Iranian Rappers And Persian Porn (20 page)

The CIA bombings went ahead, one of which targeted a cleric’s home. Muslim leaders who opposed Mossadegh were threatened by CIA-hired thugs in order to tarnish his name and turn the people against him. Mosques were stoned and rocks hurled at priests. At the same time, the CIA arranged for leading newspapers to carry articles denouncing Mossadegh’s supposed brutality, and one newspaper owner was granted a whopping personal loan of $45,000 to bring him on side.

But when pro-Shah soldiers were sent to arrest Mossadegh, they were themselves arrested, and one of the top generals who was in on the plot lost his nerve and fled. The Shah did the same the next day, leaving for Iraq without so much as packing a suitcase.

The coup looked to all intents and purposes to be over, but Mossadegh unknowingly played into the CIA’s hands by dissolving parliament. The CIA responded by holding a “council of war” in the U.S. embassy compound with their prominent Iranian agents to discuss the situation. They decided that all was not lost. From the American embassy vaults came a million dollars with which to rent a mob and arrange for a leading cleric to quickly travel to the holy city of Qom and lead a call against Mossadegh.

The next day, a nine-hour bloody battle raged in Tehran between soldiers supporting Mossadegh and those in support of the Shah. Three hundred people lost their lives and many hundreds more were wounded before Mossadegh’s forces were finally overcome. The Shah returned to Iran and took control of the country for the next twenty-six years.

With the Shah now in the driver’s seat, a new oil deal was struck. The U.S. and Britain shared a 40 percent stake each in Iran’s oil wealth with the rest going to other countries in a new international consortium. The Shah thanked the U.S. by letting them do as they pleased in Iran, and the country soon became dotted with U.S. military and intelligence sites. For their part, the Iranian people got abysmal poverty and the terrifying Iranian secret police, the SAVAK, who were tutored in the tactics of torture by the CIA, and established under their and Israeli guidance. Their appalling methods included the insertion of broken glass and boiling water into detainees’ rectums.

The Shah’s grip on power over the next quarter of a century was only possible with huge U.S. arms and support. A surprised Senator Hubert Humphrey stated, “Do you know what the head of the Iranian Army told one of our people? He said the Army was in good shape, thanks to U.S. aid—it was now capable of coping with the civilian population. The Army isn’t going to fight the Russians. It’s planning to fight the Iranian people.”

The backlash to all this led in 1979 to the Islamic Revolution and massive anti-Americanism. This in turn led to the Iranian hostage crisis, where fifty-two U.S. embassy staff were held captive by students who stormed the embassy compound that had been used to orchestrate much of the 1953 coup. The students declared that they had unmasked a “nest of spies” that had been manipulating Iran for decades. The hostage crisis, along with the new regime’s open hard-line hostility toward America, contributed greatly to the spread of Islamic militancy and Iran’s pariah status in the West.

Although oil had been the coup’s real motivating factor, the “textbook” Western justification for the CIA’s action was that Mossadegh had to be removed to prevent a communist takeover of Iran since he was something of a communist sympathizer. Mossadegh was actually a rich feudal-minded Persian who had not only kept the ban on the Iranian Communist Party in place but had brutally crushed one of their demonstrations. He had also successfully campaigned against the lingering Soviet occupation of northern Iran after the Second World War, and had been instrumental in parliament’s rejection of proposals to form a joint Soviet and Iranian oil company. In 1951,
Time
magazine described Mossadegh as “the Iranian George Washington” and named him “Man of the Year.”

A classified CIA document obtained by the
New York Times
that details the secret history of the coup had the following to say about the day hundreds lost their lives, the CIA successfully destroyed democracy in Iran, and in its place was installed a barbaric police state: “It was a day that should never have ended, for it carried with it such a sense of excitement, of satisfaction and of jubilation that it is doubtful whether any other can come up to it.”

