Democracy Begins At Home!

For many years democracy has become a daily topic of conversation for many of us; or at least for those who care about what is happening in Iran. But democracy itself is a sub-division of a concept far greater and more important, called human rights.

Democracy is the right of every human who can think. It is the right of every woman and man to be free. However, if two individuals agree to unite with one another then that union by no means is to reduce the freedom of one for the sake of giving legitimacy to the power of the other.

In order for us to be able to implement democracy in our future society, we Iranians need to begin learning and practicing it at our homes.

In an Iranian household if the man does not exert full control over his wife and children; by default, he has the last say in everything. How many times have we witnessed children, even teenagers in an Iranian home who have had no rights or even feared to express their opinions to their fathers? Or women have preferred to confide in their children than in their husbands?

If we are to have a democratic society, we need to respect its human rights aspect of it in our home first. Respecting one another's opinion is the first step we can take in that democratic direction. It is only then when we learn to tolerate criticism and to discuss issues calmly.

At home, we are all members of a family where our union strengthens us. Naturally, if such behavior and methods are practiced at home we can similarly build a civilized society where our national interests unite us together, therefore, safeguarding our sovereignty.

A man who behaves like an authoritarian father or a dictator-like husband can never claim to be a true democrat out there in the society.

Women, Marriage & our Neighbours

I was talking to a girlfriend of mine this morning. Her news of not being happy in her marriage came to me as a shock. She has been married for about four years. Before that, they had lived together for a number of years and prior to that, they dated for a while. But listening to her today I was more shocked by finding out that the guy has always been mean to her and his way of treating her is nothing new!

I was not sure whether to feel sorry for her for going through tough times in her marriage or to be angry with her for having married a guy who had always been an asshole!

This is something that I have always been bothered with! When you meet single Iranian girls they are all talks. Talks of being single-minded, independent, free women, and that they will never fall into a trap of a union where they are reduced to a second class citizen. But as soon as they tie the knot, all the attributes of a modern, educated, liberal, free-thinker woman of the 21st century that they claimed to be, goes out of the window.

It sometimes feels as if we Iranians live according to a highway code! They are fixed rules and guidelines that everyone must follow. This is why our lives and those of our families and friends all look so similar. We all go to school, then comes university which is a must (for men to guarantee a better future and for women the prospect of finding a better husband), boys do their national service in some cases, then get a job, get married by a certain age and before our parents, families, neighbor's or the local greengrocer begins questioning, we should have produced at least one offspring. Once all tasks completed in that order one can get on his/her life!

You try stepping out of this formula and you will be an outcast! But the problem, however, is that it doesn't take much to fall out of the track! Decide to remain single or say that you want to build up your career, and you are out! Decide never to have kids, here you go, Out again! You don't have to come home to tell your mother that you are a lesbian or gay, it's enough to tell them that you have a good job, a career, and enjoy your life; but do not want to get married, and they would feel sorry for you. The adjective 'poor' will follow your name even if you are making millions! Just because you are not married, have no kids, etc.

How can we change this? Easily!

Don't listen to, "If you live like this, how are we going to raise our head in the neighborhood." Instead, live the way you like to live. Iranians all would have lived differently could they become invisible to their neighbors. We live the way we believe is accepted by our neighbors, but the saddest thing is that the neighbors are doing exactly the same!

Ataturk

29th October marked the 81st anniversary of the Turkish Republic. A secular country that has succeeded to survive, progress and to remain loyal to the principles introduced by its founder Mustafa Kemal Pasha, otherwise known as Atatürk – the Father of Turks. A framework in which under no domestic or international pressure the Turkish authorities have compromised on.

The Turks today are celebrating and deserve to be congratulated for their untiring efforts and their love for their country. At the same time, my ancient land has sunken in the darkest period of its history since the Arab invasion of Iran in 640 A.D.

Secularism, the key to Turkey’s survival and prosperity has been used and mentioned over and over by those Iranian activists outside and inside Iran particularly more than ever before in recent years. After the death of the man who introduced its concept to us - Reza Shah the Great, it was never paid much attention until his grandson reintroduced it to our daily vocabulary.

However, what I find disheartening is yet again the usage of a word without many political leaders or activists defining its concept – not summarily but in detail, in a context to revolutionize our society. A society whose majority are Shi’a with strong religious beliefs and in some cases even still are awaiting the reappearance of a hidden Imam at the dawn of the 21st century. Who had apparently descended down a well - some thousand years ago, and they believe that he will be reincarnated again and bring their world prosperity and purity.

Today more than ever before Iran is badly in need of a school of thought like that of Turkey’s Kemalists which could guarantee its future democracy, secularism, and nationalism; if we ever achieve such noble goals! Iran needs a doctrine so that our true secularists could stand by it, otherwise, the general expression that ‘people themselves will be the guarantee of our future democracy’, is simply naivety.

What Iran of post-Islamic terror needs are visionary, truly secular men and women with modern thoughts to mould a new foundation for a modern nation to lead a proud life among the progressive nations of this world. Iran does not need people who are typical oriental romantics. Pragmatic, realists, radicals, and forward-looking leaders are what we need to bring our country to the modern age.

Atatürk’s principles backed by the Turkish secular elite and an army that never declares neutrality at times of domestic crisis can be the role model for those Islamic societies, which have finally reached the maturity and realized that the only path to prosperity is to break free from dogma, ignorance, and superstitions.

Atatürk’s modern look at life made him believe that humans are products of nature, enjoying the intelligence to survive, thus, preserving himself from oriental fatalism. He also never believed in luck. He said; “Luck is only the approach of events which we have not been able to calculate beforehand.”

One of the features that distinguish the Kemalist movement from other modernizing movements in the Islamic world is the extent to which secularism – that biggest enemy of fanatic Moslems, was emphasized in republican Turkey.
Unlike our former constitution where religious leaders had to be present to make sure legislations passing through the Majlis were under no circumstances contrary to the Islamic teachings, thus, immediately eradicating the concept of secularism, the Turkish constitution does not allow any form of appeasements when it comes in dealing with religious issues. The articles 19 & 57; Penal Code Art. 163 of the Turkish Constitution forbid political, social, economic, or legal order based even partly on religious principles.

Though such strong secular laws may seem excessive to some of Atatürk’s critics, its radical nature never intended to eradicate Islam in Turkey. What Atatürk aimed for was the privatisation of religion in order to make it an individual rather than the organizing principle of the society. Therefore, he respected freedom of religion at the individual level while strictly forbidding organized political manifestation of Islam in any shape or form or under any name or structure.

Atatürk’s followers - the Kemalists, managed to create a school of thought based on principles of republicanism, nationalism, populism, and secularism. These key elements have since remained the backbone of the Turkish state; without which Turkey would have stood no chance today, to be even considered for joining the European Union of nations.

Mustafa Kemal’s ambition to bring Turkish society into a modern world was to carry out his reforms into every aspect of Turkish life. He believed that to seek anything other than science in life was to be ignorant. ‘The aims of the reforms we have already carried out and are continuing to carry out,’ he said, ‘is to bring Turkish society into a modern society in every aspect. This is the basis of our reforms.’ He continued; ‘Up until now, the nation has been dominated by concepts which are disabling to the functioning of the mind.’

