Impressions of my visit to Iran: 29 April to 5 May

"My guide" and sister in the beautiful garden of the Golestan Palace in Teheran.

I could not testify.....that this country is governed by a "terror regime" as written in our newspapers. During my short stay, I always had the feeling that I could walk freely around. The security at the airports was as relaxed as in, for instance, Brazil. The people I met on the street were very kind, also to my female guide. They laugh, but seem a little shy; in the basars they did not "attack" a sightseer like me; they resembled the people I met in Israel, but did not display their self-assurance; they could wait patiently, except in the traffic. If these people are suppressed, they in any case do not discharge their anger in loud music in restaurants and cars like the Brazilians do and we, perhaps, too. At the university and in the streets, we talked freely about our interests, about religious habits, western movies or Persian culture, but ... nót about politics.

My guide, checking slides before her presentation for the thesis defense session at the Institute in Zanjan

Smoking a waterpipe after dinner at the old Bathhouse-restaurant in the basar of Zanjan. Difficult exercise for my knees....

I did not know that....10000 Rials is 1$ and that the Iranian banknotes show us a story of development from Islamic fundamentalism to Iranian nationalism. The old 2000 bill still shows the Grand Mosque in Mecca. The newer 20000 bill shows the beautiful Imam Square in Esfahan, where cheerful and hilarious schoolgirls asked me: "From where do you come, Sir?", "How do you like the country?" and "Are you an Imam?". On the last 50000 bill the map of Iran shows the Persian Gulf and the symbol of an atom emphasizing the importance of science with the saying: "If knowledge will be in the sky (in the Pleiades) Persians cértainly will catch it". But how can this be reconciled with Islamic teaching (4-5 h a week in primary school) where children are taught biology without reference to evolution? They still learn how to consider the wonders of nature as La Condamine did in the 18th century: all is created by God to be enjoyed and admired by us, Humans.

Surrounded by cheerful schoolgirls, wearing an easy-to-wear  "maghnaéh" instead of a headscarf, on the large Imam Square in Esfahan.

Rial-banknotes showing a development from Islamic fundamentalism to Iranian nationalism.

I did not know that.... Iran has about 77 million inhabitants of which more than 3 million are university students. About half of them is female. After the revolution in 1979 the governement (i.e. Khomeini) stimulated women to go to school and university, but forced them also to wear the chador (loose-fitting coat) and the headscarf.

In this Islamic country I had expected to hear every 5 hours the loudspeakers on mosques or minarets, just like in Indonesia. Fact is that I only heard them once (at 4:50 am) in Teheran and sometimes, shortly, in the airports. This then is one of the superficial differences between Shi'a and Sunni.

Teheran: everywhere in the streets images of Ayatollah Khomeini (left) and his successor, the Supreme Leader Khamenei (right). They command you "to behave decently" and in return they offer you "peace of mind".

A more profound difference is the use of "prayer stones": small tablets of clay that were often decorated with some simple inscriptions or figures, on which the forehead is placed when stretching to earth during prayer. Sunni's do not use that!

I did not know that....  the Iranians disike Arabs and do not want to speak arabic. After the Islamic conquest (in ~650) the rulers tried to introduce arabic. But thanks to poets like Ferdowsi (a large statue in Teheran honors him), the Persians kept their language. Another famous poet (1195–1226) is remembered on the 100000 Rials banknote: Saadi.

بنى آدم اعضای يك پیکرند

که در آفرينش ز یک گوهرند

چو عضوى به درد آورد روزگار

دگر عضوها را نماند قرار

تو کز محنت دیگران بی غمی

نشاید که نامت نهند آدمی

The poem of Saadi on the 100000 banknote is translated by M. Aryanpoor as:

Human being are members of a whole,

In creation of one essence and soul.

If one member is afflicted with pain,

Other members uneasy will remain.

If you've no sympathy for human pain,

The name of human you cannot retain!

I did not know that....there is more democracy in Iranian governement than Salman Rushdie suggested in an interview when he compared the Iranian Ayatollah's with Nazi-dictators. But the way Imam's get their power is complicated and based on a long tradition in a country that has been ruled by kings for millenia until 1979.

