While thousands protest in Iran over the disputed presidential election, a small minority of Iranian expatriates believes it has a solution for what troubles their homeland – a democratically elected government and a return of a Shah.
Nostalgic for life before the Islamic Revolution toppled the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi 30 years ago, they say Iranians will have more freedoms under the system they propose, but are quick to add that a monarch will only hold a figurehead position.
They are pushing for a democratic parliamentary system in which there’s a clear separation of religion from government, and a monarch who unites the country’s various ethnic groups, the late Shah’s son Reza Pahlavi told The Associated Press on Monday.
While some name Pahlavi, 48, as the natural successor, he demurs. With or without a title, he said, he is committed to more freedoms for Iranians.
“Right now I have only one mission in life and that is to help the process of bringing about change,” he said.
His movement doesn’t boast large numbers in the United States. It is not likely that many, if any, of the thousands of young people marching – and at times fighting security forces in running street battles – in recent days support Pahlavi’s ideas.
Many only know of the Shah’s rule from history books and their parents’ stories. It is estimated that 70 percent of Iran’s population is under 30.
Iranians had more social freedoms under his rule, in an era when wealthy women wore their hair in public like Farrah Fawcett, American movies regularly played in theaters, and men and women easily mingled in ice cream shops and discos.
But political life in Iran was not free. One of the Shah’s few lasting legacies was Evin, a notorious prison founded by his secret police cadre, the SAVAK, and used to intimidate and brutalize the king’s opponents, often journalists.
An ally of the U.S., the Shah was criticized for hobnobbing with Western leaders while illiteracy and poverty took hold of swaths of his country. By 1979, the Islamic Revolution had toppled his rule with mass street demonstrations calling for equality and pious restraint.
The memory of those protests resurfaced this weekend when thousands took to the streets after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the winner.
“People have learned the hard way that unless they take it to the streets with civil disobedience they have a hard time conveying their message,” said Pahlavi, of Bethesda, Md. He called on Iranians to hold a referendum to change styles of government.
A return of a Shah has a few supporters in Los Angeles, where the majority of Iranian expatriates live. The Iranian monarchist group, Khashm Organization, estimates that there are about 500 active monarchists.
Los Angeles-based Pars TV founder Amir Shadjareh said he supports the Shah’s return as “a symbol of unity for all Iranians,” noting that Iran is comprised of many ethnic tribes, including Kurds, Lurs, Arabs and Turkomans.
But even those who support the creation of a loose monarchy styled after England, Japan or Sweden, where the crown is mostly a figurehead, warn against giving the king any power – or the opportunity to abuse it.
“The king should not have a direct role in the country’s government, he doesn’t intercede,” Shadjareh said.
Hossein Hosseini, a board member of the National Iranian-American Council, said he thinks there is an older generation of Iranian-Americans who long for the days of the Shah – but not the energetic, young activists who have taken to the streets since the election.
“When I talk to my children about it, it is like someone would talk to you about Eisenhower,” said Hosseini, 56, of Irvine, Calif. “They’re more pushing for the future rather than looking at the past.”
Even Iranians who long for a return to the life they had under the Shah disagree that a modified monarchy is the way to get there.
Shala Samsamy, 61, of Long Beach, Calif., said “no one wants to go back to the Shah’s regime, that is for sure.” A licensed psychotherapist who moved to the U.S. in 1975, Samsamy said today’s Iranians want free speech, a free press, a free Internet and a clean slate.
Pahlavi won’t sell to the Iranian public because the name brings “back memories of a regime that was basically a dictatorship,” Samsamy said.
Despite the many views about bringing more freedoms to Iranians, bookshop owner Bijan Khalili said Iranians “were united under one important issue: ‘This is a dictatorship, and this wasn’t a free election.'”
