#the royal heir texas

[adarkrainbow]

While I'm at it, I want to precise something about the language of these 17th century fairytales like Perrault and d'Aulnoy.

There is something that might be confusing to foreigners not speaking French - that is confusing even to modern-day French folks unaware of the 17th century complexities - but that might be even more confusing for Americans and other people used to a very specific word... "Race".

Race pops up regularly in Perrault's and d'Aulnoy's fairytales, and I do not know how the word was translated in English, but the word "race" of these tales does NOT translate as modern day "race". Yes, race in the racist sense of today did exist by the 17th century... But it was a minor usage not very widespread nor common. What the French word "race" actually refers in these stories is... bloodline.

"Race" was for example used very regularly when princes or princesses speak of their family or ancestors. A princess' "race" means her royal house and royal ancestors. To "perpetuate the race" simply means "having an heir", as simple as that. It is by extension that "race" went from "a specific family or bloodline" to "a specific ethnicity or species". Think of the old house of "house". Like... House Lannister in Game of Thrones? In Perrault's text, it would have been written "the race of the Lannisters".

This is a point I myself came across when doing my paper about ogres, because when talking about the mother of the prince from Sleeping Beauty, Perrault specifies she is "de race ogresse". Today we can understand it as "she was an ogress" or "she was of the ogre species" and it does work since ogres are not human beings in popular culture... But Perrault's original text is much more subtle than that - because remember, in Perrault's fairytales ogres are ambiguously humans or half-humans - and what he actually meant was "she was of ogre bloodline".

By extension, and that was another point of my paper, it is a common part of ogre lore that ogres are always about family. This is why for example the mad clan of "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" is a good example of modern-day ogres: ogres always have a wife, sons, daughters, brothers or sisters somewhere. Perrault's ogres are a bloodline that seemingly mixes and mingles itself with nobility and royalty, and we have an ogre who has seven daughters ; madame d'Aulnoy presents us clans of ogres also with half a doen kids and who are focused on getting grandchildren. And this is even present in the uerco/orco lore of Basile's Pentamerone - for example in "The Golden Root" where the heroine has to fight or win the heart of an entire clan of ogres, mother, aunt, son and daughters (plus baby cousin thrown in a burning oven).

[sfb123]

Leaping to Conclusions

Pairing: Liam x Riley

All characters belong to Pixelberry

Summary: The pressure to produce an heir is getting to Liam and Riley, leading them to turn to some unconventional methods.

Rating: PG, Adult Language

Word Count: 1,395

A/N: This fic is insanity guys, I'm not even going to pretend it's anything but. I learned the most absurd fun fact this week, and after sharing it with pretty much everyone I know, @ao719 convinced me that it needed to be a fic, and here we are.

For the record, this story doesn't take place in any of my timelines. My Liam and Riley can be weird, but never this weird. 😂

I am participating in @choicesflashfics, the prompt: “Wait a second. Pause and rewind … what did you just say?” will appear in bold below.

And finally, nobody has pre-read this, so apologies in advance for my horrendous grammar, and anything else about it that sucks.

Riley’s eyes fluttered open as she felt Liam’s lips trailing slowly across her shoulder. She moaned softly and arched back into him. 

“Good morning, love.” He whispered huskily into her ear. 

“When it starts like this it is.” She replied, reveling in the attention she was receiving from her husband. 

As his hand traveled up her body, her stomach started to lurch. Her hand flew to her mouth and she leapt out of his arms and rushed to the bathroom of their guest room in the Walker ranch. Liam sat up and watched with worry as the door slammed shut. 

After a few moments, Liam stood and approached the door. He could hear his wife on the other end, and he knew exactly what was going on. He rapped gently on the door. “Riley, are you alright? Can I get you anything?”  

The only response he received were a few more retching noises, followed by the toilet flushing. Soon after, the door opened, and Liam met Riley’s red, blotchy eyes. “Sorry.” 

Liam wrapped his arms around her, pulling her flush against him. “You don’t have to apologize, it’s not your fault.” They stood there in silence as Liam held her. “Riley, do you think you may need to take a test?” 

Since the royal couple had gotten married, they’d been facing pressure to produce an heir. While they did not take their positions as monarchs lightly, for them, it was more about building a family together. 

“It wouldn’t hurt.” Riley shrugged before returning to the bathroom, closing the door behind her. Liam took a seat at the end of the bed to wait for her. 

“Oh no!” Liam stood and rushed back to the door at Riley’s cry. She came back into the bedroom, more distraught than she had been before. “I dropped the test in the toilet.” She buried her head in her hands. 