I uderstood from my student-guide that clerics of the Shi'a ("followers of Ali" - the cousin of Mohamed) earn their money and power because, as commanded in religious texts, the people háve to give money to the poor. As this can be a difficult task Imam's come to help and you can now give your money to an Imam that you trust. (Don't we do something similar when a tsunami has occurred and television programs allow us to give our money to get "peace of mind"?).

The Imam has to write theses about new religious subjects (e.g. how should an astronaut pray in space?); he usually has a website and an office. If an Imam gets a lot of money, i.e. when many people trust him, and if he can convince other Imam's that his theses are correct, he can become an Ayatollah and as such a member of the Assembly of Experts: 86 clerics that choose the Supreme Leader. At this moment Rafsanjani is head of the Assembly and the Supreme Leader is Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

But this story is much more complicated and requires additional reading. Also, I think you have to be a catholic to understand all these beliefs and devotions, not a protestant who thinks he is "non-believing".

  

The Jameh Moesque of Isfahan from 771 and rebuilt in the 11th century, decorated with glazed tilework (insert).

Prayer stones used by Shi'a.

In 1971... the 2500th anniversary of the Persian Empire was celebrated by the Shah. I still remember that the concert was broadcasted on dutch television or radio. The expensive and extravagant feast, of which we still saw remnants of deliberately neglected tribunes, paved the way for the return of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979.

Persepolis

I do not know... whether I have seen the poor people in Iran where 45% of the urban population lives "under the poverty line". What I did see was that, compared to Teheran and Zanjan, the towns of Shiraz and Esfahan looked rather rich and remarkably clean! Not like the poverty and filth of South-American cities.

In the bazar of Shiraz a carpet is cleaned by scraping it with a long knife (not visible).

What I did understand is how the war against Iraq (1980-1988) traumatized the entire country. My guide (as a girl of about 8) still remembered seeing the photographs of the war when her father took her to the airport in Shiraz. At this moment it was this town that commemorated for one month the many casualties of the war: throughout town huge posters with photographs had been placed.

Poster in Shiraz to commemorate the war against Iraq (1980-1988)

Breakfast with my guide in the magnificent Hotel Abbasi*****

When passing Natanz on our way from Esfahan to Teheran I saw on the electric wires along the well-maintained 6-lane highway, the beautiful Roller ("Scharrelaar"; Coracias garrulus). Not many other birds except for some swallows and huge Hooded Crows ("Bonte Kraaien").

Passing Natanz we saw the Roller or "Scharrelaar";

picture from: http://www.dutchbirding.nl/news.php?id=274

The death of Osama bin Laden appeared in the Iran News on May 3rd. On May 2nd a taxi driver still told us that it could all be a lie. But travellers at the airport had already heard the news via illegal satellite disks...

Did I see signs of the former opposition? No, but I heard about reformists and the "Green movement" and I got the impression that people were awaiting the outcome of the power struggle between the President and the Supreme Leader. They felt that they were "further" than the Sunni-Arabs revolting in the North-African countries and Syria.

On many balconies in town curtains hide the satellite disks giving access to western TV-programs.

The traffic in Teheran is amazing. It is as if nobody will allow the other car to pass while, without much hassle, a car gets through smoothly whether coming from the right or the left. But my female driver warned me: when they see that you wear a headscarf you have to push harder and be more persevering. If we would drive like this in the Netherlands, with a distance of 20 to 200 cm between the cars depending on velocity, there would be less traffic jams. As there are no traffic lights for pedestrians and zebra crossings seem not to be recognized, I was glad not to have to cross a busy street.

My "female driver" in Teheran traffic, more resolute and faster than most taxi drivers!

Journey to Iran: preparations

Alea jacta est. On January 16, while traveling through the US, I received an invitation from the Institute for Advanced Studies in Basic Science in Zanjan, Iran, to participate in the thesis defense session of a former student.

Going to Iran? Some people advised me not to go to that "vicious country"; others said that it would be an interesting experience... But in that time, the Iranian-Dutch woman Zahra Bahrani (45), was sentenced to death; she was hanged in Tehran on January 29, while we were enjoying a trip to the Monterey Aquarium (see previous Blog). The Dutch governement froze all official contacts with Iran’s “barbaric regime”. Should I go?

In what country was I travelling? Since April 2008, the US carried out 1,099 executions; 3,283 inmates (half of them white) are “on death row” and almost 70% of the people are in favour of the death penalty, although alternative sentences are getting more in favor...

After reading that, I decided to accept the invitation.

