Richard Nixon’s Honest Take on the Shah | #shorts

Nixon: The Shah was trying to move Iran into the twentieth century.

Producing Nostalgia: Iranian Diaspora TV's Rebranding of the Shah | The Listening Post

Kayhan Life: Spotlight on a Global Iranian Community »

Inside the Shah's Former Palace

The former home of Iran's Shah in Tehran is attracting many visitors, fascinated by pre-revolution royal times.

The Iranian royal family spent their last days in the Niavaran palace complex, before the 2500-year old Persian monarchy came to an end in 1979.

Shah of Iran's Amazing Party: Decadence and Downfall: BBC Documentary

2,500 year celebration of the Persian Empire.

Iran’s Last Shah - The Fifth Estate

In 1975 for one of the first-ever episodes of the fifth estate, Adrienne Clarkson talked to Mohammad Reza Pahlavi -the Shah of Iran- about inflation in the West in the face of rising oil prices. The Shah contends that the West built itself at Iran’s expense and he is now putting things right. Clarkson raises the issues of Iran’s record with political prisoners and torture and his views on torture are unequivocal. The Pahlavi dynasty would end four years later in the wake of the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Pahlavi died of cancer while in exile one year later.

Why Iranians Are Lapping Up Shah Memorabilia

The Shah in 1954, a year after the
CIA-MI6 coup.

THE GUARDIAN: In Tehran, memories of the Shah’s brutality are fading and selling imperial wares is becoming less dangerous. But what’s really behind the increasing fondness for the pre-1979 era?

Near the grand bazaar in Tehran, over the entrance to the complex housing the ministries of foreign affairs and information, the national museum and the Islamic era museum, is a colourful mural, dating to the time of Reza Shah, depicting symbols of Iranian nationalism including a dignified soldier, a Maxim machine-gun, and crossed Iranian flags.

The flags, sporting the distinctive horizontal bands of red, white and green, have been more recently altered than the rest. On all the flags, the white band in the centre has been painted over with a fresh coat of eggshell white. On the green band below you can see, cut off at the ankles, the paws of a lion and on the red band above you can see the rays of a rising sun.

These are remnants, spared a literal-white washing, of the Shir o Khorshid, or Lion and Sun, a coat of arms that graced the Iranian flag from the mid 19th century until the 1979 Revolution when it was replaced by a stylized version of the word Allah (“God”) written in Arabic script.

The Shir o Khorshid, a popular Iranian symbol since at least the 12th century, has since the revolution become associated with the deposed monarch Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi and his dynasty. After the revolution, the new government of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini systematically eradicated it from public spaces and government buildings, replacing it with Islamic iconography. Today in Iran nostalgia for the Shah and his government, like the paws of the lion, peeks out from under a coat of white paint.

When I visited the Vakil bazaar in Shiraz or the Jomeh bazaar in Tehran, I saw mountains of Shah-related memorabilia at almost every stall. Vintage Iranian rial notes and postage stamps emblazoned with his face, brass busts of him and his infamously fabulous wife Empress Farah, coffee-table books with full-colour photos of the royal family, countless pendants, rings, and wall hangings depicting the Shir o Khorshid, some vintage and some obviously mass-produced more recently. » | Tehran Bureau correspondent | Wednesday, June 17, 2015

'In This Room There Is No Islam': The Shah's 'Special Relationship' With Iran's Israeli Community

+ 972 MAG: A new documentary tells about the lives the Israeli community living in Iran during the 1960s and 1970s. But will the film be enough to challenge the dominant Israeli narrative regarding the root of animosity between the two countries?

It seems that the mechanisms of remembrance and forgetfulness worked perfectly in shaping the collective memory of the relations between Israel and Iran. The Israeli narrative goes as such: during his reign, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi tried to create a modern, progressive, and western Iran (Iran’s relations with Israel were at the core and foundations of the shah’s geostrategic policies). The new documentary, Before the Revolutionby Dan Shadur, beautifully conveys the story of the large Israeli community in Iran in the 1960s and 1970s, progressing in two simultaneous lanes: the lane of memory, and the lane of forgetting.

The vast spectrum of interviewees in this documentary allows the audience to gain a fuller picture of those relationships. The interviewees come from different walks of life: from senior diplomats to teachers in Tehran’s Israeli school or employees of the myriad Israeli companies that worked in Iran at that time. They tell us how and why the picture of this “special relationship” was drawn in such this way. They also describe the creation of the “oriental fantasy” in which they lived. Fancy luxurious department stores that offered goods that did not exist in Israel at that time (like Pampers diapers) welcomed the Israelis who held “unbelievable earning power.” Many of them describe the wealth, huge houses, live-in maids, and the large and thriving community. » | Lior Sternfeld/Haokets | Saturday, June 08, 2013

David Usborne – Death of a Prince: Latest Tragedy to Hit Iran’s Dynasty
THE INDEPENDENT: The suicide of Alireza Pahlavi, the youngest son of the former Shah of Iran, is a reminder of the futility of the dream that one day the royal family may be restored

Whatever it was that sustained Alireza Pahlavi – his money, perhaps, his good looks or even a lingering nostalgia for luxuries and status lost – it ran out this week. With a single squeeze of the trigger, the youngest son of the former Shah of Iran, aged 44 and living in a well-to-do corner of Boston, took his own life on Tuesday.

