Democracy is not always better than a Monarchy. The Shah of Iran wanted
to lead his country to democracy but it wasn't ready. Assuming the
election in Gaza wasn't fraudulent they elected Hamas. Many in Iran chose
Khomeini. Maybe there was an intimidated silent majority as the Shah said
but they remained silent. The Germans elected Hitler. Democracy is
not always better than a benevolent monarchy. Our country elected Jimmy
Carter and Biden.
Interview with the Shah of Iran
I wanted to create a coalition to form a national government representing all
shades especially the opposition. I worked very hard on that but we did
not come through. Do you think Mr. Sharif Imani did the right thing or
not. s surrendering to everyone opening the jails and giving freedom to
all and at the same time asking for martial law. We had officially martial
law but it wasn't put into practice. He would telephone but the system
that used to work before was absolutely changed. They would adopt and
decide on things that they would never even report to me. All those
forces that were liberated and we should have established this beautiful
democracy. Where are they today. Either outside the country or in
hiding. one and a half million Iranians have left. Everyone who can
leave the country is leaving the country. Where are those people in the
bar association and other places who were promising democracy and tehse things
where are they today. They are accusing me of mass murdering and money
manipulation. They are adopting this Nazi like propaganda.
He says the history of the country does not exist. He thinks the
history of Iran starts with him... A patriot must think of the future.
I am thinking of 2000. If we kept out youth out of the orbit of the new
technology how could they be competitive with the rest of the world in the year
2000... Population explosion is 3.2 already soon it will become 5 or
6 %. How are they going to feed these mouths. Especially if what now
is making the w... It's only through technology and mastering science.
Teh future fo the world is based on technology and science. So the
man is not thinking about the country and its future, only about his hatred
against me...
Something went wrong. I recently published a book. Either we
started too late our liberalization program or we started too early too fast.
At a time of chaos first to establish law and order execution of rules and then
start to liberalize again.
If they read history they will see what it was before my father what it was
when I took over and what it was when I left. Silent majority remained
silent. If I let my people down it was because a king cannot be dictator
and a throne cannot be based on blood.
What makes me really cry is we could have been something viable and what are
we now? What has it served? Religion? Democracy? Human
rights? The rule of the people?
The Shahs
Story by Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, 1919-1980
I dedicate this book to the memory of all those Iranian men
and women who have suffered and died for their country
PREFACE
It is now just over a year since my last book came out in
Teheran.It was a book of hope in
which I presented my people with my opinions and my ideas for their future.A future which I WISHED TO BE AS GLORIOUS, HAPPY AND PROSPEROUS AS
POSSIBLE, AND WORTHY of a country with several thousand years of history, a
country which has always been one of the principal builders of universal
civilization.
On the threshold of the third millennium, I wanted a
perfectly modernized Iran, a progressive nation with a highly evolved Iranian
society which would profit from a prosperous economy, advanced education and a
solid democratic structure.
I envisaged future generations of Iranians proudly taking
their rightful place among the vast family of nations, and fulfilling their
responsibilities with dignity.I
hoped to see dispelled for ever the mediaeval shadows from which Iran had
emerged only half a century ago, and that the light which is the very essence of
Iranian civilization and culture would prevail.Throughout my reign, I lived only for the realization of this dream which
was beginning to become a reality.
It will be seen that I worked tirelessly and keenly to this
end.I had ceaselessly to struggle
against all sorts of obstacles and difficulties.I had to confront innumerable plots and intrigues both inside the country
and abroad.I combated the
all-powerful, multi-national trusts and cartels when all my advisers warned me
against such challenges.I may have
made mistakes, of course, but this long battle was not one of them.
I want to show how and why I persisted.Why and how I endeavored to build a society founded on social justice,
and not on class warfare, a society in which a solidarity existed between
classes which interdepended upon each other.A good understanding with all nations – whether they belonged to the
western civilization, the socialist block or the Third World – made it possible
for me peacefully to build up the Iran of the great civilization.
I consider it a duty, finally , to show how a nation can be
destroyed, how that which was built with the help of the Eternal and thanks to
the enthusiasm and hard work of a whole people, has been broken up, ruined and
crushed by the irresponsible.
This will be the witness I bear to history.
Page 50 chapter 5
As a child, one of my dearest wishes was to make our
peasants happy.And my other dream
was that every man might be judged by just laws.I will explain how I later endeavoured to realize this wish and this
dream.
