amirkabear4u Jan

I never take criticisms against the shah or my beliefs personally, I read them and respond when I think the question or the observation deserves a response.

In your case here ... I truly don't think it deserves a response because I don't think you actually are looking for an answer since you have already made up your mind ( and boy I could take each of your comments and offer a counter argument).

But I will still try to give you one nevertheless ...

We can live our entire lives hating an individual, a system of government or set of beliefs and yet not have the intellectual honesty of asking ourselves : "Have I been wrong all these years ?"

Someone like Abbas Milani has made that effort ... as he rightly observed I understand the difference between a genuine desire to debate and "moch geery" ...

You folks are only interested in "moch geery" ... not in the truth ... 

By that I don't mean you have anything against me in particular ... nor that I take it personally ... 

I think ... and Your use of CAPITAL letters very much like that other Likemind P_J whenever anything is posted on the Pahlavi Era ... only highlights one thing : Your own Personal INSECURITY !

But that's OK ... 

All I can say is that the Quest for TRUTH is far more exciting and fun and educational and allows us to have a better understanding of who we are as a society, a people and ultimately as individuals on this planet which belongs to us all. 

Since we are talking and drawing comparisons to other nations ( European or American or other) ... I have to say that I have rarely seen any other nation, it's people or it's historians to view history in Black & White  as some of you folks do, day in and out,  only to credit yourselves and your often moralist observations on your own historical figures or events.

Iranians tend to think just because someone has been martyred ... that makes that person : Good. 

That has made us admire Losers in history : Ranging from Amir Kabir to Mossadegh, to Hossein Fatemi, to Gobtzadeh, to name a few ...

Where are the Winners ?

Your Punch line as well as those of EsfandAashena finds as common denominator to justify your own point of view that Your Assessment is in the defense of the "Masses" You believe share your outrage.

Ultimately in your view because the "masses" think this ... therefore it's true ... 

It's a convenient way of not taking the slightest intellectual responsibility for your own beliefs and for the choices that maybe you or your family have made in the past, hence putting ALL the Blame on the Shah as when it comes to the Mullahs.

You wil retain ONLY that the Shah was responsible for the creation of Hojjatieh's but you will not hold Mossadegh Responsible for dissolving the Parliament which was a Royal Prerogative and which ultimately led to his LEGAL dismissal.

You will even go as far as blame the Shah for having brought Islam to Iran ... when in fact we have been muslims for 14 Centuries prior to the Pahlavis:

Shah Admonishes The Working Class: "Stop Praying All Day and Roll Up Your Sleeves"

and most probably like Hamid Dabashi you will even go as far as blaming the Pahlavis for the Holocaust ... but miss out why they are praised by Iranian Jews to this day:

LITTLE PERSIA : Portrait of Shah and Crown Prince Reza in Tel-Aviv Iranian Restaurant

I could go on and on ... as I have often have with Your Recurrent Anti Pahlavi Bias by trying to offer evidence which would contradict much of what you claim but to what purpose ? 

I don't intend to change your opinion if you have already made up yours. The fact that I am even taking the time to respond is not always aimed at convincing you but hoping that when readers read our exchange they can draw their own conclusions on who is truly trying to make a balanced opinion on a given event or personality and who is merely interested in "moch geery" 

One even wonders if you are genuinely interested in reading a historical Biography on the Shah as let's say a French Man would want to read one on Napoleon, De Gaulle or Robespierre or an American on Eisenhower, Jimmy Carter or Kennedy, or a German on Hitler, Rommel or Frederick the Great ... in the bid to LEARN & UNDERSTAND ( using capital letters when it matters ) 

You will probably read Abbas Milani only to look for the answers which can help justify your recurrent and nearly pathological hatred of all things related to the Shah and his era but miss out the big picture of what the historian is trying to convey and which could help you understand why we are in the mess we are today.

Had I been a Fanatic or as reduced by many of you Jomhurykhahs ( secular or not) to a Shahollahi ( often not even understanding what an oxymoron that is) would I be posting things or comments by the Shah which I would know would present him in a negative light ?