With this picture of the late Iranian-dutch Zahra Bahrami, I want to commemorate the more than three thousand people on death row in the US and the people executed in Iran on the occasion of their new year (86 according to Amnesty International).

Visa. When calling the Iranian Enbassy in The Hague I thought the voice was talking a familiar language: hebrew! Later, in the office where women have to wear headscarfs, I heard the greeting "Sálom", resembling the Israeli "Shalóm" (and not the Arabic "Salam").

From where does the Iranian hatred against Israel come? I know that some European historians and Arab leaders and movements (eg. Hamas) deny the Holocaust. But how can a president of a large country as Iran join them? Is it just a helpless act of bullying Israel?

I have many more questions about Iran:

From where does the strong devotion to God come? I know it is not a secular state like ours, where politics and religion are separated, and where we still maintain a "Queen, by the grace of God"....

Why, after chasing the Shah in 1979, did most people accept from Ayatollah Khomeini that there would be an Islamic Republic based on the rules of "one God"? An acceptation that may again occur after the present revolts in the Arabic countries. There were many dissidents that left Iran or were imprisoned after 1979: Will I still be able to see signs of this former opposition? Will I meet people that regret to have accepted the political involvement of the Ayatollah's?

We will see.

Journey to Florida, Texas and California

 From where in the world did the fear come for anthropogenic production of greenhouse gases and climate change?

Certainly not, it seems, from the regions through which we have been travelling: Florida (Vero Beach, January 16 to 23), Texas (Austin, January 23-26) and California (Palo Alto and Granite Bay, January 26 to February 8). Nowhere one can observe any restriction in driving cars (although smaller cars can be observed, even Smarts!), eating large amounts of meat or consuming clean water. California is the world's 19th largest polluter, but this is perhaps not too bad when considering that it is also the world's leading agricultural and food-production region.

Super Bowl football in Arlington, Texas: a Pittsburg "Steeler" dives on a Green Bay "Packer". 

But who can be afraid here? Has not everybody become immune to threats, "super-force" and violence? Watching the Super Bowl XLV ("Steelers" against "Packers; February 6th) on TV one becomes overwhelmed by the velocity and ferocity of the advertisements between the shots of the game.

  

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Florida, Vero Beach: Our host, A.Z. brought us to luxurious West Palm Beach where we visited the Norton Museum of Art. On the way back we passed MacArthur Beach State Park and saw Roseate Spoonbills "between" the skyscrapers. Apart from such nature parks the whole east coast of Florida seems one huge parkland built up with houses or castles and gardens. The parkings at the malls, however, looked rather empty in this high season.....

Lidie and A.Z. in MacArthur State Beach Park on Floridas east coast.

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Texas, Austin: With our host Jim W. we visited the places where we had stayed in 1982/3. During my seminar at UT, I tried to explain that DNA regions within the bacterial nucleoid cannot move fast or "jump" (see "Jumping Frog" below.).

Following a long discussion, James W. drew our attention to the famous Eisenhower farewell address on January 17, 1961. In this speech Eisenhower is speaking truthfully about the military industrial complex that seems to drive America to war again and again in the name of security. We have to watch this movie fully later at home, but for now I wonder whether Iranians and Arabs that see this movie would be confirmed in their fear and hatred against the US.

Rudy's Country Store and Bar-B-Q in Austin, Texas: incredible good meat, relatively cheap and in huge amounts.

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 California, Palo Alto: When driving from the airport at San Jose to Palo Alto, I saw a huge construction that seemed to be very modern and I wondered whether it represented a NASA station. Our host, L.B. told us, however, that it was an hangar built in 1933 to contain an airship larger than the Graf Zeppelin. The colonel brought us to Moffet Federal Airfield where we visited the museum.

Lidie and LB in front of Hangar One at Moffet airport.

Insert: In the museum I found for the first time a picture (silhouette) of a Japanese Navy-O, the plane that shot the Jeep in which my father was sitting (Tjilatjap, Java; March 5, 1942).

California, Granite Bay: Bob W., principal engineer at Fugro West Inc. in Sacramento CA, warns that dutchmen have to be modest here. Around Sacramento exist areas 6 m below sea level protected by levees (dikes), in a water system larger and more complex than in Holland! Responsible for the safety of the levees here is the US Army Corps of Engineers (compare with the dutch Rijkswaterstaat). According to BW the inefficiency of this large administrative and executive organization that also has to deal with the environmentalists is unbelievable.