Page 77 which was meeting on Teheran, I laid down the six
first priniciples of the necessary revolution:
1)Agrarian reform: the distribution of land to
those who worked on it
2)Nationalization of forest and pasture land
3)Transformation of state enterprises into
anonymous companies, the shares of which would serve to guarantee agrarian
reform
4)Workers sharing in company profits
5)Electoral law reform.Universal suffrage and particularly votes for women
6)The creation of an Education Corps made up of
bachelor conscripts who render a civil service by teaching in the villages
7)Creation of a Hygiene Corps.Conscripted medical and dentistry students and nurses give free services
and teach in the villages
8)Creation of a Development and Reconstruction
Corps.Conscripts collaborate in
agricultural modernization and in modernization of villages and towns.
9)Institution of village tribunals called houses of
justice
10)Nationalization of water
11)National plan for urban life with the
collaboration of the Development Corps
12)Administraiton reform, tied to the reform fo
national education
In 1975 the following five points were added:
13)Sale to workers of up to 49% of shares in large
production companies.Shares were
bought with State loans which were repaid from dividends.
14)Defence of the consumer: struggle against
inflation by price control (August)
15)Free and obligatory primary education for eight
years and further education for those undertaking to serve the state for the
same length of time as their secondary and university education lasted
(December)
16)Free food for needy mothers and new born babies
for up to 2 years (December)
17)Extension of social security and old age pensions
to all Iranians (December)
Finally in 1977 two new principles were adopted:
18)Fight against speculation in ladn and real
estate: It was a question fo preventing or slowing down the rise in the cost of
land, flats and rent etc.
19)Fight against corruption bribery etc.
On January 9, 1963 before the first national congress of
agricultural co-operatives
Page 104
A genuine education, free and compulsory; privileged
students
Free, compulsory education had already been decreed in
principle by my father.
Unfortunately, the means of implementing it were not available.Free primary education, as well as the Education corps schools, already
existed when Point 15 was adopted.
My greatest wish would have been to be able to decree it for the whole span of
education.We established free
education for the first eight years of schooling.After that it was free for anyone who undertook to work for the
government for the same number of years as he, or she, had studied beyond the
first eight years.
To be sure, the student could buy himself or herself out of
public service by repaying the cost of his or her education.But it seemed to us that by obliging students to serve the state for
several years after they had finished studying, we were doing them a favour,
rather than hindering them, because in this way they were ensured of employment
and a good livelihood.The effect of
this law in 1978 was that 7,400,000 pupils in nursery schools, primary and
professional schools, evening schools and courses for illiterate adults paid
nothing.Six million of them were
given a free meal on every school day.
We had a total of 185,000 students in our 48 universities
and approximately 100,000 in foreign universities, 50,000 of whom were in the
United states.The campuses of
Shiraz and Isfahan universities must be among the most beautiful in the world.The sites were carefully chosen and the buildings painstakingly planned.A their university was planned at Hamadan where the teaching would have
been in French.
Most of our students received not only grants for their
studies, but pocket money as well.
Those who were born at the end of the fifties knew nothing of the difficulties
which their parents’ and grandparents’ generations had had to overcome.They found it quite normal that the best facilities should be available
to them.
Today I am inclined to think that he events of 1978-9 can
partly be explained by the fact that I tried to move too fast.I had wanted to open the doors to the universities without imposing a
strict enough method of selection: the entrance examinations were too easy.Andre Malraux used to say to me that “every country needs ten thousand
knights:.He was right, I believe.My mistake was not to make all my people feel strongly enough that
“knights” can be found among the artisan, the labourers and metal workers.Already by 1970, all the young people wanted only to be students…
Many fathers had never left their villages and could not
being to imagine what was now given to their sons: an easy life – nothing else
to do but study – in a large town, often in pleasant surroundings, with
libraries and laboratories at their disposal and trips abroad.
P105
My comment: He created universities in beautiful places yet
the students violently protested.
You got an alliance between the red and the black the communists and the Muslim
extremists who revolted against him.
He asks “Did we have a choice” when it came to being tough on the rebels.
Page 171
The hysteria of the young
Least of all can I forgive the troublemakers for having
used the majority of our students for their own ends.They needed large gangs and they found them in the universities and,
before long, even in the schools.
They set out systematically to intoxicate our youth.Unfortunately they succeeded.
To be sure, I do not expect the young to be conservative.In any country they lean towards what they see as the most generous
ideals.In the name of justice they
can do great things, but also terrible things.May the years pass and may their everyday contact with reality temper
their ardour.
