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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsRick Steves on Iran (From his Facebook page)
Iran: If You're Going to Bomb a Place, You Should Know Its People First
A decade ago, I traveled to Iran to better understand a country with whom we seemed perennially on the verge of war. I came home with a one-hour public television special ("Rick Steves Iran: Yesterday and Today" that attempted to understand the Iranian psyche and humanize the Iranian people. I believe if youre going to bomb a place, you should know its people first. Even if military force is justified, it should hurt when you kill someone.
Some things just don't change. America is, once again, on the verge of war with Iran. And, just like a decade ago, we are not prepared for that reality. As a nation, we dont adequately understand Iran. From my travels there, it's clear to me that Americans underestimate both Iran's baggage and its spine.
"Baggage" shapes a country's response to future challenges. In the USA, our baggage includes the fight against socialism during the Cold War and the tragedy of 9/11. Irans baggage has to do with incursions from the West. Examples include 1953, when the US and Britain deposed a popular Iranian prime minister (after he nationalized their oil) and replaced him with the Shah; and the 1980s, when--with US funding--Saddam Hussein and Iraq invaded Iran, leaving hundreds of thousands of dead soldiers on Irans Western Front.
Iran is a proud and powerful nation of 80 million people--long a leader in its corner of the world. When I was in Tehran filming my TV special, I went to the National Museum of Iran expecting to film art from the great Persian Empire (the Empires of Empires ruled centuries before Christ by great leaders like Cyrus, Darius, and Xerxes). I found almost nothing. Apologetically, the curator explained, Youll need to go to London or Paris. Irans patrimony is in the great museums of Europe. This is baggage.
The Iranian Revolution of 1979, which deposed the US-friendly Shah, is seen in the USA as a terrible thing. It led to the rise of the ayatollahs and the taking of 52 American hostages (which--speaking of baggage--is why our president recently threatened to bomb 52 targets in Iran). But traveling in Iran, I heard a different narrative: The revolution was a people's uprising in the context of the Cold War, as Irans young generation wanted to be neither East nor West (independent from the USA or USSR realms).
If you dont know Iran (as, I fear, is the case with our countrys decision-makers), it would be easy to underestimate their spine. Filming there, I was impressed by the caliber and the goodness of the people on the street and haunted by a feeling that we could easily radicalize them with a reckless foreign policy.
I'm no diplomat, and I realize that Iran is a challenging puzzle to solve. It seems we will always be in conflict with Iran, and the answers will never come easy. But surely whatever we do should be built upon a foundation of understanding: We must get to know Iran on its own terms. We would be foolish not to recognize its baggage--and not to appreciate its spine.
My public television special, "Rick Steves Iran: Yesterday and Today," is as timely and important today as it was when we first released it in 2009. Back then, when people asked me why on earth I was making a TV show about Iran, I told them, I believe if youre going to bomb a place, you should know its people first. And I believe that now more than ever.
llmart
(15,540 posts)He may say he's no diplomat, but I'd put my faith in him to build bridges between cultures more than I'd ever put my faith in anyone in today's GOP, especially the ignoramus that stole our White House.
I've seen this Rick Steves special. It was very interesting as are all of his shows.
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)See my post downthread. His video is just amazing!
47of74
(18,470 posts)Im glad he didnt live long enough to see what this orange fuck is doing.
xxqqqzme
(14,887 posts)on local PBS stations during pledge drives.
It is very good, very informative.
Wawannabe
(5,661 posts)Id fire one up with him all day long!
He's quite the aficionado.
soldierant
(6,884 posts)scenes from it keep flashing into my mind and tugging at my heartstrings, especially now.
The one I didn't see because my antenna was down and wish I had seen, was the one that aired last month about Fascism in Europe. Did anyone here see it? Any shares?
Oh, i just found it on Passport and have bookmarked it. Probably tonight.
https://www.pbs.org/video/the-story-of-fascism-in-europe-pthanf/
llmart
(15,540 posts)That one is just plain spot on and is a basic lesson in how fascism flourishes. The similarities to what's happening today are frightening.
soldierant
(6,884 posts)I just finished watching it for the first time (probably not the last.) Exactly as you describe. (In fact, pretty much exactly what I predicted it would be. Rick is excellent at communicating FACTS and doing it so diplomatically that it's hard to take offense.)
Kurt V.
(5,624 posts)Iranians are a society in flux. Young oid. Wealthy poor. Theocracy democracy. women men. It's all there. this is a country ready for change with big obstacles
llmart
(15,540 posts)I would put my money on the youth of that country to demand changes. I actually think they are more involved in trying to change things than our youth are.
Kurt V.
(5,624 posts)smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)beautiful. You will never see Iran as a hostile nation after watching this. Like with us, it is their government and not the people who are the problem. The people are just charming and wonderful and their culture is so fascinating. It is almost an hour long, but well worth the time.
llmart
(15,540 posts)Hopefully others on here will watch it. I watch all of his shows and even have some of his DVD's.
amuse bouche
(3,657 posts)kag
(4,079 posts)Now I don't have to.
BigmanPigman
(51,608 posts)Here is the video, I watched it last night on PBS and was sad than really angry over what has happened since it was filmed.
Here is Tony Bourdain's Parts Unknown from Iran, 2017. It was voted as one of his best shows.
https://dai.ly/x59kay7
badhair77
(4,218 posts)mysteryowl
(7,390 posts)I will always remember a program he did on Israel and Palestine. I was shocked to learn what was going on there. Shocked. Palestine is poor and held that way by Israel. There are walls and fences and gates and armed guards separating the two. Shocking. I felt great compassion for Palestine.
Karadeniz
(22,535 posts)Turkey, before Erdogan, and saw them as good people, too. People are not their government's policies.
Someone recently posted an audio of a comic who used to work on the Apprentice. I'd seen an earlier video, so I'd heard about the Adderall. On the audio, he expanded Trump's drug use to include cocaine when he's at Mar-a-Lago. Trump chose this assassination when he was there. I have to wonder if this decision, which everyone thought crazy, was made while he was drugged up.
burrowowl
(17,641 posts)SCVDem
(5,103 posts)Shouldn't this be addressed to the orange dictator?
I cannot read past the first line!
Hekate
(90,714 posts)IronLionZion
(45,450 posts)Just like America. I wouldn't want people around the world to judge Americans based on our deplorables, bigots, and white nationalists.
A disturbing number of Americans have become radicalized online to be a dangerous threat to other Americans, yet we can't call them terrorists because we reserve that label for perceived foreigners. RW American politicians and religious leaders use the threat of dangerous foreigners coming to kill us as a way to manipulate their people into accepting the most unacceptable policies and propaganda. Same with RW Iranian politicians and hard line religious leaders telling people for decades that American sanctions and hostility is to blame for every problem.
Without mentioning any country or demographic of people, if you post online that "we are more alike than we are different", you will see a hostile reaction from deplorable RWers who think diversity is ruining this country. Iran's religious bigots felt western influence was ruining their country before the revolution, so they chose an extreme "return to traditional values".
Raine1967
(11,589 posts)This is so damn true.
Thank you for saying it.
Native
(5,942 posts)dhol82
(9,353 posts)It is a fabulous country.
Most of the people I met had relatives in the US. They were lovely!
Their rulers are humps. Not my problem.
To bomb them to oblivion would be a war crime of the first order!
Diplomacy, people! That is the answer to the future of the world.