Pahlavi Suicide: Why Royal Family Still Haunts Iranians
Time / AZADEH MOAVENI
06-Jan-2011 (11 comments)

When the Pahlavi monarchy was approaching its final days in power in Iran, I was playing with Cabbage Patch Kids dolls in Cupertino, Calif., and thought that my friends' parents who worked for Apple ran an orchard. The diaspora community of Iranians around me talked politics incessantly, and I remember hearing vastly varied things about the Shah of Iran, who lost power in the 1979 revolution. Some of my relatives credited him with great feats, like transforming Tehran into a modern city; one elderly great-aunt kept a portrait of him and his wife, the Empress Farah, on her bedside table. Others called him a torturer, and avoided the Iranian man at the neighborhood pool with the Shah's face tattooed on his shoulder. He was a former agent of the SAVAK, the Shah's dreaded secret service, and he seemed to inspire a shadow of terror even in the California sunshine.

>>>
recommended by yolanda

Balatarin
Share/Save/Bookmark

 
Dirty Angel

bush

by Dirty Angel on Fri Jan 07, 2011 06:39 PM PST

mentally retarded aicoholic cokehead born again christian, not even mentioning the daddy problem. 

 

obviously no mental disorder whatsoever,

"Stuff happens and some, one way or another, get stuffed"


  •  
yolanda

.......

by yolanda on Fri Jan 07, 2011 06:26 PM PST

Hi! Comrade,

     LOL! You cracked me up......I am nobody here........I was going to say:

Clinton does not have mental disorder, but he is a wife cheater...

Bush does not have mental disorder or he is not depressed...but he started Iraqi war.......

as you know, every leader or ruler has some problems.......not just Shah or AR Pahlavi....

I hope my post is ok with you and not too blunt!

take care!


  •  
comrade

Dear Yolanda

by comrade on Fri Jan 07, 2011 06:21 PM PST

What about me?

Never increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything.

 


  •  
yolanda

.........

by yolanda on Fri Jan 07, 2011 06:11 PM PST

Hi! Rea,

    I am so glad that you are here! Thank God!

Hi! Benross,

    You are very welcome!

Hi! Angel,

    Thank you for reading!


  •  
benross

Thanks Yolanda

by benross on Fri Jan 07, 2011 04:56 PM PST

This was a really good article. Very well put Shemirani. I should remember her name!


  •  
Dirty Angel

"I care not a jot that you are the son of a certified

by Dirty Angel on Fri Jan 07, 2011 04:28 PM PST

sauerkraut-sucking loon,

it minds not me that you dress like a mad parrott and that you talk 

like a plate of beans negotiating their way  out of a cow's digestive system,

 

it is no skin off my rosy nose that there are  bits of lemon peel floating down the Thames that would make better Regents  than you, 

 

the fact is : that "

 

 

"Stuff happens and some, one way or another, get stuffed"


  •  
Rea

You don't need to be AR Pahlavi

by Rea on Fri Jan 07, 2011 04:15 PM PST

In my early thirties, I'd almost done it, slashing my wrists. Then the water in the bathtub got cold, so I got out. 

For better or for worse, I'm still here, trying to make sense out of my life.


  •  
comrade

Spin doctors are taking over after shrinks failed!

by comrade on Fri Jan 07, 2011 10:07 AM PST

If I were a monarchist I would have categorically questioned  the wisdom of having a Pahlavi with the family history of mental disorder as the (would be) monarch.

Never increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything.

 


  •  
yolanda

.......

by yolanda on Fri Jan 07, 2011 09:35 AM PST

You are welcome, Shemirani........I found this article by accident!


  •  
Shemirani

like a needle in a haystack....

by Shemirani on Fri Jan 07, 2011 12:54 AM PST

Finaly an article without any "Oghde" !!!

thank you for sharing it in here, i enjoyed it :)


  •  
yolanda

........

by yolanda on Thu Jan 06, 2011 06:38 PM PST

................"But the family changed tack. On Wednesday afternoon, I heard Reza speaking bravely and honestly about his brother's battle with depression in television interviews. I felt an immense relief. His comments were nuanced and candid. They broke the Iranian cultural taboo against acknowledging mental illness, and underscored a point most Iranians everywhere can relate to: families suffer when they are torn apart. Thirty years after the Shah's fall, the Pahlavis are no longer anyone's enemy, and in their grief lies an opportunity to reach out across all those lines that divide."


  •