As soon as we arrived in Iran I thought that if I write anything about this country I might call it "Fade to Black". All the women (or more than 95% of them) in Mashhad, our first stop, were in full length shapeless black chador. Do not get me wrong, I have nothing against any woman wearing whatever she wants: chador, hijab, etc. Perhaps it is the result of having long hair when I was young. A lot of people (and just about every policeman) in my old communist country hated it and tried to get me to cut it. I just thought that it was none of their business. And so, I think the same thing about chadors. But here is a difference: I would hate if someone would force all the males to wear long hair all their life. So here in Iran I hated how they force all the women to wear chador and head scarf and to drive at the back of the bus. Yes, they do make them to fade to black.
I understand that many Muslims claim that chador, hijab, or head scarf are prescribed in Quran (but do your research, it appears that Quran does not prescribe it), that women rule in the domestic affairs, etc. etc. Yet two issues are clear: women here are not free, not even as free as any Muslim man, and not all of them choose it to be this way; someone forced them to comply. And I do not like it.
Why, then, did I not use the title? Because I have seen more than just the issues I described above. Almost everybody I met before I entered Iran was praising the people there. And, frankly, I have to agree with them. The ordinary Iranians appear to be non-aggressive and deferring to their guests, as well as kind and giving people. Take for example their driving. At the first sight, you might think they all went nuts. The driving lines are not respected, cars drive literally centimeters away and every free space is instantly filled with a car or two as they immediately cut into such spaces. In between the crazy jam of cars the pedestrians are haphazardly crossing the road, bikers and cyclists push into the narrowest of the available pathways, people pull their carts disregarding the cars around them, etc. It looks like a complete chaos.
If, in Canada, someone cuts you off the same way they do in Iran, you would start screaming, madly pushing you horn, flashing your lights and probably adding a few choice words. Yet the Iranians don't. They weave in and out of the traffic sometimes with a smile, often with a phone to their ear, but always without any aggression. They honk their horn only a bit and only if they want you to know where they are, so you do not bump into them. And the traffic flows quite well. You have to see it to appreciate the incredible non-aggressive nature of it.
It also appeared that every time we spoke to someone he was deferring to us. When the guide in the Holly Shrine in Mashhad led us around, he always asked where else we would like to go and then he guided us there in a way that looked like we were leading him. And the same thing happened in Tabriz when we were guided through the Old Bazaar. The guide just pointed the direction and let us lead him there (and I lost all the battles of "you go first, no, you go first, no, you go first").
Their kindness was also unexpected. They always found time for us, they let us sleep in the restaurant when we were unable to find a hotel, and when an ice cream vendor found out that we were foreigners he did not allow us to pay for the ice cream - he just would not accept the money even when I tried to sneak them in. But there is something else about them, something neither I nor Hynek were able to put into words. They just gave us a feeling of genuinely good people, perhaps the best we met during our travels. As I said, I cannot formulate this feeling, but nevertheless it was there all the time.
Of course, I know that we dealt with men only as the women were basically segregated out of the society we could communicate with. I also know that their militias are fighting in Iraq and their army in Yemen, and I have heard a pretty nasty propaganda of the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on an Iranian English program. But still there is something quite gentle in the ordinary Iranians, including the police. Every time they stopped us they just asked where we go and whether we like Iran. They never tried to get any money from us or show us that they are the bosses around there.
Some of them took interest in our car a our travel and one of them, just before he shook my hand, turned to me and asked me: "When you come home, please tell them that we are not terrorist." For some reason, this sentence stuck with me. Perhaps it was the way he said it. It felt very sincere. Perhaps it was something that I cannot grasp, the same way I cannot fully grasp why I got to like the Iranian people so much.
I understand that many Muslims claim that chador, hijab, or head scarf are prescribed in Quran (but do your research, it appears that Quran does not prescribe it), that women rule in the domestic affairs, etc. etc. Yet two issues are clear: women here are not free, not even as free as any Muslim man, and not all of them choose it to be this way; someone forced them to comply. And I do not like it.
Why, then, did I not use the title? Because I have seen more than just the issues I described above. Almost everybody I met before I entered Iran was praising the people there. And, frankly, I have to agree with them. The ordinary Iranians appear to be non-aggressive and deferring to their guests, as well as kind and giving people. Take for example their driving. At the first sight, you might think they all went nuts. The driving lines are not respected, cars drive literally centimeters away and every free space is instantly filled with a car or two as they immediately cut into such spaces. In between the crazy jam of cars the pedestrians are haphazardly crossing the road, bikers and cyclists push into the narrowest of the available pathways, people pull their carts disregarding the cars around them, etc. It looks like a complete chaos.
If, in Canada, someone cuts you off the same way they do in Iran, you would start screaming, madly pushing you horn, flashing your lights and probably adding a few choice words. Yet the Iranians don't. They weave in and out of the traffic sometimes with a smile, often with a phone to their ear, but always without any aggression. They honk their horn only a bit and only if they want you to know where they are, so you do not bump into them. And the traffic flows quite well. You have to see it to appreciate the incredible non-aggressive nature of it.
It also appeared that every time we spoke to someone he was deferring to us. When the guide in the Holly Shrine in Mashhad led us around, he always asked where else we would like to go and then he guided us there in a way that looked like we were leading him. And the same thing happened in Tabriz when we were guided through the Old Bazaar. The guide just pointed the direction and let us lead him there (and I lost all the battles of "you go first, no, you go first, no, you go first").
Their kindness was also unexpected. They always found time for us, they let us sleep in the restaurant when we were unable to find a hotel, and when an ice cream vendor found out that we were foreigners he did not allow us to pay for the ice cream - he just would not accept the money even when I tried to sneak them in. But there is something else about them, something neither I nor Hynek were able to put into words. They just gave us a feeling of genuinely good people, perhaps the best we met during our travels. As I said, I cannot formulate this feeling, but nevertheless it was there all the time.
Of course, I know that we dealt with men only as the women were basically segregated out of the society we could communicate with. I also know that their militias are fighting in Iraq and their army in Yemen, and I have heard a pretty nasty propaganda of the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on an Iranian English program. But still there is something quite gentle in the ordinary Iranians, including the police. Every time they stopped us they just asked where we go and whether we like Iran. They never tried to get any money from us or show us that they are the bosses around there.
Some of them took interest in our car a our travel and one of them, just before he shook my hand, turned to me and asked me: "When you come home, please tell them that we are not terrorist." For some reason, this sentence stuck with me. Perhaps it was the way he said it. It felt very sincere. Perhaps it was something that I cannot grasp, the same way I cannot fully grasp why I got to like the Iranian people so much.