I
t is unlikely that Tehran will ever be added to Milan, Paris, London, and New York as a fashion capital of the world.

I got my first encounter with Iranian party wear when getting ready to go to tonight’s illegal “knees up.” I had been planning to go in fairly casual clothing, until, that is, Pedram, who was wearing a full suit with frilly shirt and tie, saw my outfit. He looked at me as if I was in dire need of a fashion transplant and politely suggested that I borrow some of his clothing. This proved impossible since he was shorter than me, so he quickly called Ali, who was suitably proportioned, and arranged for him to have an outfit waiting for me at his house.

On arrival there, I was presented with skintight black trousers that flared at the ankles, a frilly patterned blue shirt, and worst of all, a pair of very cheesy leather shoes with big long pointed ends. Not just slightly pointed, I stress, but reaching out past the functional part of the shoe by at least a third of the total length. Anywhere else in the world I’d look like a complete knob, but for Iran I was styling it!

I was all excited and slightly nervous at the thought of going to an illegal party that could get busted, and I wondered what the hell it was going to be like. We parked and rang the bell. The door was opened by the first hijab-free girl I had seen in Iran—this was promising. What I saw next wasn’t what I expected, and by the look on Pedram’s face, it wasn’t what he expected either.

Sitting on chairs placed neatly against the walls of the apartment were similarly dressed, subdued-looking guests delicately selecting and eating pieces of fruit from plates on their laps. It was about as wild and exciting as a vicar’s parish tea party for members of the local choral society—and that’s at a push. Pedram and I were handed a plate of fruit, a glass of lemonade, and were shown to our specified seats, which had our names written on them on little labels—rock and roll!

I found it all quite funny, but poor Pedram looked mortified and like me had obviously been expecting something a bit more on the lively side. Even the party girl’s family was here, including, by the looks of it, Gramps. The only hint of illicit behavior was that none of the girls wore their hijabs and a couple of them were dressed rather on the risky side, at least for Iran. Two had low cut tops, and one even sported a tattoo of a tiger on her ample left breast.

Very nice.

The party began proper when a guy with similar pointed shoes to mine put some Iranian pop music on the stereo. Everybody got up in unison and danced to this in the center of the room in the most bizarre manner I’ve ever seen. It looked like the sort of dancing fake Kazakhstani reporter Borat would do, and many of the guests had mustaches that he’d have been proud of as well. When the track was over, everybody sat down and politely applauded. This was repeated several times.

When everybody had indulged in several slices of melon and glasses of lemonade and was feeling really crazy, they all got up and did a joint conga-type dance around the room. This went on for ages, and it’s got to be said, it was bloody boring and the initial novelty and amusement wore off pretty quick. Pedram and I sat these dances out, and just when I was thinking how much I wanted a drink, my prayers were answered and Pedram whispered that one of the guys had some whisky in the kitchen and asked if I’d like some.

Damn right I did.

We both took our leave from the “dance floor” and went into the kitchen. We were joined by the whisky owner, who was more than happy to share his stash. He poured us a couple of stiff shots from a can. It was lucky we got a few drinks down as when we returned to the wild debauchery of the sitting room, Pedram and I were cajoled into getting up and shaking our asses on the dance floor, whilst everybody else watched.

Apart from Pedram, there was only one other person at the “party” who spoke English, but Pedram was determined to get me to speak a bit of Farsi. He persuaded me to go up to the girl with the tattoo and her friend, and say in Farsi, “
Shoma khoshgelly
,” which I learnt afterward means, “You are beautiful.”

To tell two strangers at a party back home that they’re beautiful would of course be considered lame to say the least, but here in Iran it was the height of sophistication. They loved it and both insisted on a dance with me—together! And who was I to disappoint such lovely ladies? I was expecting a rather conservative boogie but was pleasantly surprised to find myself sandwiched between them in a delightfully pleasing bump and grind. Everybody else formed a circle around us clapping. It was alas the only highlight in an otherwise very subdued and boring party, which seemed to go on and on forever. The irony is that this inoffensive gathering was still illegal, and on the way back to Pedram’s place, he asked me not to mention it to his parents.

