For those of us who remember 1989, 2009 in Iran is eerily reminiscent. The only question is whether it's going to be the Velvet Revolution of late 1989 which freed Eastern Europe from Communism or whether its going to be June 1989 when the Chinese government crushed a pro democracy movement in Beijing by murdering hundreds of students in Tianamen Square. I don't know which way Iran is going to go, but this has clearly become a huge story. Andrew Sullivan has been posting live twitter feeds from Tehran and raw photo images from the AP and Getty. The BBC is starting to cover this a bit more (their Farsi service, apparently has been excellent) and CNN has now woken up to the enormity of these events. I am not a political blogger, it's not my bag at all, and if I was to blog about things which are of interest to me willy nilly then there would be a lot of tedious posts here about rugby, baseball and beer. I like the discipline of keeping this blog vaguely in the realm of the arts, especially books and films, so in the spirit of that, I'd like to briefly mention two more Iranian books that I've read that might give you an insight into Persian culture and identity: First, Shahrnush Parsipur's lovely collection of stories Women Without Men (nice nod to Hemingway in the title) and second Freya Stark's monumental The Valleys of the Assassins where the indomitable Miss Stark sets out to find the Old Man of the Mountains and the cult of assassins in 1930's Persia. Parsipur is a miniaturist whose observations on Iranian life and identity are precise and eloquent. Freya Stark (1893 - 1993!) is one of the greatest travel writers of all time, undaunted by threats of delay, disease and death, she went wherever she wanted and did exactly as she pleased right up to the end of her long life - they just don't make 'em like that anymore, more's the pity. (BTW the reason this post is green comes from a twitter idea in Iran, to show solidarity with the Green Revolution.)
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
The Valleys of the Assassins
For those of us who remember 1989, 2009 in Iran is eerily reminiscent. The only question is whether it's going to be the Velvet Revolution of late 1989 which freed Eastern Europe from Communism or whether its going to be June 1989 when the Chinese government crushed a pro democracy movement in Beijing by murdering hundreds of students in Tianamen Square. I don't know which way Iran is going to go, but this has clearly become a huge story. Andrew Sullivan has been posting live twitter feeds from Tehran and raw photo images from the AP and Getty. The BBC is starting to cover this a bit more (their Farsi service, apparently has been excellent) and CNN has now woken up to the enormity of these events. I am not a political blogger, it's not my bag at all, and if I was to blog about things which are of interest to me willy nilly then there would be a lot of tedious posts here about rugby, baseball and beer. I like the discipline of keeping this blog vaguely in the realm of the arts, especially books and films, so in the spirit of that, I'd like to briefly mention two more Iranian books that I've read that might give you an insight into Persian culture and identity: First, Shahrnush Parsipur's lovely collection of stories Women Without Men (nice nod to Hemingway in the title) and second Freya Stark's monumental The Valleys of the Assassins where the indomitable Miss Stark sets out to find the Old Man of the Mountains and the cult of assassins in 1930's Persia. Parsipur is a miniaturist whose observations on Iranian life and identity are precise and eloquent. Freya Stark (1893 - 1993!) is one of the greatest travel writers of all time, undaunted by threats of delay, disease and death, she went wherever she wanted and did exactly as she pleased right up to the end of her long life - they just don't make 'em like that anymore, more's the pity. (BTW the reason this post is green comes from a twitter idea in Iran, to show solidarity with the Green Revolution.)
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25 comments:
I'm going to check out that Valley of Assassins. It reminds me a lot of my xbox 360 game, Assassin's Creed. I heard the storyline was based on historical events and a book. Might be the same book. I'm not a video game geek, only have a few to my name, but Assassin's Creed is pretty dang sweet. To put an end to the Crusades, let's form a group and assassinate leaders on both sides. Pretty brilliant idea for a game.
The green idea is very cool. Although green is being made to symbolize an awful lot these days, isn't it?
Hmm. I would imagine the beer, rugby and baseball route would actually be the way to go if you want a large readership. But I appreciate your resisting your more natural inclination. I am actually surprised that you don't want to be a political blogger-you do always seem to have, well, a strong opinion on current matters.
I haven't read either of these books, though I have of course heard a bit about old Freya. I may be thinking of some other intrepid British woman traveler of that period, but my impression is that what drove a lot of these women to their fearless wanderlust was a feeling of being absolutely stifled at home.
Just snagged up a copy of the latest Timothy Hallinan, Breathing Water. Guess who's got the above the title blurb? You.
(Okay, you may already know that, but it's bound to impress some of your fans here, downplay it how you will.)
Oh, here's a Nation article on Iran's Twitter Revolution for anyone who's interested.
Liam
It might not exactly be your cup of tea, but you could get it from the library and see. In the edition I read there were some nice photographs of the valley itself and the last of the assassins tribes.
Seana
No I think that would be quite dull. Also I dont know that much about sport or beer for that matter whereas I do read quite a bit so at least I come from a semi informed stance.
