For many months now, the dominant subject of discussion in Iranian Government circles and in the Government-controlled mass media has been the Shah’s coronation, which took place on October 26th Huge sums of money, reaching tens of millions of pounds, have been spent to decorate the cities, and the Ministry of Information has brought all its weight upon creating the image of a happy and prosperous nation whose ‘revolutionary’ Emperor has solved all her problems for her and which is praying for the health of His Imperial Majesty every minute of the day. In circumstances such as these, however, the truth usually lies at the other end of the scale, and the question that many observers of the Iranian scene are asking is whether Iran is a Vietnam in the making. For, as we shall see below, 14 years of firm rule by the Shah have not improved the average Iranian’s ill fortunes, with his income of less than £30 per year. Furthermore, the extreme corruption of the Civil Service, soaring cost of living, staggering numbers of the unemployed, brutal suppression of political opponents, and many other factors have robbed the majority of the people of the slightest hope for a better future under the present régime.

To give you an idea about the extent of poverty among Iranian villagers, the observations of a ‘Literary Corps’ man, whom I met recently, can be valuable. The Literary Corps consists of high school graduates who, after a short period of training, are sent to a remote village to spend their two years of National Service in running or starting a primary school. An admirable idea and we shall examine it later, but, for the moment, let us see what this friend of mine wrote in his diary about poverty in his assigned village. He wrote: ‘Some families combine efforts with others and send a man to Teheran to buy a sack-full of dry bits of bread, the left-overs from restaurant tables, for ten toomans (about 8 shillings). This bread is then soaked in water and forms the only food of the families!’ The priorities of the Iranian Government are demonstrated by what my friend did later. He reported the situation to his superiors and was energetic enough to go to the provincial Governor also. He was told, however, that although the authorities were sorry, they had no money available for hunger relief. There were ‘other more urgent needs’! I wonder now, what this young man thought when, only a few months later, he read in Teheran newspapers that over £20 million had been spent on the decoration of Teheran alone for the coronation? A revolutionary Emperor, indeed, and some ‘urgent needs’!