Persia !

Post-war industrialization has reached you too. You grow fast. Oil squirts forth from your bosom. Western countries vie for your favor. I see people from Turkey and the Persian Gulf, the Arab Emirates, Oman and Bahrain come to you to work, to earn a brighter future for themselves, to let go and get lost in the profusion of bars, disco’s and shady clubs. I see mini-skirts, loose, long, free hair, alcohol, loud and shining nightlife. I see Citroen starting to produce its cars on your lands. I see Shah Pahlavi buying the Grumman company, the manufacturer of the most advanced peace of airborne military technology the world has seen at the time: the F-14 Tomcat. I see Persia building up the mightiest airforce in the middle-east. I see individuals in remote villas frowning, keeping an eye on the earths energy resources, playing chess on the chessboard of the political and economic world, ordaining, changing constellations.

Then – in quick succession. The Islamic Revolution of 1979. The last king of Persia falls. A new government comes to power. Saddam Hussein invades Iran after being made an HONORARY CITIZEN of Detroit in 1980. The eight year Iran-Iraq war, the longest war of the 20th century. I see AWACS reconnaissance airplanes and F-16 planes, which Shah Pahlavi had ordered months before in the US, being shipped to Saudi Arabia and Israel. Billions of dollars are never reimbursed to Iran. I see Germany selling Biological and Chemical weapons to Iraq - gas; I see Brazil selling legions of modern heavy-weight tanks to Iraq; I see France selling its fighter jets to Iraq; I see the US providing intelligence services, special operations training and billions of dollars of economic support to Iraq. More than 500,000 people die of mustard-gas, machine-gun bullets, grenades and bombs; millions more are wounded or crippled for life. Then, at the beginning of the 21st century, European and American councils of men in black suits accuse Saddam Hussein of using chemical weapons. This the Statue of Liberty and the yellow stars on the blue flag stand for. This is what men and women pay for every month with their income tax in San Francisco, New York, Barcelona, Paris, Vienna or Warsaw. This is the bright age of DEMOCRACY and freedom of speech. And thousands of years earlier the authors of the Vedas had already described the coming age, this, our own age as 'kali-yuga,' the 'black age,' the age of HYPOCRISY.  

I see the new government of Iran promising a better life to the people, when only the war passes. Years following the war deep unrest smolders among the people. The economy crumbles. The separation of genders in every phase of public life is enforced most strongly. Alcohol is forbidden, all bars and clubs close. Peoples protests are crushed in bloody confrontations. International embargos are imposed. Luxury goods no longer reach the Iranian people. I see the Iranians making the pilgrimage to Turkey and the UAE for these good, forced to pay horrendous prices and looking for work themselves. A blanket falls on a most cultivated people. Those who still can creep out from underneath.

NOW – eyes see me; shining, sparkling eyes; perfectly-shaped dark eyebrows, that bronze skin, boldly masculine, magnetically feminine. The very archetypes of beauty still shine forth, hailing from ancient India perhaps; those archetypes of poetry and music, of architecture and mathematics, of philosophy - and signs of that profound and timeless irreligious spirituality. 

I am told that thirty years ago the people of Iran traveled their country without having to carry money with them. No matter where you went and talked to the people in the streets, they would invite you for meals, let you stay at their place.

“The people were wealthy. Now the people have more to worry about for themselves. They are not as open anymore. For foreigners it might still hold true though.” I am told by a man on a bus journey.

And indeed it is so. It is close to impossible to travel alone in Iran. You go out alone for a stroll in a city like Tabriz, Shiraz or Isfahan without approaching anyone yourself and it seems almost guaranteed that in the next 2 hours you will find yourself in bright and intelligent company in a clean apartment with delicious food being served. In places I encounter cultivated and intellectual minds, bright artistic work and energetic discussions. Elsewhere opium and women are offered to the male traveler as naturally as the meal and tea. There is not the slightest atmosphere of shadiness in it, not the slightest bit of secrecy. This is Persia truly. Politics and the reality of the people have ever occupied two parallel dimensions. The people may safely disregard their hypnotizing boxes and go outdoors to encounter the open arms of the world instead. In fact certain individuals have vested interest in keeping quiet about the deep effects of prolonged exposure to news broadcasts.