From a presentation on the comparison of Dutch and American levee safety approaches.

Bo and Els W. brought us to Calaveras County where Mark Twain wrote his humorous story of the Jumping Frog:

"'Maybe you don't,' Smiley says. 'Maybe you understand frogs and maybe you don't understand 'em; maybe you've had experience, and maybe you ain't only a amature, as it were. Anyways, I've got my opinion, and I'll resk forty dolars that he can out jump any frog in Calaveras Country.' It was R. D'Ari who suggested to me the connection with "jumping spots": fast moving, fluorescent DNA regions in bacterial cells, which in my view cannot exist....

Visit to Israel-4

"Elijah’s melons" and some history

La Condamine wrote in his report “Observationson mathematiques et physiques faites dans un voyage de Levant en 1731” about his visit to Jerusalem (see Blog post Oct. 31): “Des pierres, de la grosseur & de la figure d’un pois, que j’ai ramassées dans un champ voisin de Jerusalem, ou elles sont fort communes, quoique’elles soient depuis long-temps recherchées par les Voyageurs.“.

When I told this to Hazorea’s archeologist Dr. Dror Ben-Yosef, he immediately said that these must have been “Elijah’s melons” or “lapides Judaici”. It is the name applied to stones of light brown flint outside, hollow inside, and lined with quartz crystals or chalcedony, the geological "geodes".

See the web site for the myth about Elijah and his melons.

Apparently, at his time La Condamine did not hear much about the origin of these stones.  The first voyage account of the nature of Elijah’s melons I found is from 1849 when Maxime du Camp travelled to the Red Sea.

The grapefruit-sized “Melon of Elijah” (geode) shown to me by Dror Ben-Yosef of kibbutz Hazorea. Were these the stones found by La Condamine?

Laatste dag in de kibbutz, half 6: tegelijk met de melodieuze kreten van de Bulbul, klinken in de verte de vier achtereenvolgende schoten, die in de visvijvers de vogels moeten verjagen.

In de afgelopen week van de viering van Channoch’s 70ste verjaardag, hebben we verschillende plaatsen bezocht. Allereerst Nazareth, waar we in de overdekte markt (sukh) de smid Naddaf Fouad (70 jr) terugvonden. Net als vorig jaar kocht ik weer een paar van de door hem gesoldeerde blikjes en olielampjes. Hij vertelde dat het niet goed ging en dat veel winkeltjes gesloten waren vanwege de economische crisis. Hij had echter een oude vriend op bezoek, ook een Christen-arabier, zodat ik hem niet veel kon vragen. Ik beloofde hem volgende keer terug te komen. Beneden aan de Sukh spraken we met een plaatselijke bewoner over het grote bord met een reclame-spreuk voor de Islam. Bij al het christelijke geweld hier kon dit er wel bij. Dat vond onze Nazarether ook; hij ging niet naar de moskee en was niet gewoon te bidden, maar de Koran had wel gelijk: wij zullen de “loosers” zijn!  

We bezochten in Zichron Ya’akov het huis van de familie Aaronson  die geschiedenis maakte vóór en tijdens de Eerste Wereldoorlog. Volgens N. Grover (Jerusalem) waren de Joden onder Turks bewind er beter aan toe dan in Europa gedurende diezelfde eeuwen. Dit ondanks onderdrukking in Palestina en ondanks de door Sarah Aaronson gesignaleerde, Armeense genocide, die nog steeds niet door Nederland, noch door Israel erkend wordt. Wellicht is de geschiedenis van Israel niet te begrijpen zonder het tijdperk van het Ottomaanse rijk (1517-1917) te kennen.

De smid Naddaf Fouad in de sukh van Nazareth.

Volgens een bewoner van Nazareth, die niet gewoon was te bidden en niet naar de moskee ging, had de Koran altijd gelijk. Volgens hem had dit bord daarom geen protesten gegeven.

Ook bezochten we Jerusalem, waar bij de Westmuur de Israelische oppermacht wel heel erg voelbaar is, maar waar het in de Arabische sukh economisch goed leek te gaan. We spraken op de trappen van de prachtige Damascus Poort Arabische studenten die niet ontevreden leken te zijn…….

