Author Archives: Jeff C

Iran: Complicated Relations

November 21, 2017 by Jeff C | Comments Off

My time in Iran happened to include the anniversary of the takeover of the U.S. Embassy — the event that started the Iranian Hostage Crisis in 1979.  There were anti-American signs all over Tehran.  My new Iranian-American friend mentioned that there’d be a government-organized event commemorating the anniversary.  Always willing to get my camera into the middle of unusual spectacles, I said: “Can I go see it?” “Sure, we can go,” he said.   I asked what it would look like. “Just a bunch of signs and chanting.” “Oh. What will they be chanting?,” I said.  His response: “Uh… like ‘Death to America’ and stuff like that.  But they don’t mean it! They’ll be very nice to you!”  Having spent the previous two weeks in Iran, this actually made perfect sense to me.  I tried to go, but by the time we got over to Taleqani Street there was barely a trace of it.  Instead, I got a very weird tour of the former U.S. Embassy.

 

A sign at the exit of the Taleqani subway station, on the walls of the former U.S. Embassy. The facility is still controlled by the same group that took it over in 1979.

 

The site of the rally. This was all that was left when we arrived. Notice the U.S. flag painted on the street and labeled “Down With The USA.” (I think that may be a permanent fixture.) The middle banner says “We will Crush American Hegemony”, with a picture of the US sailors they held captive briefly in 2016.

 

The next day’s newspaper, showing Taleqani street an hour or so before I’d arrived.

 

You’ll see plenty of friendly faces in the pictures I took in Iran. The hundreds of people I met were almost all enthusiastically welcoming. When they asked where I was from (“What country?” they’d say) and heard “America” I could see their eyes widen a little in surprise. Then they smiled — excited to see an American visiting their country.  As often as not, the older ones would offer tea; the younger ones would ask me to join them in a “selfy” (photo).   Even from those who knew very little English, I’d almost always hear “Welcome” and “Thank you.” The Iranians I met were warm, kind and friendly people who were especially welcoming of American visitors.

 

Meanwhile, the government of the “Islamic Republic of Iran” is led by a powerful Supreme Leader (successor to the Ayatollah Khomeini) who repeatedly announces that America is Iran’s biggest enemy. While I was in Tehran, there were billboards up all around town (erected by the government) denouncing America, and the government staged its annual “Death to America” rally on the anniversary of the 1979 embassy takeover. The headline of the next day’s paper read, “Outburst of Hatred Toward U.S.” 

 

Their government often defines its very identity in anti-American terms. The Republic was born of a 1979 revolution against a controversial Shah ( king) whom they viewed as a U.S. puppet. The biggest event in its subsequent history is the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, and they blame the U.S. for that, too.  This was on page one of the state-run Tehran Times while I was there:   “’Death to America’ is the spirit of the Islamic Republic [of Iran] and its body can go no far [sic] without this slogan. Of course, America is the symbol of all satanic deeds, not letting the inhabitants of the planet earth progress and experience a free life.”  

It’s worth noting that in all the anti-American propaganda put up by the Iranian government, I don’t recall any of it being about religion (except for metaphorical references to the U.S. as the devil).  Their complaint is not that they think we’re infidels — it’s that they think we’re imperialists.  (Never mind that since the 6th Century B.C., the Persians have been some of the planet’s most prolific Empire-builders whenever they were able).  Without delving too deeply in the connection between religion and terrorism, I should also point out that Iranians are almost all Shi’a Muslims.  On the other hand, ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Osama Bin-Laden and Saddam Hussein are (were) all Sunnis, who often don’t get along with Shias much better than they do with other religions (or infidels).  Americans’ concerns about Islamic terrorism often fail to separate these groups.

America isn’t nearly as obsessed with Iran as the Iranian government is with America, but we do list it – along with just Sudan and Syria – on our formal short-list of nations who consistently sponsor terrorism.   The same month I was in Iran, President Trump declined to make a major certification in the Obama-era nuclear deal with Iran, and the U.S. Congress had a near-unanimous bipartisan vote to impose additional sanctions on Iran over its ballistic missile program.  Iranian people believe that most Americans think they are all terrorists. It’s an obvious exaggeration, but of course the Iranians are partly right about Americans’ perceptions. The worried reactions I’d heard from American friends about my Iranian trip bear this out. 

