The Other Side of the Shah

A few weeks ago I came across a YouTube video of an interview with the former Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. I watched it, then another, and then another, and before I knew it I'd spent an hour watching videos. From my years of reading about the country, mainly through "left" or "liberal" books discussing the sordid history of American interventionism, I had developed a view of the Shah as an American-controlled puppet dictator; certainly better than his successors turned out to be, but objectionable nonetheless. Contrary to that, most Iranians I've talked to regarded him as an educated, righteous leader, but since they all came from the same small, relatively well-off north Tehran community, I was always more inclined to believe what I read about him in books. But from watching these videos - the first time I'd actually seen him speak - I developed a keen interest in him, and found that even though he seemed a bit snobbish, there was something about him that fascinated me; I suddenly wanted to learn more about this man.

I started reading more about him online and found that he'd written a book in 1980 called Answer To History (Pasukh bih Tarikh in Farsi). The book detailed his time as Shah, starting with his coronation in 1941 when his father, Reza Shah, stepped down soon after the British and Russians invaded the country during World War II, all the way to the 1979 revolution and ending with his brief period in exile. His failing health lead to his death just a few months after completing the book but it wasn't published until 1982.

The next day I located the book in a library (it apparently only had one printing in 1982 and is difficult to find new in any retail or online stores) and picked it up. While there I also got his twin sister Ashraf Pahlavi's book Faces In A Mirror, published in 1980.

In short, I found the Shah's book fascinating. As time goes on, I'm starting to increasingly find that many of the books I've chosen to read in the past have been very consistently one-sided. Hearing the story in his own words, it was undeniably clear that the Shah was an intelligent, educated man, who truly desired to see his country progress and become a world power through modernization and education. The reasons for his downfall are many and varied and complex, but in essence, he seemed to believe - and subsequent history seems to have confirmed - that the reforms he was trying to make were simultaneously too slow for his American and British allies and too fast for his citizens. With the wrath of both groups against him, increasing pressure from both outside and within the country, it was only a matter of time until something had to give.

He gives example after example of reforms he initiated, or industries he built, or education he improved, and on numbers alone it's obvious that his governance did wonders for the overall state of the country. His detractors, especially toward the end, usually focused on human rights violations, especially by SAVAK, the Shah's secret police; although he denies claims of their excesses, I did get the feeling that either he was leaving something unsaid or he just didn't know what had actually been going on, having possibly been insulated from such vulgar details by his loyal court. Either way, his refutation of those criticisms seemed weak, especially relative to the solid defense he made of everything else he'd accomplished over his 37-year reign.

When I finished the book, I felt I had an entirely new perspective on the Shah and the revolution. What a stark contrast to the Iran that my generation knows, which starts with Khomeini and the hostage crisis, and completely overlooks the preceding fifty-plus years when the country was mostly a strong ally, where US presidents would routinely visit, and tens of thousands of American university students would study! It was like an entirely unexpected second side to a long-familiar story had been revealed to me, and I was fascinated. In particular, his detailing of the pathetically flip-flopping support by the US government was frustrating in light of later events, and his predictions of how the revolution would alter both the strategic balance between the Soviet Union and the US, and the West's relationship with the Middle East, were uncannily accurate.

I quickly moved on to Ashraf's book and found it a great companion to the Shah's narrative of the same time period, if quite a bit more personal and slightly less historical. Again, she painted an impressive picture of a country whose government was struggling against all odds to drag it into the modern era.

Having finished that book last night, I then read a chapter on Iran from The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World, which shed additional light on this period, especially regarding the KGB's destablization campaigns against the Shah, including support for the Tudeh Communist Party in Iran. Among other interesting facts I was able to glean by comparing these texts, it seems that Fereydoun Hoveyda, the brother of the Shah's former prime minister Amir Abbas Hoveyda and who served as Iranian Ambassador to the UN (and who, at first, turned against the Shah after the revolution, blaming him for his brother's execution by Khomeini) was on the payroll of the KGB and passed falsified intelligent reports on to the Shah multiple times. This was the first and only reference I've ever seen to this, possibly due to the relatively recent release of this book only nine months ago. Another surprise was an explanation of how the KGB paid someone to introduce Farah Diba, the Shah's third and final wife, for the first time to the Shah, hoping that her leftist leanings developed while a student in Paris would clear the way for greater Soviet influence over the Shah.