The mistake I made was not to use our own media to fight
this incessant attempt to intoxicate our young men and women.Many of them would have listened to reason.In fact there was, at the time, evidence of the loyalty of large numbers
of Iranians to the crown.I was
aware of it in the spring when I visited Mashhad, another of Iran’s holy places
where lie the remains of Reza, the eighth Shiite Imam.I had been quite overcome by the warmth of my welcome.
Page 172
A few weeks later, my Prime Minister, Mr Amouzegar, visited
the provinces in order to keep in touch with the population and three hundred
thousand people crowded around him at Tabriz.It was precisely at Tabriz where the February riots had given the
population a chance to doubt me and my government.
I had made Mr Amouzegar my Minister in August 1977 ..
From the time of the formation of the new government, I had
declared myself in favour of liberalization provided it did not bring with it a
general collapse of the country.On
August 5, 1978, Constitution Day, a year after Mr Amouzegar had come to power, I
announced that in the months ahead the regime would begin to become comparable
to a Western democracy.To prove
that I was not making vague promises I declared that elections would take place
at the end of the parliamentary session, that is in the spring of 1980.I added that anyone in opposition to the present government could solicit
votes on condition that he or she respected the Constitution, which is at the
basis of democracy.
If I had had any doubt that the only intention of the
opposition itself was to overthrow the regime, I could have seen proof of it in
the days which followed.Measures
which should have met with general approval were once again interpreted as a
sign of weakness on my part.Riots
broke out at Isfahan, then at Shiraz and Teheran.There could be no let up in the agitation.Above all, common sense could not be allowed to gain control let the
demonstrators realized the folly of their actions.
Page 173
The Abadan outrage
The imagination of the masses had to be fired by an act
which would galvanize even the half-hearted.
Several days later, on August 19, a cinema in Abadan was
criminally set alight, as is well known.The death toll is also well known: 477 people died in this tragedy,
asphyxiated or burnt alive.An
infamous slander was immediately spread about.The blame for this monstrous crime was laid on the government which is
supposed to have hired policemen to lock the doors of the cinema in order to
perpetrate this crime.The
government had to be made responsible.
The real culprit fled to Iraq where he was arrested.His confession was taken down, but the affair was covered up by
frightened or pusillanimous magistrates.Only he could say on whose behalf he had committed this outrage.
P174
The Truth about SAVAK
With the reappearance of terrorism, Savak became the
favourite target of the international press, but would it have been spoken about
so much if hooligans had not begun to draw blood and to wreak havoc so that the
police were obliged to intervene actively?..
It is necessary to add that Iran has no more reason to
tolerate terrorism than the Italians have to tolerate the activities of the Red
Brigade of the Germans the demands of the Baader Meinhof gang?..
Savak was instituted in Iran to combat communist subversion
after the disastrous Mosaddeq episode.It is not for me to judge the attitude adopted by Western countries
towards their communists.But the
way of thinking depends entirely on the fact of having or not having common
frontiers with the Soviet Union…
Savak was created then, to put an end to subversive
activities which constituted, from outside and inside, a serious danger to Iran...
I cannot defend Savak’s every action.It is possible that people arrested were roughly handled.However, precise instructions were given in order that no abuse might
take place.When a year later, the
Red Cross wished to investigate, the prisons were opened to their
representatives.Attention was paid
to their recommendations and from that moment, we heard no more complaints.
There may have been in Iran, as in other countries known to
me, mistakes which I deplore, but I must draw a distinction between terrorists
and political prisoners.It was
inevitable that some terrorists died in confrontations with Savak, and even more
often with the police.No one forced
them to start fires, to pillage and to assassinate.They were the victims of the choice which they had made. ..
We are still waiting for the appearance of the progressive
lawyers who suffered such agony when they heard that one terrorist had died
during a conflict with the forces of law and order.The media transformed these criminals into champions of liberty, and the
communist saboteurs were hailed as the most ardent defenders of man’s rights.
Who, today, reacts against the horrors which are enacted in
my country?No one, with the
exception of a handful of courageous writers and journalists…
Page 179
Our soldiers only opened fire on arsonists, pillagers or
armed saboteurs.
These saboteurs were sent their orders from the mosques.
The left-wing press in Western countries wrote of the
horrible regime, which was nothing to do with the terrorists, but which was
apparently the work of Savak and the police.If these newspapers are to be believed, there were still a hundred
thousand opponents to the regime in the Shah’s prisons.The truth was quite different.The number of political prisoners never exceeded 3,164…ByNovember 1978 there were only three hundred all of whom had criminal
records….In the larger towns where martial law was still in operation,
harassment groups had been formed.