The main portal of Ankara University proclaims, ‘In life, the truest guide in science.’

Once again it is shattering to witness that some of my compatriots believed or may still do, that mullahs who take away the functioning of their mind and believe in running everyday life according to laws written fourteen hundred years ago for the barbarians of the Arabian desert, can bring our nation’s appalling condition any positive reform or prosperity.

It is demoralizing to see, Iranians gathering around backward and corrupt religious figures looking for guidance or having the slightest hope for these types of creatures to improve their status or that of our country. Believing in factions only created by the Islamic Republic itself to further use the gullibility of my people, Iranians have wasted several good years in the hope that the so-called reformists can solve Iran’s countless problems by a milder interpretation of Koranic laws.

In the age of science and reason when religion – very rightly, becomes a private matter or even the thing of the past, Iranians instead of rising themselves and take their future in their own hands, are either looking for saviors this time appearing with Zoroaster’s firewalking down an aircraft bringing an Achaemenian way of thinking or are praying for the re-election of the American president who would love them and feel sorry for them and will come to their rescue from their dire condition.
Turkey, a country that even today may not be taken seriously by many Iranians who rather stick to the stereotype mentality which considered the ‘Turks’ as inferior; has a lot to learn from. One important and vital lesson Iranians can learn from the Turks is their concept of patriotism.

Turkey salvaged from the miseries left by the Ottomans would have not survived to this day had they not adhered to Atatürk’s modern vision of a progressive and prosperous country, particularly in the past two and half decades of political and ideological turmoil created by Islamic fundamentalism born out of the Islamic revolution of Iran.

Atatürk believed in the transformation of thought into an ideal and its high moral personality. During the Balkan wars of 1912, when Izzet Pasha announced that some men of religion were to be sent to the front line to boost the morale of the soldiers, Atatürk responded that morale was being given by the regimental officers. ‘To send a delegation of such people will show that the war-power of our army is near to collapse, and will result in speculation about the poor state of our government. Therefore, this attempt should be stopped.’

In order to teach secularism to the Turks without using the word, Atatürk tried to establish a fundamental link between parliament and religion: ‘The government of the Turkish National Assembly is national and it is materialistic; it worships reality. It is not a government willing to commit murder or drag the nation into the swamps in search of useless ideologies.’ to further emphasize his belief in science he said; ‘the true enlightenment in life is science. We obtain inspirations not from the skies, but directly from life.’

Mustafa Kemal was from an uneducated family who had not been able to equip him with an academic background. His father died when he was seven, and his mother wanted him to receive religious education and become a Muslim preacher. The young Kemal chose, by his own will and decision a military education for himself, and pursued his own education apart from the classical education supplied by military schools. He learned French and German by his own efforts, and read the historical and literary works of the very few Turkish authors active at that time while he was in military school.

Turkey of the post First World War and post-Ottoman era was a country ravaged by years of wars, which needed a new national identity. What remained from the vast Ottoman Empire was the heart of the Turkish land with new boundaries.

Unlike the Ottoman period where nationality and therefore nations where subject to their religion, similar to post-revolution Iran and the introduction of the concept of ‘ommat’ – Moslem population, Atatürk stated that ‘Turkish nationality is for people who speak Turkish, for those who are brought up with Turkish culture, share Turkish ideals and who live on Turkish soil; these people’ he said, ‘are Turks, regardless of their race or religion.’

Although today’s Turkey may not adhere in its entirety to Atatürk’s ideals in political terms, but it is thanks to the EU’s requirements and pressure that is pushing Turkey again towards such attributes as freedom of conscience and crucial rights of the individual.

On the same subject, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk iterated that; ‘Each person has liberty to think and believe freely, to possess a political view of his own fulfillment, and to act in any way to suit himself as far as the regulations of any religion are concerned.’ However, he emphasized that no individual’s conscience could be guided by another.

He believed that all the torments Turkey has passed through were due to religious traditions standing in the way of social liberties. A fact that nearly a century later seems not yet fully clear to many Iranians who still believe that religious personalities can deliver miracles in the shame of reforms to suit the modern age and era.

Namik Kemal, the famous Turkish poet and dramatist (1840-1888) who lived under the Ottoman caliphs in conditions similar to that of ours in the Islamic Republic has a famous sentence expressing the effects of religious involvement in a country’s daily life. He said, “Death passes over us in a minute, but traditions are eternal. They aim at the way one sits, walks, reads cuts one’s beard …The traditions have reached such a point that a man cannot be in command of his own beard, let alone of his family.”

Atatürk was not alone in his attempt in modernizing Turkey. During the renovation of Bursa the capital of Bursa province in Western Turkey, Ahmad Vefik Pasha an outstanding statesman and the governor of the province found that to implement his plans he had to demolish the tomb of a saint known as the ‘Walking Saint’. Vefik Pasha went to the tomb, called three times ‘O Saint, walk away!’ and then had the sanctuary demolished, remarking ‘He must have walked away by now.’

In 1928 the constitution, which still mentioned Islam as the religion of the state, was abrogated and in the same year, the Latin script was adopted for the Turkish language. Something that though attempted by the likes of Abdol Hossein Meftah but unfortunately never materialized in our country, hence leaving our language in the service of our deficient alphabet instead of the reverse to be the case.

In 1931 statutes of the Party stated that it stood for the principle of ‘laicism’, defined as a condition in which the state took no role in religious life since religion was ‘a matter of conscience’. The text states: ‘The Party has accepted the principle that all laws, regulations, and procedures used in the administration of the state should be prepared and implemented in order to meet the needs of this world and in accordance with the foundation of and the forms provided by science and technology in modern times.’

Andrew Mango in his outstanding book, ‘Atatürk-the biography of the founder of modern Turkey’ states, ‘Atatürk’s message is that East and West can meet on the ground of universal secular and mutual respect, that nationalism is compatible with peace, that human reason is the only true guide in life. It is an optimistic message and its vitality will always be in doubt. But it is an ideal that commands respect.’

An Islamic Europe

“Bernard Lewis, the world-famous historian and expert on Islam, predicted that Europe will become Islamic by the end of the century as a result of emigration patterns and birth rates.” Al-Sharq, Qatar, 8/20/04

Such a remark made by a distinguished historian and expert on Islamic countries like Bernard Lewis is extremely worrying. However, if we look closely into the social problems regarding the mass emigration of Moslem's to European countries, one can understand that most of these immigrants are economic refugees.

Of course, such a transition from a Christian continent to an Islamic one in the near future is not a hypothesis. The Netherlands, one of the smaller European countries but with one of the largest Islamic communities in Europe has been predicted to have - in less than 30 years, a majority Muslim population. One can fear the day when by majority votes the Dutch queen is forced to wear the Islamic hejab in her public appearances!!

Spain, a much larger European country but with a negative birth rate among its indigenous people will also have a majority Muslim population in the future.

Such a trend will follow in other European states with large Islamic communities, such as France, Germany, and Switzerland.

But it seems to me that people are unfortunately very shortsighted as well as forgetful. All problems, issues, and international threats regarding Islamic fundamentalism, terrorism, etc. commenced with the establishment of the Islamic Republic in Iran in 1979.

