by Jamie Maslin
Ricardo and I thought it was fantastic, and it sure made a welcome change from all the kebabs and rice. To accompany the abgusht we also had loads of dates, yogurt, and fresh fruit, of which cucumber is considered a variety. Leyla and her mother showed us how to eat the cucumber by sprinkling salt on its juicy inner core before eating. I found it surprisingly good, as the watery nature of the cucumber really complemented the salty taste. We did the same with slices of apple, but I didn’t think it worked quite as well.
The music was great and there were lots of people clapping hands and clicking their fingers in time with the music. There are several ways Iranians click their fingers all of which I found very difficult. The most popular method is to put your hands together as if praying, then slightly raise your two forefingers and push one against the other in opposite directions to cause the one pushing down to “click” onto your fingers below. It wasn’t easy, and after much perseverance, I only managed to get a very insignificant click. Leyla and her mother had it down to a tee and could produce the loudest of snaps this way. They showed Ricardo and me several other finger clicking methods, but those were even harder to do.
Leyla’s mother explained that the music’s lyrics, like most traditional Iranian songs, were very melancholy. It was a song of regret for a person loved but lost, and this, she said, was a recurring theme in many Iranian songs. On the more modern music front, Leyla said that she’d looked into a governmentsanctioned rap or rock concert to take us both to, but Ricardo was flying out tomorrow for the historic city of Esfahan, so it was not possible. It made a hell of a lot of sense to fly considering the distances involved, and as Ricardo said it was fairly cheap, I decided to look into it myself.
After the meal, Ricardo and I gave the water pipe a go. The tobacco in the pipe had a fruity flavor, and predictably, Ricardo was far better at smoking the stuff than I was. I couldn’t get the water to bubble and as a result breathed very little smoke, maybe a good thing.
We stayed in the restaurant until closing time and no prizes for guessing who insisted on paying. When we finally left, all the staff wished us good night and insisted on shaking hands with Ricardo and me.
In the cab heading to Ricardo’s hotel in the south of the city, I had an interesting conversation with Leyla’s mother. I asked her if there were many other traditional Iranian restaurants in Tehran like the one we’d been to tonight. She said there were only a few that were comparable, but one in particular she would never visit because of its location. It was called, I think, the Persian equivalent of Seventh Heaven. Very few people knew, she explained, that it was actually located beneath a prison used for torturing political prisoners. Quite understandably, she said that the thought of having a celebratory meal whilst people were being tortured upstairs was sick. She went on to tell me that on the rare occasions the prisoners were allowed a family visit, these were conducted nearby in what she described as a “Lunar Park,” which I took to mean a fairground or theme park, purely to make it more traumatic for all involved.
Just around the corner from Ricardo’s hotel was a huge square called . . . you guessed it, Imam Khomeini Square. In the center of the square along with lots of cheerfully colored lights was a large replica of the black cloth-covered cube-shaped shrine in Mecca, known as the Ka’ba. Rather at odds with this was a display around the edge of the square that contained a number of massive missiles complete with mobile truck launchers. They looked just like the Scuds I’d seen on television during the first Gulf War. Next to a couple of the missiles was a vast banner of Iran’s current supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is the true holder of Iran’s executive power, with the president ranking number two in the country’s political hierarchy. The Iranian president’s status is very different to that of a U.S. president. He is not the commander-in-chief of the country’s armed forces, and does not have the authority to set policies which fall outside the parameters approved by the true rulers of the country, the ayatollahs.
Before dropping Ricardo off, Leyla and I arranged to come pick him up in the morning in a taxi and to go around the city’s sprawling bazaar together.