These groups were armed with automatic rifles and explosives, the indispensable
trappings of urban guerilla warfare.
Soon the order went out for them to attack embassies and government offices.The country had to be brought to the brink of chaos as quickly as
possible…
On November 5, 1978 riots swept the capital.On university campuses and in schools, messages of hatred were broadcast
from loudspeakers so that students and even pupils from the lycees joined the
activists of the “Islamic Revolution” in the streets.
The army and the police were ordered to contain the
demonstrations, but only to shoot in absolute necessity.In the western and central districts of the town, most banks, hundreds of
shops, many hotels, cinemas and public buildings, were pillaged or burnt down.
What we have here is a total misconception in the West
of what happened in Iran.The Shah
is vilified.What happened there has
many parallels here.The lesson is
that just as he Shah’s government fell ours can too.There is also a lesson about how leftist our media is a media that
demonized him
During the first days of the Azhari government, we still
had a ray of hope.Work began again
and the daily production of oil, which had fallen very low, rose again to
5,300,000 barrels a day.There were
favourable reactions from the people.The general strike dictated from Neauphle-le-Chateau for Tuesday November
12, was a failure.In all the big
cities (Teheran, Isfahan, Mashhad, Shiraz and Tabriz), large numbers of young
men armed with clubs confronted the Red and Black shock troops.
But we wanted peace and the reconciliation of all Iranians.The government did everything possible to discourage what might have
amounted to counter-terrorism.Not
only had we liberated, on four or five occasions, several hundreds of political
prisoners, but, in December, General Azhari reaffirmed the government’s
declaration of October 19, 1978, that a full amnesty would be granted to all
Iranians provided they respected the Constitution in force.At the same time we freed the last political prisoners, except for those
who had been convicted of crimes and of murder.
But it was no longer a question of an opposition conspiracy
against me; all forces of destruction were united.Modern, progressive Iran was to be annihilated, and with it, by one means
or another, the representative of a dynasty which had so often prevented the
country from sinking without trace…
Some people tell me today that I should have applied
martial law at its fullest.It would
certainly have been possible to restore order with the means at my disposal but
at what price?
They say that it would have cost my country less than the
bloody anarchy which is there now.I
can only reply that it is easy to play the prophet a posteriori and that a
sovereign may not save his throne by shedding his compatriots’ blood…
Page 183
Throughout this period I wanted to believe that my
opponents were acting in good faith.
Did they want more liberalization?
They should have it.Did they
denounce corruption?I had not
waited for them before I began to deal severely with it.
I was determined not to resort to force and hoped that the
crisis through which we were passing would be solved constitutionally In a
climate of conciliation.It seemed
to me that a civil governmentwhich
included members of the Opposition might succeed in calming the agitators and
Panurge’s sheep who followed in their footsteps, and most importantly, put the
country back to work.
Page 184
It was then that Mr Shapur Bakhtiar, also a member of the
National Front, asked to see me in his turn, also trough the intermediary of the
head of Savak.…We talked a long
time.Mr. Bakhtiar was profuse in
his professions of loyalty to the monarchy and undertook to prove that only he
could form a government during the critical period through which we were
passing...His proposal seemed acceptable.He formed, not without difficulty, a civil cabinet… He was not able to
implement the programme which he planned.His old friends of the National front decided to destroy him.
Page 189It had
been agreed that the Empress and I would take several weeks holiday as soon as
Mr. Bakhtiar’s position had been approved by the two chambers.The last days were heartbreaking, followed by sleepless nights.Work had to be continued although the time of departure was drawing
closer.Naturally, I spent every
instant worrying about the state of my country.
I cannot, neither would I want to, describe my feelings
when, on January 16, 1979, the Empress and I left for the airport.I was filled with a sinister foreboding, added to which I had too much
experience not to imagine what might happen.I wanted to persuade myself that my departure would calm the
over-excited, appease hatred and disarm the assassins.I hoped that Shapur Bakhtiar would be lucky and that the country would
survive, despite the massive destruction ordered by frenzied madmen.
(note people were scared into striking.Just take a few to cause massive disruption)
I was completely overwhelmed by the expressions of loyalty
given to me as I left.A harrowing
silence was broken only by sobs.My
last impression of the country over which I had reigned for thirty seven years,
and for which I had given some of my blood, was of the appalling distress on the
faces of those who had come to say good-bye, and of the tears in their eyes.