Liam chuckled slightly, as he wrapped his arm around her. He had read that pregnancy hormones could cause overreactions; he assumed, hoped, that was why she was so upset. “It’s alright, just take another one.”

“Liam, it was the last one!” She snapped.

He stepped back, shocked by her aggression. “That’s alright, we can go into town and get more.” 

“Are you kidding?!” Riley threw her hands up in frustration before moving to the bed and dropping down, burying her face in the pillow. “The press has been all over us, the last thing I need is for them to get a picture of me buying pregnancy tests!” 

Liam sat beside her on the bed, rubbing her back gently as he racked his brain for a solution. “I’ve got it!” 

Riley rolled over and sat up, leaning against the headboard. “What?” 

“We’re in Texas, surely there is a frog around here somewhere.” He said as he moved to the dresser, pulling out a pair of jeans. 

“Liam, this is no time to go wildlife gazing, I might be carrying the heir!” Riley chided him.

“Love calm down, the frog will be able to tell us.” He said matter of factly as he continued to get dressed. 

Her face contorted into a confused expression. “Wait a second. Pause and rewind … what did you just say?” 

He sat beside her on the bed and slid on his boots. “For about twenty years, starting in the nineteen forties, before the pregnancy tests we are familiar with today, there was the Hogben test. A British zoologist, Lancelot Hogben, discovered that when urine samples from pregnant women were injected into frogs, the frog would spawn eggs within eighteen hours. It was the most rapid and reliable pregnancy test of the time.” 

Riley stared at her husband in stunned silence. “How the fuck do you even know that?” 

“I like history.” He shrugged. 

Still befuddled by her husband’s solution, Riley took a deep breath. “So you want to inject a frog with my pee, and then in 18 hours either nothing happens and I’m not pregnant, or I am pregnant and we also have a hundred and seventy two frog eggs?” 

“They’re called frogspawn, love.” He corrected. 

She slapped her palm against her forehead. “Yeah, because that’s the most crucial thing in this conversation.”

“I’m sorry, force of habit,” Liam smiled sheepishly. “Would you like to try it? It’s a fascinating concept, I would be interested to see it in action.” 

“Liam, I don’t even want to touch a frog, let alone do science experiments on it.”

“I’ll take care of everything,” he insisted. “I’ll just need your… well, your um… sample.” 

Riley chuckled when Liam started to get flustered. “Alright, if it’ll make you happy, and all I have to do is pee in a cup, then let’s give it a try.” 

Liam grinned and leaned in, planting a quick kiss on Riley’s lips. “Excellent!”

“I guess Kermit was right, it’s not easy being green.” Riley said, shaking her head. 

Liam made his way to a nearby pond in search of the perfect frog. His eyes roamed the banks in search of his test subject. “If I were a frog, where would I be?” 

Finally, he noticed a slight movement out of the corner of his eye and turned to see a frog seated on a nearby rock. “Perfect.” He stalked toward his prey, making sure to stay as quiet as possible. 

Liam was so laser focused that he didn’t notice Drake coming up behind him, curiously observing the actions of his best friend. “Li, what the fuck are you doing?” 

Drake’s words startled Liam and before he had time to catch himself, he tumbled over into the pond as the frog lept away. Drake cackled as the King of Cordonia sat waist deep in the pond glaring at him. 

“Sorry,” Drake apologized as he reached down, helping Liam out of the water. “But seriously, what are you doing?”

“Riley might be pregnant,” he answered.

Drake furrowed his brow, even more confused now that he had the explanation. “Okay, so you decided to go frog hunting to celebrate?” 

“No, we lost the test,” he responded. When Drake continued to stare at him with a blank expression, Liam sighed and explained the Hogben test just as he had done for Riley earlier. 

“And Brooks agreed to go along with this?” Drake chuckled.

“We would do anything for eachother.” 

Drake rolled his eyes and moved toward the pond. A few moments later he returned with a frog. 

“How did you do that?” Liam marveled. 

“You had your training growing up, I had mine.” He shrugged in reply. 

Liam took the frog from Drake, thanking him for his efforts and began walking back to the house. 

“I’ve gotta see this.” Drake said to himself as he followed Liam. 

Liam entered the house heading toward the stairs, until he saw Riley sitting with Madeleine on the living room couch. When he stepped up to them, he noticed the crestfallen expression on his wife’s face. 

“Love, what’s wrong?” 

“I’m not pregnant,” she responded, her eyes trained on the floor. 

“But how do you know? I’ve got the frog right here.” He held it up to show her. 

Madeleine stood from the couch, glaring in confusion and disgust at the sight in front of her. “When I was in town this morning, I bought some tests. I figured you would need them.” 

“Oh Riley,” Liam moved to Riley, outstretching his arms. 