Taken together, these videos and books have whetted my appetite to learn more about this period, and about all the forces that came together to create the revolution. As agreed on by just about everyone, but told particularly eloquently and personally by the Shah, the revolution was a profoundly disruptive and regressive event that not only destroyed the progress made by a growing country over many decades, but undeniably changed the world political landscape for the worse and helped set the stage for many of the most pressing problems of the recent past, today, and probably well into the future.

Once again I'm amazed at how random, mostly aimless wandering around the internet can lead a person down a path of knowledge that they never expected to find; this has happened to me numerous times and is one of the reasons I so love the internet. Many people complain that we've become too reliant on it and don't often enough question it's accuracy, which is a valid complaint, but the fact is that much, if not most of what's out there is quite factual and useful, especially if it leads to exploration of other, less accessible forms of media too.

Why Keep Going?

There's a homeless man who "lives" a few blocks from my apartment. I've been seeing him for months, almost every time I drive down the main road outside my complex. He's usually lying on the ground, propped up against a wall or fence, accompanied by an overflowing shopping cart full of everything he owns: clothes, blankets, and what appears to be thousands of paper and plastic bags. He alternates between either side of the street, preferring either the bus stop shelter on one side or the open spot of sidewalk between two parking lot entrances on the other side, and never strays very far. I sometimes wonder if police or mean kids ever bother him. I've seen plenty of people sidestep him and his cart, but I've never seen anyone talk to him.

His age is indecipherable, but I'd guess late forties. He's tall, with a long beard and hair. He's filthy; sometimes I drive by and he looks like he's been rolling around in mud, just covered with dirt. I've often seen him engaged in animated discussions with no one, but I've also seen him reading newspapers, so he must have some degree of sanity left.

I see this man every day, and every day I wonder, what keeps him going? What reason does he have to continue living? What is it in the human spirit that makes him choose life over death? I've pondered this for a long time, discussed it with friends, and never come to a satisfying answer.

I suppose the answer depends completely upon the assumptions underlying the question. This man has no access to the material possessions and personal relationships that most of us take for granted and help define our experience of the world: he has no books, no TV, no movies, no music, no art, no internet, no radio, no phone, no hobbies, no creative outlet, no family, no friends, no one to talk to. He does, as I mentioned above, read newspapers sometimes. But for the most part, his experience of the world consists entirely of that which he can observe with his own eyes, and extends no further. There's no reason to assume that he's completely ignorant of the wider world, but it certainly appears that he has limited possibilities for experiencing any of it.

A first attempt at imagining what would keep him going must necessarily refer to what keeps me going. It sounds goofily lofty, but I live for knowledge - for the perpetual possibility of learning something new. I am insatiably curious. I'm always baffled by people who appear to have no real interests, who can't entertain themselves when alone. How can you not have tons of books that you want to read, movies you want to see, places you want to visit, subjects to learn about, relationships you'd like to start and develop over time? I could spend years reading on the internet alone. But that can't be this guy's motivation: he has none of those things.

How about hope for the future? I look forward to new experiences, adventures, careers, vacations, prosperity, family, friends, [computer games! Bioshock on August 21 is a huge day for me]. I'm optimistic about the future; I'm confident in my ability to continue to achieve my goals and make a better life for myself and those I care about. But again, I cannot imagine that this guy has any of this. What reason could he possibly have to be hopeful for the future? Is there any chance he'll ever get off the streets?

I think of these things, tabulating my own desires, and I see that none of them apply to this man. I can't help but think that were I in his position, I would prefer to end my life rather than continue along that path.

But perhaps my measuring stick is wholly unsuited to him. Perhaps it really is as simple as stubborn human insistence on pure survival. Given that none of the concerns which motivate me even remotely apply to him, maybe that makes them irrelevant to him.

My inability to arrive at a satisfactory answer bothers me. Somehow, in this seemingly illogical situation, I sense the revelation of, or at least a hint of, a flaw in the way I think about my own existence, and about the things that motivate me to continue to get up every day.

But as of yet I'm unable to grasp it. I just continue to ponder it and wonder about it every day, every time that I see him lying on the sidewalk as I drive by.

Books, Books, and More Books

This job of mine is really taking up too much of my time. It's not that I put in long hours, because I don't; it's just that there are so many other more enjoyable, productive things I could be doing with that time. For example, reading books. I am a book fiend. The weekly Borders Rewards coupon has turned me into a dangerously regular book buyer, and over time I'm accumulating a stack of books-to-be-read that, at this point, will take me probably two years to go through.