Page 192 The
Terror
Those who “govern” in Teheran since my departure have
proved their powerlessness and their irresponsibility.…Mehdi Bazargan, the
pseudo-president of the Council of a phantom “Islamic” Republic, governs
nothing.His irresponsibility toward
the law is absolute.There is no
Constitution, no Lower Chamber, no Senate. ..
“The Islamic Republic which we are proclaiming will not
resemble Libya or Saudi Arabia, but rather the Islamic government which existed
during the first ten years of Ali’s caliphate,” Mr. Bazargan declared on January
24, 1979.This Republic was
proclaimed on April 2, and put Iran back eleven centuries.
Blind fanaticism
By a sad irony of fate, Mr Bazargan was the former
president of the Society for Human Rights.Under him Iran has known only a reign of terror.What a mockery are these hangman who, willingly forgetful of our history,
have claimed to dispense justice “in the name of God”… The handful of fanatics
who are in power today are, no doubt, convinced that since Ali, they and only
they walk in the path of truth and justice.A blind fanaticism ahs established the rule of terror, madness and folly
in our country.
Page 193
But, what is more difficult to understand, is that the same
media which saw in my time too many policemen and prisoners, non-existent deaths
and vastly inflated violence in the streets and towns, suddenly sees nothing
more, or else watches without indignation, the slaughter of hundreds.Even more incomprehensible is the fact that the international lawyers’
associations who gave us so much good advice toward “humanizing” our legal
system, have said nothing about the establishment of a savage inquisition.
Perhaps they should have noticed that the total and
proclaimed abolition of all rights for the prisoner and the accused coincided
with my departure, and that every suspect was automatically condemned.The lawyers who were speaking in the good name of progress should perhaps
have reacted and protested against the re-introduction of barbarous corporal
punishment like the lash.
In the inquisitorial trials, the charge is always the same;
the prisoners are accused of being “corrupted on earth”.This does not mean – as some Western reporters seem to think – that the
accused has been corrupted by a couple of bottles of wine, or that he has
misappropriated public funds.
“Corrupted one earth” is an expression from the Koran which refers to any person
whose iniquity, vice and sin offend the Lord.
No penal code in the world defines a crime in such vague
terms.It is obvious that a man may
be “corrupted on earth” in the eyes of the inquisitor for a hundred and one
reasons.The accused is then
declared ipso facto impure in God’s sight and must immediately be removed from
the earth which he is sullying…
Page 194
Almost all the generals commanding divisions were shot
because they had committed the crime of serving under me.An old senator of more than a hundred was shot for loyalty to the monarch
and many of the accused who were over seventy also faced firing squads.Since everyone was guilty, there was a choice of victims.There were so many that they cannot be counted.Among the murdered men whose names have been published were ministers,
secretaries of state, diplomats, politicians, provincial governors, mayors and
municipal councillors, many generals and officers from al lthe forces, petty
officers, simple soldiers, policemen, journalists, publishers, broadcasters,
magistrates, lawyers, religious men, doctors, professors, sportsmen,
businessmen.They were all condemned
and summarily executed “in the name of God”. ..
Page 195
Throughout this terrible month of March, many more innocent
people were “judged” and put to death.These poor victims of torture had no idea what accusations were levelled
at them; had they known, they would not have been given time to prepare their
defence.They had no defending
lawyer and their trials were heard I camera by anonymous judges.
Page 197
At two o’clock in the morning of April 11, a “tribunal”
condemned eleven officials to death, after brief deliberation.They were assassinated half an hour later…
It was as a result of these assassinations that the
international commission of lawyers, gathered in Geneva, pointed out that the
“Islamic tribunals” which were passing judgement and condemning people to death
in Iran were “deliberately violating the international conventions of the United
Nations concerning civil and political rights, conventions which Iran had
signed.
A short answer came from the ayatollah.He declared from Qom on May 4: “The Revolution must cut off the hands of
the rotten….Blood must be shed.The more Iran bleeds, the more victorious the Revolution will be.”
Page 198
Uncontrollable hordes sacked the barracks or took
possession of arms at the beginning of
the year, and set themselves up as administrators of justice.These hordes killed and pillaged with impunity under cover of the
“Islamic Revolution”.Throughout the
country, in February, people who had not appeared before a court martial or even
an “Islamic tribunal” were killed by franc-tireurs.How many of them no one knows..
