Shah of Shahs (12 page)

 

What should one write to ruin an adversary? The best thing is to prove he is not one of us—the stranger, alien, foreigner. To this end we create the category of the true family. We here, you and I, the authorities and the nation, are a true family. We live in unity, among our own kind. We have the same roof over our heads, we sit at the same table, we know how to get along with each other, how to help each other out. Unfortunately, we are not alone. All around us are hordes of strangers, aliens, foreigners who want to destroy our peace and quiet and take over our home. What is a stranger? Above all, a stranger is someone worse than us—and dangerous at the same time. If only he were merely worse, and left well enough alone! Not a chance! He is going to muddy the waters, make trouble, destroy. He is going to set us at odds with each other, make fools of us, break us. The stranger lies in wait for you. He is the cause of your misfortunes. And where does his power come from? From the fact that there are strange (foreign, alien) forces behind him. These forces may be identified or not, but one thing is certain: They are powerful. Or rather, they are powerful if we treat them lightly. If, on the other hand, we remain vigilant and keep fighting, then we will be stronger. Now look at Khomeini. There's a stranger for you. His grandfather came from India, so let's ask ourselves: Whose interest is this foreigner's grandson serving? That was the first part of the article. The second part had to do with health. What a great thing it is that we're healthy! For our true family is also a healthy family. Of sound body and mind. To whom do we owe this health? To our authorities, who have assured us a good, happy life and are therefore the best authorities under the sun. And who could oppose such authorities? Only someone devoid of common sense. Since ours are the best authorities, it would take a madman to fight against them. A sound community must identify such fools and send them away, into isolation. Thus, it's a good thing the Shah expelled him from the country. Otherwise, Khomeini would have had to be locked up in a lunatic asylum.

 

When this newspaper article reached Qom, it made the people indignant. They congregated in the streets and the squares. Those who could read read aloud to the others. The commotion drew people into larger and larger groups, shouting and debating—interminable debating is a passion with the Iranians, anywhere, at any time of day or night. The groups most agitated by this incessant talk were like magnets; they kept attracting new listeners, until in the end a massive crowd had assembled in the main square. And that is exactly the thing that the police most dislike. Who gave permission for this great mass? Nobody. No permission has been given. And who gave them permission to shout? To wave their hands around? The police know in advance that these were rhetorical questions and that it was time to get down to business.

***

Now the most important moment, the moment that will determine the fate of the country, the Shah, and the revolution, is the moment when one policeman walks from his post toward one man on the edge of the crowd, raises his voice, and orders the man to go home. The policeman and the man on the edge of the crowd are ordinary, anonymous people, but their meeting has historic significance. They are both adults, they have both lived through certain events, they have both had their individual experiences. The policeman's experience: If I shout at someone and raise my truncheon, he will first go numb with terror and then take to his heels. The experience of the man at the edge of the crowd: At the sight of an approaching policeman I am seized by fear and start running. On the basis of these experiences we can elaborate a scenario: The policeman shouts, the man runs, others take flight, the square empties. But this time everything turns out differently. The policeman shouts, but the man doesn't run. He just stands there, looking at the policeman. It's a cautious look, still tinged with fear, but at the same time tough and insolent. So that's the way it is! The man on the edge of the crowd is looking insolently at uniformed authority. He doesn't budge. He glances around and sees the same look on other faces. Like his, their faces are watchful, still a bit fearful, but already firm and unrelenting. Nobody runs though the policeman has gone on shouting; at last he stops. There is a moment of silence. We don't know whether the policeman and the man on the edge of the crowd already realize what has happened. The man has stopped being afraid—and this is precisely the beginning of the revolution. Here it starts. Until now, whenever these two men approached each other, a third figure instantly intervened between them. That third figure was fear. Fear was the policeman's ally and the man in the crowd's foe. Fear interposed its rules and decided everything. Now the two men find themselves alone, facing each other, and fear has disappeared into thin air. Until now their relationship was charged with emotion, a mixture of aggression, scorn, rage, terror. But now that fear has retreated, this perverse, hateful union has suddenly broken up; something has been extinguished. The two men have now grown mutually indifferent, useless to each other; they can go their own ways. Accordingly, the policeman turns around and begins to walk heavily back toward his post, while the man on the edge of the crowd stands there looking at his vanishing enemy.

