Chivas Regal and flagellation

Tabriz to Tehran, a motorway of some 330 miles, much-used especially by lorries, is one of the main western entries to “Persia”, again in Marco Polo’s words, “a very great province and at one time a very splendid and powerful one, but now ravaged and devastated by the Tartars.” That it was a vast country I knew, but of the Mongol – or Tartar – invasions (1220 CE) and other aspects of its troubled history very little. The distance to Tehran could be covered in a day’s drive, and there was nothing disquieting about it. Tehran was a big city of more than three million inhabitants (only a village at Marco Polo’s time), but I had an address there. In Berlin, I had shared a flat with Behrooz, an Iranian student who had friends in Tehran. He had kindly written them a letter announcing the arrival of his friend sometime in March or April. As a result, the Tehran friends received me with hospitality almost beyond imagination. I then stayed with Hoori and Reza Fakhr (don’t call me “fucker”, the latter instructed me) for several weeks. They were unbelievably welcoming and generous. Their house was in Khīābān-e Mostoufi (Mostoufi Street), in a quiet neighbourhood north of the city centre. Their property was spacious enough to park my car there. One less thing to worry about.

Apparently familiar with overland travel themselves, the first thing they offered me was a shower, which I enjoyed more than I could remember. Then dinner: Saffron rice with grilled chicken and some vegetables, only some of which I recognized, such as various types of beans.

“Delicious!” I complimented them.

“You’ll have to get used to it,” Reza replied.

Their big-heartedness was such that they made me feel as though they should be grateful for my visit, and not the other way round. And this not just initially to welcome me on the day of me arrival, but throughout my extended stay.

Hoori was more or less housebound because they had a little daughter, three or four years old, and no nursery nearby or fitting for her age, which one he did not know. Friends from the neighbourhood visited her almost daily with their children, while I studied the map of Tehran and expanded my radius day by day by taking walks to explore the area. To the north, the majestic Alborz Mountain range was clearly visible some 40 to 60 miles in the distance, but the bakery was less than ten minutes away on foot. I went there often because it was the only shop where Hoori and Reza allowed me to buy something to bring home: fresh flatbread straight from the flaming oven. They took care of all the other groceries.

Hoori knew many things about Iran, its long and rich history and also about the present. To students at European universities, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was the embodiment of tyranny and repression. His visit to West Berlin in 1967, where he and his wife Fara Diba attended a performance of Mozart’s The Magic Flute at the Deutsche Oper, triggered massive protest demonstrations and was the kick-off of the 68-student movement there. Violence between hired supporters of the Shah, demonstrators and the police erupted, and the student Benno Ohnesorg was shot dead at point blank range by, as became known much later, an East German undercover agent. A traumatic event that led to a deeply critical attitude of the student movement towards the West German state. The fact that many Western countries maintained friendly relations with the Iranian government was a shame. But, then, a lesson the students had drawn from the Holocaust was that politics must not be devoid of morality, while they knew nothing of power politics, or of the fact that Iran had long been a bone of contention among European powers. In that conflict – which was first referred to as “The Great Game” in the 1840s – Persia had already lost territories to the expanding British and Russian empires in the early 19^th century.

There was no awareness among the students of the Shah’s role in restoring Iran to the world stage and the fact that, when he ascended to the throne in 1941, the country had been invaded once again by the Soviet Union from the north and the British from the south in a coordinated attempt to thwart any influence of their common enemy, the German Reich. This happened in response to Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union a couple of months earlier. The Great Game thus took an unexpected turn. It must have been difficult for the young Shah to maintain relations with the West while the UK and the US pursued their own interests in the country and then orchestrated a coup d’état in 1953 to oust the elected government of Mohammad Mosaddegh. Iran had become a theatre of the Cold – and not always so cold – War. Mosaddegh was not a communist, but his government nationalized the oil industry that was controlled by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and extremely profitable to the British.

There was yet another aspect of the intricate power relations in Iran that Hoori explained. She had never known another head of state, since the Shah had been on the throne for almost three decades. “He may not be a nice fellow or the ideal head of (a modern) state,” she said, “but he is the only hope for containing radical Shia Islam.”