It was well past midnight by the time we arrived at Pedram’s place, so I ended up phoning him on Leyla’s cell so as not to wake his parents. Predictably, the poor bugger sounded like I’d woken him up. Apologies flowed from me for being so late, but he didn’t seem to mind and he showed me to his room where a spare bed was waiting for me. Before we hit the sack, I invited him to come along with us to the bazaar tomorrow. He gave me a slightly perplexed look and said that there was no need for us to get a cab because he’d drive us all there but that he thought the bazaar a very strange location for us to visit. He probably thought a lovely computer shop would be more appropriate for foreign visitors.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Mullah Madness
“Jamie, we’re gonna have to get a taxi instead,” Leyla turned to me and said from the back of Pedram’s car as we careened through the streets of northern Tehran.
Soon after setting off together for the bazaar, it had become apparent that there was something of a personality clash between Leyla and Pedram. This had boiled over into a heated discussion in Farsi culminating in Leyla’s comment to me. I had no idea what was going on and felt somewhat caught in the middle. I was staying at Pedram’s house and therefore felt obliged to spend time with him, but on the other hand had also promised to go out with Leyla and Ricardo, whose last day it was in Tehran.
Pedram pulled over, and as Leyla and I got out, he asked me to call him later in the day. As his car wheels spun off, disappearing into the torrent of traffic racing along the road, Leyla gave me her take on the situation. Pedram, she said, had wanted to go and pick up a CD at his friend’s house in the north of the city and didn’t really want to go to the bazaar with us but wouldn’t admit it. She said that by the time we’d gone all the way to his friend’s place it would be too late to see Ricardo. She added that she thought Pedram was an idiot.
Without further ado, we headed to a little taxicab office, which Leyla had a special prepaid taxi card for. When the driver asked our location, she said “Imam Khomeini Square.” The driver turned around and said something in Farsi. She translated, saying that he’d told her not to call it Imam Khomeini Square as Khomeini was no Imam and had no right to use the title. He clearly didn’t like Khomeini but told her this in a friendly enough way. We got down to the square, driving past the missiles and other displays we’d seen the night before.
After going around in circles for a bit, we managed to locate Ricardo’s hotel, where he was waiting outside. With Ricardo on board, we headed for the bazaar. On the way there, our taxi approached a mullah, standing by the side of a the road. On approaching the mullah, the taxi driver slowed down and yelled something at him through the open window. Leyla began laughing herself silly and took a minute to compose herself before she managed to translate: “I hope all the shit in the world falls down on you and washes you away.”
Ricardo and I were hugely surprised at the driver’s audacity and apparent fearlessness in abusing the establishment. He then went on to say, Leyla translated for us, that his dream was to see all the mullahs hanging from the trees, and to one day see them walk naked through the streets. He continued and told us that mullahs find it very difficult to get a taxi in Tehran as none of the drivers will pick them up. He was a real character and told Leyla to tell Ricardo and me to inform everybody about this when we got back to our own countries. He shook our hands warmly with a huge beaming smile as we left the car for the sprawling bazaar.
Although our taxi driver was fervently against the government, there was, apparently, a lot of support for the establishment amongst the men running the Tehran Bazaar, which we were about to enter. These men are, on the whole, extremely wealthy, well-connected individuals who wield a massive collective political power, with the vast majority of them being ultraconservative in both religion and politics. Traditionally, the Tehran Bazaar i
s the Iranian equivalent of Wall Street, where staple commodity prices are fixed. Some estimates put Tehran’s Bazaar in control of up to a third of the country’s total trade and retail output. And many bazaar merchants, the bazaris, have access to foreign currency and can give loans just as easily as a bank. The Shah tried to reduce the enormous power held by the bazaris by creating new roads running through the bazaar, and providing subsidies to their competitors running supermarkets. He also formed state purchasing organizations to handle some of the products sold in the bazaar. Predictably, during the revolution the bazaris got their own back by shutting up shop, which caused chaos in the national economy.
The streets outside the bazaar were crowded, but inside it was several times worse. There was a sea of people, and if you stopped for a second, you got swept along with the current. It was a confusing labyrinth of interconnecting tunnels, which almost formed a city in its own right. It contained hotels, mosques, several banks, a church, and even its own fire station. We managed to escape the worst of the crowds and found a more secluded spot specializing in wonderful Persian carpets.