 

Fear: a predatory, voracious animal living inside us. It does not let us forget it's there. It keeps eating at us and twisting our guts. It demands food all the time, and we see that it gets the choicest delicacies. Its preferred fare is dismal gossip, bad news, panicky thoughts, nightmare images. From a thousand pieces of gossip, portents, ideas, we always cull the worst ones—the ones that fear likes best. Anything to satisfy the monster and set it at ease. Here we see a man listening to someone talking, his face pale and his movements restless. What's going on? He is feeding his fear. And what if we have nothing to feed it with? We make something up, feverishly. And what if (seldom though this may occur) we can't make anything up? We rush to other people, look for them, ask questions, listen and gather portents, for as long as it takes to satiate our fear.

***

All books about all revolutions begin with a chapter that describes the decay of tottering authority or the misery and sufferings of the people. They should begin with a psychological chapter, one that shows how a harassed, terrified man suddenly breaks his terror, stops being afraid. This unusual process, sometimes accomplished in an instant like a shock or a lustration, demands illuminating. Man gets rid of fear and feels free. Without that there would be no revolution.

 

The policeman returns to his post and reports to the commander. The commander sends in the riflemen and orders them to take up positions on the roofs of the houses around the square. He himself drives to the center of town and uses loudspeakers to call on the crowd to disperse. But no one wants to listen. So he withdraws to a safe place and gives the order to open fire. Automatic-weapons fire cascades onto the heads of the people. Panic breaks out, there is tumult, those who can, escape. Then the shooting stops. The dead remain on the square.

It is not known whether the Shah was shown the pictures of this square photographed by the police after the massacre. Let's say that he was. Let's say that he wasn't. The Shah worked a great deal, and he may not have had time. His working day began at seven in the morning and ended at midnight. He actually rested only in winter, when he went to St. Moritz to ski. Even there he allowed himself only two or three runs before returning to his residence and going back to work. Recalling these occasions, Madame L. states that the Empress behaved very democratically at St. Moritz. As evidence she produces a photograph showing the Empress waiting in line for the ski lift. Yes, just like that—standing there, leaning on her skis, a smart, pleasant woman. And yet, says Madame L., they had so much money that she could have ordered a ski lift built just for herself!

 

The dead are wrapped in white sheets and laid on wooden biers here. The pallbearers walk briskly, breaking into a trot at times, creating an impression of great haste. The whole procession hurries, there are cries and lamentations, the mourners are restless and uneasy. It is as if the dead man's very presence exasperates them, as if they want to commit him to the earth immediately. Afterwards they lay out food on the grave and the funeral banquet takes place. Whoever passes by is invited to join in and given food. Those who are not hungry get only some fruit, an apple or an orange, but everyone must eat something.

 

On the following day, the period of commemoration begins. People ponder the dead man's life, his kind heart and upright character. This period lasts forty days. On the fortieth day, family, friends, and acquaintances gather in the home of the deceased. Neighbors collect around the house—the whole street, the whole village, a crowd of people. It is a crowd of commemoration, a lamenting crowd. Pain and grief reach their piercing apogee, their mourning, desperate crescendo. If the death was natural, congruent with the usual human lot, this gathering—which can go on round the clock—consists of some hours of ecstatic, pathetic discharge, followed by a mood of dulled and humble resignation. But if the death was a violent one, inflicted by somebody, a spirit of retaliation and a thirst for revenge seize the people. In an atmosphere of unfettered wrath and aggravated hatred, they pronounce the name of the killer, the author of their sorrow. And it is believed that, even if he is far away, he will shudder at that moment: Yes, his days are numbered.