A little later, Tehran offered a concrete example of what this meant. It was a public holiday, and a massive procession was taking place in the city centre, commemorating the assassination of a famous clergyman more than a thousand years ago. To demonstrate their religious devotion and the seriousness of their cause against the Sunnis, radical Shi’ite supporters gathered at Sepah Square for Matam which, Reza explained, means “bereft” or “mourning”. The participants beat their chests with one hand and scourged their backs with the other using light chains, until blood flowed. Reza had warned me not to expect a nice spectacle and not to be shocked, but seeing the violent self-flagellation I was. The collective performance of Matam was the first time I ever saw a religiously driven mass movement. Having grown up in a non-religious home, I was blind to the political explosiveness of faiths. The Crusades were history of the distant past, and in my guileless eyes, in this day and age, religion was a private matter. Pious meant spiritual, not ferocious.  But that obviously wasn’t true. The unifying power and the potential for violence in “true belief” were impossible to overlook.

This experience did not change my negative view of the Shah of Persia, but it helped me realize that black and white is not a good template for understanding politics. And, like it or not, religion is to be reckoned with. At the time, it was not as domineering as it would become in the Islamic Republic of Iran, but it was certainly a formidable undercurrent (which would sweep away the Shah before long). In the neighbourhood where Reza and Hoori lived, not much of it was seen, and conversely, many facets of everyday life made Tehran look like a modern city which you rarely find today, or not at all: miniskirts, high heels, discos, female sport teams, fashion shows.

Reza was working hard. He actually had two jobs, as a full-time employee at a pharmaceutical company and setting up a trading firm of his own. Having studied abroad, he now led the life of an ambitious professional and was convinced that a compromise between Persian cultural heritage and the positive sides of Western modernity was possible. He had an opium pipe in porcelain decorated with blue dragons which he sometimes used in the evening to relax. I had never seen such a pipe before. It usually lay next to a cookie jar, ashtray and vases on a sideboard in the living room, and I was very surprised when I found out what it was for. About opium I had only heard that it was the most dangerous of all drugs, so I refrained from trying it. Reza had some in the drawer, but he smoked it only rarely. As a pharmacist and a trader, he surely knew a lot about drugs which may have helped him to avoid addiction. Like alcohol and nicotine, opium belonged to a different category than the medications he dealt with in his business.

It was common knowledge that opium was an oriental drug which was never associated with either painkillers or alcohol, cigarettes or sleeping pills. How important it was for the expansion of the British Empire and the significant role opium played in changing East-West relations in the 19^th century was less widely known and never became a topic in conversations with Reza. While Britain imported ever more tea and porcelain from China, the Qianlong Emperor informed King George III near the end of the 18^th century that China had no need of any goods produced in Britain. Even if this seemed unlikely to the Brits, a solution to the growing “trade deficit” – sounds familiar? – had to be and was found: Opium. So, in the name of “free trade” – an idea spread around the globe by European colonialists – Britain fought two wars to force China to open its ports and allow the East India Company to continue bringing opium from India to China, as Portuguese traders had done before them, without any consideration of the consequences for the Chinese population.

A protracted opium addiction crisis involving millions of people that lasted many decades was the result. The story of the two Opium Wars (1839-1842 and 1856-1860) lay behind the (Chinese) opium pipe in Reza’s living room. Were he and Hoori aware of it?

Another experience with Hoori and Reza – one that was a sign of the times – involved the pleasurable consumption of alcohol at a stylish bar they frequently visited for recreation on weekends after dinner. They met their friends there and Reza ordered a bottle of Chivas Regal. They wouldn’t go home before it was empty. I had never taken a liking in Scotch or other hard drinks, but the bar was comfortable and an environment I did not expect to find in Tehran. Like opium, alcohol is a drug that is sold in different forms and packages around the world for profit. In Tehran alcoholic beverages like Chivas Regal and many others were freely available not only in bars but in supermarkets and specialty stores as well. At the time, few consumers imagined that in Iran liquor would one day become contraband.

Chivas Regal in the bar and Matam on Sepah Square were two radically different facets of life in Tehran, a city as modern as any, and at the same time exhibiting what from a Western point of view were remnants of the past. If overcoming the limitations of this point of view which equates the West with progress is one of the purposes of travelling around the world, then this was a challenge. For the first-time visitor these two contradictory aspects of life in Tehran were confusing which, however, thanks to Hoori and Reza’s openness, was fascinating rather than frightening. Would other Iranian cities be equally intriguing? World-famous for its picturesque architecture, Isfahan seemed most attractive before continuing my journey east.