The next day was my last with Pedram and the boys, so it was decided we’d all go outside of the city to Fasham for a barbecue. We all went Dutch and each chipped in for the necessary foods, which included a load of diced chicken, tomatoes, olives, naan bread, colas, and much more. On the way there, both cars drove in a manner I was now getting used to, which was far too fast and bloody dangerous.

On our way there, Pedram told me that slightly farther along the road was a ski resort called Shemshak, where he skied regularly during the winter. Although most people outside of Iran are unaware of it, Iran has twenty ski resorts decked out with modern infrastructure, some of which rival the best the West has to offer, and all of which cost a fraction of the price you’d pay to ski in Europe or the U.S. If you doubt this, then check out the excellent YouTube short film “Skiing in Iran” about an English-speaking Malaysian family who visited the slopes.

It took us maybe an hour of speeding until we got well out of the city and reached a little dirt track next to a dried up stony riverbed. We arrived in the early afternoon, parked up, and got out on foot, carrying all the gear with us. We hiked along the riverbed, which was surrounded by lush green trees and would have been a stunning area except for all the piles of trash. It looked as if the culprits had come out here especially to have a meal in a natural environment but couldn’t be bothered to try to keep it that way afterward.

We found a nice little grassy section on the banks of the river, shaded by several small trees. Here we stopped and rolled out a large carpet to sit on. Being a keen camper and survival enthusiast, I located the perfect place for our cooking fire, which was nearby, and, crucially, on a mound of bare earth. This not only makes it easier to clean up afterward but, more importantly, prevents the fire from spreading or setting the ground alight, which can sometimes flare up weeks later. Everybody rejected my location, and I was encouraged just to sit back, relax, and have a drink, whilst Ali, the firemaster, did the hard work. I thought “what the hell” and let them get on with it.

They selected a place in the riverbed and surrounded it with river rocks to place the skewers on top of and cook the meat. I tried explaining that they didn’t want to use river rocks, as they can explode when heated because of the moisture in them, but my warning fell on deaf ears. They laid out the fire in the most haphazard way imaginable and failed repeatedly to get it going, even with loads of paper and cigarette lighters. I decided not to get involved, but this was easier said than done, as on a couple of occasions I’ve taught classes on survival skills, which have included how to light a fire by friction and, believe it or not, how to get a fire going from a can of Coke and a bar of chocolate.

“Say what?” I hear you cry from your comfy armchair. For those of you now scratching your head, I’ll elaborate. You take a cold can of Coke and carefully pour its contents into a glass containing ice and a thick slice of lemon. Be extra careful not to lose any cola from bubbles fizzing up past the rim of the glass. Now, take a long, well-earned drink. Mmmm. That was refreshing wasn’t it?

Okay now for the fire bit. On the bottom of a Coke can, or indeed the bottom of any drink can, is a small concaved area of exposed aluminum with a slightly rough matte finish. What you need to do is turn this rough area into a polished reflector so as to harness and magnify the sun’s rays onto whatever surface you wish to light (best not to try this on a four-foot-thick log, so I suggest a small highly combustible material like char cloth).

This is where the chocolate comes in. Since it is slightly abrasive, you can use the chocolate as a polish to buff up the rough concaved surface to the point where it has a mirror finish and you can see your face in it, which if you’ve bought this book is no doubt a highly attractive face—and even more so if you recommend it to a friend or give it five stars on
Amazon.com
. It’s important to note here that you should never eat the chocolate after you’ve used it, for it will contain tiny fragments of aluminum from the can, which can make you very ill.

This polishing will probably take the best part of thirty minutes to complete. All you need now is some sunshine, and you’ll be as happy as a dog with two dicks.