Here's the breakdown of my recent, current, and future reading:

I recently read Sam Harris' excellent End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation, both of which blew me away and about which I plan to blog when I can collect my thoughts properly.

I'm currently reading Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged and Robert Tucker's The Marx-Engels Reader.

For a how-can-I-say-no mere five bucks, yesterday I bought a book called Forever Remembered: The Fliers of WWII, a compilation of interviews with pilots from the war.

Last week in the Borders Bargain Book section I found Stephen Hawking's The Illustrated Brief History of Time and The Universe in a Nutshell.

Friends have lent me C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity and William Goldman's The Princess Bride.

My next round of books will be Daniel Dennett's Breaking The Spell: Religion As A Natural Phenomenon and Tim Flannery's The Weather Makers. After that, in no particular order, the lineup consists of:

The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB And The Battle For The Third World, by Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokin

The Emotion Machine and The Society of Mind, by MIT AI guru Marvin Minsky

The Labyrinth of Solitude, by renowned Mexican writer Octavio Paz

The Twentieth Century, by lefty historian Howard Zinn

Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson (read it years ago, absolutely loved it, and have been telling myself to read it again since then)

Duel of Eagles, by Peter Townsend, about the Battle of Britain

Essential Buddhism, by Jacky Sach

Margins of Reality, by Robert Jahn and Brenda Dunn

Fighter Combat, by Robert Shaw (got to improve those flight sim dogfighting skills)

And somewhere in there are the entire Castaneda series (have read the first three so far), The Essence of Rumi by John Baldock, The Way of the Bodhisattva, and The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Mythology.

On top of all that, for the past few months I've been trying to read as many international relations journals as possible, sampling at least one of each, before deciding on which ones I'd like to subscribe to. Some of these bi-annual journals are quite big, up to 300 pages.

And so, that's the list. Of course, I've got a handful of books on my Amazon wishlist too, and surely another irresistible 30% off Borders coupon will come along soon, so I expect the waiting list to continue growing.

One of these days I'm going to need to just quit my job and sit somewhere - preferably warm and sunny - with my wheelbarrow's worth of books waiting to be read and just plow through the whole load.

Weekend Recap

Thursday night I flew out to Phoenix for the weekend. When my plane landed a little after 10PM, the pilot told us it was 103 degrees outside. Walking out of the terminal, a blast of scorching air hit me like a giant blowdryer.

We had a single task this weekend: to finish moving all of our belongings out of our apartment and into a friend's second bedroom. Luckily she lives in the same complex, so the distance is short, but in 110+ degree heat and direct sun, you break a sweat just breathing. Ladan had moved the majority of our stuff already, over the course of a few weeks, and she'd sold most of our furniture. That made us the most lean-and-mean we've ever been, in terms of material possessions. Thursday night I wanted to take advantage of the sun being down and so I jumped right into it, moving a carload of heavy boxes of mostly books from 1-2AM.

Friday we continued moving things, and by Saturday morning we'd finished ... the moving part. We still had to clean the whole apartment - again, Ladan had done a lot of this already - and then dig our friend's apartment out of the bombardment of boxes that we'd dropped on it over the past two days. Luckily she was out of town for the weekend so we had no real need to organize as we dropped things off. But that meant that by Saturday evening, we had a whole lot of cleaning up to do.

By Sunday afternoon, the job was done. It got up to 115 on Saturday, and oh man is that hot. You start to appreciate ice-cold drinks like you've never done before. I was constantly chugging sodas and water.

So the move's done and as I've said in the past, it's a very strange to feeling to end a chapter in our lives that never really started: Ladan lived there for a year without me, and our original plan to both move to Arizona never materialized. Over the course of my many trips out there, the area has grown on me and I feel truly relaxed while there. I think we could have been happy there, at least for a few years. Even though the middle of the summer is unbearable, the rest of the year makes up for it.

But in the end, Phoenix just doesn't have what we want: a real city, real culture, and new career opportunities for both of us. That's why DC is so appealing. Frustratingly, though, most of our friends have moved out of the DC area and closer to the west coast, so this move will push us further away from them. And I'm still dreading the cold weather after being spoiled by so much sun the past two years.

I still feel like it's the right thing to do, though. I'm increasingly wary of being comfortable to the point of becoming lazy, in terms of changing careers, and that's not good. I don't want to live in DC forever, and heck the Japan trip again proved to me that I don't even want to live in the US forever, but for now, I think we need to do this.