“Don’t go by car,” Reza advised. “There is a convenient bus that takes you there just as fast and more relaxed.” So, that’s what I did, only to find out to my great surprise in the bus, accompanied by an escort whom Hoori and Reza thought I needed. He was a friendly man who worked for Reza. Since we didn’t have a common language, the escort couldn’t serve as a tourist guide, which was all right. He took me to the famous Shah Mosque, as it was called then, with its huge dome and blue-tiled walls a truly magnificent edifice. Not having come to pray, nor as a pilgrim, I could only be a tourist – which, in fact, was not what I wanted, as mentioned earlier. Yet the delicate beauty of the dome framed by minarets and the calligraphic inscriptions on blue glazed tiles were an unforgettable visual experience.

Back to Tehran then to stay there for a few more days. I had enjoyed the hospitality of Hoori and Reza long enough and the urge to learn more about the East tugged at me. Since the beginning of the journey, I had had their address which was a kind of destination to reach. The thousands of miles that separated the stops along the road from northern Europe became more concrete than the knowledge gained from maps and geography books could ever be. The distance covered and days spent on the road could be calculated. The final stage: From Karaj just another 30 miles, then the goal Tehran would be reached. But from now on there were no stage goals and nothing to go but the compass direction, further east. Heading toward Afghanistan, Mashhad would be the last big city before the border, some 600 miles from Tehran. “Don’t stop there,” Reza warned, “Mashhad is a major pilgrimage destination. There are many holy cities in this country, but Mashhad is the holiest. The Mullahs there aren’t too fond of foreign travellers.”

Driving from Tehran to Sabzevar and Neyshabur and, heeding Reza’s advice, passing south of Mashhad on the way to the border and thus forgoing the blessings of this sacred site was just as well for someone who had no connection to the divine.

Borders and means of exchange

And again, a border. As far as I knew, it had always been there. Crossing it was uncomplicated and involved no more than an official’s cursory look at my passport. A slightly condescending nod of his tilted head indicated that I should pass. That was all. But soon enough there was a tangible indication that this was another country. For a long trip, traveller’s cheques were safe and convenient, yet not accepted everywhere. For smaller daily purchases, including paying the bill at the gas station, the local currency was still required: the Lira in Turkey, the Rial in Iran and the Afghani in Afghanistan. In Turkey, no surprise, Atatürk was a fixture on banknotes. In Iran, Shah Pahlavi was your steady companion in your wallet, looking at you from many of the Rial notes in circulation at the time, while in Afghanistan it was Mohammad Zahir Shah, the last king of the country, who appeared on some banknotes. In both cases the inscription was in Arabic letters on the obverse and, for those who couldn’t read them, in Latin letters on the reverse. – Just imagine: US dollars, French francs, or British pounds inscribed in Arabic letters!

Traveller’s cheques were an international means of exchange. In one sense they really were, because you could use them pretty much everywhere; but in another sense they were not, because they were issued in the currency of a particular country, U.S. dollars. Shah Pahlavi and Mohammad Zahir Shah – who I actually didn’t know who he was when I first saw him on a banknote, nor that his rule was later characterized as a prolonged period of peace – showed that Rial and Afghani did not embody such ambiguity. They were national currencies and as such, like frontiers, served an important function in uniting the national populace. You couldn’t evade them. Even if you hated Shah Pahlavi, you couldn’t very well afford to say, “Not in my pocket!” Few people spend much thought on whose portraits end up on banknotes or coins, but here it was obvious. The authority of Shah Pahlavi and Mohammad Zahir Shah was limited. They stood for boundaries, their authority and valuation being limited to the national territory.

This raises difficult questions. What if a person depicted on a bill turns out to be a warmonger, a fraudster or otherwise a disgrace for their country (like slaveholders, for example)? What are the required qualifications? “No longer alive” might be one, fictitious character (like Nils Holgersson on a Swedish Krona note) another, or animals such as an elephant, a rhinoceros, and a tiger on an Indian ten-rupee banknote. To be on the safe side, it is probably better to exclude living dignitaries from the pool of candidates, which of course is not to say that all or even many of them would compromise their central bank or country. We know, however, that autocrats like to see their portrait circulate among the people whose fortune they committed themselves to serve, because it is a clear sign of their authority. This also reminds us of the well-known fact that there is no relation whatsoever between the beauty of a portrait or other design on a banknote and its pecuniary value, and that it was Marco Polo who reported on the Chinese wonder of turning scraps of paper into something valuable, issued by the Kublai Khan as if it were of pure gold or silver.