 

Iranians make a clear distinction between governments and people. They consistently volunteered that they “love” American people but they don’t like American government. (The latter is not a new “Trump” thing: the same sentiment has prevailed since the revolution.) And they seem to assume that we can or should love Iranian people, even as we might sensibly be wary of their antagonistic government. If it seems tough to reconcile, perhaps it shouldn’t be. Most adult Iranians have lived through the transition from an unpopular monarch (the last Shah) to a revolutionary government in which an unelected Supreme Leader is the ultimate authority. There’s never been much reason or expectation that the sentiments of the Iranian people are well-represented by their government, so the mental separation of a country’s people from that country’s government’s acts and policies probably comes rather easily to Iranians.

 

We could probably learn a lesson or two from the Iranian people on this front, though it might also be easy to learn the wrong ones.  It would be an obvious mistake to confuse the Iranian government’s belligerence with the mindset of Iranian people, or to presume that the Iranian people are a bunch of terrorists who would attack or abduct Americans given half a chance. They’re not. They’re mostly nice and decent people, just like most Americans are. It’s natural to want to demonize the citizens of your country’s political foes.  (In time of real war, it’s probably both necessary and inevitable.)  But of course it’s mostly a psychological fiction: most likely, they’re just ordinary, decent folks. In this vein, I can remember Sting singing to us in in the Cold War 1980s about his hope that “the Russians love their children, too.”

 

At the same time, though, governments necessarily do what governments have to do — whether the citizens of their political adversaries are generally nice people or not. This may include saber-rattling, sanctioning, or worse. For example, our appropriate responses to North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un can’t be much affected by whether the typical North Korean citizen is a nice guy or not. Similarly, the sincere warmth of Iranian people is probably of little relevance to our government policies toward Iran.

 

Iranians may be unrealistic in their desire to wholly separate friendliness for benevolent individuals from wariness of belligerent governments.  Who can blame America for being wary of the acts of a country that stages “Death to America” rallies? Given that Iran’s leaders openly call for bringing about America’s demise, it’s little wonder that we’d impose sanctions or immigration restrictions aimed at reducing Iran’s ability to do so — even though our policies will surely affect lots of friendly and blameless individuals. Given the billboards and the state-run newspaper propaganda and the rallies, there’s little reason to believe that the Iranian government has any desire to improve its relations with the United States.  That’s too bad, because I suspect our government would be as pleased as I am to have friends in the region.  

= = = = = = =

 

Signs mocking President Obama have recently been replaced by signs mocking President Trump.

Several of the signs repeated the mantra that the US Embassy was a “Den of Espionage”

There was a famous quote from the late Ayatollah Khomeini that said something like “The US can’t do shit” or “The US can’t do a damn thing” against Iran.  On this series of billboards, that line is applied to the modern U.S. naval presence in the Persian Gulf.

This sign is about the U.S.’s accidental downing of an Iranian commercial airliner in 1988 in the midst of military clashes in the Persian Gulf. The Iranians insist that it was intentional. This is a 2017 sign complaining and propagandizing about a 1988 event.  Note that the plane is Iran Air Flight #655, while the U.S. missile is labeled 666.  

 

The defaced Seal of the United States of America. This was the main entrance of the U.S. Embassy, which is still controlled by the group that took it over in 1979. It now includes a very odd “museum.”

This guy showed us around the former Embassy. His entire pitch was to justify the 1979 hostage-taking by convincing visitors that the place was a CIA spy headquarters rather than a proper embassy.  Most of what they showed were the embassy’s efforts to prevent being spied UPON, like encryption technology, paper-shredders, and an electronic-surveilance-proof room.

Part of their argument that the Embassy was a “Den of Spies” was this area, labeled the “Forgery Room.” It’s the part of the Embassy where they routinely made and issued U.S. passports (as all our embassies do). The Iranians insist that the Americans were making fraudulent, forged passports for spies to use. Besides those manual typewriters, their key evidence included a shelf full of “chemicals” they’d found on the premises, which they insisted were the kinds of potions you’d use to manufacture those fake foreign passports.  Look closely: 2 gallons of automotive anti-freeze, some floor wax, 3 bottles of carpet shampoo, lighter fluid (it was the 1970s!), Krylon cleaner and lube, and a couple of cans of Glade air freshener.  

 

Iran: Azadi Tower at Night

November 18, 2017 by Jeff C | Comments Off

It was originally called Shahyad Tower — built in honor of the kingly “shahs” of Iran.  So now, since the Islamic Revolution that ousted the last Shah, it’s been renamed Azadi — “Freedom” — Tower.  Built in the 1970s, it doesn’ t have a lot of history, but its design is pretty spectacular.  Notice the blue tile rib vaults underneath the arch — a colorful nod to Persian architecture from earlier eras.

