Iran past and present

Coming out of the Persian Gulf, having to swim fully dressed

By Laurette Moolman

Forty years ago I was a young teacher in Swellendam when my sister Eleanor and her husband Walter Baker were sent on their first diplomatic posting to Iran. I had been to Iran twice before as a tourist and loved it from the first time I set foot on Iranian soil, so I gave up my job and joined them in Tehran. After a few hiccups I got a wonderfully rewarding job teaching English to young adults training to become tour guides or work in the hospitality industry. Half-way through my time there I went to Austria where I met Barry who was on his first posting in Vienna. A year later when we were both back in South Africa we got married.

Since I loved Iran so much I dearly wanted to introduce Barry to the country too but a year later the revolution broke out and changed everything. It wasn’t really on top of your list of places to visit! At the end of 2008 Barry got a call from Pretoria while we were on holiday in the Western Cape – he had been posted to Iran and ASAP: “Where are you? Near Mossel Bay on our way to Cape Town. Can you make a U-turn?” This would be his last posting before retirement. I was really happy. At last he would also be able to form his own opinion of Iran and for me it would be in Shakespeare’s words The wheel has come full circle.

I wasn’t so starry eyed as to imagine nothing would’ve changed, but I didn’t expect the worst and I never had any unpleasant experiences. On our first day there all the Farsi I had learnt 32 years ago came back to me and I could buy food and even throw them with ta’arof the very polite expressions they use without it meaning anything. Consequently I found the Iranian people as friendly as I remembered them right from the start.

Girls dressed up in traditional costume in Masuleh, a mountain village

I was fully aware that it hadn’t been like that immediately after the revolution. People were reluctant then to open up to foreigners. When we were in Kazakhstan, the way these things sometimes happen, we met the Swiss couple who were at their embassy in Tehran after the revolution when Walter closed down our Consulate General. The Swiss looked after the South African interests until an embassy was opened again in 1994. Barbara told me how extremely severe the dress code was at that time. 

Women were only allowed to wear dark brown or navy coats and trousers and brown or navy scarves pulled down to the brow and no make-up in public. As time went by though, the resilient young Iranian women shifted the borders little by little. In 2009 we could wear any colour as long as your arms, legs and bottom were covered, as well as any colour scarf. Older women look quite a bit like the Queen when walking her dogs as they wear longish coats and a scarf tied under their chins. The young and mostly beautiful Iranian women usually have long hair which they tie up on top of their heads so their scarves could slip back and be kept in place but still reveal quite a bit of hair. 

Nowadays they wear a tight fitting trench coat called a manteau and pants and during our 4½ years there we saw the pants become skinny jeans and some were even brave enough to wear leggings only. Only women working for the government or in banks for example, still wear navy blue or brown.

The dress code was one of a number of things which showed me how many people outside Iran simply only wanted to believe the worst. 

In the park

When on holiday I was often asked “and do you have to wear the niqab, all in black with only your eyes peeping out?” I would explain no, the Iranians are not Arabs and they don’t cover their faces. But 6 months later the same people would ask me again “and do you have to wear that thing … ?” A policeman once stopped an Arab woman on the streets of Tehran, wearing the long black robes, saying “we’re not Arabs, why are you wearing that?” Of course many conservative Iranian women wear the chador, the tent-like piece of material they wear to cover them from head to toe, clutching it under the chin. (The word chador literally means tent. Once in Yazd a strong wind tore the huge tent canopy covering the inner courtyard of the hotel and we were told the chador had collapsed.) Before the revolution many women, especially in rural areas also wore the chador but at that time it wasn’t compulsory to cover up. 

I had an experience in 1977 which made my friends in present day Iran gasp: I had gone to Tabriz with some of my friends from the college where I taught. In the area there is a lake similar to the Dead Sea, having a very high salt content and I went for a swim in it for that sensation of floating on the water. I simply wore an ordinary swimsuit and afterwards where they were building chalets, a builder brought a hosepipe to wash the salty water off me. Now THAT would never happen nowadays! Even when swimming in the Caspian Sea or the Persian Gulf women have to go into the water fully clothed.

After we returned from Iran in August 2013 I re-read Eleanor’s book As ‘n Pou kon vlieg which she wrote after their return from Iran in 1979. I wanted to specifically identify changes in Iran because I knew after I left in 1977 and during and after the revolution the situation was very bad. Of course, when we went to Iran in 2009 none of the devastation of buildings and roads were there anymore. There are many modern buildings in the cities and the infrastructure in the cities has improved tremendously. Tehran now has a modern efficient metro which keeps on being expanded. 

Typical Iranian girl on her phone

There is also a network of highways crisscrossing the city to help alleviate the very heavy traffic. In fact, all over Iran they have wonderful highways connecting all the major towns and cities. I still remember how scary it was in 1976 to travel by bus from Tehran to Esfahan on narrow single lane roads. Now it is a pleasure to travel by road on the highways. They have a few toll roads which are ridiculously cheap.

Eleanor mentioned in her book her last visit to a park called the Park Shahanshah (a title the Shah gave himself, meaning king of kings …) In the park there was a fountain cascading down next to some steps and on both sides of the water there were busts of kings and poets, painted gold. Eleanor was so worried that the golden heads would not survive the revolution and maybe not even the park. 