“Liam,” she held a hand up to stop him from getting any closer. “You’re slimy, and wet… and holding a frog.” 

“Oh, right.” Liam looked down at himself, and the frog in his hands. “I should shower. Care to join me?” He asked slyly. 

“Um… maybe you should handle this one solo,” she cringed. 

Liam handed the frog over to Madeleine, who grabbed it instinctively. He signaled for Riley to follow him, and they made their way up the stairs to the bedroom.

“So you’re not going to pee on a frog?” Drake called out as they exited the room. 

“Ugh,” Madeleine groaned. “None of this would be happening if I were queen.” She turned to Drake, thrusting the frog in his direction. “Make yourself useful and deal with this thing.” She stormed out of the room, mumbling to herself, questioning where things went wrong for her.

Drake looked down at the frog with a grin. “God I love Texas.”  

Permatag:

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Liam:

@amandablink @custaroonie @jared2612

TRR:

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@choicesficwriterscreations @choicesflashfics

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

Hey I have trouble with sending asks so if you see this twice pls disregard. I just wanted your opinion.

In regards to the “Tour” post, I’d love to see it actually. I’d love if the big four break up the states in one big visit to cover more territory. Nothing against C&C. If anything they should handle the DC, New England elite circle.

Will & Cathrine can take Appalachia. Kate has drug addiction patronage, if it’s not too touchy (hard to avoid though) they can also listen to the addiction problems that plague the indigenous & rural community. Cathrine can deal with education and early years and Will can touch on the biodiversity stuff.

Sophie & Will can touch on the Civil Rights south. I’d love to see them partner up again. Very touchy, I’d know 👋🏾 but better to face it and get the backlash then keep avoiding it. Sophie does a lot of visits on the African continent & well, William is the heir, of & Tusk.

I can see Edward & Sophie in the northeast, maybe going to meet the migrant community. Visit some of the fruit farms. The US still sends fruit/food to the UK right?

It would be cool to see Artsy Cathrine & Edward in something art related. You can find that virtually anywhere in this country, bonus points if they avoid Hollywood. Visit some small local theaters. They can also meet up w\ The Princes Trust and definitely with some to the celebrities that work with the organization.

Will should definitely visit some public transportation systems. Places like NY, LA & even Chicago are likely out of the question because of the safety risk, and they’re well used but Sacramento and South Florida and even Atlanta would be good to visit. That would be nice to encourage more cities to adopt/expand a light rail/buss system. I know Florida needs to.

I would also absolutely, embargo this whole trip. Only mention that “members of the firm are coming” in advance then state the trip\visit the day of or the day before. Then have the big four with C & C meet up in DC for a very glam visit with the president( whoever it is) . By glam I mean, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE bring out the tiaras. The president or First Lady should borrow one from and American jeweler too. Americans may not understand royal visits and what it is the Firm can do for charities but we understand bling and how much we love-hate to see it. Like the MET Gala and all those Bridgeton shows people go crazy for.

Cathrine in Diana’s sapphire choker in DC & possibly the Wales kiddos on a school bus would be the absolute highlight in the fanfic tour of mine. ( I wouldn’t bring them for the whole tour, just DC). Make a school stop, early years plug or something. Especially in DC since the government is often talking about expanding maternity leave and Woman’s (reproductive) Rights.

So much potential but it’s worth it because it’s such a big country. It sucks to mention the obnoxious two but I’ve always dreaded them here (im over it now) and sometimes I’m surprised at the things they didn’t do. I’ve always expected them to do a “Harry learns America” type thing to win over the nation. They put out more PR about how much “America” was their new forever home and how much “the country” loves them, than they actually did visiting anywhere and showing it. Might have done them more good than going all the way to Nigeria and Columbia. Also, I don’t just mean LA & NY. Their NF (granted I never watched it)deal could’ve been all about that. Make visits in smaller overlooked places etc. I guess they went to Texas & allegedly partied with the wealthy in Wisconsin was it ?but that was always for their own photo op on a situation that others were already paying attention to. ( ex: Texas school shooting & some race in Miami, Just like this hurricane. It’s so inauthentic but that’s not new to them. Oh & I guess he’s surfing now. For all their loud mouth talk about colonialism and how evil the firm is they visited no plantations, no soul food restaurants to have well “SeAsonnED FoOD”? They really capitalized on the pre-existing anger we rightfully have against the firm and the blame its current members have inherited but there were so many other effective ways they could’ve really hammered the nail in. The best thing about these two is how shortsighted they are, because it does more to sabotage themselves better than anyone else could.