 

A nation trampled by despotism, degraded, forced into the role of an object, seeks shelter, seeks a place where it can dig itself in, wall itself off, be itself. This is indispensable if it is to preserve its individuality, its identity, even its ordinariness. But a whole nation cannot emigrate, so it undertakes a migration in time rather than in space. In the face of the encircling afflictions and threats of reality, it goes back to a past that seems a lost paradise. It regains its security in customs so old and therefore so sacred that authority fears to combat them. This is why a gradual rebirth of old customs, beliefs, and symbols occurs under the lid of every dictatorship—in opposition to, against the will of the dictatorship. The old acquires a new sense, a new and provocative meaning. This happens hesitantly and often secretly at first, but as the dictatorship grows increasingly unbearable and oppressive, the strength and scope of the return to the old increase. Some voices call this a regressive return to the middle ages. So it may be. But more often, this is the way the people vent their opposition. Since authority claims to represent progress and modernity, we will show that our values are different. This is more a matter of political spite than a desire to recapture the forgotten world of the ancestors. Only let life get better and the old customs lose their emotional coloration to become again what they were—a ritual form.

***

Such a ritual, suddenly transformed into a political act under the influence of the growing opposition spirit, was the commemoration of the dead forty days after their death. What had been a ceremony of family and neighbors turned into a protest meeting. Forty days after the Qom events, people gathered in the mosques of many Iranian towns to commemorate the victims of the massacre. In Tabriz, the tension grew so high that an insurrection broke out. A crowd marched through the street shouting "Death to the Shah." The army rolled in and drowned the city in blood. Hundreds were killed, thousands were wounded. After forty days, the towns went into mourning—it was time to commemorate the Tabriz massacre. In one town—Isfahan—a despairing, angry crowd welled into the streets. The army surrounded the demonstrators and opened fire; more people died. Another forty days pass and mourning crowds now assemble in dozens of towns to commemorate those who fell in Isfahan. There are more demonstrations and massacres. Forty days later, the same thing repeats itself in Meshed. Next it happens in Teheran, and then in Teheran again. In the end it is happening in nearly every city and town.

 

Thus the Iranian revolution develops in a rhythm of explosions succeeding each other at forty-day intervals. Every forty days there is an explosion of despair, anger, blood. Each time the explosion is more horrible—bigger and bigger crowds, more and more victims. The mechanism of terror begins to run in reverse. Terror is used in order to terrify. But now, the terror that the authorities apply serves to excite the nation to new struggles and new assaults.

 

The Shah's reflex was typical of all despots: Strike first and suppress, then think it over: What next? First display muscle, make a show of strength, and later perhaps demonstrate you also have a brain. Despotic authority attaches great importance to being considered strong, and much less to being admired for its wisdom. Besides, what does wisdom mean to a despot? It means skill in the use of power. The wise despot knows when and how to strike. This continual display of power is necessary because, at root, any dictatorship appeals to the lowest instincts of the governed: fear, aggressiveness toward one's neighbors, bootlicking. Terror most effectively excites such instincts, and fear of strength is the wellspring of terror.

 

A despot believes that man is an abject creature. Abject people fill his court and populate his environment. A terrorized society will behave like an unthinking, submissive mob for a long time. Feeding it is enough to make it obey. Provided with amusements, it's happy. The rather small arsenal of political tricks has not changed in millennia. Thus, we have all the amateurs in politics, all the ones convinced they would know how to govern if only they had the authority. Yet surprising things can also happen. Here is a well-fed and well-entertained crowd that stops obeying. It begins to demand something more than entertainment. It wants freedom, it demands justice. The despot is stunned. He doesn't know how to see a man in all his fullness and glory. In the end such a man threatens dictatorship, he is its enemy. So it gathers its strength to destroy him.