discovering the beauty of iran

I came across this excellent blog about Iran, so I thought I would share these beautiful images with you all... Enjoy!!!!!

www.darkroastedblend.com... Part 1

www.darkroastedblend.com... Part 2





[edit on 26-2-2008 by kindred]


mod edit: cap title

[edit on 2/26/2008 by kinglizard]

Excellent and insightful article about the truth in regards to Iranian society.

Iran: Let's get past the the paranoia.

www.amconmag.com...

In the great square at Esfahan, I talked to a group of teenage girls about to graduate from high school—one strictly veiled, one less so, one whose scarf was subversively far back on her head. They all thought war was coming, all believed that the U.S. was not a truly free country and that Iranians and Muslims were persecuted and mistreated there. These opinions arose from state-sponsored ignorance and were fanned by our own militant hostility. The students were not in themselves hostile to the West—like almost all Iranians, they yearned to live there. They were personally friendly and open to me. But they warned that an attack on Iran would drive them closer to their government. And this was not just their view. I heard the same from many far more liberal-minded and skeptical. Before the Iraq War, many such people were all but wishing for an American invasion to free them from the ayatollahs. But having seen what American liberation has done for Iraq and Afghanistan, they have turned away from any such thoughts.

Originally posted by kindred

Before the Iraq War, many such people were all but wishing for an American invasion to free them from the ayatollahs.

I had the opportunity to visit Iran at the start of this last Gulf War and that statement is very true, a few people told me they wished the US would take out their government. At the time I thought that was crazy, when the dead kids started piling up they would surely change their mind very fast.

It is a beautiful country. The people are very polite, clean, and hospitable. The men are respectful, they open doors and do not openly lear at women. They are also very honest, which is typical in many strict muslim cultures, they do not short change tourists or otherwise look for ways to rip them off, I mean it may happen occasionally but it is not the norm at all.

I can't really speak to the government propoganda because of the language barrier, and the fact that I was illiterate over there (that is weird). They did have some very interesting music videos with obvious political messages (bombs going off, kids in hospitals with grieving mothers, etc..).

Overall it is a nice place to visit, especially for women (I am euro-american, and many knew that though they get a lot of german tourists so some assumed I was german until the loud, grating american accent started). They are very protective of women and if a female needs assistance in anyway they start freaking out (even in the airport, when i asked the information desk for help the staff sent a girl to guide me through the airport, help me exchange money, and put me in a cab, and she would not accept a tip for her troubles. A clueless tourist cannot expect that level of assistance in any western airports).

[edit on 19-7-2008 by Sonya610]

Hi Sonya, Thanks for sharing your experience. Glad you had a great time. I haven't actually been to Iran myself. I guess, I'm just interested in Iran, simply because it's in the media alot these days and what I was reading & hearing didn't ring true. I've done alot of reading about Iran since and also talked to quite alot of Iranians I met in a chat room. They were also really nice and very polite. If only people would take the time to educate themselves, rather than buy into all the lies, then they would see that in most respects the Iranian peolpe are just like them, with the same wishes and same dreams. Even better if you travel there and see the country with your own eyes. So true what you said about the hospitality at the airport in comparison to the west. That's nice to hear.

I think no matter where you go, for the most part, people are decent. I visited Petrovic in Yugoslavia before the war broke out and I had the same level of hospitality you spoke of. The people there were extremely friendly and polite. You could say I was kind of shocked at just how friendly and trusting they were. At nights they didn't even lock their homes or shop doors, and there wasn't even any security. Yet when the owners returned in the morning, everything was still there. Can you imagine if you did that in the UK or US. The entire shop or home would be cleaned out, lol. While I was there I certainly wasn't aware that war was about to break out. Shame, as it was such a beautiful place. Thanks again for sharing your experiences.

[edit on 20-7-2008 by kindred]

Persia: The Ancient Soul Of Iran

Excellent article about Iran, past, present and future. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and everyone else should do like wise. If you want to know the truth about Iran and the Iranian people, then check out the link.

What's so striking about the ruins of Persepolis in southern Iran, an ancient capital of the Persian Empire that was burned down after being conquered by Alexander the Great, is the absence of violent imagery on what's left of its stone walls. Among the carvings there are soldiers, but they're not fighting; there are weapons, but they're not drawn. Mainly you see emblems suggesting that something humane went on here instead—people of different nations gathering peace­fully, bearing gifts, draping their hands amiably on one another's shoulders. In an era noted for its barbarity, Persepolis, it seems, was a relatively cosmopolitan place—and for many Iranians today its ruins are a breathtaking reminder of who their Persian ancestors were and what they did.

They don't really control us, because they can't control what's inside us."

That has never stopped Iran's leaders from trying, or foreign powers from interfering—particularly after the country was discovered, around the turn of the 20th century, to be sitting on what Iran claims is an estimated 135 billion barrels of proven conventional oil reserves, the second largest in the world after Saudi Arabia. Adding to the drama is that the Persian Gulf is located along Iran's southern border. On the other side lies much of the rest of the world's crude, in the oil fields of Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. There's also a hairpin waterway in the gulf, the Strait of Hormuz, through which much of the world's oil passes every day. So Iran is in a unique position to threaten the world's oil supply and delivery—or sell its own oil elsewhere than to the West.

Oil was at the root of a 1953 event that is still a sore subject for many Iranians: the CIA-backed overthrow, instigated and supported by the British government, of Iran's elected and popular prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh. Mossadegh had kicked out the British after the Iranian oil industry, controlled through the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (later BP), was nationalized, and the British had retaliated with an economic blockade. With the Cold War on and the Soviet bloc located just to the north, the U.S. feared that a Soviet-backed communism in Iran could shift the balance of world power and jeopardize Western interests in the region. The coup—Operation TP-Ajax—is believed to have been the CIA's first. (Kermit Roosevelt, Jr., Teddy's grandson, ran the show, and H. Norman Schwarzkopf, the father of the Persian Gulf war commander, was enlisted to coax the shah into playing his part. Its base of operations was the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, the future "nest of spies" to the Iranians, where 52 U.S. hostages were taken in 1979.) Afterward, the shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, was returned to power, commercial oil rights fell largely to British and U.S. oil companies, and Mossadegh was imprisoned and later placed under house arrest until he died in 1967.

To Iranians like Shabnam Rezaei, who has created the online magazine Persian Mirror to promote Iran's cultural identity, Operation TP-Ajax set the stage for later decades of oppression and Islamic fundamentalism. "I think if we had been allowed to have a democratic government," she said, "we could have been the New York of the Middle East—of all of Asia, frankly—a center for finance, industry, commerce, culture, and a modern way of thinking."

ngm.nationalgeographic.com...

The beauty of Iran







Operation Ajax


www.lewrockwell.com...

[edit on 26-9-2009 by kindred]