Iran good? Yes, very good.
Iran people good? Yes, very friendly, and the country is beautiful.
America – say Iran – terrooreeest. No, Iran is not full of terrorists.
Nor kidnappers, nor beheaders, nor enslaved wives.
Iran people good? Yes, very friendly, and the country is beautiful.
America – say Iran – terrooreeest. No, Iran is not full of terrorists.
Nor kidnappers, nor beheaders, nor enslaved wives.
I imagine you can probably find one or two of these in most countries the size of the United Kingdom, France, Spain and Germany combined. But Iran is no basket-case: it’s not packed full of them. Sitting betwixt Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran is in fact a bastion of stability: deemed a threat precisely because it has its shit together, not because it hasn’t. Iran exists on a different Axis, Bush.
But the image of terrorists and nutcases is a powerful one. When I dropped into casual conversation one day that I was heading to Iran on holiday even my folks, by now usually quite relaxed about such things, questioned why. Probably they thought I was becoming frivolous with risk. But safe streets are a big upside of repressive regimes, and any danger posed by the state itself shrank significantly with last year’s ousting of Ahmedinijad in favour of moderate Rouhani (whose cabinet, incidentally, contains more doctorates from American universities than Obama’s). Plus we’re all now busy cosying up with Iran in the face of bigger bad guys (just because I can squeeze them in here, here and here are two contextual infographics that I particularly like). I told my folks that I wanted to go because Iran was supposed to be a beautiful country, with incredible history and culture, a fascinating world in which chadors and hijabs are de rigueur.
But perhaps the real draw was the buzz of excitement that the idea gave me; the fact that Iran offered an unknown, an adventure. I didn’t expect terrorists and nutcases, but I didn’t really know what else to expect. And I so miss the unexpected: the tantalizing, seductive, irresistible unknown.
Terrorists and nutcases
Rushing and screeching through Tehran, an enormous chaotic mass swarming with 1980s automobiles choking out black fumes and roaring dirt, the taxi driver paid more attention to our conversation (America – say Iran – terrooreeest) than to the rushing and screeching around us. I was able to answer comfortably (no, Iran is not full of terrorists).
Two weeks in the country and I could certainly attest to the existence of a pretty closed and society. Facebook began emailing me on day 3 and continued with increasing desperation as internet censorship kept me away. Security cameras recorded every step (happily, the suspected specimen inside our hotel room turned out to be a light socket). A humming, buzzing, swarming sound grew in the skies over our courtyard breakfast one cold desert morning in Yadz: not a Hitchcock-esque cloud of bees, it turned out, but a gargantuan metallic beetle hovering and swooping and pausing only to focus its lens on anything, presumably, of interest to a quotidian observation drone. And the visa process, for nationals of a country with no diplomatic relations with Iran, was certainly… atypical. Think aging Persians in the back room of ramshackle shops in London’s outer communities, unreceipted cash and passport photos doctored to force faces into leopard-print hijabs.
For sure there’s cruelty and injustice too, not just censoring and control. A visit to the grim Iran Ebrat museum – essentially a museum of torture – provided more insight than I wished for into this side of things. Our tour, led by a former inmate, was conducted in Persian (we were the only foreigners amongst the group) but there was still no way to miss the pervasive propaganda. Portraits of the Shah looked down approvingly on scenes of suffering in every room. A commemorative plaque noted that the prison was ‘modelled on the British system’, and biographies of staff emphasised that they were trained in torture techniques by the CIA and Mossad.
As we walked silently out of the heavy metal gates an old man who approached us. In stumbling English: he had been a prisoner there both before and after the Revolution. The guide man is liar man. I want you to know. Before Revolution, after Revolution, same thing. He walked slowly away up the street, his cap pulled down low and his right leg jerking as he went.
But the image of terrorists and nutcases is a powerful one. When I dropped into casual conversation one day that I was heading to Iran on holiday even my folks, by now usually quite relaxed about such things, questioned why. Probably they thought I was becoming frivolous with risk. But safe streets are a big upside of repressive regimes, and any danger posed by the state itself shrank significantly with last year’s ousting of Ahmedinijad in favour of moderate Rouhani (whose cabinet, incidentally, contains more doctorates from American universities than Obama’s). Plus we’re all now busy cosying up with Iran in the face of bigger bad guys (just because I can squeeze them in here, here and here are two contextual infographics that I particularly like). I told my folks that I wanted to go because Iran was supposed to be a beautiful country, with incredible history and culture, a fascinating world in which chadors and hijabs are de rigueur.