The West should allow as well as aid the Islamic countries to progress and prosper through secular and democratically elected governments. Even though such developments may result in a more expensive economical life for Europeans and Americans due to the eventual industrialization of these countries; but its long-term advantages are that desperate citizens of these countries will not head westward in search of a better life for themselves and their family.

Democracy and secularism in the third world, as well as Middle Eastern countries, will result in prosperity of these countries if the Western world – and in particular the giant oil cartels, allow it to happen!

Such developments will reabsorb many immigrants back to their homeland and therefore, create a more balanced world where a Middle Eastern or a third world countries' citizen's standards of life will not be so far behind from those in Western societies.

But unfortunately, all the West seems to be aiming for are:
The constant flow of cheap oil for the Western industry
The prevention of the M.E. countries from becoming industrialized

The West needs the cheap oil and if the Middle Eastern countries - like Iran of the 70s become industrialized nations, who also have the advantage of immense oil and gas reserves; they will easily take over the world consumer markets.

Can you imagine if Iran, as it was predicted in the late 70s, had become the "Japan of Western Asia" by the mid-80s? Naturally, the West made sure that such a path would be closed and avoided with the advent of the Islamic Republic in Iran.

The West needs to rethink its values and long-term prospects before it's too late.

A TRULY secular and democratic government in Iran can change the pattern on an international scale. With no further support to any foreign or internal terrorist organizations or Islamic fundamentalist groups, supporting a peaceful negotiation between Israelis and Palestinians and corporation with regional governments, once again Iran can play a constructive role in the international political scenes.

A democratic Iran, whether under a republican system or a constitutional monarchy can guarantee peace, development, and hence, prosperity in the region. But are these the attributes that the West would like to associate with the Middle East?

The Late Shah of Iran's Vision

“Every nation deserves the government it has.” Ayatollah Khomeini.

A recent trip to the United Kingdom provided me the opportunity to pay a visit to the British National Archive in Kew. Reading pages and pages and taking notes on various topics of interest made me decide to use some of the collected information and write the following piece.

One of the most under-studied and under-researched international personalities of the twentieth century has to be the late Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

The Islamic revolution of 1979, its causes, roots, pros & cons as well as its outcomes has been covered in numerous books and articles. The event has been discussed and to some extent analyzed in various seminars, conferences, speeches, and lectures regarding its historical, sociological, or political contexts throughout the world for the past twenty-five years. Despite all this, very little has been given to study, explore and to understand the very man who for thirty-seven years led his nation in peace and harmony with the international community towards a steady and at times a rapid social and economical progress which guaranteed tranquillity “in one of the most troubled regions of this world”[i]. With the exception of a few books, the world scholars, journalists as well as academic institutions have conveniently forgotten for various political reasons - usually driven by economical motives of their respected governments, the very person who was responsible for peace in the Middle East.

The modern world sometimes moves forward with such velocity that in order to find the remedies to a range of today’s world issues, it should pause and search the solutions in the not so distant past.

I am not a scholar, nor have any claim to be a historian or a politician. I am simply a curious Iranian to whom the world’s deafening silence seems perplexing. Looking back at the events of the past quarter of a century, I would like to make an attempt and review certain aspects of my country’s last monarch’s ambitions and his global forethoughts. Aspirations that though may have appeared - as some Europeans claimed at the time as “Folly de Grandeur”, but the passing of years have given their seal of approval to his hopes and fears.

Some may immediately ask me whether I would cover reasons for his failure too. My answer to them is; “No!” There have been so many unfinished debates and discussions worldwide on his fall that have only resulted in confusing the public. I believe it is time for the world to wake up and learn from his vision, achievements, and his dreams; not only for Iran but for a world that had he survived, more than a million innocent men and women would have not perished from Kabul to New York.

My intention here is to remind the readers - Iranian or non-, of who he was and whom the world lost. I particularly would like to address the Americans who have been under attack since the advent of the Islamic Republic in Iran more than any other Western nation on this planet.

What did Mohammad Reza Pahlavi dream for Iran, the Middle East, and the World? Let’s review his most feasible plans that by now could have made our country part of what would have become the G9 group.
Michael Heseltine a junior minister in the department of aerospace and industry at the time who later became Margaret Thatcher’s Deputy Prime Minister (1995-1997) visited the Shah in May 1972. In his recent autobiography, “Life In The Jungle” published in 2000 he wrote; “The two big opportunities of my trip were thought to be Tehran and Singapore. It was understood that the Shah of Iran had a vision of Tehran as a staging post between West and East. He saw Concorde as an important part of the process if Tehran was seen as a major stopover on its journey both ways. Our strategy was to fly him in the aircraft and hopefully get him to confirm his options to buy. We also needed his agreement to overflying rights. Much of Iran is an open desert where the footprint of the sound barrier would have little or no impact.”

The former British Deputy PM carries on; “I was to meet the Shah in the Imperial Pavilion at Tehran airport for a brief introduction to the project, aided by various demonstrator boards before he joined me for a flight. One of the demonstrator boards set up to be shown to the Shah consisted of a huge map of the world on which capital cities, principle airports, and major flying routes were indicated in large, unmissable topography. About ten minutes before the Shah was due someone helpfully pointed out that there was no reference to Tehran on the map. The offending demonstrator board was removed from sight. Crisis averted. The Shah duly arrived. After a quick briefing, we set off along the red carpet across the tarmac to the aircraft itself. During the flight, it would be up to me to secure our sales and overflying objectives.

The take-off was uneventful and we sped heavenwards to the 58,000 feet at which the aircraft is most efficient. However, I had no sooner concluded the initial pleasantries than the Shah, an experienced pilot himself, asked if he could join the test pilot, Brian Trubshaw, in the cockpit. In a second he was gone. I was in despair. There was no other time during our stopover when I could conduct a sales pitch or secure agreements before we were due to leave Tehran. But the Shah did not return until we came into land.

Down the steps we went, heading for the Imperial Pavilion. There were about 200 yards of red carpet between us and the waiting press corps. I had 200 yards in which to obtain – or not – the objective clearly set for me. I decided to go for it. ‘Your Majesty, I hope you enjoyed the flight. I would like to ask you if you would consider purchasing the aircraft?’ ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘I would like two.’ So far, so good. ‘Your Majesty, we would be grateful for overflying rights across Iran on our journey to and from the Far East.’ ‘That would be quite acceptable,’ he said.

But the problem was that no one else had heard our conversation. My officials were some way behind me. I had been alone with the occupant of the Peacock Throne. By now we had reached the assembled press corps. The first journalists in the queue were Iranians. The level of questioning focused on such trivia as whether His Majesty had enjoyed the flight, the comfort of the plane, and so on. Then a loud voice from somewhere to the rear of the crowd of journalists called out, ‘The Times, London, Your Majesty. Are you going to buy the aircraft?’ ‘Yes,’ said the Shah. ‘Two.’ Another British voice: ‘The BBC, London, Your Majesty. Will you give us overflying rights?’ ‘Yes, I will.’”

The Shah must obviously have studied and consulted the proposal with his advisors and experts in the field prior to his meeting with the British minister. Considering the immense revenue generated from overlying rights to Concorde together with our national carrier as the only airline flying Concorde aircraft - after British Airways and Air France, and the only airline in the world to offer supersonic travels between the European business centers to those of Australia and the Far East, Iran Air Concorde would have dominated most international business flights between the West and the Orient.