 

5:32 p.m.

5:35 — looking west toward where the sun had set 29 minutes earlier.

5:38 p.m.

 

5:23 p.m.

Here’s a photo lesson for big outdoor monuments or buildings that have a little lighting on them. There’s a point in time — about 20 or 30 minutes after sunset just before it really gets dark, when the sky turns a deep blue.  There’ll be a magic few moments when the light in the sky balances just right with the light on the structure. 

Sunset this night was at 5:06.  I put the exact times for each photo in the captions, so you can see how the sky progressed.  The prime time only lasts about 10 minutes, so it’s wise to arrive early and scout out your best locations and angles, then rush back to them to get the images you want when the light is perfect.  The exact timing and exposures depend on the brightness of the lights shining on your foreground structure, and on whether you’re facing the west (the setting sun) or not.   Shutter speeds will probably be rather slow, so remember to (a) get a firm footing, (b) brace your elbows against your body, and (c) hold the camera very still, and (d) take several shots in a row to give you a better chance of having one good, clear one.  One caveat: If you’re hoping for someone or something interesting to wander through your frame, you’ll just need to get lucky because the window is short. 

A warning:  After a pretty sunset and before this magic moment, there’ll be 20 minutes or so that are “blah” and gray.  Don’t give up.  Be patient.  

At this magic moment, everyone can be a master photographer.   Mediocre  locations turn lovely, and already lovely places turn stunning.  Examples are here and here and here and here. 

5:12 p.m. — about six minutes after sunset.  Notice that the monument is still mostly darker than the sky.

 

5:28 p.m.

5:35

5:46 p.m. , and the blue was turning quickly to black.

 

(There’s a similar opportunity about 30 minutes before sunrise, of course.  It often requires a little more dedication to be up and in position for that one, if it’s possible at all.  For better or worse, there probably won’t be many other people around.)

 

 

Iran: Blue Tiles of Isfahan

November 18, 2017 by Jeff C | Comments Off

In the time period roughly between Christopher Columbus and George Washington, early-day Iranians were on the other side of the world doing some pretty impressive things with blue and yellow tile.  The city of Isfahan was the capital of Persia during the Safavid Dynasty in the early 16th to 18th Centuries.  Today it still shows off some of Iran’s greatest architecture.

Domed ceilings of the Lotfallah Mosque (gold, below) and Shah Mosque (blue, above). The Shah Mosque’s blue dome is 150 feet high.

Four hundred years ago, the Lotfallah Mosque was reserved exclusively for the ladies of Shah Abbas’ harem. But today even gawking Americans can go inside and get some pictures of its amazing golden dome. Lotfallah anchors the east side of Naqsh-e Jahan Square (aka Imam Square) in Isfahan — the second largest public square in the world (behind Tienamen in China). Just as it did back then, the square also has a king’s palace on its west side, a grand public mosque on the south end, and the city’s Grand Bazaar to the north, though the 17th Century polo field has been replaced by sidewalks and fountains. The whole place is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and rightly so. The big Shah Mosque is all blue, and it’s arguably the most impressive piece of architecture in existence from that era.

Isfahan has a population of about 1.5 million.   In the 16th and 17th Centuries, it was the capital of Persia and headquarters of the Safavid Dynasty.   It’s been a center for rug making and trading and other elaborate artisans ever since. I bought a couple of smallish rugs myself and hauled them back to America.

 As you’ve probably noticed, a huge portion of the decorative tile in Iran is blue. “Why all the blue?” I asked.  I got three different answers, and I assume each one is partly true. #1: Because minerals were available in the area’s mines (cobalt and arsenic, for example) that were great pigments for making lovely blue and yellow ceramic tile. #2: Because blue is the color of heaven (Apparently they know this somehow). #3: Because water is blue, and when you live in the desert water is a very big obsession.

In that vein, there  were a couple of famous bridges in town I was looking forward to seeing. But it turns out that late October is part of the dry season in the deserts of Iran. The river had not a single drop of water, so the bridges looked a little odd.  Too bad they didn’t cover them with blue tiles.

You can take a carriage ride around Naqsh-e Jahan Square. (And no, that’s not a normal mode of transport in Iran; they seem to mostly just drive small white cars.)

 

Restoration work on the blue dome of the Shah Mosque.

Lotfallah Mosque at night. It’s unusual because it has no minarets for a “call to prayer.” They weren’t needed because the mosque was private — reserved for the Shah’s family and harem, apparently.

