In Today's Iran

No Stereotypes Apply

Story and Photographs by Steve Zind

Tehran is a noisy, messy, chaotic and fascinating city. It's the heart of modern Iran. There is little of the beauty of ancient Persia here. For that you have to travel to cities like Isfahan or Shiraz.

Two young Iranian women consent to pose for an American's camera. All must wear headscarves,but many contrive to pull them back from their foreheads in a stylish manner. (Herald / Steve Zind)

To many Americans, as it once did to me, Iran appears from a distance as a clenched fist: scowling mullahs with strident voices hoarse from denouncing the U.S., and men with scratchy, week-old beards striding ahead of women hidden under black chadors.

There is little about Tehran's Mehrabad airport to dispel this image. The bare, echoing terminal is from another time. I listen to the quickening steps of the passengers and imagine the collapse of the monarchy in 1979, when this terminal was filled with anxious families fleeing the chaos.

Now it contains only the murmur of sleepy arrivals. As soon as the man in the customs booth sees my American passport he's through with me. I'm escorted to a small corner cubicle. The man there says a few things that I don't understand, but I sense he doesn't want me to worry about being detained. I tell him in Persian that I don't understand much Persian. I know that I have a small walk-on part in the tragicomic play that is official U.S.-Iran relations.

In Iran there is always The Wait That Takes Place for No Apparent Reason. After 30 minutes, my host beckons. He has a fingerprint kit. Our collaboration produces ten impenetrable black smudges. Finished, the man helps me wash my hands, pulling up my sleeves for me. I go to claim my luggage.

Then I step from the half-alive interior of the airport into a mad scene of shouts, wails, hugs and tears. Entire families have come to welcome loved ones and lead them home.

I feel a momentary pang that no one is waiting to greet me in this overwhelming Iranian style, and then I assume the pleasurable role of bystander, moving to the thinning edge of the crowd to watch this amazing display of emotion and disorder.

I'm in Iran because of a single word from a stranger.

In the fall of 1998 I was in Tunbridge covering Fred Tuttle's senate primary victory for Vermont Public Radio when a photographer from Life Magazine approached me.

"Persian," he said.

I nodded and told him my grandfather was Iranian.

Until that moment I was only dimly aware of my Iranian background, but my curiosity about my grandfather and his country was awakened.

After three trips to Iran, the stereotypes I shared with many Americans have long since vanished. I've answered many questions about Iran from American friends:

"Are Iranian women forbidden from driving or working?" or "Isn't it dangerous because you're an American?" (The answer to both questions is an emphatic "no.")

Iran is a land of contradictions. and they're symbolized by the lives of women. Women must ride in the back of busses so they're separated from the men. But they can squeeze into crowded shared taxis practically in the lap of a strange man.

In public they're supposed to cover their hair and conceal the shape of their bodies, but many young women, especially in Tehran, are as fashionable as those in New York City. They wear tight manteaus (like a trench coat), push their colorful scarves far back on their heads, and wear stylish sunglasses and dark red lipstick. These women share the sidewalks with other women who choose to dress in the enveloping black chador.

The recent crackdown on "improper dress" hasn't yet had much effect from what I can see, but there are fears that social freedoms young Iranians now enjoy could be reversed. Sixty percent of the college students in this highly literate nation are women. They don't enjoy the same legal rights as men, but they're pushing back and slowly making gains. Iran is always changing.

The Islamic Republic has little tolerance for organized movements by women, students, intellectuals and workers. Their leaders are often jailed. On the street, though, many people aren't afraid to speak their minds and they're highly critical of their government.

This is not the oppressive political environment of Iraq under Saddam, Libya, North Korea or even some other Middle Eastern countries. Iran has a popularly elected parliament and president. It is true that their power is trumped by a parallel system run by clerics who can check any legislative or presidential action. Still, elected officials are not mere rubber stamps. Earlier this year, the Iranian parliament, unhappy with President Ahmadinejad, passed a bill to shorten his term. It was rejected by the clerical body that oversees lawmaking.

My hotel is a block from the old American Embassy (now called the U.S. Den of Spies). This is where the hostage crisis played out nearly 30 years ago. I strolled around it one night, when the weather had cooled a bit. Anti-American slogans are painted on the walls and there's a mural of the Statute of Liberty with the face of a skeleton. The paint is chipped and faded.

If there's one opinion Iranians share with their government, it is condemnation of our government. There's little evidence that President Bush's declaration that he stands with the Iranian people resonates here. Still, there's tremendous affection for the American people, and I'm often greeted warmly when I tell people where I'm from. To many Iranians, America represents economic and educational opportunity.

My walk around the old embassy takes me into a park. Tehran has many clean, beautiful and safe parks. It's after 10 p.m. and there are families picnicking and young couples strolling hand in hand. I have many Iranian friends in their 20s and 30s who will live with their parents until they're married. This is partly for economic reasons, but also because family is at the center of Iranian culture.

I walk slowly, munching on a sweet Iranian pastry and listening to the voices and the musical lilt of the Persian language. Vendors sell carrot and cantaloupe juice and strange, delicious drinks flavored with rosewater. Young men wear shirts with the logos of American sports teams.

For a moment in this quiet park, the tension between our two governments fades away like the noise from the busy street. Despite the enormous differences between our histories and cultures, these are people partaking in the same pleasures we enjoy- the company of family and friends and a peaceful evening in a park.

Small flags from 19 countries hang in my hotel lobby, but there's no American flag. Perhaps someday the stars and stripes will hang there, and Americans, too, will have an opportunity to come this way and discover the culture and the people that lie behind the political face of Iran.