Bearing in mind Heseltine’s autobiography was published many years after the collapse of our Imperial government, he writes; “In October 1972 Iran Air signed a preliminary agreement to purchase two Concordes for delivery in late 1976 or early 1977 with an option on a third. Six and a half years later the Shah was deposed and for at least two years before that he came under increasing anti-modernization political pressure.”

Concorde never again succeeded in attracting foreign investors in which its high costs of maintenance were a continuous issue until the crash in Paris on July25, 2000 brought its thirty-year life to an end.

Our economical progress coupled with social changes proved to be too rapid for us Iranians to comprehend and appreciate. As Iran progressed industrially through the 70s like every other nation in the world the sudden change of pace brought with it various but expected deficiencies and shortages; nothing that time and hard work could have not overcome. In other words, they were teething problems of any rapidly advancing nation. However, a higher standard of living resulted in higher expectations among Iranians. The consequence was a society with raised expectations but no patience for their government to materialize their demands.

By this time Europeans were getting itchy on Iran’s arms spending and its armament budget – 26% of the total annual budget. Accusations were thrown and suspicions rose by the Western media. A number of these countries were the very ones that Iran’s arms deals kept many of their citizens employed and therefore, helped their economy.

A reporter from the German magazine, Der Spiegel who interviewed the late Majesty in January 1974 questioned HIM regarding Iran’s arms spending. “Why are you spending so much money on armaments? Where is the enemy?”

The Shah replied; “Well, this is the same question as to why Germany or France are spending so much money on armaments?”

Der Spiegel: Because they have some neighbors in the East whose intentions were not always quite clear.

The Shah: Are they going to attack you?

Der Spiegel: We hope not.

The Shah: So why are you spending the money? I am spending the money for exactly the same reason. I take no chances whatsoever. I have friends, I try to even have more friends, but we cannot only depend on our alliances. Sometimes we could be let down. Another thing: do you all agree that the October war with Israel was a surprise? Consider the number of weapons and the sophisticated weapons that were used against Israel – did you or did even the Israelis expect anything like this? Everyone was surprised. So I take absolutely no chances. I must not depend on anyone but ourselves.

When Der Spiegel asked the Shah whether Iran can keep up with such growth – 20% annually, and reminded His Imperial Majesty that it took the Western countries generations to reach the present level and whether he thinks he can overlap this? The Shah responded, “Yes, our people are hard-working and they have a craze for learning. We have all the incentives. We have our own traditions; we have a very old history – 3000 years. Why should we copy others?

Der Spiegel: And Western technology?

To this, the Shah replied; “You have spent millions of dollars in research – after many years of hard work you have discovered things. Why shouldn’t we take it? But we take all these things and we keep what is good. And we can develop ideas also. All these isms – capitalism, socialism, communism, or anything else – are so old now that they do not correspond to the ideals of the human being. It doesn’t correspond to the breakthrough in technology, it doesn’t correspond to our times.”

By now our economy had become strong enough to reverse our trade patterns with that of Western Europe. The Times on January 26, 1974, reported; “Total Iranian exports to Britain last year were valued at about £124m while British exports and re-exports to Iran came to approximately £116m.”

We had reached a position of strength from a borrower - years earlier, to a major world lender, including to those among the elite of nations. Mr. Healy, Chancellor of the Exchequer in a speech addressing the British parliament on July 22, 1974, thanked the Imperial Iranian government for providing Britain with a line of credit of $1,200m.

“I have not had to draw on the $2,500m loan, which was negotiated at the time of the Budget. And I am now able to tell the House of another welcome source of funds for public sector borrowers.”

He continued, “The Imperial Iranian Government has offered to provide the United Kingdom with a line of credit of $1,200m, to be drawn on in the form of three separate loans by public sector bodies within three years from now.

We have reached an agreement on this offer, and I hope that arrangements for the first loan will be made in the very near future. I know that the willingness of the Iranian Government to enter into an arrangement of this kind reflects the concern of His Imperial Majesty the Shah of Iran over the difficulties facing the world economy and his constructive attitudes to the problems at present facing the international monetary system, and I believe that the House will join me in welcoming this development.”

Iran’s loan to Britain helped the British government to reduce its VAT rate from 10% at the time to 8% - with immediate effect. On the following day The Times carried the following headline; “Chancellor cuts VAT, aid ratepayers, eases dividend limits and accepts Iran loan.”

In the same year, the Shah spoke of creating a new grouping of Indian Ocean countries on the basis of economic, political, and eventually naval cooperation, to “secure our shipping lanes” and keep “non-regional powers” out.

When Iran’s GNP (Gross National Product) rose by 40% towards the end of 1974 and when we bought over 25% of steel-making subsidiary of the Krupp group from its German owners - an agreement which could set the pattern for the investment of Middle Eastern countries in Western Europe, the European Union was still considered at its infancy. The Shah, aware of the economical centers of power in the United States and the then European Economic Community, had come to conclude a plan of his own. A project that could help to counterbalance the Western economical might with that of the fast Asian developing countries, - the Indian Ocean Economic Union or Common Market.

Michael Hornsby a journalist from the Times newspaper reported from Delhi on October 3, 1974, on the Shah’s next regional vision. “The Shah envisaged the membership of his proposed organization being restricted initially to the “northern tier” of the Indian Ocean – Iran, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore – but eventually extending to Indo China, Australia, and even African countries.”

Hornsby iterates that for the Indians to embrace the Shah’s scheme enthusiastically now, would be a considerable rebuff to the Soviet Union and an indication of the political price the Indians are prepared to pay for concessionary supplies of oil and other economic aid from Iran.

In the same month, the Shah and the Empress paid an official visit to Australia. The Australian papers as well as those elsewhere printed that Iran was likely either to lend money directly to Australian Industry Development Corporation or become jointly involved with the government in Australian projects.

But among all these, did the world appreciate his vision? Does the West ever want peace in the only region that can afford to pay astronomical figures for the latest weapons and military technology? If the Arab nations and their leaders – particularly those in the Persian Gulf region, had the wisdom, they would have seen the prosperity and lasting peace that such fundamental plans could bring to our region and would have supported our government wholeheartedly.

The Shah had said that his plan would help to create a positive and co-operative world partnership, which could usher in a decade of genuine development to equalize today’s disparities between rich and poor nations and harmonize their contradictions, which are the main source of animosities, conflicts, and wars.

As for the Iranian generation at the time, there were those who fully supported the regime’s policies and witnessed the improvements made in all walks of life. But there were also those groups of Iranians, in particular the students who received government scholarship, including a 90% discount on their return airfare, the cost of their living expenses together with their university fees while they attended universities in capitalist countries. Some of them joined the Iranian Student Confederation – a communist/socialist group and did not miss a chance to demonstrate every time an Iranian official or the Shah paid a visit to a foreign country. These students who were spoiled by the Imperial government’s financial support believed that it was their right to live comfortably as students abroad - a student life enviable by other students, and their political prerogative to shout death to their sovereign. It is ironic that hardly any of our left-wing activists had ever lived, studied or even visited any of the communist blocks!