 

 

The Jameh Mosque of Isfahan, mostly hidden in the Grand Bazaar and overshadowed by the fancier mosques on the Square.  Jameh was built in bits and pieces over the course of 1200 years.

 

Allahverdi Khan Bridge (aka the Bridge of 33 Spans) was built in 1600. At other times of year, water flows through all those spans — which would surely make for a better picture!  The bridges are a popular hangout for old and young.  One group of young ladies insisted I join them for tea before I could take their pictures.  I wasn’t sure if the old guy below was responsible for that geometric figuring on the column he was leaning against.  But I doubt it.

 

Water spigot at an old Isfahan public bath-house.

Spiral stairway in the Ali Qapu Palace on the big square in Isfahan.  Shahs and Sultans have been climbing these stairs (often for a better view of the polo games below) since the late 1500s.

 

Iran: Chadors and Other Bazaar Sights

November 16, 2017 by Jeff C | Comments Off

(Forgive me:  I can’t resist the appeal of the bizarre/bazaar pun.)

Merchandise on display at women’s clothing stores gives a hint of what’s under all those long black chadors.

They do have a few shopping malls and supermarkets in Iran, but mostly people buy their “stuff” in bazaars and small shops. Different sections tend to specialize in certain types of goods – one area will have vegetables or fish, another spices or hardware, and others focus on textiles or clothing. If you want to see and interact with real people in Iran, you’ll probably head for the local bazaar.

But the bazaars aren’t just retail shops; behind the scenes is wholesaling, warehousing, and even some of the manufacturing or cooking. The Grand Bazaar in Tehran is said to be the hub for a huge percentage of commerce in the whole country.

 

 

A young merchant in a Tehran bazaar, right, selling cooked beets to chador-clad female customers.  

 

Fruits and vegatables at a Tehran bazaar.

 

Most bazaar merchants are men, even in shops where most customers are women.

 

 

Many bazaars are historical sites. If you can see past the bright lights, the brightly colored fabrics and the vegetables, you sometimes see old facades and ceilings that are hundreds of years old. Often, just around a quieter corner you’ll see a rug warehouse or an ancient “caravanserai,” where camel caravans once paused for he night or arrived with goods to sell at the bazaar.

 

Mother and baby at sidewalk fabric shop in Shiraz.

 

One consistently striking feature of the bazaars is the women’s clothing on display. Modern tight jeans, lavish colorful and sequined gowns, stilettos, racy lingerie – all being browsed (and presumably purchased) by ladies who only go out in public wearing head-to-toe black chadors. There’s a lot going on behind closed doors (and under those robes and scarves) that doesn’t meet the outsider’s eye.

 

A stylish young woman in Shiraz, showing off an unusual Iranian status symbol: the nose-job bandage.

It’s the law in Iran that when women go out in public, they have to wear at least a headscarf and something that’s not form-fitting that covers them down to the thighs or so.   Since women can only show their faces and bangs, they sometimes go to way too much trouble to optimize the parts that show. Nose-jobs are very common, and women with fresh ones wear the bandages in public as a status symbol.   Many women wear LOTS of makeup, too, or coif their exposed bangs to the point of absurdity.   And those black chadors may look generic, but stroll through the bazaar and you’ll see hundreds of different styles and types of black fabrics on display with patterns and sequins.

I asked several people: If they put the head-scarf law up to a public vote, how would it come out?   Most guessed that it’d be close to 50/50 or 60/40 overall, with women somewhat more likely to vote anti-scarf than men. It was interesting that they thought it was this close. And the reality was that in most areas, the women were going well beyond what any law actually required – wearing the full head-to-toe, mostly-black chadors rather than simple scarves and thigh-length coverups. Whether that’s their real preference or the product of family or cultural pressure is hard to know.

I also asked: What happens if you violate the rule? Apparently the police take you in and give you a ticket, and require you to sign something pledging not to do it again. So I asked: What happens if you do it again? Nobody seemed to know.

If it makes you ladies feel any better, there are restrictions on men, too. We can’t wear shorts. With some exceptions for organized team sports, shorts in public are not an option for men or women, even if you’re going for a jog (which hardly anyone seemed to do, maybe for this reason). Remember, Iran is mostly a desert and summer temperatures reach well over 100 every day, so a no-shorts rule is a pretty big deal.  Whatever you think of Iran’s clothing rules, it would not be accurate to presume they’re all about oppressing women.