How the Great Khan managed this unknown means of exchange in his empire surprised Marco Polo and other Europeans following in his footsteps. The invention of paper money was so successful that despite all initial scepticism it spread everywhere. As we understand it today, the basic principle is straightforward: Trust is more important, and more reliable, than the value of material goods, including that of gold and silver coins. The Great Khan was the first to guarantee the value of such “promissory notes” so that people who did not know each other would trust in their value and thus the ability to exchange them for goods and services. Establishing equally trustworthy institutions elsewhere took some time, and counterfeiters became a serious problem in many places where paper money was adopted as a medium of exchange. Yet, for the past three centuries, until the advent of cashless transactions, paper currencies dominated financial systems around the world. What did it mean for the remaining Rials left in my purse, that is, for trust in monetary exchange across borders? Were Rial and Afghani freely traded? Were they linked by a fixed exchange rate? The left-over Rials weren’t many, but still, money is not to be thrown away. That’s the whole point of having it printed on portable paper. At the gas station they accepted the Rials, although at an exchange rate that was nowhere announced.

The dual signature – first at the time of purchase and second at the time of using them for payment – makes traveller’s cheques safer than cash. What is more, they can be used (almost) everywhere. This is to show that currencies, like languages, have a range, some wider than others. As means of exchange, they are, accordingly, more or less useful. I did not yet recognize the connection between traveller’s cheques and American hegemony; however, I began to understand that both languages and currencies have a dimension of power, since they both enable and restrict the exchange of goods and ideas.

From Islam Qala (Islam Castle), the border town on the Afghan side, it was just 60 miles to Herat where I would get to know a different currency altogether. It took less than a couple hours to reach Herat. In an outer district on the way into the city, there was a caravansary where dozens if not hundreds of camels were resting. In Iran camels are rarely seen, and it was a surprise that in Afghanistan they were still employed for carrying loads to hard-to-reach places. The clothing of the camel drivers and other people was also significantly different from Iran. There was hardly a man without a turban, and women were wearing some kind of headscarf and long dresses. It was a colourful sight which gave one the feeling of being far away from Europe. Car traffic in the city was moderate, but streets and places were full of life, lined with many shops, stalls and little restaurants. I bought afghani for a 20$ traveller’s cheque at a bank and then found an unassuming looking small restaurant where I ate a noodle soup with vegetables and chicken. The meal was much cheaper than the smallest afghani banknote I had received, so I had to get some change. What the innkeeper pressed into my hand instead was a sand-coloured lump of an unknown substance. “Hippie”, he said and smiled. So here we had a restricted currency, no legal tender, with no fixed exchange rate and limited to a specific group of users. Young foreigners apparently belonged to it. I didn’t smoke, neither tobacco nor hashish, but how could I give it back and ask for the change I was due? I didn’t know, looked at the piece in my hand, and put it in my pocket.

Herat was an enchanting city with dozens of mosques and many other ancient structures, testament to its turbulent history, involving regional kingdoms and also religious divides. In Iran, Shiite Muslims predominate, while Islam on this side of the border is largely Sunni. The innocent hippie, who never thought of himself as such, knew precious little about these two Islamic denominations or about the importance of Islam for bridging the tribal loyalties in this country.

On to Kabul, with a brief intermission in Kandahar, a very old city which claims its name from Iskandar, that is, Alexander the Great who supposedly founded it (after 3000 miles on horseback). Alexandria, Iskandar, Kandahar – a translation from Greek to Dari or Pashto across 2300 years? Maybe.

From Kandahar to Kabul is a long ride through largely barren territory that took more than 11 hours to complete. Although the highway connects Afghanistan’s two largest cities, not much traffic, sometimes so little that it made me think, what if something happens? Is there anybody to ask for help? The road was asphalted, but it was rough driving nonetheless because of many potholes, uneven edges and unexpected rows of trucks parked on the side of the road, blocking almost an entire lane. Most of the time the road went uphill, if slightly. The landscape was barren, thinly vegetated desert plains giving way to arid rough, rock-strewn mountains with few rural settlements of mud houses nestling against the slopes.

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Eyes on the road (chapter 1)

All text copyright and courtesy of Florian Coulmas

Creativity, Culture, Literature