Iran: Past and Present

I’ve been reading quite a bit about the history of
Iran recently. Interestingly, Tehran is the site of
the very first ever CIA coup. They ousted a man named
Mohammad Mossadegh, who was prime minister of Iran, in
1953. He was responsible for nationalizing the
then-named Iranian-Anglo Oil Company after Britain
refused to offer Iran a fairer share of the company’s
profits. He was also named TIME’s “man of the year”
in the same year, and was a powerful proponent in
urging developing countries to progress past their
colonial bindings. After Britain concocted a campaign
to slander his name and the integrity of Iranian oil
because of this, Winston Churchill allegedly persuaded
the Eisenhower administration to get rid of Mossadegh.
There were two attempts, the second obviously being a
success. As a result, the company was denationalized
with the US now holding a forty percent share of the
company’s profits due to their involvement. There is
so much other history here that goes back all the way
to 2500BC but I won’t bore you with it all now.

I did see a really interesting cartoon/commercial
today at a family member’s house though. We were
watching some Iranian version of Looney Tunes and then
came this five minute long propaganda commercial where
a cartoon general, obviously a symbol of the US, is
sitting at this table studying a map of the Middle
East and smoking a cigar. He’s bulbous and has a
really angry and menacing facial expression the whole time. It
starts out with him outlining Palestine on the map and
then it flashes to a group of cacophonous army tanks
approaching a peaceful and homely city in Palestine.
They proceed to totally bulldoze this scantily
furnished hut where the only decoration visible is a
family picture on the fireplace mantle, and then it
shows blood running out from beneath the rubble. This
is followed by similar scenes of the general
sinisterly laughing while nonchalantly outlining
Afghanistan, Iraq, and Lebanon. And then we see the
various ways in which the peaceful cities in them are
completely annihilated by air strikes and boorish foot
soldiers with their machine guns. This, again, is
followed by blood running from out of the destruction.
Then, all of the sudden, these bright green vines
begin to spring up from the spilled blood on the
ground. They grow slowly at first, and then rapidly,
grasping the army tanks like snakes, and then
completely covering the tanks, eventually stopping
them in their tracks. At the end it says, “In order
to achieve victory, we must unite.” It was my first
experience with anti-US propaganda here and it was
clearly directed at children. I was so captivated by
it that I just sat there the whole time with my mouth
hanging wide open and my family just laughing at me.
Supposedly, there are anti-US propaganda murals that
are painted at the site of the Mossadegh coup which I
plan on seeing and hopefully snapping a couple of
secret pics.

It seems like Iran’s isolation from the rest of the
world is also reflected in the fact that they do not allow pictures taken virtually anywhere you go. It
totally escapes me as to why they wouldn’t want people
to have photographic evidence of this beautiful
country. I was in the Bazaar today, a totally public
place, and I almost got arrested for taking pictures
there! My uncle had to save me as I was clearly not
in a position to save myself. They don’t even allow
you to bring cameras into most of the museums and
furthermore, my family gets really uncomfortable
whenever I want to take pictures of anything in
general. It’s strange. It’s like everything is a
secret. I’m not sure what to do about my picture
problem; I am already weary of taking my camera out of
my bag without the fear of being arrested for picture
taking.