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Thursday
June 28, 2001

Only fools and horses

Unlike some of your readers and contributors, I believe Cyrus Kadivar's piece ["Crown of lilies"] is very good and informative with respect to the subject matter it is treating. All Iranians want to know about the ex-royals who robbed their country off all its material wealth and made it skinned and the fact that many have read it and are writing letters about it proves that no matter how we feel about the death of Leila but we want to know everything about it and the Royals simply because they were part of our recent history, a part of us all. Who does not want to know the history of his/her own country?

However in the middle of this beautifully written piece (crown of lilies) the writer poses a very important question for all of us to consider/contemplate about: did she {Leila} really die of broken heart and homesickness? Of course not! Posing of this question by Mr Kadivar indicates that he too like the rest of us does not believe it and is not prepared to buy the nonsense put out by Farah and her first son, Reza about Leila and the cause of her unhappiness.

Have no doubt: only fools and horses would/will believe the nonsense put out by Reza II about his sister's suicide, no one else. Probably he too knows it too well that no one would take him seriously when he speaks publically about the cause of Leila's untimely death or suicide; simply because a young and beautiful princess like Leila must not have any cause to lead her to committing suicide; not even Princess Margarett of the House of Winsor ever contemplated suicide even though she was pushed/left out of the warm and loving bossom of her mother as soon as her sister Elizabeth was declared heir to the throne of England. So why should Leila who had every thing she could wish for decide to turn it {the goodness of being a very rich royal} down and opt out for a life in the hereafter?

>From the little spilled out by the media in the West it is clear to the naked eye that she was not homesick, nor did she miss her absent father who passed away by any standard a very long time ago. But in fact Leila died of bad and poorly parenthood, which is a malaise from which almost all Iranians suffer. For really no Iranian can truthfully claim that s/he has had good and proper parents during child and adulthood and Leila was no exception to this rule. Her mother Farah and her father Mohammad Reza were not good parents to her and so did not bring her up thoroughly. She lacked social skills necessary for relating to others in society, creating social relations with other human beings and building on it.

Farah Pahlavy has tried to forgive her own negligence in the public eye/mind with respect to her dear child Leila, by saying that she {Leila} still had her governess {presumeably she means Reza II did not consent to cutting off payment or wages for provision of such a service for a 31 year old princess,} but really what a most stupid but revealing thing to say about a 31 year old princess? Governess's belong to children of school ages to to mature princesses; the aristocracy as well as royals of Leila's age have Ladies in waiting not governesses (unless Leila was considered mentally and intellectually immature and in need of being treated like a child!)

But what if Leila had not yet fully grown up emotionally? What if she did not know what to do with herself ever since she had been considered "not-a-little-girl" any more? Did she have any friends to whom she felt close and with whom she could have relationship? Did she have a boy friend or a fiance, or a prospective hasband, like any other proper person/adult would do? No she did not. We saw no young man mourning her death anywhere in the pictures, and why not indeed? Because she was not brought up decently and so she could not contemplate such things; because her mother Farah Pahlavy was not a good mother and so did not bring her up thoroughly so that she would be equipped with such skills which are a must if one wants to continue living on this planet which shows and proves that Farah Pahlavy has been most indecent to all her children, and not just Leila, and that is why they are absent from her life and Reza II's life.

But then again which Iranian parent has ever been trully good to her/his own children? Farah Pahlavy too was a misguided parent just like any Iranian parent and so Leila was not brounght up thoroughly and so she, being on her own in the west as a young woman of 31 years of age, and a royal one too, could not cope with demands of social life in a world where an Iranian like her was not centre stage / no-one of her own class and type would give a damn about her as a member of the ex-royal family of Iran. Why should they? especially when they themselves belong to the much more important royal families and aristocracy of the western and eastern Eurpe?

Leila did not know how to make friends with such superior class of people even though she too, like them, was royal and aristocratic and so she decided to kill herself. She did not know how to do so simply because Farah Pahlavy had not been a decent mother to her and so did not teach her such basic skills and moral values which are needed by all human beings if they wish to live on this planet; all people must have such requirements simply because human beings are gregarious and inneed of being able to relate to other human beings in society.

And indeed if Farah Pahlavy cannot be a good mother to her own children which are her own flesh and blood, then one may ask, what kind of a mother could she be to the nation of Iran if (God forbid) she ever in the very distant future becomes a Queen Mother of Iran and so by definition a mother to all Iranian people/nation? The answer most definitely is: not a decent or proper one as the evidence of herstory with her own children and loved ones show and prove.

Rana Bahar

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