*********

It's a nice thought but it's never going to happen. If Charles, Camilla, William, Kate, Edward, and Sophie are all in the US at the same time, that means Andrew, Harry, or Beatrice will be deputized counsellors of state, alongside Anne, since the law requires 2 counsellors of state to act in the King's absence. So no way, no how.

I'm not going to lie - I really did expect one of the Netflix projects to be a "coming to America" docuseries where Harry adjusts to life in California all the weird idiosyncrasies that comes with living in America and being American, only because the Beckhams did it and Meghan is nothing if not a copycat.

(I deleted your comments about Kamala because it's going to rile up tempers but I did want to address one of them: "the powers that be" determining who the president is is the American public that goes to the polls and votes. If you think there's something, or someone, else choosing who the President is, then this is really not the blog for you.)

[angelasscribbles]

Victim of Love Chapter 15: Now and Forever

Series: Victim of Love

Fandom: The Royal Romance

Pairings: Drake x Riley, Liam x Riley x Hana

Word Count: 1,555

Rating: MA

Warnings for this chapter: none

Song Inspiration for series: Victim of Love by The Eagles

You're just a victim of love I could wrong but I'm not no I'm not

A/N: Finally we come to the final chapter of this "one-shot" I wrote for World Whiskey Day.

My other stuff: Master List.

The press conference had been exhausting. Liam ushered his wife and child into their private quarters and closed the door with a relieved sigh. “Thank God that’s over,” he pulled at his tie as he made his way across the room, “Do you want me to take her?”

“No, I’ve got her. I think all the people made her fussy.”

It was tradition to present the new heir to the press at the age of three months. It had been Crown Princess Eleanor’s first public appearance ever. The public and the press corps oohed and ahhed appropriately, but it had been nerve-racking for the royal couple.

After the last several years of upheaval and his father’s death at the hands of terrorists, describing Liam as apprehensive about the whole thing would have been a gross understatement. He had quadrupled the normal guard detail for such an event, restricted attendance to less than a quarter of the typical amount and made all members of the press corps submit to background checks ahead of time.

He watched as his wife carried their daughter to the nursery for a nap with mixed emotions dancing through him. He couldn’t suppress the thought that it should have been Riley carrying his child through their home. It should have been her beside him on that dais. It should be her that was here with him now.

But it wasn’t and it never would be.

Hana was the mother of his child. Hana had stood beside him on that dais, and it was Hana that was here with him now. It would always be her by his side at official events. If there were to be another heir, it would be through her. He couldn’t find it in him to resent her for any of it. He had put her in this position, after all, and she had handled herself admirably through the last several months.

She had been restless on restricted activity in the months prior to Eleanor’s birth, but she had followed the doctor's orders to a T, determined to do what was best for their child, and had done an amazing job in the delivery room.

Hana was his wife. Hana was his queen.

But it was Riley who had calmed his nerves about the press conference, Riley who had reminded him of all the changes in the guard made under his watch, Riley who had convinced him to trust the men he had hired to do their jobs.

He had love and respect in his heart for his wife. But there was no doubt who he was in love with and they both knew it.

Riley and Drake had gotten married last month in a lavish ceremony at the ranch in Texas.

Liam had not been in attendance. Officially the reason given was that he could not be absent from Cordonia at that time due to both work and personal obligations. The public had accepted that without question as spending the first three months away from the public eye and social obligations was routine in Cordonian custom after the birth of a child.

The truth is, he had not been invited.

“I love you, Liam, I do. But our wedding day should be about me and Drake.”

She had been right, of course. He wasn’t sure he would have been capable of witnessing it.

There was a knock at the door and Liam hurried to answer it, a smile already spreading across his face. “Riley! Drake!”

He hugged Drake first then swept Riley into his arms with a delighted laugh.

Drake stepped aside as Liam spun her in a circle. He didn’t look back as Liam kissed her, crossing the room to help himself to the drink cart, “I think that went well.”

“It did,” Liam conceded, holding Riley’s hand as he crossed the room with her in tow. “Riley was right. I had nothing to worry about.”

“Of course, you didn’t,” she admonished, “I told you to trust your new King’s Guard Commander.”

Liam nodded as he addressed Drake, “I do like all the changes you’ve made. Things run smoother, there hasn’t been a single security breach since you’ve taken over and morale in the ranks has improved.”

“Well, I appreciate you giving me free rein and allowing me to take time off for the wedding right after I started.”

“Of course I did.” He would have given him anything he wanted to get him to relocate back to Cordonia, keeping Riley close to him.

The newly married couple would still visit the ranch often. Drake had hand-picked the new foreman and Bianca hadn’t put up much of a fuss about him leaving. She was too busy being ecstatic about their union. She might have said I told you so. She was already planning a trip to Cordonia to visit them at Valtoria.