After we arrived in Tehran in 2009 the park, now called Park Mellat, was one of the first places I visited and I was sad that I couldn’t tell my sister how well the park had survived. There were no more busts of kings but they were replaced by philosophers, so you still had the two rows of golden busts leading up the steps. They are also taken care of very well and are regularly given a new coat of paint. After all, the poets like Hafez and Ferdowsi, to name a few, are too sacred to the Iranians for the religious leaders to interfere. 

The park is even more beautiful than before. The Persian Garden is so much part of their souls and no revolution could ever change that. In Spring the display of tulips is so mind-boggling that even visitors from Europe were most impressed. The park is a haven for retired people to sit with their friends, sharing a glass of tea or simply contemplating life. The young people play badminton on paved roads and we have seen head scarves flying in the wind. Sometimes in summer over the weekend they have sound and light shows on a small artificial lake in the park and they play western classical music.

Regarding this Persian Garden as part of the Iranian psyche, the authorities did even more. Sadly many of the former villas in the city have been demolished to make way for apartment buildings and the mayor of Tehran (Ahmedinijad who became president later on) said every possible open spot on traffic circles or next to highways should be planted with flowers and grass. Apart from making the city beautiful, on a Friday when Iranians traditionally leave the home to have a picnic outside, you will see families sitting anywhere where there is a bit of lawn and some flowers. 

The beautifying of the city goes even further. Under fly-overs or next to highways, wherever there is a concrete wall it gets decorated. In some places there are wonderful mosaic scenes and on other walls you will have a variety of themes painted there. In this way the city which used to be grey and drab apart from all the trees lining the streets, has become so much more colourful.

As I mentioned when I was in Iran in 1976 – 77 I taught at an Iranian college. Whenever the students had some free time or were celebrating the end of term or some festivity they would start dancing. I didn’t expect this trend to be visible at all any more in the Islamic Republic, but once more it was clear that you cannot block something which is so intrinsic to people’s natures. A friend and I went on a weekend bus trip to Kashan. 

We were the only foreigners on the bus and the others were mostly young Iranian couples or groups of friends. As the bus left the city the tour leader said whoever could speak English should do so with the two foreigners! This tour leader was a very jolly older man who told jokes relating to the different areas in Iran and played a musical instrument to keep the spirits high. Soon the young people started getting up from their seats and started dancing in the aisle of the bus. Head scarves were slipping. Someone pulled me into the aisle to join the dancing. The severe Islamic Republic of Iran?

Maybe by now some cynical readers will say “Hang on, it can’t all be that rosy. What about all the people in jail, the executions that still take place, etc. etc.” Of course there are many wrongs and no one can condone that. Musicians, for example, don’t have much freedom and have to submit their songs before they may perform them. The same with film makers. I was struck by one thing though. 

People criticised the present system very openly, to my surprise. Of course not in print because there they could get into trouble, but many Iranians we knew were very critical and would voice their criticism in no uncertain way, even in taxis and we came across a tour guide or two who were also very outspoken. The reason why I was so surprised was because during the time of the Shah nobody would criticise him. Even foreigners would have nicknames with which they referred to the Shah and his family if they wanted to say something about them. Once someone compared the Shah in French to a cat (the words sounding so similar) and he was ordered to leave the country the next day. 

Mural painted on the wall next to one of the highways in Tehran.

The Shah’s secret police (Savak – another word no one said out loud) were feared by all and with good reason. We were told at the time that every foreign household got allotted an Iranian ‘friend’ who could report back what was being said, which books were being read, etc. This time round there was no mention of this kind of subtle observation. We asked an Iranian friend who used to be in their foreign service whether he thought our house was bugged. He laughed and said “Let’s see, if I’m still here tomorrow, it isn’t”. And he is still around now!

The bottom line is in whichever country you are, the politicians and/or leaders are usually in a totally different category from the ordinary man on the street. As ‘only’ the wife I was fortunate to do what I wanted. I walked around freely amongst the ordinary Iranians. I used the local buses which were a cheap and very efficient way of getting around and gave me a glimpse into a life beyond the sheltered diplomatic one – sheltered only if you were inclined that way and not out of necessity. Iran was probably the safest country to live in. 

I travelled all over the country with a sister or a friend or with the family and we always only encountered the friendliest of friendly people. The Iranians have always been extremely hospitable and would invite you to their homes even after a chance encounter on the meidan in Esfahan or after spending some time chatting to you on the train. 

When I was in Iran all those years ago I once asked a student the way to a monument in Shiraz, but since it was closed over lunch time he simply took me home and told his mother to make me lunch before they dropped me at my destination later on. In all the little shops where I did my shopping the shopkeepers were such lovely friendly people. Sometimes when I felt a bit lonely I would go out to buy fruit or vegetables and I always returned with a warm feeling in my heart, because of the way 

I was greeted and treated. They certainly never treated me as an inferior being simply because I was a woman as is often thought about the Middle East. In Iran more than 50% of graduates at universities are women. I realise having been a foreigner was different from being an Iranian citizen, but then in Kazakhstan we were also foreigners but hardly ever got a smile from someone on the street.

Iran always got such a very bad press from the foreign media, hardly ever giving a true picture or at least both sides. Because I was so happy all of the 4½ years we spent in Iran I always tried to give a more positive and balanced view to friends and whoever was interested. Everyone who visited us in Iran agreed that it had been one of the best experiences they had had as a tourist. So I say, go for it!