At the end of March 1979, the “Guardians of the Revolution”
had imprisoned a 78 year old general who had been in retirement since 1952, Amir
Hossein Atapur.The general’s son
was a leader writer for the Teheran Journal and, full of indignation, he managed
to publish a courageous article in which he revealed that “twenty thousand
political prisoners, at least, were languishing in improvised gaols”.Why did silence prevail over the suffering of these innocent imprisoned
suspects?At no time during my reign
were there more than 3,164 so-called political prisoners, most of whom were
terrorists.Since February, it is
certain that tens of thousands of men and women have bene arrested and
imprisoned under frequently inhuan conditions.They have sometimes been beaten or tortured.The number of people who have die din prison is also unknown.
It is a fact that throughout my reign, representatives of
the Red Cross were allowed to visit the kingdom’s prisons at liberty.Our penitentiaries were open to all official investigators.Every prisoner’s lawyer knew he details of the charges against his
client, and had time in which to prepare his defence and find the necessary
witnesses.Finally, a condemned man
had the right of appeal, after which I often exercised my right of pardon.It is no longer like this.
The so-called “Islamic tribunals” are an insult to the elevated principles of
the Koran.
Why di the media not protest when March 1979 chief gaolers
formally forbade any visit or aid for the prisoners form the Red Cross?What horrors are there to be hidden?”
When, on April 1, he had proclaimed the “Islamic Republic”,
His Eminence referred to the fate of In order to be sincere int his book, I must
recognize that my main mistake was, doubtless, to have tried to force march an
ancient people towards independence, health, culture, a good standard of living
and comfort.All of these things
were part of what I have called the Great Civilization.
I wanted to build up Iran while we still had o8il and thus
to guarantee the life of the country after our oil reserves were exhausted.Therein lay the solution.We
had to move fast, we had no time to spare.Finally, it is unquestionable that the oil lobby contributed actively to
my downfall.
This lobby could not accept that the policy of fairly
priced oil should seem to be dictated by me. ..
Page 203
I had given the largest possible number of citizens the
chance to rise up and free themselves from the proletarian condition.It is with despair that I see workers, peasants, and employees falling
back upon hard times.There is
extreme poverty and unemployment. ..
But why does the same press which was so fussy about
morality when I was in Teheran, say nothing about the corruption which is now
spreading throughout Iran like a plague?As we have seen, the media also refrains from commenting on the repeated
attacks on human rights.Yet, day
after day, alarming news reaches us.
The country is sinking irremediably into unrivalled depravity and unequalled
corruption.
Page 204
Yet another hope is dashed.After thirty-seven years on the throne, I thought we had redeemed Iran
from such evil and established a Western system whereby, thanks to the law and
the courts, there are limits to corruption.But no, this has not happened.It is no longer possible to count the Iranians who, fi they want to go
abroad, have to pay large sums of money to the first mullah who comes along…
There is no longer a state, nor even a parliament…Legislative power is non-existent.Judicial power which should supervise the just observation of the law
does not exist either.As for
executive power, it is all in the hands of one man who has been transformed into
an executioner.
On March 30 and 31 a pseudo-referendum took place to
approve the Islamic republic.It was
a grotesque farce.Fifteen year olds
were given the vote.A green ballot
paper meant a vote for the Islamic republic and a red one represented a vote
against it.Since the ballot was
public and took place under the supervision of the Guardians of the Revolution,
it was possible to announce that 98% of the electors had voted green, whilst
fighting had already broken out in the province of Turkmenistan and there was
bloodshed and rioting in Azarbaijan in the north west in Baluchestan int eh
south west in Kurdistan and in Khuzestan.
Page 205
The press, the wireless and the television announced that
about twenty three million Iranians had
voted for the Islamic republic.Now,
half of our population, which is to say eighteen million is under fifteen years
old.There is then a miscalculation
of five million, even supposing that everybody voted…
We are confronted by a prodigious anomaly, the like of
which has been seen only in Venice during modern history.A whole nation is controlled by a secret council.The unknown and secret members of the council arrogate all power to
themselves.As we have seen they
have the right of life and death over all citizens who, in their turn, can
neither defend themselves, nor appeal.It is a government of darkness, opposed to progress and nurtured form
Qom.