Decades ago, before the Islamic Revolution in 1979, the Shah (king) wanted Iran to be (or seem) more mainstream and Western. He actually prohibited the chador head covering. That prohibition was even more unpopular than the current chador mandate.  People wanted the scarves, and the Shah’s efforts to “modernize” are said to be some part of what fueled support for the Islamic Revolution – which ousted him and put a Muslim Ayatollah in charge of the country’s dress codes. It’s too bad nobody thought to choose a middle path where everyone could do whatever they want with their headgear!   (Admittedly, though, our own country has a tough time choosing libertarian middle paths these days, too.)

One last, goofy thought: In America, we also have rules about which body parts must remain covered and which are okay to reveal in public. There are cultures elsewhere on earth that have different and more-revealing rules (exposing women’s breasts, for example). Those people probably think our rules are horribly restrictive, oppressive and silly – just what we tend to think about Iran’s. Our defense of our own dress-code choices would probably sound a little like Iran’s defense of theirs.

 

This guy’s very typical bazaar store is about 8 feet wide.

 

 

 

Iran: Persepolis and the Persian Empire

November 13, 2017 by Jeff C | Comments Off
Fereydoon is a Sufi "mystic," which seems to entail a lot of public philosophizing.

This guy identified himself as Fereydoon.  He’s a Sufi “mystic.”  We found him  philosophizing in front of the tombs of the ancient Persian Kings at Naqsh-e Rustam.

 

When Alexander the Great conquered Persia and ransacked the palaces of Persepolis in 330BC, it took 20,000 camels and mules to haul off all the looted treasure. His armies then set fires that left the place in ruins – ruins you can still see today just outside the city of Shiraz, Iran.

Persepolis was the ceremonial capital of the Persian Empire.   In the 4th to 6th centuries B.C., the empire spanned territory from modern-day Turkey and Iraq in the west to Pakistan and Afghanistan in the east, with ancient Iran right in the middle. If the historians are right, Persepolis was the richest and most luxurious palace complex in the world. One of its palaces was the size of nearly three football fields, with soaring ceilings held up by 65-foot columns, topped with gilded statues.

 

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A school group from Shiraz visits the 2300-year-old ruins at Persepolis.

 

Naqsh-e Rustam

The most pervasive and iconic image at Persepolis:  A lion attacking a bull.  Supposedly it symbolizes day (lion) attacking and defeating night (bull).  The big ceremonies at Persepolis were on the first day of spring — the time of year when “day” first becomes longer than “night.”

 

Cyrus the Great founded and expanded the Achaemenid Empire in about 550BC. Notwithstanding his aggressive imperial conquests, he’s mentioned several times in the Old Testament as the heroic, benevolent king who freed the ancient Jews from their enslavement in Babylon. Cyrus’ successors included Xerxes I and II, and Darius I, II, and III, the last of which was in power when Alexander pushed his way eastward from Macedonia.

Cyrus’s 2500-year-old tomb is still standing in Pasagarde, about 25 miles (as crows fly) away from Persepolis. Xerxes I and Darius I & II are buried in hillside tombs at nearby Naqsh-e Rustam.

The Naqsh-e Rustam necropolis, with tombs of ancient Persian kings Darius & Xerxes.

The Naqsh-e Rustam necropolis, with tombs of ancient Persian kings Darius & Xerxes.

The beige of the hillside sculptures at Naqsh-e Rustam made for relatively bland photography — until a Sufi “mystic” named Fereydoon walked up. Fereydoon was impeccably dressed with a perfect beard, lots of jewelry, and a black and green hat. He apparently travels around the country just sharing his philosophy and wisdom. So he was eager to talk (except that he was also eager to take a minute for another cigarette). A lot was surely lost in translation. Other than a general endorsement of peace and unity and the like, about all I could really understand (I think) was his point that we spend too much of our energy defending and fighting about identities that we did not even choose. That is, groups of people fight because they are of differing religions, nationalities, races, or tribes, but we are all just randomly born into one group or the other. We fight for our team, even though we didn’t even get to choose which team we were on.   Or something like that.

In any event, he was a colorful character and he didn’t mind having his picture taken. At one point he stepped back and paused the conversation, lifted his head, let out a whoop-like shout and then stood motionless for a few seconds. I was sufficiently startled that I failed to get a picture of this happening. He later explained that sometimes he’s just “moved” to do that. I wasn’t sure what it was that moved him. I’m assuming that’s just how you roll when you’re a roving Sufi mystic.