Not-So-Crazy in Tehran! (video of a 1700 mile road trip to Iran)
Nichols Kristof in his blog on today's The New York Times Sunday Review writes "WHEN I decided to bring two of my kids with me on a reporting trip to Iran, the consensus was that I must be insane. And that someone should call Child Protective Services!" A short documentary follows the Op-Ed columnist Nicholas D. Kristof as he travels across the country talking to ordinary citizens about their lives and the effectiveness of American sanctions:
Kristof writes "That anxiety reflects a view that Iran is the 21st century’s Crazy Country, a menace to civilization. That view also animates the hawks who believe that only a military option can stop Iran.
Look, I have no illusions about Iran. On my last trip here, in 2004, I was detained and accused of being a spy for Mossad or the C.I.A. I’ve talked to people who have been brutally tortured. I think that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapons capacity and that, if it were to deploy those weapons, this would be a huge and possibly fatal blow to global antiproliferation efforts.
But we need a dollop of humility and nuance, for Iran is a complex country where we’ve repeatedly stumbled badly. For starters, consider for a moment which nation assisted Iran the most in the last dozen years. Not Russia, not China, not India. No, it was the United States under President George W. Bush. First, we upended the Taliban in Afghanistan, Iran’s enemy to the east, and then removed the Saddam Hussein government from Iraq, Iran’s even deadlier threat to the west. Look at the Iraq-Iran relationship today, and it seems we fought a wrenching war in Iraq — and Iran won."
In another report from his trip to Iran "In Iran, They Want Fun, Fun, Fun," Kristof writes "One of the most pernicious misunderstandings in the West about Iranians is that they are dour religious fanatics.
About half of Iranians are under the age of 25, and Iran has done a solid job of raising their education levels. I was struck on my 1,700-mile road trip across Iran by how many of them share American values, seeking fun rather than fanaticism. They seem less interested in the mosques than in amusement parks (which are ubiquitous in Iran).
“Young people don’t really go to the mosques,” said a 23-year-old man in eastern Iran, cheerfully exaggerating. “We want more ways to have fun.” He said he drinks — alcohol is illegal but everywhere — and, until recently, used drugs. Iranian officials have suggested that perhaps 10 percent of the population uses illegal drugs, traditionally opium and heroin but increasingly methamphetamines as well.
This man had joined the 2009 democracy protests, but then, he said, he was detained and beaten for several days, losing a tooth in the process. That soured him on political activism, and, like many others, he now just wants to go abroad ....
They often also look warmly on the United States, which is quite dizzying. In Pakistan, Afghanistan and Egypt, we Americans hand out billions of dollars in aid and are often hated. I come to Iran, and people hand me gifts!
This youth culture of Iran is nurtured by the Internet — two-thirds of Iranian households have computers — and by satellite television, which is banned but widespread. A BBG/Gallup phone survey conducted in March found that one-third of Iranians acknowledged watching satellite television in the previous week, and the real number may be much higher.
“The effect of satellite TV is very big,” said one young woman who said that she was initially aghast when she saw fellow Muslim women in Turkey wearing bikinis but gradually decided that there was more than one way to live.
Police stage raids to confiscate satellite dishes and can fine homeowners as much as $400 for having them, but they’re not very efficient."