Page 207
There should also be information, a factor which I
neglected.The de facto propaganda
spread around by the young people in our three corps was no doubt, efficacious,
but it was ocutneracted by the insidious and ceaseless propaganda of people who
had nothing t lose and everything to gain – money and the political power which
had been beyond their grasp for more than half a century…
As for television, the most powerful of al instruments of
propaganda, I was very late in having proof that it had been infiltrated,
particularly by Communists.
Page 209
Five centuries after the Spanish Inquisition, Iran is
living under the terror of a new Torquemada who is more pitiless and more
sinister than his predecessor.In
fact the Inquisition tribunals did not sentence men to be executed unless they
were known to be heretics,.They had
the opportunity to recant and to repent; and they could call witnesses, which
the Iranian Torquemada does not allow…
I have always firmly believed that true faith implies the
respect of and the adherence to the spirit of a religion, and not the constraint
of sectarian dogmatism.It is not by
closing mixed schools and forcing women to wear the veil and to share their
married life with other women, nor by forbidding them the right to divorce
whilst their husbands and masters may repudiate them at their will, nor by
reducing them to an inferior position, that the spirit of Islam is served.
On the contrary, they should be emancipated, and given the
opportunity for education, their dignity must be respected and they must be
regarded as men’s equals in every sphere.
Is it conceivable for a human being, worthy of the name, to
flagellate and stone people and cut off their hands on the pretext that these
punishments were practiced under the caliphs in the Middle Ages?..
Page 211
My thoughts have never left my country.They are still there.I think
of all those who remained loyal to their flag and to their sovereign, and of
those who to this day confess their faith before their executioners.I think of all those patriots who during my reign and my father’s,
dragged Iran out from the shadows and from servitude to make it the Great Nation
of 1978.Today, far from his
country, their sovereign can only demonstrate his gratitude in one way, but a
way which I firmly believe is the most powerful of all – by prayer.
I pray for those who, hunted and slandered, are suffering
the hardships of exile; and I pray for the tens of millions of Iranians who are
exiles I their own land.
I pray for others of suffering families.
I pray for our mistaken, deceived youth which is left
without hope.
I pray for hose who mourn a loved one.
I pray for the milliosn of unemployed.I pray for those who have lost everything.I pray for those who suffer in silence, and those who are stifled and
gagged, whose hands and feet are bound.I pray, finally, for all those who are blinded by lies and deceit.May Bod enlighten them and wipe the hatred forever form their hearts.
Almighty God in whom I have believed all my life, preserve
our country and save our people.
Page 212
Nine month shad passed since I left Irna, months of pain,
shock despair and reflection.My
heart bled at what I saw happening to my country.Every day reports had come of murder, bloodshed, and summary executions,
the death of friends and of other innocent people.All these horrors were part of Khomeini’s systematic destruction of the
social fabric I had woven for the nation during a 37 year reign.And not a word of protest form American human rights advocates who had
been so vocal in denouncing my “tyrannical regime”!It was a sad commentary, I reflected, that the United States, and indeed
most western countries, had adopted a double standard for international
morality: anything leftist, no matter how bloody and base, is acceptable; the
policies of a centrist, right-wing government are not.
The western inability to see and understand clearly the
grand design of international communism had never astonished me more than in the
first moths of my exile.I had lived
cheek-by-jowl with the masters of the Kremlin my whole adult life.In forty years I had never seen any wavering of Russia’s political
objectives; a relentless striving toward world domination…
Page 225
The die was firmly cast by my illness. The cancer had
flared up again in February and spread to my spleen.Dr. Kean came down several times from New York to examine me and to
consult with y French physician.
Both recommended surgery and suggested that the famous Dr. Michael de Bakey
perform the operation at Gorgas hospital, the U.S. military facility in the
Canal Zone.Then another bombshell
exploded.The U.S. ostensibly now
demanded that the operation be performed at their Paitilla Hospital…
Page 226
Garcia was adamant that the operation be done at Paitilla.Dr. Kean argued that the facilities there were not adequate…Dr. Garcia
then bluntly said that “we’re just following Carter’s orders”. ..
My staff was outraged but at the moment there seemed little
we could do.It was clear the U.S.
wanted to keep us in Panama in order to keep playing games with Iran, using me
as bait of the release of the hostages…
On March 11 we decided on the inevitable surgery.Dr De Bakey had agreed to perform the surgery at Paitilla…On March 14 I checked into the hospital.
A short time later Dr De Bakey, Dr Kean, and their U.S.
medical team arrived.Security
guards refused to let them in.
“General Torrijos ordered no American doctors are allowed in to see the Shah”
one guard said. ..Garcia as rude
and unyielding.There was “no need”
for the American medical team.
