the view from over here…
Just a quick post to comment on the ‘situation’ in Iran. Friends and family keep telling me that I’m “lucky” to have got out of Iran before this business with the British embassy in Tehran blew up. I cannot help but notice how the coverage on the TV here is very similar to that that I saw before I went to Iran. I cannot help further noticing that the comments people are making to me now – about how dangerous Iran is – are the same as they were before I went.
This seems to me curious on various levels. If I hadn’t actually been there I would have concluded – as everyone else seems to be doing – that yes, indeed, Iran is somehow ‘dangerous’… and yet when I was actually there I not only felt that it wasn’t dangerous, but I actually felt noticeably safer there than I would in many parts of the UK. In spite of having reported on this – acting almost as a live reporter for my friends and family – none of what I said seems to have softened people’s attitudes towards Iranians.
I don’t know if what is happening there indicates that something has changed – violently and for the worse – but, from my experiences, this seems to me unlikely. Instead I am left wondering why it is that the view of Iran from here is so completely different, so unrelentingly negative, than it is from over there…..