But perhaps the real draw was the buzz of excitement that the idea gave me; the fact that Iran offered an unknown, an adventure. I didn’t expect terrorists and nutcases, but I didn’t really know what else to expect. And I so miss the unexpected: the tantalizing, seductive, irresistible unknown.
Terrorists and nutcases
Rushing and screeching through Tehran, an enormous chaotic mass swarming with 1980s automobiles choking out black fumes and roaring dirt, the taxi driver paid more attention to our conversation (America – say Iran – terrooreeest) than to the rushing and screeching around us. I was able to answer comfortably (no, Iran is not full of terrorists).
Two weeks in the country and I could certainly attest to the existence of a pretty closed and society. Facebook began emailing me on day 3 and continued with increasing desperation as internet censorship kept me away. Security cameras recorded every step (happily, the suspected specimen inside our hotel room turned out to be a light socket). A humming, buzzing, swarming sound grew in the skies over our courtyard breakfast one cold desert morning in Yadz: not a Hitchcock-esque cloud of bees, it turned out, but a gargantuan metallic beetle hovering and swooping and pausing only to focus its lens on anything, presumably, of interest to a quotidian observation drone. And the visa process, for nationals of a country with no diplomatic relations with Iran, was certainly… atypical. Think aging Persians in the back room of ramshackle shops in London’s outer communities, unreceipted cash and passport photos doctored to force faces into leopard-print hijabs.
For sure there’s cruelty and injustice too, not just censoring and control. A visit to the grim Iran Ebrat museum – essentially a museum of torture – provided more insight than I wished for into this side of things. Our tour, led by a former inmate, was conducted in Persian (we were the only foreigners amongst the group) but there was still no way to miss the pervasive propaganda. Portraits of the Shah looked down approvingly on scenes of suffering in every room. A commemorative plaque noted that the prison was ‘modelled on the British system’, and biographies of staff emphasised that they were trained in torture techniques by the CIA and Mossad.
As we walked silently out of the heavy metal gates an old man who approached us. In stumbling English: he had been a prisoner there both before and after the Revolution. The guide man is liar man. I want you to know. Before Revolution, after Revolution, same thing. He walked slowly away up the street, his cap pulled down low and his right leg jerking as he went.
Despite these dark sides, there was, it has to be said, a notable lack of death-to-the-West fury. Sorry to disappoint, Daily Mail, Fox News. Iran is not writhing with revolutionary fervour, seething with hatred or bent on destruction. While huge murals of martyred fighters still stare down from the façades of prominent buildings and the US Den of Espionage, formerly known as the US Embassy in Tehran, is adorned with some striking artwork, not an eyelid was batted at my blatant capturing of this on camera. And desert highways lined with flag-enwreathed faces spoke of the Iran-Iraq war rather than of jihadi martyrs. In fact I saw about as much sign of a militarised society as I would in Cambridge, or Torquay. Does it surprise you to know that Iran has not launched a single aggressive war in modern history? Or that Sweden and Singapore both have larger military budgets? And in relation to the ongoing negotiations over nuclear power and crippling sanctions, those wise folk at the Economist recently pointed out that Iran is, in fact, driven by pragmatic self-interest rather than by any ‘messianic desire to pull down the world order’. I find it odd that we need that pointing out to us, but I guess it’s because we still struggle to separate suspicion of the West (entirely justifiable suspicion) from terrorists and nutcases. |
Chadors and hijabs
Preparing to land at Khomeini International Airport, woman after woman after woman in the rows ahead reached and pulled up the scarf from around her neck. A few moments of fiddling, smoothing, checking, before returning to the stowing of tray tables and righting of seatbacks. I followed suit and covered my hair, self-conscious.
I came to quite like the headscarf. I less liked having to search for it, don long sleeves and socks before tiptoeing out to the bathroom. My greatest act of defiance: listening carefully at the door before dashing across the landing, bareheaded and bare-toed in the middle of the night.
Using my phone on hotel WiFi at night, searching out sites that weren’t blocked, I read that based on Sharia law Iran conducts an average of two executions per day. That during a current spate of acid attacks on women in Isfahan one victim’s clothes were thrown back on her by a gathering crowd as she fought to tear away the burning, disfiguring, deadly material. I read that Morality Police can arrest a woman and charge her for each finger-nail she has painted.