Drake had just taken a seat only to immediately scramble to his feet as the queen entered the room.

“You didn’t have to get up,” Hana told him. She went first into Riley’s arms, hugging the other woman to her tightly, before turning and stepping into his embrace.

Riley had agreed to try and move her relationship with Liam forward only if Hana agreed to it. Hana had agreed to it, only if she and Riley worked on putting their relationship back together.

It was true that she had only married Liam to spite the woman who spurned her. It was true that her burning jealousy had never been over Liam, but over Riley.

“I just want a chance to put things right, if we can. I want my best friend back!”

“How’s my Goddaughter?” Riley asked as Drake resettled himself on the couch.

Hana seated herself next to Drake and snuggled under his lifted arm, “She wasn’t a fan of the press conference, but she’s sleeping away now.”

Though Hana was bisexual and liked Liam and found him physically attractive, she wasn’t in love with him. She was still in love with Riley. Once she and Riley had started rebuilding their relationship, her strained relationship with Liam began to improve as well. Mostly because she stopped resenting him as the thing that had come between them.

She was the one who had chosen to marry him, forcing herself to have a ringside seat for their continued love affair. It’s not like she hadn’t known they were in love with each other. Once she had accepted her role in the destruction of their friendship, things slowly started to improve between the three of them.

Not only had she gotten Riley back in her life and thawed her relationship with her husband, she had gained Drake as a friend as well. She snuggled closer and rested her head on his chest. If Riley could sleep with her husband, she could at least snuggle with hers. No one seemed to mind.

The four of them had become almost inseparable over the past few weeks as all the light and love trickled back into the two best friendships and the cracks healed between lovers and spouses.

Drake and Liam found new footing as they navigated loving the same woman. Liam and Riley fell back into the easy camaraderie interspersed with flares of passion that had characterized their relationship before it all went sideways. Liam and Hana were able to open up to each other now that all the cards were out on the table.

The roughest seas to sail had been the fractured bond between the two women. Both had been betrayed by the other, both had felt the sting of that betrayal.

Oddly enough, Drake had been instrumental in Hana’s healing process. Mostly by being a nonjudgmental ear. As she grew closer to Drake, Riley’s utter lack of resentment or jealousy of the friendship filled Hana with hope for the future. They could move forward together, all four of them. She wasn’t going to be left behind or left out ever again.

Drake ran his fingers distractedly through Hana’s hair as his eyes tracked Riley’s movements. She was seated next to Liam, her hand resting on his inner thigh. Liam’s gaze was locked on her face as ran his fingers up and down the exposed skin of her arm.

Drake lifted the tumbler of outrageously expensive scotch to his lips with his free hand, shaking his head in bemusement. If anyone had told him he’d end up in a committed relationship that was basically a foursome he would have laughed at them. But here they were.

Riley was romantically entwined with all of the other three members of their quad and Liam with both of the women. Drake was the only one involved with just one person, but as he and Hana drew closer, the what-ifs had been discussed and everyone had agreed that they were fine with whatever developed organically out of that.

Riley could do no less for Drake than he had done for her. He had opened up space in his heart for her while leaving her the freedom to love others. It was no small thing, and she was grateful for it, and for him. She loved him madly. Just like she loved Liam, and yes, Hana too.

They were truly one cohesive unit and more importantly, everyone involved was finally happy.

~Fin

[rosesnink]

Worthy

Author’s Notes 

It is unversally accepted that a Spanish woman must be late to everything she proposes herself to do/participe, and I am no less lol. But better late than ever, right? This fic was so cute to make and I took inspo from @lorirwritesfanfic​ ‘s Niceness Test, though the context is a bit different, lol. Also, this is my entry for @hanaleeappreciationweek​ day four: relationships and home 

Summary: Princess Stephanie’s investiture is close by the day, and while she questions her worth as heir, Hana is happy to remind her little blossom of her own worth as future queen. 

Rating: G 

Word Count: 2.6k 

Pairing: Hana Lee x MC (Eclipsa Ice) Liam Rys x OC (mentioned) 

Category: Family fluff 

Book: The Royal Romance 

May, 2038

“What if I mess up and they end up hating me?” Stephanie asked her godfather, the King, as he explained how the investiture of the Crown Princess would be like.

Liam blinked “Pardon?”

Stephanie sighed “What if I do something wrong and I plunge the country into chaos?”

Liam took her hand and squeezed it “You won’t, sweet blossom. If I’ve learned something from you these past eighteen years is how smart and strong you are. You got that from your mother.”

“Which one?”

Liam smiled “Both. You have Mama Hana’s iron will and Mummy Eclipsa’s fiery strength. You always have. Even as a baby, you were quite opinionated.” He joked.