Such a trend had seemed bizarre enough that a European newspaper wrote; “Few people, even among young Iranians, appreciate the extent and scope of the changes, mainly because most of them have now come to take them for granted.”2

As the Shah’s fame and Iran’s fortune became center stage by the mid-seventies, so did European animosity towards him and our regime. Human Rights groups that have chosen to be silent in the past two and a half decades of the Islamic Republic’s genocide, either for their respective governments’ foreign policy such as “Constructive Engagements” or trade opportunities, would have not missed a chance to demonstrate their anger against the Shah or our officials in every possible way.

This is at a time when in June 1974 Iran with its US$5.4 billion had come to occupy 13th place among the 20 richest countries of the world. Two years later Iran’s income from exports reached US$15 billion whereas its imports were only in the region of US$13 billion, with 52% intermediate goods, 30% machinery and 18% consumer goods.

The man who the Western media had portrayed as a dictator, told in an interview in 1976 to the famous Indian journalist and writer R. K. Karanjia, “If ever I felt that Persia’s monarchy had outlived its usefulness, I would be happy to resign and would even join in helping to abolish our monarchical institution.”

Margaret Laing, in her book titled, “The Shah” wrote, “The Shah believes discipline without democracy is authoritarianism, and that democracy without discipline is anarchy.”

Ironically, for at least the past thirty years the European press more than any Iranian opposition has been accusing HIM of not being democratic. He was called an autocrat at the best times and the “bloodsucker of the century” at its worst! No one took the pain to understand the Shah’s reasons or his long desire for establishing democracy, a seed that was sown in his mind from his adolescent years in Switzerland.

Time after time the Shah repeated that his concept of democracy springs from the fact that today’s common man has steadily been losing his grip over his economic activities. “So he is fully justified in demanding, together with his political rights, guarantees for his economic rights as well. To a man in dire economic want,” he said, “political freedom is utterly meaningless. The first and foremost duty, therefore, of any government is to usher in democracy – political, economic, and social – for the benefit of the common man. Ever since my return from Switzerland” he continued, “I had been evolving my philosophy that every man, woman, and child in my country – or, for that matter, in any country of the world – is entitled to a decent minimum of the five necessaries of life: food, clothing, housing, medical care, and education. These I consider to be the five imperative tenets of social justice. Further, I believe a man’s minimum income must be at such a level as would enable him to secure these five fundamentals for himself and his family.”

Economic and social democracies were the first two steps of his bigger plan that he managed to create and nurture successfully. By the late 70s, one could not find a hungry Iranian where only two decades earlier even our capital hardly had access to clean water or any sanitations. By introducing free meals six days a week throughout the academic year to every schoolchild whether from a poor or rich background Iranian children were fed the same nutritious food for free, on a daily basis!

Economic democracy had created a large middle class that is the backbone of every healthy society. Iranians were free to engage in any field of business and commerce, many who received government subsidies or long term loans with one of the lowest interest rates in the world. We were free to travel and were respected in all countries we visited. Social freedoms had allowed Iranians to flourish and hence, create one of the most vibrant and avant-garde societies of the Sixties and the Seventies.

Having enjoyed the above, our people demanded political democracy that the Shah wished to see fully established before passing the throne to his son. However, the social and economic democracies enjoyed in Iran of the pre-Islamic revolution were the results of nearly two decades of hard work. When people demanded to have political democracy, certain initiatives had already taken place by the government on that path but Iranians wanted it not tomorrow but yesterday! Asking any Iranian today would agree that to reach political democracy we did not have to uproot our entire existence and had we been wiser and less manipulated, by now we would have been a prosperous nation with a powerful industry to match those in the Western world. With a difference that we would have created indigenous democratic institutions to meet our specific needs and desires, to match our tradition, culture, and history and not simply by copying them from the West.

In the meantime, the European media began pounding the regime with baseless accusations against SAVAK – Iran’s answer to every other nation’s intelligence organization.

Once the Islamic Republic triumphed, most of those who were claimed to be executed or tortured by SAVAK, walked healthy out of the prison and took various offices in the newly formed Islamic regime. With full access to billions of dollars left in Iran’s coffers, these individuals succeeded in knitting a network of terror that introduced the world to a new concept of Islamic fanaticism pursued by international terrorism with wider and more horrific dimensions than ever before. Those who were once cheered as freedom fighters by the West and its human rights organizations, have today come to threaten the life of every man, woman, and child in Western civilization.

Even at such a critical point the European Union still flirts with a mafia-like regime only to gain further lucrative deals. Two and half decades earlier the West with its powerful propaganda machine had unleashed their venom towards our Imperial government and accused us of our lack of respect for human rights in order to protect the very individuals who are today threatening the security of all European and most American citizens and their way of life.

SAVAK portrayed as one of the most notorious organizations by Western media, its very own boss Mr. Hossein Fardoust who had grown up with the Shah and was sent to Switzerland with him to study, turned out to be a collaborator with the revolutionaries for many years!

Massoud Rajavi, leader of the People’s Mojahedin Organization whose group has been listed by the US Congress as a terrorist organization and a collaborator with Ayatollah Khomeini was one of the prisoners twenty-six years ago who walked out of a SAVAK prison with a clean bill of health. However, after his escape from the Islamic Republic’s tyranny which himself played an active role in its creation; in an interview in Paris soon after his arrival on August 7th, 1981 said to reporters, “Khomeini is worst than Hitler and the Shah was nothing but a choir boy."

When our so-called intellectuals began condemning every move the regime made, irrespective of its nature and reason it reminded me of Henry Kissinger’s comment; “Intellectuals condemn society for materialism when it is prosperous and for injustice when it is to ensure prosperity.”

Once all political factions were pushed aside by the Islamic regime, they began accusing each other and that the revolution was stolen from them! I always wondered how could those self-appointed intellectuals who admitted losing to a bunch of theologians ever succeed in running the country?

We always tend to think of historical tragedy as failing to get what we want, but if we study history we find that the worst tragedies have occurred when people got what they wanted … and it turned out to be the wrong objectives.

In the midst of havoc and chaos created by the revolutionaries, our so-called allies never came to our aid; instead, a member of Carter’s administration credited the Ayatollah with sainthood. Ten months later Khomeini awarded the Americans by taking their diplomats hostage for 444 days.

Years later Henry Kissinger wrote; “The United States must show that it is capable of rewarding a friend or penalizing an opponent. It must be made clear, after too long an interval that our allies benefit from association with us and our enemies suffer. It is a simpleminded proposition perhaps, but for a great power it is the prerequisite, indeed the definition, of an effective foreign policy.”

In another reference to Iran and the consequence of the fall of the Shah, he wrote; “Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan are pivotal to the world’s security. Within a few years of my 1973 journey to Tehran, it became an area of upheaval. From the Iranian revolution to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan to the Iran-Iraq war, events dramatized the vulnerability of the Persian Gulf – the lifeline of the West’s oil supply.”

The Shah in his last book, “Answer to History” which he began and completed in exile wrote, “The benefits of so many years of effort are now reduced to nothing.”

