Persians

Persia

The Middle East

“You are very beautiful. I’ve always been intrigued by the beauty of Arabian women.” I said this to compliment her. “Excuse me but I am Persian, Arabs are a different people.” Sepideh rebuked as if I just blasphemed the Koran. Like me, most Filipinos are more attuned to what’s happening in Europe or the United States, but not Persian Gulf states. There are many Iranian students in the Philippines mostly enrolled in nursing, dentistry and the medical field. If not for them, not much is known about Iran nor the other countries in the Middle East. Through them I’ve learned that Iranians are Persians and Iran used to be Persia, a glorious empire in the ancient world.

Now, it’s hugging the headlines. The controversy is centered on its nuclear programs and the United States is threatened by a futuristic nuclear-ready Iranian military. Stop it! sayeth the superpower. But it adamantly says, No! and the Iranians agree with their government’s can’t-bully-me stance. This defiance is a slap in the face for somebody used to having its way around, and its quite amazing to see a relatively small country stand up to a lone global superpower. But as I dug deep into history, the present controversy can be traced back many years ago, and was rooted not in uranium enrichment, but to a more basic commodity everybody can relate to - oil….

It began when Britain and the Soviet Union pursued their colonial interests in oil-rich Iran. They came in during WWII, stayed, and reaped huge profits until Mossadeq came into power. He nationalized the oil and petroleum industry but was overthrown by a CIA-backed coup in 1953. This was followed by an era of close alliance between Shah Pahlavi and the American government, which not only shared a huge pie in the billion dollar oil industry, it also had border access to its cold war rival - the Soviet Union. But as the rapid growth of oil revenues in the 70’s and 80’s strengthened the Iranian state, it weakened US influence in Iranian politics. Nationalism rose and the 1979 Revolution became unstoppable, which deposed the Shah and passed the reign of power on to the Ayatollah who became the most steadfast anti-American ruler in history. 

When the Shah fled, he was granted US asylum right away. In retaliation, the angry Iranian mob stormed the US embassy in Teheran and 52 diplomats were held hostage for 444 days. They demanded the Shah’s extradition to face trial back home. Succumbing to pressure, the United States released the Shah after the Algiers Accords was signed, but Egypt took him in. Like an old wound that refuses to heal, what followed is an era of turbulent US-Iran relations, strung more than 30 years now, one event at a time….

“My father’s cousin was in that plane when it was hit by US missiles.” Sepideh narrated. It was near the end of the Iran–Iraq War in July of 1988 when USS Vincennes shot down an Iranian Airbus bound for Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. The attack killed 290 civilians. In its aftermath, An Iranian navy Captain sent this haunting letter to the one who pushed the button - Navy Captain William Rogers of USS Vincennes. "All Iranians felt they have a cousin that died in the tragedy. So you can understand the loathing we felt for America?" I said, “But it’s all part of history now. It’s in the past. Things change. People change.”  She said, “But the wound is inside. It cannot heal….” She was in a pensive mood now. “Ah let’s talk about something else.” I said. “When I go to Persia where will you bring me?” Her eyes lit and said, "I’ll show you Persepolis. It rivals Greece’s or Rome’s ruins. And you have to eat faloodeh!"
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Samurai House

Kanagawa Prefecture
In the Outskirts of Tokyo

Erected on a foothill, we stayed in a century old Samurai House. It has two-foot thick grass roof and sliding wooden windows pocked with small square openings covered in white paper. It has low beds and low tables, and on one corner, a sword.

At night we shared stories back home. "As an archipelago, the sea naturally separates the Filipino islanders." I told Sudarshan, one of the more colorful characters in this motley group. He is from Nepal and speaks a heavily accented English. "In time, things develop apart and distinct from one another like the languages we speak." I continued. As I came to know, a parallel situation is true of Nepal, which straddles the Himalayas. Though only a strip of land on a map, the tall mountains isolate groups of people from one another making it possible for multi-cultures to flourish including diverse spoken languages.

Ana joined us after hearing our mountain talk. She was particularly fond of pictures with mountain backgrounds, and when she clicked the Rice Terraces folder in my computer, she was totally blown away! Small wonder she is from Tallinn, the capital city of the Baltic state of Estonia. She said that except for humps and mounds here and there, her country is totally flat. In fact the whole area (eastern shores of the Baltic Sea) which includes the republics of Latvia and Lithunia, and the Russian enclave Kaliningrad are flat places. It is topographically the European equivalent of African prairies. I promised her that when she come to visit Philippines I’ll show her all our tall mountains, carved mountains, and mountains with hanging coffins! She was thrilled, and then gasped hearing the last one. 

It was already late and a chilling wind blew from the mountains. Somebody must have come in and didn’t close the door. I closed it while Ana put out the paper lanterns. Then I heard a loud noise. Somebody was snoring already – Sudarshan.
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Darth Vader Cloud

Lake Duminagat

Mt Malindang

The community showed little surprise when we came, but they were welcoming just the same. In a low voice (as if someone was eavesdropping) they said something to us, which sounded more like a plea than a suggestion: To not be noisy up the crater….

It was a clear day and despite the pleasantly cool wind, the sun warmed our skins. As we approached the ridge (actually the crater ring), I broke a sweat. A narrow path snaked down the lake below surrounded by age-old trees. The lake looked like a mirror reflecting the white clouds. We came to a clearing by the edge of the lake to where a fallen branch was half submerged in the water, the rest of it was covered in moss. We found our individual rocks and sat. It was comforting. We started talking and the talking turned to laughing, and the laughing turned to laughing really loud until….the sun disappeared.

We looked up. A sliver of dark cloud clawed its way down towards the forest canopy just above the crater. We became quiet. For a while it hovered as if waiting to strike. Silence descended upon us. We were still. Unmoving like the rocks we sat on. We only stirred when the menacing dark cloud slowly dissipated in thin air. Then we gathered our things and left, gently, with only our eyes talking. It seemed that if we tripped on the tree roots and stumble, the lake will open up and swallow us alive.

We talked about this over and over back at base camp. At night under a starlit sky in the midst of the jungle, we gathered around a bonfire with some local people for a conversation so creepy it was difficult for us to crawl back inside our tents: “There are certain people. We don’t see them but we hear them. Talking, laughing, swimming in the crater-lake. Sometimes in the middle of the night we hear cars and trucks go up the crater. Engines scream as if stuck in mud. They pass by our houses. We hear their feet shuffle. They are there. In the direction of where the dogs look, and howl….”
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