Stephanie giggled “Was I?”

“Oh, yes. But it is a good thing. A ruler must first rule her own mind so they don’t become puppet kings or are driven by paranoia like…”

“Your father, King Constantine?”

Liam nodded, a nostalgic expression on his face. Stephanie bit her lip, feeling awful about having brought up such a topic. Especially with Dowager Queen Regina’s death so recent.

“Forgive me, I overstepped.”

Liam shook his head “Of course not. It is an elephant in the room that should be addressed from time to time.”

Stephanie thought of something to say, but her Mommy Eclipsa’s imposing figure stepped into the room, accompanied by her Mama Hana and her brother Marcus. Marcus bowed with a smile, and Hana embraced her daughter, kissing her forehead “How is my not-so-little blossom?”

“We were discussing queenly behaviours.” Liam stepped up.

Eclipsa smiled “Discussing how you’ll be queen while the king lives! Treason!”

Everyone laughed as Marcus chided his mother for watching too many times Magnificent Century, the Turkish series about Suleyman the Magnificent, which made the room laugh even harder.

Hana took a better look at her daughter: she had grown into a beautiful woman indeed, with thick, black and long hair, hazel eyes and freckles all over her face and part of her upper body, with her Eclipsa’s lips and questioning and defiant look. Many of their neighbours whispered what a wanted heiress she was, despite only remaining thirteen monarchies in Europe, the Auvernese having been abolished after Reena’s death. Isaac Achilles tried to put on a coup and seized the throne for a hundred days, until the military itself formed a government that overthrew him and kicked the Achilles family, proclaiming Auvernal a republic in 2030.

Cordonia had been growing strong, thankfully, and with the Council’s help. Bartie had joined when he turned eighteen, and he was now a man of twenty-one, taking on more duties as his father aged. Duchess Savannah had long retired and passed her time between Texas and Cordonia.

As Stephanie carried on practising the investiture, she and Eclipsa looked at one another. They had gone through much, perhaps too much, but made it to ‘Happier Ever After’ in the end. To the investiture, it was rumoured that Amalas’ son, Henrik, would start vying for Stephanie’s hand. When Hana asked her daughter about it, she gave it a thought before her wise answer calmed her stormy thoughts “I am aware of what an advantageous match would but, but I also know that I am young and have many years ahead of me. I shall entertain him, but I won’t give him hope or anything like that. My marriage must be a sensible choice, not only for myself, but for Cordonia, for he will be the first Prince Consort in many centuries, if it comes to pass.”

Eclipsa whispered her to talk and both went to a quiet corner “How are the plans going? The investiture is this Friday.”

“Everything goes according to plan. I think we may be more nervous than Missmiss.”

They both chuckled, smiling wide at Stephanie’s adorable childhood nickname. It seemed like yesterday when they decided on that name based on Eclipsa’s deceased mother. Hana saw how much Eclipsa had missed her over Stephanie’s life. Indeed, Sonia Palacios had been fire incarnate, and that fiery temper that could light up all of Europe had passed onto Eclipsa and now Stephanie. Marcus was definitely Hana’s son, with her same reserved but sweet nature, her ability to learn new courtly skills, as well as her not-so-secret competitiveness.

He smiled at his sister and Stephanie smiled back, “Please, carry on. We were just checking in.”

Eclipsa and Hana found a corner and silently watched as Stephanie repeated the speech word by word, and Hana was quick to observe how she secretly fidgeted with the hem of her dress. When she looked at her, she gave her an encouraging smile. Marcus kept doing goofy faces, but Stephanie remained unfazed and composed, which was a great accomplishment.

Stephanie knew this was the turning point in her life. Everyone was counting on her. Despite her mothers being the best and most supportive women on earth, as well as the magic of her therapist, not everybody was as wonderful as her moms. The Council pressed on her being perfect, especially Countess Madeleine, in a rather passive-aggressive way. The woman was the embodiment of ‘forever stressed’, being a countess in Cordonia and a duchess in England by her own right, a personal gift from the king for her loyalty after Mr. Godfrey’s arrest. He had died when Steph was but a child.

The next thing coming up was the dress fitting, and Stephanie hated furs and tight, old clothes. Instead, she had convinced Uncle Liam to use a mantle that was made of environmentally safe material and made by Cordonian local textile commerce, and that she wore a tiara and only used the heavy crown on her coronation day only. And thus, Lady Lorelei, her grandmother, had commissioned the best jeweller in the whole world to make a tiara of a mighty heiress. It’d arrive three days before her investiture.

