I have a particularly vivid memory of a barista in my favorite coffee shop announcing his plans to return home after the Shah had fled. He was full of hope and a desire to rid his country of domination. I frequently think of him and pray both he and his hope survive.
by
Laudyms (0 articles, 759 quicklinks, 10 diaries, 378 comments)
on Sunday, November 18, 2007 at 1:16:07 PM
What a wonderful incite into true Islam. This story should be repeated in the MSM. It poignantly reminds me of a woman of Baghdad who under a hail of bombs during the 1990 war yelled at newsmen in English, "Why are you doing this? We are human just like you are". I will never forget her anguish.
by
Archie (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 978 comments)
on Sunday, November 18, 2007 at 4:06:30 PM
memories of the Shah and the transition to revolution
As I was reading tis piece, I was first struck by the fact that someone ever perceived the Shah by the late 1970s as very supportable--as the writer implies.
Why?
If I recall the 1977 to 1979 period correctly, Jimmy Carter had come into the White House with a foreign policy austensibly based on human rights. Therefore, the position of Amnesty International and those Iranian and pro-Iranian supporters marching for REFORM in IRAN were actually mainstream in the last few years of the Shah's presence in both the USA or in Iran. (In short, he was in the club with the Somozas in Nicaragua who would also flee their land in 1979.)
ON the other hand I was struck by the importance of the picture of Iran in Feb. and March 1979 below:
With news of the collapse of the shah's government, Parvin had returned to Iran within days, excited and hopeful for her country's future. As a feminist, she was one of the organizers of the first International Women's Day march in Tehran on March 8, 1979. Tens of thousands of women joined that march, the fo-cus of which was opposition to Ayatollah Khomeini's just declared edict that women must observe hejab, the Islamic code governing dress in public. From the speaker's platform that day, Parvin challenged Iran's new leaders to support women's demands for equality in every area of society. Without it, she said, the Ira-nian revolution will remain incomplete, a limited and ultimately failed experiment in liberation.
The portrait here is that by Spring 1979 a reform movement is in vogue around the Irani diaspera. However, within weeks the radical religious group takes over in in Iran just as occurred in St. Petersburg in 1917 when the Bolsheviks took over.
I think the revolution should be narrated in this way--a radical revolutionary stage entered followed by a bonapartist style demagoguery running the country under a crown of religious zealotry and hatred.
Iranians of all sort suffer for this fact to date. However, it shows that moderation was there from the inception and has the potential to be applicable today.
Kevin in Kuwait
by
ALONE (121 articles, 1 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 270 comments)
on Monday, November 19, 2007 at 12:10:40 AM
