Negative / Positive
A Criticism of the Western Press
Welcome to the HOVEYDA
Site, the primer place on the Net to get ideas on IRAN, past and present! Some of my
scripts take advantage of fourth generation browsers (IE 4.x and/or NS 4.x), with emphasis
on practicality and backwards compatibility, like the following one. It is about a
particulary dark image of Iran which was spread by the media in the 1970s. At that time
the media enjoyed defining Iran as a bloody dictatorship and the Shah as a tyrant reigning
through intimidation and terror with his military establishment and his torture practicing
secret police (SAVAK); the Shah, his family, and entourage looted the wealth
of the country; the masses lived in abject misery while a minority of rich people in the
cities enjoyed untold riches; the Shah and his government were American stooges helped by
the CIA; and what not. Curiously enough, this image began to unfold at a moment when Iran
for the first time in centuries was fast advancing toward economic and social progress; in
the 1960s an incipient though incomplete land reform had shaken the feudal system of
agriculture and deeply reduced the power of the landlords and the tribal chieftains;
the government, with the exception of the military and the police, was operated by a
younger generation of educated Iranians who represented a large array of social classes as
well as philosophical and political beliefs. That grim picture popped up at a moment when
for the first time in their lives, peasants could eat decently and send their children to
schools and later universities. It came at a time when a real middle class was developing
in cities, at a moment when the income per capita was rising above the two thousand
dollars mark… It is as if the media in the 1970s was using the NEGATIVE of
Iran’s photograph, forgetting to print a “POSITIVE” from that
“negative.” Since 1979, an arbitrary theocratic regime replaced the monarchy.
Its Human rights record is much worse than of its predecessor. Its secret police (VAVAK)
repeatedly murders opponents inside and outside Iran. On the economic level it has been
disastrous. Standards of living have dwindled. Inflation is sky highand corruption
is widespread. The poors have become much poorer and the rich much richer. It promotes and
support terrorism on the international level. It opposes peace in the Middle East…Yet
the media reacts very mildly and the Western governments gloss over its misdeeds. But
whenever journalists and diplomats refer to Iran’s past , they show the
“negative,” as if the positive image of the past never existed. I, for
one, have kept one of these positive inprint. Listening to voices coming out of the 20
years old theocracy, it seems that many Iranians of the inside, have discovered
copies of the positive print… The image is not of a perfect social and political
order… Nevertheless it shows a once much brighter society in the making…
Enjoy!