This was the first time I’d been out during the day with Leyla in the city, and I noticed now how much attention she drew from every single male she passed. Simply walking through the bazaar, she turned heads all over the place. I pointed this out to her and she said, “Iranians have a staring problem.”
She told me that when she first came to Iran she found it difficult, but now she was used to it. It was interesting to see her deal with guys, who, perhaps like Pedram, assume she’ll be all submissive and respectful to them. Instead she was a real haggler, confident, and took no crap from anyone. It was great to see. She gave Ricardo and me a tip when negotiating for anything in Iran, whether for goods in a bazaar or a hotel room, which was to make your first offer just under half of the asking price and then work from there.
We spent the next hour just wandering, browsing, and soaking up the place. We passed hundreds of people gathered around a speaker system clapping and jumping about enthusiastically. It looked great fun but even Leyla didn’t have the faintest idea what was going on. We left the intensity of the bazaar for the streets outside and walked to a lovely little restaurant opposite the sprawling British embassy. The embassy was set in a huge enclosed parkland right in the center of Tehran. It looked far too big for such a small island nation and must have dated back to when Britain, or “the old fox” as it is referred to in Iran, was far more important and really was a superpower. In a moment of fantasy, I imagined popping inside the embassy for a nice cup of tea and a “good to see you, old boy” chat with the ambassador.
Instead, I settled for a large cola in the restaurant opposite—a charming place called Café Naderi, which Leyla said had once been the preserve of writers, artists, and intellectuals in the days before the revolution. The food was great and we all got stuck into a juicy steak with creamy mushroom sauce, served with chunky fries and carrots. Leyla struggled with hers, so I helped out and polished off the rest along with mine. By the time I’d finished, I was feeling very full, very fat, but very satisfied. When it came time to pay, Leyla tried to treat us but without the support of her mother or Iranian friends, she didn’t have the necessary back up and gave in to my and Ricardo’s insistence that we pick up the tab.
When we handed over our money to the waiter, he looked at it, then back at us and stated simply, “Tip!” whilst gesturing for us to cough up more. We’d already left the standard 10 percent but he wanted extra and justified this by telling Leyla that we’d caused him a lot of trouble—the lying prick. He got his extra tip though, as we all quite admired his cheek.
During the meal, Ricardo had been selling me on the idea of catching a flight south instead of getting the bus and, although it seemed at odds with all the hitching I’d done to get to Iran, I decided to go for it. With this in mind we all went down to a travel agency, and I booked a flight to the jewel of ancient Persia, the historic city of Esfahan, which for many visitors is the highlight of Iran, and then on from there, a couple of days later, to the city of Shiraz.
After some quick browsing around an old antiques shop, Ricardo had to leave to catch his flight. Leyla was sad to see him go, and so was I, but at least I’d get to see him again down south. After Ricardo’s departure, Leyla and I went for a drink together and chatted away until I thought it time to give Pedram a call. Pedram, it turned out, was nearby and said he’d be with us in fifteen minutes. Leyla seemed slightly disappointed on hearing of his close proximity, so in an attempt to smooth things over between them, I invited her to join us when he turned up. She declined and told me straight that she didn’t like him. Again I wondered what they’d said to each other in the car this morning. I also invited her to the illegal party tonight but she was even less keen on this, and told me to be careful as parties got raided all the time. I thanked her profusely for all her generosity, asked her to pass on my regards to her mother, and wished her all the best at University in New Zealand. We parted when Pedram arrived.