Panamanian doctors were “perfectly capable” of performing what he called simple
surgery. The next morning I left the hospital wrote a blistering article that
graphically detailed the Panamanian treatment of an American ally. ..
I decided to accept President Sadat’s offer of asylum – a
standing invitation since the day I left my homeland.President Sadat and I have been friends for many years…He and his wife called almost daily during my stay in Panama.The message was always the same.When are you coming?
On March 21, Hamilton Jordan arrive din Panama… page 228My tip to Egypt, he said, could endanger Sadat’s position and with it the
whole peace process in the Middle East.Houston was a possibility for my surgery… The best solution, clearly, for
Carter, was for me to remain in Panama…Of course the operation could be performed at Gorgas; Panamanian doctors
were anxious to apologize to Dr. De Bakey…I agreed to consider Cutler’s proposal and to see him again the next
morning.
I did not have to think very hard.For the last year and a half, American promises had not been worth very
much.They had already cost me my
throne and any further trust in them could well mean my life...
Page 229
Finally we landed in Vairo where President Sadat and his
wife waited to greet us in the bright sunshine.An honour guard was posted behind him; I could see I was being greeted
with full military honours.I walked
proudly over to President sadat and his wife and warmly embraced them.
“Thank God you’re safe,” Sadat said in English, and I was
safe indeed.From the airport we
flew by helicopter to Maadi Military Hospital…A few days later dr De Bakey and
his medical team arrived in Cairo with their sophisticated medical equipment.Surgery was immediately necessary…
When I was finally well enough to leave the hospital I
joined my family in the Koubbeh Palace, six miles north of Cairo.This is the Egyptian residence for all visiting heads of State.It is set in the midst of a large park with fruit trees and gardens,
encircled by a wall and well secured.This lovely home offers the first peace, quiet and security we have known
since leaving Iran…
My country stood on the verge of becoming a great
civilization, but the forces against me proved stronger.And the defeat of Iran’s attempt to enter the twentieth century perhaps
presages an even greater defeat of the countries I considered friends and
allies.
Neauphle-le-Château is "a name forever recorded in the history of Franco-Iranian
relations." This is what a sign in French and Persian proclaims in the heart of
this town of 3,000 inhabitants, to the west of Paris. "The Iranian people will
always remember the French people's hospitality and the welcome given to Imam
Khomeini," it reads, next to a representation of the face of the founder of the
Islamic Republic of Iran, who took refuge here for four months, between October
1978 and January 1979, just before returning to Tehran to overthrow the Shah. On
Wednesday, January 25, the poster was found on the ground, taken out of its
wooden frame, the glass broken.
The sign of discord
For the moment, authorities do not know who committed this degradation. The
sign, set up since 2017 on private land among scrub grass, was widely visible
from the street. It had aroused the anger of some residents, who did not want to
be associated with the Iranian regime, especially since the latter bloodily
suppressed the protest movement triggered by the death of Mahsa Amini, in
September 2022, following her arrest by the morality police for wearing a
headscarf which had been deemed non-compliant. "Imagine that your neighbor
sticks a picture of Hitler in his garden; I think it would not take 24 hours for
someone to come and remove it," a resident of Neauphle-le-Château said on the
France 3 TV channel.
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Since 1979, the name of the town has been unwillingly
associated with Ruhollah Khomeini. At the time, the Shiite dignitary cultivated
the image of an old sage in exile, sitting under an apple tree, welcoming
journalists and Western intellectuals captivated by this persona. Since then,
pilgrimages in his memory had regularly been organized in Neauphle-le-Château.
The town even gave its name to a street in Tehran, the Iranian capital, where
the French embassy is located. "I would like the city of Neauphle to no longer
be associated with this part of history that has been imposed on it, because it
was the government that gave permission for the ayatollah to stay here,"
Elisabeth Sandjivy, the mayor of Neauphle, said in Le Parisien.
A work of art in memory of Mahsa Amini
As early as mid-January, even before the poster was
defaced, the town of Neauphle-le-Château had announced its intention to conceal
it from the view of passers-by, "probably by means of a large panel installed on
the sidewalk." Once the object of scandal has been hidden, a legal procedure
could be initiated to force the owner of the land to remove it. The mayor also
proposed that a work of art be dedicated to Mahsa Amini, in response to requests
from feminist associations who wanted "a square or a street in the town to bear
the name" of the Iranian student.