As Mark Antony would say in Shakespeare's Play Julius Caesar but applied to the Shah I would say:

"I'm not here to praise the Shah but to bury him" (*)

(*) which does not mean I'm burying the institution he embodied: The Monarchy, for that matter ;0) 

Milani who shares my interest in Shakespeare and yet with whom I disagree on many things he has said or written is at least right on one thing: Iranians love to look at Everything in History in BLACK & WHITE, If one is for the Shah or Mossadegh they will either See these man as Evil or Saints ... That is not what history is about. Even when one reads a biography on a given political leader what we are trying to learn about is also who we were as individuals, what kind of society were we living in and why did we end up having the types of problems we have been faced with in our lifetimes. In otherwords History is not just about Individuals ... it's about trying to understand the COLLECTIVE behavior of nations. 

The Shah, his mindset, his outlook on himself and the world surrounding him was also a product of that very society he tried to transform and the contradictions of his time. You like our other IC contributor and die hard feminist Azadeh Azad will probably only retain the Shah's male and macho comments on Woman's intellectual inferiority as in his interview with Barbara Walters:

WOMEN KNOW YOUR LIMITS: The Shah's Post Mortem Apologies to Barbara Walters and Oriana Fallaci

But will miss out ALL that was done by his Dynasty to help women prove him wrong:

pictory: Promotional Film on Women during Pahlavi Era (1970's)

WOMEN GET TO VOTE: Female Crowd Gratefully Gather At Shah's Palace (1963)

What You Fail to accept is that Human beings are imperfect. Nobody is without his or her share of shortcomings ... but there comes a time when our judgement has to be shaped upon a minimum of fairness otherwise all we are doing is repeating clichés and not seeking that existential truth about a given individual's personality which happens to be in a position which shaped the destiny of a nation and ultimately influenced our lives for better or for worse.

It's that fairness which will help us as a nation to come to terms with our past, and move forward ... otherwise what image are we projecting to the world, to the people who judge us as a nation other than a bunch of ignorant and ultimately laughing stock ?

It is precisely the type of generalizations and immature outlooks and "Pavolovian" reactions like yours and that of your likeminds which has allowed the British and other foreign powers to manipulate us as a nation throughout the past century. Churchill was right to judge us Iranians and middle easterner as a "little people" ... we have proved him right for ALL the Wrong Reasons.   

This is why I think to just highlight the Worse but never see the Better or the Good that was done is precisely what probably distinguishes an objective assessment or at least a desire to draw a logical conclusion and one which merely aims at finding excuses for ourselves. 

In the same way Khamenei is a son of the same land and tomorrow anyone who claims to be a genuine historian will have to look back at our contemporary era in order to try and draw a pertinent observation on not just his personality and system of government but also the society over which he is ruling. 

We cannot reduce people to merely clichés if we genuinely want to understand how they think. We have to put ourselves in their shoes and wonder if we could have done any better. Otherwise to draw the types of conclusions like JJ's above is fine ... but I wonder if JJ would have pulled it off any better in the same situation.

History is about THAT Existential truth which helps us define ourselves as a society and which can help other nations to better understand who we are.

And it is not with such childish generalizations and rapid conclusions like yours that you will ever be able to get  even close to that existential truth which any genuine intellectual hopes to discover.   

People don't merely become who they are all by themselves. They are also the product of who we make them to be.

Is the Shah responsible for some of the things that have happened not just to him, the system of government he inherited by birth right, or the revolution that unfolded and overthrew him ? YES.

Is he the ONLY person responsible for all that followed and continues to this day ? Definitively NOT !

The French say : "Nous Avons les Hommes Politiques qu'on mérite" ( i.e: We have the politicians we deserve)

Well given what we have today ... I suppose we most probably didn't deserve the Shah otherwise we would have not ended up with what we have today by conveniently blaming him for our ( or at least Your) Poor Choice !

Straight from Khomeini's mouth

I rest my case

DK

Recommended Watching:

Niall Ferguson on dangers of historical ignorance @ The Cambridge Union Society