Oct 22 - I haven’t said much about the recent protests here because there hasn’t been much evidence of them. Social media is blocked for most people, including us, so information on what is going on around us is minimal. I have access to some international news sources but not others. We have yet to see a protest or demonstration, though we have seen heavy police presence in two cities.
The event that touched off the current wave of discontent was not isolated. Over the years, at regular intervals, people (mostly women but some men as well) have been carted off by the morality police and died in custody. The infractions are mostly about their clothing (maybe it is just a tee-shirt with a picture the police don’t like), or state of hair. There are both male and female groups of morality police, and they are usually identifiable by their dress and the presence of a small identification tag pinned on their front. Their abundance on the street has varied widely by who is president: under Khatami, for example, the morality police budget was very limited, while under Ahmadinejad the budget and number of workers tripled.
Every time there is a death due to arrest and detention by the morality police, there is an official excuse for why it happened. It is normally that the arrested party had ‘a psychological problem’ or ‘a long-term physical ailment that manifested itself during detention’. In other words, blame is always given to some inherent issue with the arrested party and never to any action taken by the police. It is so common to hear this excuse that hashtags were developed in Iran for people to write in, give their name, and state that they were physically and mentally fit, as public record for any future arrest. There is an eerie parallel between this and the commonly repeated explanation in the US that people who commit mass shooting are always victims of some psychological ailment, and easy access to weapons incidental. In the case of Iran, sometimes a doctor is trotted out to confirm the physical or psychological ‘ailment’, and family members are ‘interviewed’ for television broadcast, also confirming that the person suffered from something. That it could happen occasionally is logical, but when this is done every time, the pattern betrays itself as a crude and repetitive manipulation of fact. I have trouble believing that families of detained individuals or doctors are allowed to speak their real opinions when under the gaze of government officials. There is no freedom here from state-sanctioned threat, at least for the 98% who aren’t directly connected to the regime.
It is raining, so much cooler but with cleaner air. Today we are just in town, so leave the car and go on the bus. In retrospect, I’m glad we didn’t have to do this a lot in Iran. Buses have two separate compartments: front for men, back for women. Getting on involves me getting in one door and Janet/Odette another. The buses today were very crowded because of rain, so this meant all of us had to make sure we got on, pushing hard. Once on, of course we both need to know where to get off, since communication during the ride is impossible. Even seeing where Janet is standing is impossible, since every single woman back there has a dark head covering. On our first trip, I got off the bus with Omid and ran to make sure Janet knew, but she saw me too late, and the doors closed. Anyway, we eventually all met up soon enough by walking, but the whole process seemed so unnecessarily complicated.
First walk through another bazaar. This one is extensive, with many caravanserais and connecting passages that make it a total warren of shops.
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On to the Constitution House of Tabriz. It was here that the constitution of Iran was written and ratified in 1906.
It is interesting that this revolution, and constitution, were based on both European models but also inclusion of Shi’ite Islamic laws. Notably, that women were not permitted to vote.
On the other hand, it was an important step toward modernity. In the decades preceding 1906, Iranian intellectuals had been observing governmental reform in Europe and had returned with ideas to take Iran forward. The Qajar Shah until 1896, Nasser-al Din, was hopelessly out of tune with governance and very corrupt. This helped propel ideas of a constitution forward quickly. The Qajar leader Muzaffaru’d-Din Shah ratified this constitution at the end of 1906.
But what followed was a protracted and bloody civil war, during which many of the leaders and top supporters of the constitution were executed or assassinated. The monarchy simply couldn’t deal with losing real power, and it took overwhelming force on the part of reformists to bring about actual change.
Meanwhile, Russia, which had already taken bits of Iran for themselves in the Caucuses, were looking for further territorial gains to the south (like Tabriz). They were stopped only by Great Britain, which was also looking for influence over this increasingly important region, from both a geographic and natural resource standpoint.
In the end (as in 1912), the result was a demoted Qajar monarchy with symbolic power, and a stalemate between Russia and Great Britain that left Iran at least somewhat intact. Iran would continue with one more Qajar ruler until 1925, then two shahs of the Pahlavi Dynasty before having another revolution against any such monarchy at all in 1979.
From here, on to the Museum of Azerbaijan. This is confusing since Azerbaijan is now another country, but the word is bandied about a lot here. It technically refers to the cultural group of the region. In fact, the language spoken here on the street is not Farsi but a Turkish dialect.
The museum has a great little display of items from the neolithic through Islamic.
The coin room on the second floor is very well displayed, with coins starting from Achaemenid times up through early 20th century.
Next door is the Blue Mosque, one of the most important historical mosques of Iran. It was constructed during the time of Jahanshah of the Qara-Qoyunloo Dynasty (part of the Timurid Dynasty). It is said that this structure was amazing in its original state, with dark blue tiling both inside and out. However, devastating earthquake in 1780 destroyed much of it, along with killing half the population of Tabriz. It was only in the 20th century that it was rebuilt according to the original architecture, but without all the beautiful tiling.
Stop for lunch. More traditional food today, including some Tabriz specialties.