Political blogs bore the pants off me. Even during the Presidential Election I'd had enough by September.
Thats good about The Nation, although they have been a bit stoogy regarding Iran in the past.
Seana
And yes I really liked Tim's book. You and he seem to have more nice things to say about Bangkok than me. I found it not that pleasant. In Paul Theroux's Ghost Train to an Eastern Star, he says Bangkok is a spa paradise.
As to Bangkok, I'd guess it's just the different trajectories we came in on. One nice but in some ways rather haunting thing that happened there is that my sister and I made our way to the Royal Palace complex there the first day, and somewhere along the way, we acquired the acquaintance of a young girl who had just arrived from the country and was staying with her uncle. She sort of guided us around all day, which was very helpful, and of course we bought dinner for her and stuff like that, but she really didn't seem to be in it for the money so much as just being sort of at loose ends herself, and wanting company. She was very taken with my sister, for one thing and kept commenting on how white her skin was--which of course gets all sorts of bells clanging, but taken just at face value, it was nice.
The haunting part was that she had come into the city because she thought her uncle might have some work for her, and it somehow became obvious by the time we saw her the next day that this maybe wasn't going to happen. And of course you wonder what did eventually happen, and even if you approve more of the Thai bar girl culture more than I do, she wasn't really of a type to make that really work. Really more of a type to get a good education and make something of herself that way, seeing as she already somehow spoke pretty good English, or could communicate in it. But she did seem to be resourceful, so I can at least hope that she got a job through the family connections that didn't entail the obvious.
One of the down sides of traveling is that you run across people and then never get to hear the rest of the story.
Seana
My feeling was that it was unpleasantly crowded, humid and filled with a large amount of westerners getting drunk and high and patry with the very many prostitutes. If I want that vibe I'd rather go to Amsterdam where at least I trust the police, I wont get thirty years in jail for insulting the king, and it seldom reaches 100 degrees.
I can however see where Paul Theroux, Tim H. etc. are coming from. If you want a beautiful girl to iron out the cricks in your back, you probably couldnt pick a better place.
Adrian, Seana:
As someone who's visited Thailand on business many, many times, I can assure you that the prostitution market in Bangkok, patronized as it is by the middle class of the rest of the world, is basically a slave market. Anyone who participates in this sewer becomes moral waste in the process. I had lunch with the chief health minister of Thailand back in the early nineties, and she told me that 40% of the female population of Thailand under 30 was involved actively in prostitution.
There is so much more to Thailand, of course, but the sex trade is a giant cancer at the heart of the society.
Patrick
Exactly. I mean prostitution is prostitution but in Amsterdam the prostitutes have a union, there are health inspections, the wage is set by the government etc. I found Bangkok even sleazier than Phnom Penh and thats saying something. And I love rugby but all the drunken rugby players wandering the streets with underage bar girls in tow made me sick.
Adrian: The whole point of restricting the prostitution trade to the Oude Zijd is to contain it. But anyone would make a mistake to think that the Turkish and Surinam women working in the Dutch sex trade are anything more than indentureed servants. The problem with the whole libertarian view of the sex trade is that rich men run it, everywhere.
Meanwhile, did you notice the "Dictator Go To Hell" sign and green armbands worn by the Iranian soccer team today, when they played in Seoul? That's guts.
Pat
When I was there, admittedly a few years ago now, there were (seemingly) a lot of Dutch prostitutes too.
Funny what you say about legalising the trade however. Melbourne has at least a dozen legal brothels, but St Kilda esp around Grey St, Carlisle St and the streets in between is full of streetwalkers and Johns that the cops ignore. Its actually quite unpleasant esp for kids walking home from school. I'm not entirely sure what the cops actually do in Melbourne but they certainly arent interested in prostitutes, drug dealers, graffiti "artists" or bicycle thieves.
Oh wait I do know what the cops do. They are VERY good at giving out parking tickets.
Oh and I missed that about the football team but I just an image of it on Google. Excellent!
Adrian: Speaking of tyranny and prostitution, I love that line in Schindler's list where the Ralph Finnes commandant is asked by the Liam Neeson anti-hero, "What is a person worth to you?" And the commandant replies, "No! What are they worth to you?" Every time such a question is asked in earnest, someone will always be saved or damned.
Speaking of Iran, I came across this article in the Chronicle today about how Bay Area technology has been helping the student protests.