As she tried her white gown, which had been suggested by Duchess Kiara to signal her marriage and commitment to the country, and which the whole council approved, she looked at herself. Her hair, which she had been growing since she was fifteen and was now 48cm long, above the average woman in Cordonia, she thought to herself that, if she dared blink for too long, she’d soon be dressing for her coronation. And being crowned meant having buried a great man.

He was such a splendid king; she knew she’d never be like him. She had been too afraid to tell him, for she didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but a small part of her told her that change was good. He was Liam the Benevolent, the Brave, the People’s King. And she? She was not even a Rys by blood. Her legal name was Ice-Lee. And he had married when Stephanie was 12 to a wonderful woman: the now Queen Wren, a Senegalese self-made billionaire who had stolen Uncle Liam’s heart from her mother. Theirs was a story as beautiful, though lacking the epicness of her mother’s:

Liam had been on a diplomatic trip to Senegal and by then, Wren was a minister and a speech of hers had drawn the heartbroken king. The two of them wouldn’t see one another until she came to a diplomatic visit. They formally had dinner, and, according to Uncle Liam, her striking mind, her wicked wit and her incredible oratory speech had his heart right there, not to mention her striking brown eyes, which had small streaks of violet if one looked closely, an unusual case in a black woman who had been born with the Alexandria Syndrome.

Apparently, before coming to the country, she quitted politics, which, according to her, were not her calling, and invested in a new social media and soon gained incredible wealth overnight, over a million downloads. Right now, it was the second most popular social media, behind Pictagram, though it looks like it will dethrone it any day now.

This time, as Mama Hana had told her a million times, Liam wasted no time in asking her to be his wife and she accepted. She was crowned three months later, the first ever solo coronation of a queen in Europe.

“How’s my little cherub doing?” A familiar voice asked.

Stephanie turned around to look at her mother, Hana. In a way, Steph saw her face in her own. Hana kissed her forehead and squeezed her hand “I hope you like my design.”

“It’s splendid, Mama. You and Aunt Kiara have outdone yourselves.”

Hana smiled “Aunt Penelope helped.”

They both smiled “May I have a moment alone with my mother, please?”

They all left as they curtsied and Stephanie sat on the chair “I have been thinking of something.”

“Tell me, darling.”

She fidgeted with her hair “After the coronation, I’d like to donate my hair to little girls with cancer.”

Hana’s face lightened up “That is amazing, my girl! I am glad that me and your Mummy inspired you into joining the tradition!”

“You did. But…I’d also like to do it for my people, and I don’t want it to be propaganda. I want to earn my subjects’ respect. I don’t want their loyalty just because of Liam’s sake. I want them to trust me to be capable of me doing the job because of who I am.”

Hana’s face worried “Why would you say that?”

Stephanie sighed “I don’t think I deserve it, okay?!” She finally snapped “I feel like I am made heir only because I came out of the womb of the woman a king couldn’t have and wanted to immortalise his love for her! His children, Prince Fabian and Dominic, deserve the crown, not me! I will be the end of the Rys line!” Tears started flowing, and Hana placed her young daughter’s head on her chest.

“Don’t say that, baby! I know that you came here in an unconventional way, but just because you were not born into a dynasty doesn’t make you any less worthy of it. You are strong, capable, smart and qualified enough. And yes, Fabian and Dominic are wonderful boys, but he has recognized you as his legitimate heir many times!” She lifted her chin “When he announced it, I won’t lie: I was scared. To me, duty had been the tomb of life, but the moment I saw Liam with you, I knew it wasn’t entirely true. You’ve proved again and again that you have what it takes.”

Ten years ago

Stephanie had turned eight years old, and Hana observed her as she greeted the guests herself, getting every title right. Hana smiled, and the Dowager Queen leaned on her side “You’ve done an splendid job, my dear. Leo got them wrong on purpose, and Liam was painfully shy, the poor boy. She has Eclipsa’s charisma and your gentle charm.”

Hana smiled wistfully “I hope so. She is everything I wanted to be when I was younger.”

“You’ve outdone yourself. Look at them, they are in love with her! When her Season comes, we might have to draw a list.”

Both women laughed.

“That won’t happen for a long time, hopefully.”

Stephanie chuckled “I remember muttering to myself saying, ‘okay, this one is an earl, so he’d be my lord, and the dukes are graces, like mama’.”

Both chuckled, and Hana’s mind was flooded by yet another memory.

“Or do you remember when, at twelve, you singlehandedly managed your first press questions? I was so proud that day!”

Seven years ago

“Princess Stephanie, here!” The journalist cried.

“Princess Stephanie!” Ana de Luca placed herself between the princess and the door “Everybody saw that outfit you wore with Lord Beaumont! What do you think of people saying you’re too young for tank tops?”

