DOCUMENTS

Thanks a lot Irandokht

Thanks a lot Irandokht, sorry for responding late.
I'd never heard that before!

Wake up...

"Marxist and Islam are like two opposite side of magnet."

All devils were on the same side to get rid of the shah and destroy the country that existed then. They only separated when one could not tolerate competition in control of iranian wealth and power. The remnants of that unholy marriage were/are Fadaian and Mojahedin who had legions both to islam and socialism/communism but lack(ed) any care or empathy with iran or iranians, as were proved by their actions of the past 30 years. This can be easily seen by those with open eyes in above pictures too, as well as rajavi's initial approval of khomeini and his islamic republic.

Anonymousa / Unfair

Are you Monarchy's running out of excuses?
Now you say carter is communist. And Iran is Marxist/Islamic. Marxist and Islam are like two opposite side of magnet. They never join together. Do you really hope that people buy these? Islam has always encouraged Iranians to defend themselves from the invaders such as communist Soviet Union and British. You are making fun of yourselves. Listen to picture #19. He is telling who you are and what you did!!!
Iranians are for change for better and Pahlavis are not their choice. Live with it!

The West has been playing a

The West has been playing a very cruel joke with the ME countries...They are putting a monkey ( Backward religion: Ayatollahs in Iran and Ayatollahs in Iraq) in the cockpit of a passenger plane and wonder why the plane will crash - or will never even get off ground for that matter.

here's to another 500 years of squandering 1/2 of their population in Iraq and IRan!

"As if a light were switched

"As if a light were switched off, the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlevi, portrayed for 20 years as a progressive modern ruler by Islamic standards, was suddenly, in 1977-1978, turned into this foaming at the mouth monster by the international left media. Soon after becoming President in 1977, Jimmy Carter launched a deliberate campaign to undermine the Shah. The Soviets and their left-wing apparatchiks would coordinate with Carter by smearing the Shah in a campaign of lies meant to topple his throne.

The result would be the establishment of a Marxist/Islamic state in Iran headed by the tyrannical Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The Iranian revolution, besides enthroning one of the world's most oppressive regimes, would greatly contribute to the creation of the Marxist/Islamic terror network challenging the free world today.At the time, a senior Iranian diplomat in Washington observed, "President Carter betrayed the Shah and helped create the vacuum that will soon be filled by Soviet-trained agents and religious fanatics who hate America."" ( Click here for more )

Dogiush lies without end

This Dariush character arrogantly spews out lies, fails to back them up, expects everybody to blindly accept what he says as "the truth", and now he takes one picture (no. 7, which has no indication who took it and when and where) to be evidence of "starvation of Iranians during Pahlavi".

You will have to do better than that. To prove your claim, you will need to show everyone here the statistic for number of Iranians living below the poverty line in 1977. Then compare that to the similar statistic for current times (which has many more times the oil income of back then).

But I doubt you will do that, as you proven many times what an arrogant liar you are. Therefore I would like to dedicate not just a picture, but the entire state of our country and our people today to the stupidity and narrow mindedness of people like you - who have NO REGARD FOR THE TRUTH.

Be Fair.

Your comments

We mirable "IRANIAN"s. Others have written our History, which we have to believe and to admire und if possible to visit the exhibition of heroic works of strangers.
these same poeple had put the first stone of the Wall uneven. So went their wall TA BE GARDOON simply KAJ. Thanks God. Now they make us believe he - his majesty - had been the real Architect and not they. In thier best times they repeated so often as they could THEY are the Architect and not their lakai.

Good job...

In hind sight, imagine that the leaders of all these revolutionaries and opposition gangs were gangsters like khomeini and rajavi, and their problem with the shah was that the country did not look like the disaster that it is now. Their idols were islamic caliphs or marx and mao.

Congratulations to all the revolutionaries for achieving their goal, destruction of a decent country, where the whole population is now considered Faghih in need of a Vali to tell them what to do and how to live for a price; the price is the wealth of the country to be paid to mullas and their cronies for an indefinite period of time. That is what they meant when they worried about poor or complained about savak. They wanted to be in charge, period; the rest were excuses in service of propaganda; otherwise they did not give a damn about iran or iranians whom they considered second class to their ideology and personal ambitions.

Thank You....

In Future When Someone Says The Grass is Greener on the Other Side Hopefully We Will Look Back at the History and Wont Make the Same Mistake Again. But As Everyone Knows HISTORY ALWAYS REPEATS ITSELF.

Ghooti begir o benshoon

Dear PL

There are two definitions for "ghootieh begir o benshoon"

1- a red herring: something to distract others from the main idea

2- a distraction for kids to get them to calm down and be entertained and occupied for a length of time

I meant it as the latter: JJ provided these pictures which acted as a  distraction that kept me busy for a long period of time

I hope that helped!  :0) 

IRANdokht

Ghooti-e begir-o benshoon --???