“Our assemblage of a formidable military force in the Middle East has resulted in charges of megalomania and of careless spending of Iran’s money on arms while my people are deprived of basics need. The question of the adequacy of our military force is subjective. To my knowledge, no military leader of world stature has criticized my arms policy as excessive. As for robbing the Iranian people of their living essentials in order to pay for armaments, nothing could be further from the truth. After paying for these armaments, Iran had a reserve of $12 billion in foreign currency.”

Today not only such reserve of foreign assets do not exist but according to the Deputy Governor of Central Bank of Iran (CBI) for Economic Affairs Akbar Kimjani, “Iran's foreign debt, excluding interests due, stands at USD 23.438 billion by the end of the Iranian month of Dey (December 22, 2003 - January 20, 2004).”

Michael Ledeen in his book titled- Debacle: The American failure in Iran, says; “Accordingly, Mohammad Reza became passionately committed to the view that he must not take action that would produce large-scale bloodshed in his last days. He desired to be remembered as a benevolent monarch, not a ruthless dictator. As he told friends repeatedly in the final months of his rule, he wished to leave Iran not only with an advanced industrial base and military organization but with a modern political system as well. And he wanted to pass on to his son a country with genuine affection for the Pahlavi family. Could this be achieved if the revolution were smashed by the application of what he called " the iron fist"? The shah did not think so. Months after the debacle, he wrote:

‘I am told today that I should have applied martial law more forcefully. This would have cost my country less dear than the bloody anarchy now established there. But a sovereign cannot save his throne by spilling the blood of his fellow countrymen. A dictator can do it because he acts in the name of an ideology, which he believes he must make triumphant, no matter what the price. A sovereign is not a dictator. There is between him and his people an alliance, which he cannot break. A dictator has nothing to pass on: power belongs to him and him alone. A sovereign receives a crown. I could envisage my son mounting the throne in my own lifetime …’

Ledeen continues, “The last sentence is the operative one-the shah knew he was dying, and that the way in which the Iranian crisis was resolved would determine the destiny of his heir.”

While in exile Carter turned his back on the Shah and did not want to have anything to do with the leader who when celebrating New Year’s Eve 1978 at his home - Niavaran Palace in Tehran, he addressed the Shah by; “Our talks have been priceless, our friendship is irreplaceable, and my own gratitude is to the Shah, who in his wisdom and with his experience has been so helpful to me, a new leader.”

Steven Hayward in his book published in 2004 under the title, “The Real Jimmy Carter” writes; “Carter betrayed a man whose fall to Ayatollah Khomeini on Carter’s watch spawned the resurgence of fundamentalist Islamist terrorism that is now the War on Terror.

Two months after the Shah’s death in Egypt, Iran’s brave armed forces who were trained as first-class troops with the best armaments but without their top generals who had all been executed in the previous twenty months were the key factors in stopping Saddam Hussein invading our country in an eight-year war with Iraq.

Had the Shah of Iran remained in power, the Iran-Iraq war would not have occurred. By 1975, Iran’s superior military and economic power supported diplomatically by her good neighbor policy that promised peace and progress for all, had drawn Saddam Hussein to a politics of mutual respect and friendly interaction. The Algiers Agreement of 1975 and Saddam’s expulsion of Khomeini from Iraq in 1978 attest to the efficiency of Iranian power and diplomacy. Had the war not occurred, a million Iranians and Iraqis would have not died in vain and several million would not have been forced from home and family.

Moreover, Iran’s national power and international prestige, and her interest in the Persian Gulf, would have made it impossible for Saddam to invade Kuwait. With the fall of the Soviet system, Iran, boasting the most advanced economy, technology, and military in the region, would be the hub of peaceful and profitable diplomatic, cultural, economic and commercial relations in Central Asia and the Middle East. Iran’s power and her friendly and rational relations with the West would have made the presence of American troops and weapons in the Persian Gulf region redundant and consequently anti-American feeling would not have been excited by the likes of Khomeini or Khamanei or Osama Bin Laden. Islamist movements and organizations would not have the Islamic Republic as a model for emulation or support for expansion. A powerful, secular, and peaceful Iran – non-Arab and non-Jewish- would be a pillar on which both Israel and the Arab world could lean for balance and security as they and the world strived for peace in justice and dignity.

Henry Kissinger in Years of Upheaval in relation to the Shah and his fall wrote; “What overthrew the Shah was a coalition of legitimate grievances and an inchoate accumulation of resentment aimed at the very concept of modernity and at the Shah’s role as a moderate world leader. The Shah was despised less for what he did wrong than for what he did right. He was brought down by those who hated reform and the West; who were against absolute rule only if it was based on secular principles. The immediate victors were not enlightened dissidents of liberal democratic persuasion but the most regressive group in Iranian society: the religious ayatollahs who identified human dignity not with freedom and progress but with an ancient moral and religious code.”

Today the Shah of Iran and Ayatollah Khomeini are both gone. While Khomeini left a prosperous country in ruins and damaged Islam more than anyone else since its advent, the Shah’s legacy lives on to this day in the hearts and minds of every Iranian.

Our youth today realizing the catastrophic mistake that their parents made are eager more than ever before to learn about the truth. As Princess Ashraf called her book, it is “Time for Truth”.

The new generation who has escalated their pro-democratic and secularist demand in recent years has so far received no international support while paying the heaviest price. They would only need to go through the pages of their family albums and see their parents during their teenage years or when they dated each other to begin questioning them about the country we had during the reign of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. Many of them blaming the older generation for today’s ills are determined to put an end to this absurdity ruling our ancient land in the 21st century.

All they expect from the international community is to stick by them and to stop cutting deals with the religious apartheid that is bringing our nation to complete annihilation.

If some of those in the older generation agreed with Ayatollah Khomeini and brought a system of government that they deserved, the new generation obviously deserves better and will demolish the system whether the European Union decides to be with us or with the terrorists.

Some of us may have lost hope, but in addressing his nation for the last time, the Shah in Answer to History wrote; “The lesson of the wickedness and immorality of international power-politics was burnt – yes, very literally burnt – into my mind and heart. The main lesson I learned was that when you are weak you have got to be very patient. You have got to accept humiliation. You have got to take the worst kind of insults. But in your inner heart you have got to love your country, have faith in its people, and believe in their destiny as well as yours. If you do so, there is always a little ray of hope left which kindles in your conscience and inspires you to make the best of the worst possible circumstances and save whatever little you can of your land and its inheritance. That is the key to human survival amidst overwhelming difficulties.”

2 The Times 25th Oct. 1974

[i] Former American president Jimmy Carter in his Christmas toast to the Shah of Iran, Tehran, Niavaran Palace, December 1977

2 The Times 25th Oct. 1974

Secularism

According to the Chambers dictionary secularism is defined as; the belief that the state, morals, education, etc. should be independent of religion; G J Holyoak’s (1817-1907) system of social ethics.

Have those of us who have defended democracy for a long time but been more vocal about secularism in recent years asked ourselves how secular are we prepared to be in a future democratic Iran?

The majority of the democratic governments are secular in one shape or another. From the French and the Turkish forms of republics where principles of secularism are strictly observed and defended, to those European monarchies where religious minority immigrants have been allowed to impose their customs to a degree that is beginning to test the host nation’s level of tolerance.

