Stains on the Carpet
From MICHAEL LEAPMAN
TEHERAN
FEW people in Iran really believe that Prince Reza, born to such a sickening and irrelevant chorus from the world's press a few weeks ago, will ever become Shah. It is now seven years since the present Shah was brought to full power in the anti-Mossadeq coup led by General Zahedi. Since then he has held absolute control of the Government. But although he is getting on with a programme of building roads, railways, factories, schools and hospitals, the physical con- ditions of most of his people are still wretched. The country is in the grip of an economic crisis which has led to heavy price increases, including those of food and clothing. It is going to be a tough winter.
What will a revolution, if it comes, be about?
Autocratic government, an extreme class differ- ence between miserably poor and flamboyantly rich, rigged elections, corruption, press censor- ship—all the classic ingredients are there. Of course, few countries in this part of the world do clot have rigged elections; but getting found out 1, a sign of a tottering government. The rigging at the last elections was so blatant that one of the two big local dailies (the 'opposition' paper, 10 so far as it is possible to oppose) surprisingly Plucked up the courage to expose it. Boys had been seen riding bicycles towards the polling stations, carrying boxes; a couple of these boxes, Which fell off, flew open; and these were seen tk) contain bundles of marked ballot papers. The same newspaper also claimed that a man who wanted to stand against a government candidate was called in by the Governor-General of his pro- vince and told not to stand, as he had no chance of winning. He said he thought he had a good chance. So the Governor showed him two ballot boxes; one empty, ready to put in the polling- station, the other crammed with pro-Government votes. It was merely a matte( of switching the boxes before the count.
Because they know the elections are fixed, few People bother to vote. There was a poll of 120,000 last time, though the country's population is something over eighteen million, and all men over twenty are allowed to vote. Assuming there are four million in this category, the poll was 3 Per cent. Many of those who did vote were government and municipality workers, engaged in road-building and similar activities, who were herded into open trucks and taken to the polling !Cations. This made an ideal subject for cartoon- ists in Teheran's small but lively humorous weekly. One cartoon, published at the time of the American election, showed Americans voting.
and their votes being counted by electronic com- puters. Next to this was a drawing of Iranian government workers going to the polls in lorries. CaPtion: 'We have mechanised elections, too.' Another reason for the low poll is that it is hard for people to vote if they cannot read or Write. and according Lb unofficial figures 80 per cent, of the population is illiterate. The only relevant official figure available occurs in a mar- "age survey carried out by Teheran municipality. which showed that 37 per cent. of the men mar- 'Ie.(' in the course of a month, and 66 per cent. of the women, were illiterate. Teheran can be expected to have a far higher literacy rate than the provinces, and young people are more likely to have gone to school than their parents. Although education is now compulsory for all children up to the age of fourteen, the law is un- enforceable, or anyway unenforced, particularly among the nomadic tribes. Probably only about half the eligible children go to school: and there are nowhere near enough teachers. A few weeks back a hundred of them resigned in Teheran because of low salaries—the scale is from £15 to £45 a month, and the cost of living is higher than in Britain. They can command far higher wages in -commerce, where educated men and women are in constant demand.
Stories of graft, exploitation and intrigue abound. They are unconfirmable, and many are probably untrue, but the fact that they are com- monly retailed and generally believed is in itself witness to the atmosphere of corruption. A few weeks ago the Chief of Police in Teheran, who had been in office only three months, was largely responsible for the bringing to book of a big international gang of drug smugglers. A few days later he was removed from his post. Inevitably the story is circulating that a member of the royal family was behind the drug racket, and secured the removal of the man who smashed it. Consequently the police are neither feared nor respected, although they carry pistols. They are often seen fighting in the streets, and sometimes they are visibly drunk.
Petrol costs only two shillings a gallon, but the driver's lot is not an easy one. Third-party insur- ance is difficult and expensive to obtain. A motorist who knocks somebody down is expected to pay the usually steep hospital bills, or he may receive a visit from a gang of the injured per- son's friends and relatives, who will knock him around until he pays up. There is a surprisingly large number of cars in Teheran, generally ostentatious ones, belonging to foreigners and the rich; and traffic conditions are terrible. There i; no discipline or courtesy; at crossroads cars nose each other out, competing for the right of way; and there are frequent accidents.
Building of metalled roads, of dams, railways, schools and hospitals, is going ahead slowly. A large part of the Government's oil revenues (a hundred million pounds a year) goes towards this kind of work; so does much of the generous American aid--generous, because the United States has a vital interest in keeping the regime stable, and believes this is one way of doing so.
But millions of pounds are wasted because of corruption and sheer incompetence. Ineptitude blights all kinds of official activities, often with disastrous results. First reports of locusts this year came at about the middle of October. The Government declined to take any action because, they said, the locusts did not appear to be very big ones. Two weeks later they called out the army to fight them. By this time it was too late: the locusts are now strong and active, and will doubtless cause severe damage to crops—as they do most years.
Iran is being Westernised in all the wrong places. Modern bottling plants for Pepsi, Coke and Canada Dry have sprung up all over the place, while in the filthy poor quarters of the cities people still drink from the jubes—open watercourses that run down the sides of the streets, collecting all manner of rubbish. Teheran Airport is one of the finest in the Middle East, yet there is still no adequate road and rail system. A tall Hilton Hotel is being built, while hundreds of people sleep in the streets.
Newspapers and all publications coming into the country are censored. All books, even those arriving as private personal effects, have to be checked by security officials, which often means that they are held at the customs for three or four weeks. For local newspapers the situation is complicated; they are never sure just what they will be able to get away with at any given time. The two big dailies are expected to toe the line on major aspects of government policy. They sell around 70,000 copies a day each. The smaller papers, selling from 1,000 to 5,000, arc allowed greater freedom. Yet it was one of the two big ones that first revealed the rigging of the elections, and got away with it. But a few weeks ago the largest English-language paper was suspended for two days because.of an article it had printed a week before which faintly implied approval of Egypt (it was from the Observer Foreign News Service). Egypt is out of favour at the moment because of the insults Cairo, Radio poured on the Shah when Iran recognised Israel; and in addition, the Shah may feel his present situation to bear an ominously close resemblance to that of King Farouk before Neguib's revolution. When the paper did appear again, it carried a long and virulent attack on President Nasser as penance. Another recent seizure was of an issue that one of the big two had brought out to announce that the Russian rocket had hit the moon—this even though care had been taken to eradicate anything remotely resembling praise of Russia.
There are 7,000 political prisoners held at present; and by calling all his enemies Com- munists the Shah is helping to ensure that when the revolution does come it will be from the Left, But it will probably take the form of a quiet coup from somewhere near the top; and if ii does not come about in that way fairly soon, a popular uprising is conceivable.
Anyway, I don't want to be here when it happens.
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