I hope it doesn't sound like my enjoyment of Thailand means I downplay the prostitution issue. It's just that it wasn't immediately in my field of view. I think I may have posted about this somewhere, but even given this, the reality came home to me. On a long plane ride home from my Southeast Asian trip, I sat next to two people who were drinking a bit too much and over the course of the long flight, I heard this young guy tell the young woman sitting next to him how his friends 'indulged' while in Bangkok, but it was only after quite a long time that he finally admitted he had tried out the scene 'once' himself. I don't think she liked him better for it, as he was in some kind of committed relationship at home, but I think it may have been more important to him to confess to someone than to keep her regard. They were fairly superficial people, but I think he felt remorse about it, more towards his girlfriend than whoever he was with, and I'd say that he in some way was seduced by the accessibility of pleasure, and though the experience had been exciting to him, the price he was paying for it in his mind meant that it was not really worth it
Of course, there is a part of me that found the whole situation interesting, not least of all that he turned to one person to confess, not apparently aware that there was another person on the other side of him that was taking in everything he said. It was actually an almost perfect scene, dramatically speaking, because once the truth was revealed, it seemed inevitable.
Seana
Actually as you could probably tell I found Havana to be far worse than either Bangkok or Phnom Penh. And for once no one can blame the Americans for that little trade. In Havana the sex tourists are mostly Canadians, Brits and Germans.
I have read the other side but I am not impressed by Michel Houellebecq's defense of sex tourism. And actually there are quite a few places where Paul Theroux flirts with the idea of being a dirty old man in Ghost Train.
Houellebecq seems immature from everything I've read about him. Young men often become enamored of him briefly. If they're lucky, they grow out of it. Of course, that's a very prejudiced statement I'm making, since I haven't read a word of him, but did read an essay in The Believer about a tour he made around Northern California.
No, I don't think it's anything peculiar to Thailand, except that it manifests that way due to recent history and the possibilities of sex tourism given that history. I think that when we traveled, we were a bit naive about the history, which is maybe a bit odd, since on that same trip, I met up with a friend of mine who was working in Cambodian refugee camps while we were gadding about. But I suppose that it was because her interest was in Cambodians and not in the Thais, that did not become a subject of conversation.
Adrian, Seana:
No judgements here. I was taken to one of these establishments as a "surprise" once, by some business colleagues in Bangkok. I did not want to offend my hosts, and I was curious. It was a thirty story modern building with two restaurants on the ground floor and about 200 young women in demure white frocks sitting on bleachers behind glass, each wearing on her chest a big blue ribbon with a number, exactly as your FFA prize cow might wear at the county fair. The idea was to pick one and retire to your little suite for the festivities. I had a nice interview with the young lady, and she was thrilled that I was cool with a bath and massage and a cold Singha.
The main impression I was left with was the sheer scale of the enterprise. Very rich people are getting very much richer on this business, and young women are sold by their families into this trade every day. Anyone who finds this sort of thing
intriguing would also really get off on the modern bovine or swine slaughter facility.
Funny thing. I was working today and helping this older artist guy I know find some books in the mystery section. He's a friend at this point, of a sort. So we started talking about Bangkok, because he goes to Southeast Asia every winter, and likes to read mysteries set there. He didn't know I'd been there, and was surprised that I liked it, ate the street food, etc. Then he suddenly launches in, "You know, I like to get just one girl for four or five days and not mess around with the whole bar scene. So I had this girl last time and I said, why don't we go to the zoo? And she said, 'No!--Too hot!'" The heat being the whole point of his story.
I really don't know why people feel free to tell me pretty much anything. Because unlike you, Patrick, I am judgmental. However, on a certain level, I appreciated his frankness. And I don't usually try to change people, unless they drive me to it. And I expect he wasn't a horrible person to spend four or five days with, given the possibilities.
Maybe a bit more on topic, one of the main Twitter blogger types from Iran is going to be talking to Robert Faris for the Lehrer newshour here. You can leave questions if you'd like for TehranBureau.com.
Just so's you know.
Seana
I just watched Khatami's speech. There was no fix, the protestors are Israeli agents, the election was fair. Oh and Death to America.
Seana: It really is amazing to me how otherwise intelligent and modern thinking people are so easily corrupted by the sex and drug industries. It is surprising because nearly all of this business, worldwide, is controlled by tres creepy vampires who are out to enrich themselves on the blood of others.
Basically modern slavers. And yet, I do know several Obama-voters who think themselves very liberal and yet travel to Asia and Latin America specifically for the purpose of exploiting the poverty and enslavement of others.
Seana: It really is amazing to me how otherwise intelligent and modern thinking people are so easily corrupted by the sex and drug industries. It is surprising because nearly all of this business, worldwide, is controlled by tres creepy vampires who are out to enrich themselves on the blood of others.
Basically modern slavers. And yet, I do know several Obama-voters who think themselves very liberal and yet travel to Asia and Latin America specifically for the purpose of exploiting the poverty and enslavement of others.
Adrian, I saw a bit of that Khatami speech just now as well. The guy is just so reassuring.
Patrick, yes, the western liberal mind can be pretty self-deceiving at times. Of course, I think this is a deeper level of exploitation than most, but it does mirror other ways in which we are willing to overlook our use of other people who happen not to be in the privileged position. Obama voters do not seem to me to have cornered the market on the ethical. The real question is, do you know any Kusinich voters who would would do it? My guess is that there are a few, but that they would have the sense to lie about it.
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