Neighbours in the South End district of Boston won't miss him much, even if they liked to gossip about his royal lineage every once in a while. Almost no one knew the man who always looked debonair in pressed jeans and a blazer, climbing from his Porsche before disappearing into his brownstone home, its windows obscured by interior shutters.

That he generated pavement chit-chat was hardly surprising. He was different. He had been raised as the second in line to the ancient Peacock Throne of Persia, accustomed once to unimaginable privilege. As an adult in Boston he seemed accomplished – he attended Ivy League universities – and had once been touted as the city's most eligible bachelor. But to wonder at the man and his pedigree was to ignore the demons burrowed inside. >>> David Usborne | Thursday, January 06, 2011

Exile 'Traumatic' for Shah's Son Alireza Pahlavi
BBC NEWS MIDDLE EAST: The younger son if the Shah of Iran, Alireza Pahlavi, was "extremely affected" by his family's exile, former Iranian minister Mahnaz Afkhami says.

Alireza Pahlavi killed himself in the US after a long battle with depression.

Ms Afkhami, who was minister for women's affairs during the Pahlavi era, told the BBC World Service that the fall of the Shah was a "traumatic experience" for Alireza, who was 13 years when his father fled the country in 1979. Listen to BBC audio >>> | Wednesday, January 05, 2011

Related >>>

Prince Alireza Shah. Photograph: Google Images
Youngest Son of Iran Shah Commits Suicide
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Prince Alireza Pahlavi, the youngest son of the late Shah of Iran, has been found dead after committing suicide in the United States, according to his family.

The prince, 44, who had been studying at Harvard University, killed himself in his home in Boston, his family said on Tuesday.

Prince Reza Pahlavi, his older brother, said Prince Alireza had been downhearted due to political developments in Iran over recent years and at the loss of other relatives.

"Like millions of young Iranians, he too was deeply disturbed by all the ills fallen upon his beloved homeland, as well as carrying the burden of losing a father and a sister in his young life," he said.

The prince was studying for a postgraduate degree in philology and ancient Iranian studies. He had already obtained degrees from Princeton and Columbia universities. >>> Jon Swaine, New York | Tuesday, January 04, 2011

ABC NEWS / US: Son of Former Iranian Shah Found Dead in Boston: Former Iranian prince, youngest son of ousted shah, found dead of apparent suicide in Boston >>> Denise LaVoie, Associated press | Tuesday, January 04, 2011

Tragic Double Suicide of the Shah of Iran's Children, Who Battled to Start a New Life in the U.S.
MAIL ONLINE: The youngest son of the Shah of Iran has killed himself after a long battle with depression - following his model sister who also took her own life.

Tormented by his sister’s death and the upheaval in his native country, Alireza Pahlavi, 44, shot himself in the head at his home in Boston, where he was studying at Harvard University.

His brother, former crown price Reza Pahlavi, said the family was in ‘great sorrow’ over the tragedy.

A family statement confirmed: ‘It is with immense grief that we would like to inform our compatriots of the passing away of Prince Alireza Pahlavi.

‘Like millions of young Iranians, he too was deeply disturbed by all the ills fallen upon his beloved homeland, as well as carrying the burden of losing a father and a sister in his young life.

‘Although he struggled for years to overcome his sorrow, he finally succumbed.’ >>> David Gardner | Wednesday, January 05, 2011

Kaiserkrönung in Teheran: Aus der NZZ vom 26. Oktober 1967
NZZ ONLINE: 1967 krönt Schah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi an seinem 48. Geburtstag sich und seine Frau Farah Diba zum Kaiser und zur Kaiserin von Persien. Nach einem Gebet in arabischer Sprache umgürtet sich Reza Pahlevi mit einem Smaragdgürtel und setzt sich die Krone aufs Haupt. Die NZZ beschreibt am 26. Oktober die feierliche Krönungszerermonie und zitiert die Ansprache des Schahs. >>> | Montag, 26. Oktober 2009

Kaiserkrönung in Tehran >>> ag (AFP) | Donnerstag, 26. Oktober 1967

The Coronation of Teheran: Farah Is Crowned >>>

Iran Chamber Society: Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi: Arya Mehr and Shahanshah (King of the Kings) >>>

Coronation HIM Mohamad Reza Shah Pahlavi

Days of Pride: The Shah of Iran

The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Paperback (US) Barnes & Noble >>>
The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Hardcover (US) Barnes & Noble >>>