He turned up with Behzad and Ali and explained that after meeting up with the other lads, they were going to take me to see the Shah’s former summer palace. The palace was located in northern Tehran and we drove all the way there only to discover it was closed. It was set in hilly parkland and contained two main palaces called the White Palace and the Green Palace, as well as several other specialist museums. In particular, I wanted to see the White Palace and the odd sight out front—two huge towering bronze boots, which are the only remnants of a giant statue of Reza Shah. Also on the “to see” list at the palace complex was a 1,539-square-foot carpet woven with 150 knots per square inch, making it one of the biggest carpets ever made.
The White Palace’s recent history was also of great interest to me; it was the location where the Shah had hosted leading CIA agents when plotting the 1953 coup to remove the democratically elected government of prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh, from power.
The coup was initially proposed to the CIA by Britain’s secret intelligence service, MI6, in response to Mossadegh’s proposal to nationalize Iran’s vast oil wealth to better the lives of the Iranian people, as opposed to lining the pockets of the British. Iran’s oil had up until then been controlled solely by the British through the only oil company operating in Iran, the Anglo Iranian Oil Company (later to become BP). Mossadegh stated at the time that the Iranian people “were opening a hidden treasure upon which lies a dragon.”
Although originally a British proposal, in the end the coup turned out to be much more an American operation than an Anglo one. The coup plan, known as Operation Ajax by the Americans and Operation Boot by the British, was to manufacture huge internal unrest in Iran by carrying out a wave of CIA-led shootings, bombings, and attacks, which would then be blamed through gray propaganda on Mossadegh. Many of the manufactured “terrorist” attacks would target Iran’s religious establishment in an attempt to turn the country’s religious community against him. The Shah, who was in on the deal, would then issue royal decrees dismissing Mossadegh from power while a handpicked army general would spearhead the actual coup itself and take Mossadegh’s place.
The CIA bombings went ahead, one of which targeted a cleric’s home. Muslim leaders who opposed Mossadegh were threatened by CIA-hired thugs in order to tarnish his name and turn the people against him. Mosques were stoned and rocks hurled at priests. At the same time, the CIA arranged for leading newspapers to carry articles denouncing Mossadegh’s supposed brutality, and one newspaper owner was granted a whopping personal loan of $45,000 to bring him on side.
But when pro-Shah soldiers were sent to arrest Mossadegh, they were themselves arrested, and one of the top generals who was in on the plot lost his nerve and fled. The Shah did the same the next day, leaving for Iraq without so much as packing a suitcase.
The coup looked to all intents and purposes to be over, but Mossadegh unknowingly played into the CIA’s hands by dissolving parliament. The CIA responde
d by holding a “council of war” in the U.S. embassy compound with their prominent Iranian agents to discuss the situation. They decided that all was not lost. From the American embassy vaults came a million dollars with which to rent a mob and arrange for a leading cleric to quickly travel to the holy city of Qom and lead a call against Mossadegh.
The next day, a nine-hour bloody battle raged in Tehran between soldiers supporting Mossadegh and those in support of the Shah. Three hundred people lost their lives and many hundreds more were wounded before Mossadegh’s forces were finally overcome. The Shah returned to Iran and took control of the country for the next twenty-six years.
With the Shah now in the driver’s seat, a new oil deal was struck. The U.S. and Britain shared a 40 percent stake each in Iran’s oil wealth with the rest going to other countries in a new international consortium. The Shah thanked the U.S. by letting them do as they pleased in Iran, and the country soon became dotted with U.S. military and intelligence sites. For their part, the Iranian people got abysmal poverty and the terrifying Iranian secret police, the SAVAK, who were tutored in the tactics of torture by the CIA, and established under their and Israeli guidance. Their appalling methods included the insertion of broken glass and boiling water into detainees’ rectums.
The Shah’s grip on power over the next quarter of a century was only possible with huge U.S. arms and support. A surprised Senator Hubert Humphrey stated, “Do you know what the head of the Iranian Army told one of our people? He said the Army was in good shape, thanks to U.S. aid—it was now capable of coping with the civilian population. The Army isn’t going to fight the Russians. It’s planning to fight the Iranian people.”