Ga ik in het vliegtuig nog eens het boek van Dries van Agt lezen? Nu met andere ogen? Het is me wel iets duidelijker geworden hoezeer hier “de Arabieren” gediscrimineerd worden; net als bij ons. Maar zij láten zich ook discrimineren door hun door de Koran-gedicteerde opstelling, die maar heel langzaam veranderd (zie de artikelen in de Haaretz, International Herald Tribune van de laatste dagen). Ondertussen, gelegitimeerd of niet, dendert de Israelische economische, culturele en militaire trein met grote snelheid voort….

Visit to Israel-3

De “Jordan Experience”

Op weg naar Eilat (en Petra) reden we op 1 november oostwaarts naar de Jordaan-vallei. Na Beit She’an, ten zuiden van het meer van Galilea en op de hoogte van Jenin, kwamen we de West Bank binnen; er was nauwelijks een checkpoint. Opvallend waren de uitgestrekte kassen-complexen aan de Jordaanse kant van de rivier. Blijkbaar hadden ze daar genoeg water.

Hoe makkelijk kom je hier bij Beit She’an (route 71) de grens over en hoeveel contact zou er zijn tussen de Palestijnen van de West Bank en die van de East Bank? In een restaurant van het Joodse dorp (settlement) Argaman kwamen we twee Franse jongens tegen die in een oude 2CV via Turkije, Syrië en Jordanië bij Beit She’an de grens waren overgekomen; ze waren van Parijs op weg naar Jerusalem. In 1965 was Channoch M. samen met een vriend óók in een oude 2CV via dezelfde route naar Israel gekomen; alsof er in die 45 jaar niets veranderd was; behalve dan de grensovergang. Die was in 1965 nog in Oost-Jerusalem bij de Mandelbaum Gate.

Frouke (left) and Channoch M. with the 2 French guys and their “Deux Chevaux”. They had passed the Jordan border at Beit She’an,  just as Channoch had done with his 2CV 45 years ago! As if nothing had changed…..

Hoewel Jordanië en Israel vrede tekenden in 1994 is de grensovergang tussen het Hashemitische Koninkrijk Jordanië en Israel verre van open: mopperend moesten (Amerikaanse?) toeristen met hun te grote koffers een stuk niemandsland van 100 m lopend oversteken. Aan de Jordaanse kant heerste een gemoedelijkere stemming.

Rijdend langs Akaba, de enige havenstad van Jordanië, viel het op hoeveel er gebouwd werd; het leek Israel wel. Anders dan Eilat is Akaba door een 4-baans autoweg verbonden met de hoofdstad Amman; er reden echter voornamelijk vrachtauto’s en bussen met toeristen.

Hoe zit het met de verhouding tussen de Jordaniers en de Palestijnen nadat de laatsten (de PLO) in 1970 met harde hand door het Jordaanse leger verdreven werden (de Zwarte September) en Jordanië in 1988 alle administratieve banden met de West Bank had verbroken? Ik vroeg het onze chauffeur, Atya Jamra uit Akaba, die ons van Petra naar het nóg indrukwekkender Wadi Rum en later terug naar Akaba reed.

Allereerst benadrukte hij dat Palestijnen en Jordaniers voor hem één volk zijn. Wel zijn er twee identiteiten, die van de Palestijnen, meest landbouwers, en die van de Bedouinen. Hij beschouwde zichzelf als een Bedouin, hoewel hij in de stad leeft met één (?) vrouw en 6 kinderen (hij sprak van 3 kinderen en 3 meisjes). Mohammed, die ons in een Jeep door de Wadi reed, leek een échte Bedouin: Tot op zijn 10^de jaar had hij in de woestijn in een tent gewoond voordat zijn ouders naar het dorp Wadi Rum verhuisden.

Verder bevestigde Atya dat, net als bij ons, de dagelijkse kranten-meldingen van de Israelische nederzettingenpolitiek grote boosheid veroorzaken. Het bewees volgens hem dat Israel eigenlijk geen vrede wil en geen Palestijnse staat. “Die zal er niet komen zolang jij en ik leven”, zei hij berustend.

The Sinai Rose Finch, seen in Wadi Rum everywhere near water.

Atya knoopt Lidie een hoofddoek om in Bedouinse stijl.

Op de rots heeft Mohammed via zijn mobiel contact met…… 

Atya, om te zeggen dat we eraan komen.