Going West

Going west
End of summer 1976, it seems as if we are all from a village that doesn't have a school for us to continue our education. A mass migration of sort, we are leaving at going away good bye parties disco music blares out of loud popular 8 track stereos as we dance our last dances and eat our last of good home made meals which will miss for many years to come. Also a time of separation from first loves which some will never see again. We take bits and pieces of home with us some even taking cans of classic dishes in a vain attempt to have a little comfort and familiarity of home with us. However this fades away quickly. Replaced by cheap campus self service food. Ending any hope of recreating a home environment abroad. Years later in places like Los Angeles or London few restaurants pop up and gradually they become centers of Iranian gathering. Hence in comparison we accepted western ways of life and culture much faster than people who moved abroad after us. They even showed certain resistance to us and our way of life at times criticizing us for our being assimilated and westernized. Every aspect of life seemed different marked with limitless freedom. When I got to London I befriended Aram who was also a distant relative. My friend was suffering from manic depression and I think schizophrenia a few years older than me, he was a communist I'd seen pictures of five men on the wall of his room in an aristocratic home his father had purchased for him and his mother and sister. Later I found out that they were portrait five major leaders of communist movement done on silk Meslm. His devotion was s almost like a pious catholic or Muslim who believes in saints and martyrs. However this is one world he conjures and lives in, remnant of his early teens in U.S where he joined confederation of Iranian students. Confederation was a very active organization struggling to overthrow despotic monarchy in Iran. An unwanted consequence of pro west despotic oligarchy's need for technocrats which had let to creation of a rather large community of opponents in the heart of it's main sponsor of torture and horror.
Aram was a gentle soul who was exposed to politics at early age and like most youth became disillusioned after a few years of active participation. He felt comfortable wit me and had allowed me in his world. We would go to see movies and some times pay visit to Piccadilly SQ. Whore houses where he felt more at ease than actually dating women and going to discos which were quite popular at the time. He shattered god image of "king of kings" and to certain degree my belief in Islam. Once while I was staying at their house we smelled something burning in the back yard, there we found him pouring kerosene over an already burning picture of his majesty and a copy of Quran. He turned to us as if he was making a speech in front of a large audience and shouted " by burning these symbols of darkness and superstition I'm burning all rigid beliefs …" and started singing an old anthem which he later told me was an anthem of officer's organization of Tudeh party. Which he believed was the sole fruition of 1950's revolutionary movement in Iran. I was sixteen and this information mostly passed thru me going to discos. Freedom of dating girls and staying out late was thrilling. London in those years was not as diverse as today, however women in discos or my school were open minded. There were remnants of sixties free love and counter culture still evident and presently alive. There was high tension between I R A and occupying British forces. Intensified bombings and terror tactics by IRA had London police body search people before entering public places such as discos. None of this really sank in, we were young and from middle class had money in our pockets and were enjoying our time. I came across a few books by supporter of opigf and translated Farsi edition of works by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Mao in old Chinese neighborhood in London. But they really didn't make any sense due to the fact that I was illiterate in political economy terminology. However aloof we were we didn't like the repression of political dissent back home.
I'd heard my father showing resentment towards Pahlavi's's despotism at times making fun of their national anthem or their ridiculous pompous ceremonies such as the farce of celebrating 2500 years of monarchy in Persepolis. He was a heart and lungs specialist (Bronchologist) he had first hand experience with true life of people especially downtrodden and poor who were prime victim of tuberculosis. Hence for him these ravish careless splurges seemed scandalous. Through him I had heard of life in Europe mainly Southern Italians and their charming ways of life, their kindness and realness, their wonderful cuisine. In early 70s Iran we were stamped by superficial emulation of American life style. Our adaptation of west was on surface never going to depths of counter culture of sixties in Europe and America. Youth would grow long hair and listen to Lennon, Dylan or Crosby stills, Nash, and young or Pink Floyd without really grasping what they stood for. We lacked any understanding of anti war movement of youth or sympathies shown in French student movement towards people dominated by west.