Irandokt1, please explain what the above means.
I'd really appreciate it.
PL, (Born in 1980)

True but sad

After reading the comments so far, I thought to put my perspective across. I was a student in here in America back in the late sixties and early seventies (I think you can guess my age) in the place where used to be a hotbed of anti-shah activities: UC Berkeley. Most of us, including myself, were here thanks to the grants awarded by the Pahlavi Foundation. We didn't see those grants as a gesture of generosity by the Shah. We thought, this was our money, from the oil revenue, that was rightfully returned to us. So we did not owe him anything. We kept demonstrating outside the consulate and doing our best to show the Shah as an evil dictator that we believed he was. On the eve of the revolution Iranian students in the US had the highest number of foreign students in American universities. With majority of them being sponsored by government grants or supported by their well-to-do families, they had a comfortable life here. This could hardly be the image of a poverty stricken nation. Yet we bought all the anti regime propaganda that the CIS were force feeding us without thinking twice about it. I think I don't need to say much about what happened after the revolution. The question that we should ask ourselves is this: why is it that some 30 years after deposing the shah's regime and replacing it with a regime that statistically as well as in reality is at least 10 times worse, we have not seen tenth of the massive activities that were organized against the shah in the past three decades here in the US? I don't know about you, but I have my own answer: because there are no longer bursaries granted by the Pahlavi foundation (or its successor, Alavi foundation) to subsidize the counter regime activities. Also no more funds are funneled through CIS to mobilize mass demonstration and noisy protests, which should say a lot about the nature of the posters shown in this exhibition.

Outstanding collection

Dear Professor Nabegheh: I respectfully disagree with you. One must read between lines, and with the exception of those who still live in the 70s' mindset, or have no courage to admit error, more than anything else this is an indictment of all revolutionaries who were willing to exaggerate, lie, and deceit to achieve their unholy goals. Their goals of seizing power, control of the country's wealth, and placing their ideology, let it be islam or communism, well above nationalism and nation. Their problem with the shah was not to improve upon his regime, but to replace him to impose their will and their ideology on the iranians and to take control of wealth and resources of the country. Criticism of the shah and sympathy with the people were only excuses that lacked any authenticity. The expected outcome was exactly as we see today.

Fortunately, we know so much about so many things today that we did not know then. We know about deeds and misdeeds of pahlavis as well as what islamists and leftists had planned for us, and we know so much about other countries including western democracies and the extent of corruption and deceit in them. Alas that we lost a generation and 30 years of precious time and as a result iran now ranks well behind any semi-decent country in the world; all because we made a bad mistake: we did not know of the unholy objectives of those amongst us.

Let's look at picture #7 that someone referred to. A picture with no caption that might as well have been taken in Cambodia, and even if it were authentic, it was taken out of scale with what was right then that is right no more. A propaganda with no other value that we bought into and as a result ended up here and now.

Keh az maast keh bar maast.

To:Professor Nabegheh

My friend:

You call this a "jumble of bias". I do not know if you lived, and if so, where you did, in those days, but I was in Iran. This was what we were exposed to. Up until 1978, I never saw one book, or an article, attacking the Shah , or the monarchy.

 Later, however,from, some time in 1978 till 1980, I hardly ever saw a pro-Shah book, or even an article. My experience was that of a teenager, living in Iran. I did not gravitate to any particular ideology, but if I had to guess, the literature that came across me was: 45% "socialist and communist", 45% "Islamist", and 10% "nationalist". Did these newspapers and books, wake us up, or dupe us all, as a nation? You decide.

My experience was that of a teenager, living in Iran, and that's how it was. Abroad, of course, there was another story.

 So I believe the collection somewhat truely reflects the athmosphere of the day.

Respectfully,

Ali P.

A jumble with bias

Like most things done by the Iranian diaspora, this one is also a complete jumble of a job. The prevalent theme that may be detected in 4 out of every 5 of these so-called documents is an anti-Pahlavi bias, but then again this is not news. The most popular pastime of the Iranian disapora is being morose over their bygone days and, of course blaming it sqaurely on one person: the Shah! Which makes the academic value of this collection: Zilch.

Your comments

Howdy commentators!

I had put up too many pictures from the exhibition. I had to reduce the number. I created a new photo essay and copied your comments from the old one. When the exhibition ends, I will put up the rest of the images. Don't forget to see the show if you live in the SF BAy Area!

Enjoy!

j

Ghooti-e begir-o benshoon indeed

I tried to read every word in every picture,each and every of 148 of them, even the dates of the publications....and they took me way back when! it was a flash back.

Irandokht, even your comment of "ghooti-e........." was a nostalgia . Haven't heared that in a long time.

Thanks JJ for putting us "sar-e kaar"...LOL

Jamshid / Unfair

I dedicate picture number 7 to Jamshid and Unfair(Fair), who consider the starvation of Iranian In Pahlavi's era "A HEALTHY DIET".

I am just spinning...

I never thought such pictures of old headlines, book covers and newspapers would make me feel so emotional!

I am glad this is saved somewhere and I hope it stays safe.

It took me a long time to look at every picture and I paused on so many staring at the monitor, letting my mind wander to the land of "what if" and "I wish"...

JJ jan thank you

beh in migan ghooti-e begeer o benshoon!

:0)

IRANdokht

Date!

I enjoyed the photos. I just wished the newspapers had each a date.

Thanks!

I just can't let go of....

A look at the pic # 72 and the logo of the publication:

"Hadaf-e maa esteghraar-e hokoomat-e mardom bar mardom ast"

I'm stuck right there! what a B.S. ! Define "MARDOM" please.

LIARS !!

It will be appreciated

No matter what your motivation, or political and ideological beliefs are, or was, archiving this stuff is a great service to Iranians, whether they like it or not. I'm sure it will be appreciated by many scholars in the future.