To discuss about the books, textbooks and papers you are currently reading.
I finished Moby Dic a couple of days ago. Next i’ll pick up Pale Fire by Nabokov. I started reading that book a few months ago and stoped after the poem because i was reading it before sleep and couldn’t focus well. Even though I still remember what happened and took a few notes, I decided to start from the beginning again.
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I've just finished The Fall of Heaven: The Pahlavis and the Final Days of Imperial Iran by Andrew Scott Cooper. Very good, if a little too partial to the imperial family.
Still, the downfall of Mohammad Reza Shah was an unmitigated disaster. Under him Iran was well on its way to being something like South Korea is today.
I've just started The Shah by Abbas Milani, which is a little more critical, though still fairly positive.
Also poems by Hafez, translated by Peepee Davies.
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That sounds very interesting, I’ll definitely check it one day. Do you think Reza Pahlavi could have avoided revolution while advancing with secularization and westernization? Because after the revolution the Saudi Royal Family for instance decided to give even more power to the religious nuts in order to quell any chance of rebellion
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It gives the impression that if he had been slightly more the tyrant his enemies said he was, he'd have been okay. Also, if he'd had more support from the West but Carter was one of those who thought he was a tyrant, and France, the UK and West Germany all agreed.
Khomeini wasn't a major cleric like Shariatmadari (who was fairly supportive of the Shah) and a lot of his followers only had a vague idea about his plans. The book definitely gives the impression that the situation was still salvageable but the Shah was at his weakest when he felt he didn't have the support of the Iranians, and was also seriously (but secretly) sick with cancer.
But a moderate, developed Iran (in which women participated as equals - one of the major Pahlavi goals and achievements) was in reach. It was ahead of South Korea at the time of the revolution.
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This is why Carter and lib ints in general make me seethe
. Yes, the shah was a tyrant, but he was aligned with western interests. They also obsess with a vague idea of democracy while ignoring that Iran and many developing countries weren’t ready for it yet. Take France and the UK for instance, during their industrialization fase they weren’t democracies, but oligarchies were only the upper strata could vote. Democracy came slowly with development and it worked well with South Korea after Park.
It’s a very sad story, but the modern iranian youth seems more secular, hopefully they get rid of the ayatollahs.
I also hate how every single Iran discussion on reddit devolves into “muh Mosaddegh“ as if that guy would have installed le heckin democratic socialism had it not been for the evil CIA, when truth is he would have turned Iran into what Afghanistan was in the 80s, soviet occupation included.
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Lol. Same thing with Sankara, Lumumba, etc. Commies are like "if this this pro-Soviet leader had gotten into power random African country would look like paradise" when in reality they would have just turned into another Mugabe.
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The worst part for me is when they talk about any LATAM dictatorship, they act as if us latin Americans have no agency and are mere puppets of the CIA. And while they are more careful when talking about Chavez or Fidel Castro, they treat people like Salvador Allende as if they were saints lol, that fricker for instance got elected with 36% in a one round system and went full commie with that, fighting congress, instigating violence among his supporters and disobeying the courts, had not been for the coup he would have been remembered as another destructive clown of a president.
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Take up the White Man's burden -
Send forth the best ye breed -
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness
On fluttered folk and wild -
Your new-caught sullen peoples,
Half devil and half child.
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