Usually their excesses, coupled with their unattainable beauty and arrogance get on the hungry and piss-poor population's last nerve and said population revolts.
Whatever is happening in the Middle East now - Tunis, Yemen, Egypt, Libya - is nothing new. Almost 30 years ago impoverished people of Iran ousted their hated last king and his gorgeous wife, Empress Farah Pahlavi in a powerful revolution.
Farah Pahlavi was a beauty. She recieved european education, had an amazing taste and even more astonishing appetite for luxury. YSL did her dresses, Andy Warhol did her portraits and Jackie O was her friend.
People of Iran, however, were not amused.
Unfortunately, whatever her faults were, Farah Pahlavi paid for them tenfold.
Countries that initially welcomed exiled imperial couple later asked them to leave, her husband passed away shortly from cancer and her 31 year old daughter died after battling anorexia/depression/bulimia.
At the beginning of this year her youngest son committed suicide.
On this sad note I leave you to marvel at this jewel of Persia and count your own blessings...
7 comments:
hi interesting pictures. However it is to be noted that you wrote this article in quite a biased view in my opinion. Iran was not impoverished before '79 as the media suggests it is today.
It was the second strongest economy in asia behind japan and the people were very well off, university was free, gdp and inflation were at very healthy levels etc.
The pictures you show are most likely low class rural peoples. Glamourous she was, classy yes, but that is not the reason they iranian royals were 'ousted'. Kind regards Jean.
hey jean!
first off - thx for expressing your point so very eloquently.
secondly - would you care to tell why, in your opinion Irani revolution happened? from what marxist theory i remember revolution is a class strugle, when well-offs don't want any changes, and unfortunate ones can't leave without changes anymore. Wasn't that the case in Iran?
This revolution was rather unique in that it wasn't caused by a peasant uprising or a poor economy - it was caused largely by religion. The emperor was seen as a puppet of western powers (which he probably was) and was too into westernization for the comfort of the Shi'a leaders. While other political parties and movements were repressed, the religious far right were unwatched and they were the cause for the uprising. The corruption in the government did not help matters any.
A deeply religious person can believe anything their religious leaders tell them - I've seen this with the Catholic faith and it's no different in Islamic communities where they look to their religious leaders for guidance and support.
Thanks Anon! Ahh, i wish i could address you by your name :) So, here is the deal - we'll have agree to disagree. I personally believe that religion is a vehicle for a revolution, not a cause of it. People were opressed and repressed by various causes, which you've mentioned and they turned to their religious leaders to rectify the situation.
Love the way you write and pls. don't be a stranger!
Hey Jean....first of all,have y ever been in Iran???!!!! in my opinion,you should go and have a look,then write about it or atleast do yr research first....there is no such a thing as an impoverished iranian people.....the girls are far more pretty than arab ones and they are far more stylished as what you see in Dubai nowadays or even from your little town in US.....those photos you put it on here belongs to 3,4 decade ago and it taken from somewhere in the village far from any big cities…even now, the people in the villages in Iran they don’t wear like this anymore……if you pay more attention...you can see heaps of Iranian people(which they call themselves persians) living in Dubai nowadays and they are the only ones from middle east that they don't cover up at all while they are living in Dubai and they are super stylish people....
Finally,as a suggestion,y don't need even to go iran,you just can simply go to their functions in Dubai like the charshanbe soori one or any another functions(persian night) that they have in Armani/Prive club in dubai!!!!I am happy to send you some previous photos of their functions and the persian people who are living in Dubai at the moment and then you tell me what d y think????
p.s. I am iranian girl,used to live in Dubai,Malaysia and now in Melbourne,Australia....
i appreciate this post very much, as farah pahlavi is a huge style icon of mine, but i must agree with some of the other comments that this post was quite biased.
my parents, and most of my family grew up in iran before the revolution (they were in their early 20's when it happened, so they were the ones revolting) How can i say this....basically the people of iran took their country for granted. ive written numurous amounts of essays on the iranian revolution and done lots of research. basically the revolution was caused by 3 things
1. westernization - the people of iran didn't appreciate the idea of becoming so westernized, & they wanted to keep their culture.
2. religion - i can go on with this one forever, but it was a great cause. the evil khomeini was looked upon as a fatherly figure and promised the people of iran their culture back and blabla (similiar to how hitler was looked upon as a father figure in germany). but once the revolution happened khomeini himself said that everything he said was bullshit and he executed millions of people (even those who helped him gain power)
3. the shah having too much power - there was a secret police, and the shah basically had control over EVERYTHING. people were angry, especially the younger generation (university students) and so the great revolt began.
& the images you have of iran before '79 are very stereotypical images you would find in the news about the middle east. iran had peace, women had rights, people were educated, people were civilized, ....ect.
ask anyone who lived before the revolution and they will tell you how perfect it was and that the people of iran took it for granted.
with all this said, nice blog :)
Dear Merhnaz,
Thank you for taking time and writing such a thoughtful comment.
From what I gather from yours and others comments is that Iran was a great country to live in, beautiful, tolerant, with vell educated population.
So why the revolution then?
You know what I mean? I think in hindsight Iranians appreciate what they had before the revolution and hats off to them for trying to makes things right - green movement, etc.
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