Shah of Shahs by Ryszard Kapuscinski
Requirements: Any ePUB reader, 195 kb
Overview: Ryszard Kapuscinski’s “Shah of Shahs” is more than an account of the few months in 1979 that saw the fall of Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, and the victory of Ayatollah Khomeini’s Islamist regime. Kapuscinski studied history but practiced journalism, and his work reflects both. He explains how the Shah constructed a culture of fear, allowing his brutal secret service, SAVAK, a free hand in silencing dissidents.
“They would kidnap a man as he walked along the street, blindfold him, and lead him straight into the torture chamber without asking a single question. There they would start in with the whole macabre routine–breaking bones, pulling out fingernails, forcing hands into hot ovens, drilling into the living skull, and scores of other brutalities–in the end, when the victim had gone mad with pain and become a smashed, bloody mass, they would proceed to establish his identity. Name? Address?”
Having reported on more than twenty-five Third World revolutions before Iran, Kapuscinski brings a shrewd, experienced eye to the Shah’s misguided attempts to modernise his country. He planned build what he called the “Great Civilization”, making Iran the world’s “third power” (presumably after the US and USSR). Within one generation, he declared, he would bring Iranians a Western standard of living. Kapuscinski describes the Great Civilization’s greatest misstep, its importation of skilled labor and subsequent exclusion of native Iranians.
Kapuscinski also pinpoints the moment at which the discontent of many Iranians flared into a revolution.
“The policeman shouts but the man doesn’t run. He just stands there, looking at the policeman… he doesn’t budge. Nobody runs though the policeman has gone on shouting: at last he stops. There is a moment of silence. We don’t know whether the policeman and the man on the edge of the crowd already realize what has happened. The man has stopped being afraid–and this is precisely the beginning of the revolution… the policeman turns around and begins to walk heavily back toward his post.”
Genre: Non-Fiction, History, Politics, Literature
Download Instructions:
http://ceesty.com/wXaMff
mirror
http://ceesty.com/wXaMfl