To me the black silk Muharram flags, ornate with spiralling calligraphy, were ominously evocative of menace.
Preparing to land at Khomeini International Airport, woman after woman after woman in the rows ahead reached and pulled up the scarf from around her neck. A few moments of fiddling, smoothing, checking, before returning to the stowing of tray tables and righting of seatbacks. I followed suit and covered my hair, self-conscious.
I came to quite like the headscarf. I less liked having to search for it, don long sleeves and socks before tiptoeing out to the bathroom. My greatest act of defiance: listening carefully at the door before dashing across the landing, bareheaded and bare-toed in the middle of the night.
Using my phone on hotel WiFi at night, searching out sites that weren’t blocked, I read that based on Sharia law Iran conducts an average of two executions per day. That during a current spate of acid attacks on women in Isfahan one victim’s clothes were thrown back on her by a gathering crowd as she fought to tear away the burning, disfiguring, deadly material. I read that Morality Police can arrest a woman and charge her for each finger-nail she has painted.
To me the black silk Muharram flags, ornate with spiralling calligraphy, were ominously evocative of menace.
I felt other-worldly following sweeping chadors up arched alleyways in historic Yazd. I’d stepped into world, another time: I moved as silently as they, not to disturb whatever had put me here. But I also read about a very different society, an insightful and irreverent society with a real twinkle in its eye. I started to see the tussle between the hardliners and progressives, vying for their own vision of their country. |
Jack Straw recently reflected that “Tehran looks and feels these days more like Madrid and Athens than Mumbai or Cairo”. And it’s true. Headscarves perched on ponytails and sleeves pushed up and funky boots with leggings and designer jumpers and cigarette smoke (yes, ladies too). Kings of Leon playing in a café straight from Soho or Shoreditch. More eyeliner and lipstick in the women-only carriage on the metro (#1 for people watching and warm welcomes) than I would expect to see in, say, a month – and more nose jobs than I think I’ve ever seen (it’s a thing, apparently).
Sorry Ayatollah, call it gharbzadegi or call it globalisation, it’s here.
Sorry Ayatollah, call it gharbzadegi or call it globalisation, it’s here.
Tantalizing, seductive, irresistible
The first night in Tehran wide-eyed I gripped the sheets, a buzz of adventure in my belly that I’ve known not so often before. I’m in Iran, the visa worked, they let me in. I wonder what tomorrow will bring.
The first night in Tehran wide-eyed I gripped the sheets, a buzz of adventure in my belly that I’ve known not so often before. I’m in Iran, the visa worked, they let me in. I wonder what tomorrow will bring.
Tomorrow brought strolls down the streets of one of the greatest empires of the ancient world, now most definitely 21st century but holding onto a unique a cultural identity within the Islamic world. It brought people watching and warm welcomes in those women-only carriages. It brought attempts to pay in rials with prices in confused tomans (what are tomans?). It brought catching my breath at the sight of snow on the mountains and it brought a robotic man playing piano in the bowels of iconic Azadi Tower. It brought bazaars lined with carpets and sweet-makers’ displays flecked with cardamom and dripping with invitation. An old man creaking his bike slowly along a narrow pavement; as he passed I caught ‘Welcome to Irrrran’ as if said only for himself. A woman plucked what she knew to be a better ripened pomegranate out of the pile and handed it to me with a smile. A smart and stern fellow, a woman and an older lady, lined up three-in-a-row, negotiating and listening and considering intently. Perhaps there’ll be a marriage. |
On a street corner looking lost, in a park looking relaxed, in a teahouse looking out – people wanted to talk to us wherever we were. Curious, helpful and smiling. Assistance in crossing the road (we needed it). Company over dinner (the only guy in Isfahan wearing pastel trousers). Sometimes whole monologues in Farsi, rephrased and retried rather than abandoned in the face of our non-comprehension. Other times opportunities to use English (what is the meaning of ‘twenty-four seven’?). Always asking where we are from, are we not with a tour group? Why we chose to come to Iran, and what we think of it (Iran good?). Holding hands against hearts in a gesture of such kindness and respect.
And then some loon would grope or swipe a crackpipe from the gutter or gesticulate at a woman so brash as to also want a smoke, and the vision of Iran good would crack – just a little – in recognition of its many true faces.
And then some loon would grope or swipe a crackpipe from the gutter or gesticulate at a woman so brash as to also want a smoke, and the vision of Iran good would crack – just a little – in recognition of its many true faces.