The most important thing to understand about Iran today is that it is populated by regular people trying to live happy lives, saod University of California, Santa Barbara History professor Nancy Gallagher, who recently travelled to Iran.
“Iran is a complicated, historic, interesting, cultural, beautiful place,” said Gallagher. “It’s taken very bad press over the years… that’s not the reality. That’s not people’s daily lives.”
Gallagher’s presentation for Multicultural Day, which was accompanied by photographs from her trip, titled Understanding Iran, began with a background of Iran’s political situation. She explained why Iranians distrust the American government.
A reason is that the U.S. supported a military coup in the 1950’s that ousted Iran’s very popular, democratically-elected president and replaced him with a heavy-handed dictator, the Shah of Iran.
Then in the 1970’s, after he was deposed, the U.S. allowed the Shah to come to the U.S. for medical treatment. This outraged Iranians and led them to take American’s from the embassy in Tehran hostage in an event known as the Iranian Hostage Crisis. The political situation between Iran and the U.S. has been sour ever since, said Gallagher.
Gallagher pointed out that one doesn’t get that impression from regular Iranians on the street. During her recent trip she found Iranians to be very warm and welcoming to Americans. Children who had been learning English in school were eager to come up and talk; excited to practice the language. Everywhere she went people were very hospitable, offering her food and drink.
She pointed out signs of cultural shifts in the country as well. She showed a picture she took of a group of women out to lunch. In the photo the women are wearing bright green head scarves with their hair visible, and one women isn’t wearing a scarf at all.
Gallagher explained that 30 years ago the law would have required women to wear their scarves more conservatively.
“I kind of thought women in Iran had to wear Burkas,” said 19-year-old Sandy Green. “I didn’t know their scarves could be so colorful.”
It might seem like a minor change in women’s fashion, but benchmarks like these are signs of real progress, saidGallagher.