Theodore Roosevelt once said, “Aggressive fighting for the right is the noblest sport the world affords.” My question to our fellow Iranians is how aggressively are we prepared to defend such noble principles once democracy and secularism are established by a majority vote in our country?

One of the recent challenges and at times heated debates in the Western secular democracies has been the issue of banning the religious symbols including that of the Islamic headscarves in French schools. The new regulation bans Muslim headscarves as well as Jewish yarmulkes and wearing of other ostensible religious symbols in French public schools.

Such a decision has even invited opposing views from within Western democracies. Many journalists in Britain for example, have objected to the French decision, regarding it as interference in one’s personal freedom. However, they have failed to iterate the fact that the French government’s proposal was democratically submitted to the French assembly which was in turn accepted by a majority who equally address all religious symbols including that of the Catholics who make the majority of the French nation. Nevertheless, some fanatic Muslim groups like to portray such decision as a fight against Islam.

E.J. Dionne Jr. in an article in Washington Post dated 12/23/2003, under the title of “In France, Scarves & Secularism” wrote: “The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hamid Reza Assefi, condemned the Chirac government for ‘an extremist decision aimed at preventing the development of Islamic values’.” He continued, “Imagine being called ‘extremist’ on a religious question by an official of the Iranian government!”

Secularism and democracy are like two sides of the brain. In order to have a fully functional body, both sides of the brain with their specific responsibilities are needed in order to achieve the desired being. Therefore, those who comically advocate baseless concepts such as the Islamic Democracy can never deliver the true freedom our people are fighting for when divine rules and restrictions would oversee every aspect of their daily life.
The question that eventually we have to face is are we going to adhere to principles that would declare Iran a country with no official religion; hence, no advantages given to an Iranian Muslim over those Iranians from other religions? I am talking of a society that goes further than pre-1979 where an Iranian Jew, Baha’i, Christian, or a Zoroastrian can become our country’s prime minister or in case of a republic, its president.

Prince Reza Pahlavi if not the only Iranian political leader believing in such principles, is definitely the only one who has been brave enough to publicly state his vision for a country with no official religion. He has defended the freedom of all political beliefs/parties, guaranteeing individual rights such as; regional languages and dialects, sexual orientations, religious beliefs as well as all social freedoms that many other progressive and democratic nations in the world enjoy or may take for granted.

However, he or any other Iranian politically active cannot and will not succeed if we as individual Iranian do not participate or take steps for our future. At times in meeting other compatriots, I feel we are still blurred in our understanding of secularism or that of a true democracy. Do we really understand what it is all about? If we do, how far are we prepared to go in a free, democratic and secular Iran of the future to defend its principles? Will we make concessions every now and then and therefore, undermining the principles of secularism for religious beliefs of one or two religious public figures or groups?

In order to guarantee and protect the sacrifices of so many pro-democracy and secular activists, we need a modern constitution written by elected experts to meet the modern world’s requirements; to respect our true national values and to promote the two unbending pillars of that society; secularism and democracy.

In an article “Defending Secularism, Turkey’s Military Warns Islamic Leaders” in New York Times, dated March 2, 1997 journalist Stephen Kinzer wrote; “The communiqué issued by the Turkish military states that the Turkish National Security Council had decided that ‘no steps away from the contemporary values of the Turkish Republic would be tolerated.’ ‘It has been decided that destructive and separatist groups are seeking to weaken our democracy and legal system by blurring the distinction between the secular and the anti-secular," the communiqué continued "It has been decided that in Turkey, secularism is not only a form of government but a way of life and the guarantee of democracy and social peace.”

The communiqué further adds: ‘It has been decided that it is impossible to step back from our understanding of the social and legal principles which form the structural core of the state and that out-of-date measures which are taken without regard for these principles do not coincide with our legal system."

It may seem at times; in particular in countries where some believers take religious beliefs out of proportion that it is the secularist factor that comes to the rescue of the democratic values of those societies; hence, giving secularism even a more important of a role to play.

What force is going to safeguard our future secularism? Is it going to be the will of the majority - a new constitution? But that can change or be influenced, particularly in countries like ours. Or is it going to be a strong army as in the Turkish case to stand by the constitution? But then again our history has already proved that our military may abandon once again the constitution and hence, jeopardizing the principles of our secular state. Or do we need to achieve a Kemalist like ideology and developing it into a national party that would stand by its principles no matter what the case maybe?

Unlike what the leaders of the Islamic Republic like to portray secularists are no atheists. A secular Muslim woman or a man could be a staunch secularist while observing her/his religion in the privacy of their home.

Today our country has a majority of nearly 97% Muslims, but this majority is composed of youths who are the main forces of change in today’s struggle against the Islamic Republic’s barbarity. Masses that are least religious and most eager to grasp the most progressive ideas the world can offer. These youngsters very rightly do not care what Western politicians think or like in Washington, London, or Paris. They are an educated generation with access to the latest communication equipment and are quite well aware of what is going on around the world.

This generation demands total transparency, freedom of expression followed by all social liberties thinkable to mankind. A democratic political system based on a society with its foundation on secular principles; demands that an Islamic republic under whatever shape or form cannot deliver.

Whether the West or for that matter the world supports us or not is not going to alter the path our movement has chosen. Though their understanding and acceptance of our nation’s will can speed up the process and therefore, guarantee a better life for them as well as for my compatriots. The European allies of the Islamic Republic can continue their “constructive engagement” for as long as they find it profitable; but the reality is that when almost forty million Iranians mobilize, no power in the world can stop them.

Iranians have made it very clear and have given enough chances to those who had promised them heavens but instead opened the doors to hell. The establishment of democracy and secularism through a national referendum is the only solution we see for the future of our country. Today is the last chance for those who want to be with the people of Iran.

Visiting Niavaran

On a recent trip to Tehran, I decided to visit for the first time the Niavaran Palace, the former winter residence of our Imperial Pahlavi family. It is a cubic structure with a modern architecture found in many buildings that were designed in the sixties or seventies all around Iran and the world.

The day I planned to go with a younger member of my family was one of those beautiful days when you can smell the spring. It had rained earlier and the sky over Tehran seemed strangely free of pollution and the shining sun was lukewarm. It was simply pleasant.

I had such a cocktail of feelings as I entered the palace grounds. I had previously only seen a few pictures of it but now as I walked into its main central hall with its roof rising above us I was shocked and disappointed as we walked through its rooms.

The Islamic Republic with its continuous propagandas, particularly in the early years of the revolution had portrayed a lavish lifestyle in opulent surroundings for the Pahlavis. Having visited many European palaces and estate houses, I knew that none of our so-called opulent palaces can compete with even Dolmabahche or Topkapi in Istanbul, let alone with the likes of Shoenbrune, Windsor Castle, or those of the Scandinavian and other European monarchs. Iranian palaces seemed more modest than many houses belonging to the rich and famous elite of the Western world. Later on, during my stay in Tehran, I met people who invited me to their home where I thought it was worth more visiting than the Niavaran Palace.

I was shocked by Niavaran’s simplicity and modesty and disappointed because I found it embarrassing for having received such foreign dignitaries as American and European presidents and royalty in such a humble house.

