One of the mullah’s sons owns the mall in Tehran, which includes a library patterned after Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Most people cannot afford to shop there. Below: the view of Tehran from Azadi Tower, which translates to “Freedom Tower” and used to bear the shah’s name until he was overthrown. PhoToS by JASmin ShoemAker
Shoemaker said making her first visit to Iran in her 30s was like realizing Atlantis was real. “It was cool to see so many people speaking Farsi and looking like me,” she said. “It was starting to feel like a make-believe place.” The thing that stuck out to her maybe the most was how worn down the people were by the sanctions. Iranians, who are known for generous overtures, were instead haggling over money. “I feel like there’s a tension there right now. … How much pressure can people take?” Consider the Iranian predicament: 46 percent of the country is between the ages of 25 and 54, and the median age is 28. A staggering 69 percent of the population lives in packed urban centers. Meanwhile, a small cabal of aging and ultra-conservative mullahs death-grip power like they’re already frozen into rigor mortis. Heap onto that a teetering pension system and the threat of hyperinflation, is it any wonder so many
young people yearn to leave? In 2009, the International Monetary Fund ranked Iran first out of 91 developed nations in the number of educated citizens emigrating outside the country. More recently, in 2014, Iran’s minister of science, research and technology estimated the county’s brain drain amounted to 150,000 expats each year. “Iran is not the same Iran,” Atamaz-Topcu noted. “These people, they did not live under the shah’s rule. They did not live under the first years of the revolution and they have different expectations. First and foremost, they want freedom.” They can’t seem to get it. It’s been 10 years since the Green Revolution, when mostly young Iranians took to the streets to contest a stolen presidential election. They were put down without mercy or reservation, by religious hypocrites who learned too well how to bolt the doors behind them. My aunt’s cousin learned this on the damp floor of a jail cell, begging a guard to stop kicking him.
The student summoned the name of the prophet Muhammad’s daughter. The jailer cursed and rammed a boot into his captive’s head. A week after he disappeared without warning, my aunt’s cousin returned home shaken, whispering that the mullahs import their torturers. There are reports that elements within the Trump administration— namely National Security Adviser John Bolton—want to squeeze Iran so hard that the people rebel against the regime. “They want there to be so much pressure … that they’re hoping people will fight their government,” said Assal Rad, a research fellow at the National Iranian American Council. Both Rad and Atamaz-Topcu see parallels to America’s misguided— perhaps fraudulent—invasion of Iraq, which bequeathed countless deaths and disfigurements, as well as a quagmire that siphoned this nation’s prestige and economic future. “War is not a distant memory in this country,” added Rad, an Iranian-American who last visited the country in 2015. “It defined a generation—and it defined a landscape. If you step [foot] in Iran, you’ll know there was a war here.” And there’s little appetite for a new one, whether it’s with the mullahs or United States. In a nation that stretches across a million miles of rugged, mountainous land between the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf, still wounded by its own revolutionary history, scarred by foreign intrusion and strangled by gangster-like regimes, Trump’s incoherent strategy is only building popular support for Iran’s hardliners, Rad said. Think of it this way, my aunt said: “You would rather deal with a bad dad than a stranger who abuses you, because at least he’s your dad.” Congratulations, President Trump, you’ve made the ayatollahs look sympathetic by comparison. My uncle reminded me there’s a saying that the revolution devours its children. He was referring to Iran. But I think it could yet apply here, too. Ω AUGUST 8, 2019
CN&R
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