a liberal modern place, where people where openminded, forward-thinking and free. And that makes me think of Lebanon. How easily Beirut can walk into the footsteps of Tehran. How things can easily play out in the same manner, another example of 'history repeating itself'. I wonder how immune the Lebanese are to the Iranian experience. Could what happened there not be easily replicated. Aren't all the ingredients already present?
    Katia

    ReplyDelete
  6. When I think of Iran in the 70's I wonder how many people know what it used to be like. That is was once a liberal modern place, where people where openminded, forward-thinking and free. And that makes me think of Lebanon. How easily Beirut can walk into the footsteps of Tehran. How things can easily play out in the same manner, another example of 'history repeating itself'. I wonder how immune the Lebanese are to the Iranian experience. Could what happened there not be easily replicated. Aren't all the ingredients already present?

    Katia

    ReplyDelete
  7. When I think of Iran in the 70's I wonder how many people know what it used to be like. That is was once a liberal modern place, where people where openminded, forward-thinking and free. And that makes me think of Lebanon. How easily Beirut can walk into the footsteps of Tehran. How things can easily play out in the same manner, another example of 'history repeating itself'. I wonder how immune the Lebanese are to the Iranian experience. Could what happened there not be easily replicated. Aren't all the ingredients already present?

    Katia

    ReplyDelete