We all know that after 11th February 1979 the palaces were attacked and many valuable objects were then and later on stolen. However, the current management had tried to arrange what was left in a presentable way. But it was difficult to miss the havoc created by a mixture of various objects and furniture brought from different palaces to fill the place. A modern painting stood by a Chinese vase from the Ming dynasty next to an electric organ and it went on and on. “Not the original layout” I thought to myself.

As it was Noruz, there were many people from provinces who had come to visit relatives or to spend their holidays in Tehran. You could hear accents literary from all over the country. I wanted to know what went through their mind walking through these rooms. Most of them seemed old enough to remember the days when people were not hung from cranes, lashed, amputated, stoned, or arrested. The era when our nation had full social freedom, more than many countries that even today can dream of.

I told my cousin that I would like to follow the people and listen to their conversations! In the Shah’s dressing room, where his uniforms are hung from cupboards with glass windows a group of chadori women were looking at HIM’s uniforms, hats and shoes. One woman murmured to another one - with a strong accent that I could not recognize to which part of the country she belonged to; “Look, I had seen him in these clothes. Khoda biyamorzatesh, che balayi saresh avordand, hanuz daarim taqas pas midim.” “May his soul rest in peace. For what they did to him, we are still paying for our crimes.” Her friend who noticed me near them pointed to her to keep quiet. As I heard her, I walked closer and said to her that she doesn’t need to worry and that I understand their sentiments fully.

This put them at ease and the same lady just shook her head and brought her face close and whispered, “But I am sure they will come back”. Suddenly she pulled herself back with laughter and said to her friends, “we better go, we have already said too much.” And they rushed out of the room.

The new management has recruited young girls as tour guides, giving explanations, and assisting the visitors. They are all from a generation who were not even born when the Shah reigned from these palaces. Dressed in a shabby military green manteau and a scarf, two sizes bigger than them; I said to one who seemed extremely bored, “Is this what all that hoo haa was about?! One can hardly call these structures palaces!” She replied, “Sir it’s the most horrible place! It is dark even when its sunshine outside. It is embarrassing to show these houses to the public where there are richer ones just a few blocks away.”

I walked out of the palace with a grin, thinking to myself that visitors come here and feel nostalgic, employees are fed up with the system and the young want nothing but a complete discarding of the current Islamic establishment.

Before walking down the gentle slope that leads one to Sahebqraniyeh palace I wanted to walk a little on the grounds of this once happy home of a happy family. We walked and talked together and my young cousin's knowledge of the past was inspirational. I met numerous of his friends during my stay in Tehran. They were all from the new generation - the children of the revolution, so to speak. None were religious or prayed. They were extremely well informed, educated, and well aware of what is going on around the world. The Internet has truly brought these youngsters in touch with the outside free world.

Farzad suddenly brought my attention to a tree. “Look! They were like us, we used to peel our names on trees too when we were much younger.” When I understood what he was trying to show me, it saddened me immensely. There were our princes and princesses names carved out on a tree. With a difference that the tree-like them, was now twenty-five years older, its bark grown and so was the names, reminding the passer-by of whom once lived there.

My attention was attracted to a sudden noise made by birds on the trees. To my amazement, I realized they were all green parrots. I thought I was wrong but Farzad who found my amazement funny told me that most of our parks have parrots.

“Then they must be Armaghan’s children.” I said.

Farzad who had no idea who I was talking about looked puzzled. So I told him the story of The Merchant & His Parrot called Armaghan; that we used to read in the old days in our Persian textbook in schools.

A merchant kept a parrot in a cage in his house. Before leaving for India he asks his parrot if he wants anything from his homeland. Armaghan replies; “Nothing, but when you see my free friends in India, tell them about me and that I live here at your house in a cage. Tell them how I am and how I live.”

The 'bazargan' – the merchant, leaves for India. Once in a jungle, he sees parrots sitting on trees and suddenly remembers his owns request. He turns to one of them and tells the parrot about his. He asks the parrot if he has a message for Armaghan. Suddenly the parrot falls down from the tree and dies.

Sadden by this, he wonders as what caused such misfortune. On his return when Armaghan asks him whether he passed his message to the parrots of India he tells him of the unfortunate incident. Suddenly Armaghan falls and dies. He cries for his loss. He opens the cage, takes the parrot out, takes it to the garden, and puts it under a tree.

All of a sudden Armaghan opens its wings and takes off to the top of a tree! The shocked bazargan looks at the parrot with disbelief. “But I thought you died!” say the merchant.

“When you told me what happened to the parrot in India I understood their message,” said Armaghan. “They tried to tell me in order to be set free I should pretend I am dead. To trick you, as you would never understand the logic to set me free.”

I could see Farzad was fascinated with the story. He turned to me and said, “That is a great message. So true!” I, who could not fully understand what he was referring to, asked him what he meant.

“In order for us to be free, we have to fight to the bitter end. These people too do not understand the logic. We need to find a way out of this cage that the Islamic Republic has built around us.” He smiled confidently and said, “and we will find it.”

We headed back towards the palace. Contrary to Niavaran’s simplicity, Sahebqraniyeh which was build during the reign of Nassereddin Shah who ordered its construction to Haj Ali Khan Habib-od-Dowleh, is a lavishly decorated palace reflecting the Qajar’s love of comfort and their attention to pleasures of life.

According to the Islamic regime possessions of all palaces were registered and documented in 1995. What has been stolen from these treasure houses from 1979 up to their registration sixteen years later, obviously has not been recorded for understandable reasons!

The palace is composed of two floors. On the Ground floor, Hose-Khaneh is one of its most attractive rooms. It was redesigned and renovated by the Empress during the 70s. It has beautiful stucco carvings and unique sash windows. With a famous painting by Kamal-ol-Molk representing the same room.

On the first floor is the hall of Jahannama leading to the Shah’s office, with his desk located in the shah-neshin of this hall. The walls are decorated with firearms and several magnificent carpets cover the floor. Other parts of this Qajar palace has a midday bedroom and a cabinet consultation room. Several photographs of foreign heads of states as well as medals and works of art presented to the court adorn this room.

Coming down a staircase to leave the palace by the side entrance, one faces a large mirror. The mirror is made of hundreds of small but long rectangular shape mirrors pieces sitting neatly next to each other. Though one cannot see an image in it anymore, its purpose must have dated before the coming of electricity to Iran, when lights from candles would have reflected back and lit the palace staircase. However, today it could not perform even that! The mirror had turned almost completely black

I knew had they looked after it such thing should have not happened, so I approached yet another girl from Miras Farhangi (Cultural Heritage Organization) and complained. She said; “As a matter of fact a few days ago I saw a visitor inspecting it very carefully, it was an old gentleman. Out of curiosity, I approached him, but before I get the chance to ask anything he turned to me and said, “Look what have they done to my mirror?!”

She said that she was not sure what he meant by “my mirror”. But the old man continues, “So as long as I looked after it, it was always nice and clean. I built this mirror miss, you know! I built it with my own hands at the time of Reza Shah. Look what they have done to it, it looks like the rest of the country.” “He was very angry, the poor man” she said to me.

I thanked her and left the palace with Farzad. As we were walking out of its grounds I was still picturing the old man. He was so right. My country did resemble that mirror.