Hana observed in anger and horror as they asked similar vicious questions. She balled her fists and was about to tell them off when Stephanie’s voice surprised her “I think that people should care less of what I wear and more of the true elephant in the room here: that a school burned down and we lost three children to the fire, yet all I see is the fact that I wore once a top. Sort out your priorities.” She lifted her chin and passed her way towards Eclipsa, who had a beaming smile on her face.

Hana hugged her daughter and whispered “Well done, my girl.”

“Look at them, I’ve never been able to make the flashes stop as fast as you, baby!”

Stephanie smiled triumphantly “I am glad to see that the press has changed much ever since. But I just said what everybody was thinking.”

Hana smiled knowingly. She was now legally an adult, but she had much to learn about the world and what people in power really had in their minds.

Four years ago

“I think a tour would be splendid!” Duchess Adelaide cried.

“Wherever should we go then?” Queen Wren inquired.

“Maybe Italy, Spain, New York—,”

“And why not, I don’t know, Senegal, Philippines, Peru, India? Why must we stick to the USA and the Mediterranean countries?”

Madeleine was rendered speechless to say the least. Many muttered, both in agreement and disagreement, and Hana was both impressed and proud, as well as scared for the possible criticism of the Council.

Bartie cleared his throat “Please, explain your point, I’d love to hear it.”

“Yes,” Liam added in support “please, go ahead, Your Highness.”

“Well, these countries have each important relevance, and are rarely visited. They may not be as wealthy in money, but they can still give us an overlooked richness, not to mention it’d make us stronger in other countries. We could have many benefits with these countries, and the more allies we have, the better, right? We certainly could use two or three more.”

Wren gave her a wide smile “I agree with her. Many often look down on these countries, but the other things they have to offer could be truly useful to us, and we could learn a thing or two about them. And a certain percentage of immigrants are from said countries, are they not?”

Madeleine quickly typed on her computer and nodded “Indeed. Over 70% of our immigrants are from those countries.”

As the adults debated on which countries to visit, Hana mouthed her pride to her daughter. Steph smiled.

Hana beamed at the memory. Diplomatic relations changed for the better since then. She took her daughter’s hands in her own and squeezed it “See? You’re not who you are on a whim, my darling. You’re here because you’ve earned it. You’ve proven time again and again that Liam made the right choice, biased or not. You deserve the throne, and everybody else thinks it the same!”

“Indeed,” finished Eclipsa, who had been listening for a while “A strong queen is just what this country needs.”

The three women hugged in a family sandwich. If she had any doubts of deserving the throne, she did not anymore.

It hadn’t been easy for Hana, raised in pressure to be perfect in everything, to raise a future queen, but watching the fruits of years of therapy, honest talks at three in the morning with her wife and encouraging herself that she was doing the right thing had now resulted in what she dreamt of many times: a woman who could speak for herself, unafraid of who she truly was and true to herself and proud of who she was. Everything it took her more than twenty-four years to become.

And having found her people and a great supportive network had helped not only Missmiss, but Hana as well, counting of course with her incredible wife.

And when Stephanie knelt before King Liam as he invested her Crown Princess of Cordonia, she could breathe in peace knowing that years of work had proved worth the tears and suffering of her youth, for raising Stephanie had helped her with herself and the people around her, and the old Hana would be proud and amazed by this new Hana.

And that brought her the greatest feeling of accomplishment.

[gurkiransindianlitblog]

"The Golden Son" Cover Symbolic Redesign Project

The book, “The Golden Son” by Shilpi Somaya Gowda is a book with much symbolism in regards to the main character Anil. From the chess pieces mentioned variously throughout this book to the weather of India described in each scene in which Anil thinks about or goes to India. This new cover of the novel reflects more on what Anil endured throughout this book. The golden, yellow, background is symbolizes success, triumph, fortune, and even royalty. Despite being the color mentioned in the title of this book, Anil himself becomes successful and fortunate after the years of suffrage he is faced with. From helping his best friend/lover find her true self and become safe, to finding an identity within his own family after the death of his father. Anil becomes successful in his life and practice after medical school in Texas as well as split the family business/duties in India among his brothers. Lastly, overall, Anil comes from a family of royalty. Royalty in the sense of high status, as they are one of the richest families in the village, making Anil heir to the thrown to continue this legacy. 

In relation to the royal symbolism behind the background color, the font in which the title is written also relates to royalty. The sophisticated nature of the cursive letters reflects Anil's mature mindset. Being the oldest son he had dealt with taking on his father's role in resolving disputes, as well as creating a life outside his family by going to medical school. This new competitive environment Anil put himself in forces him to focus on being successful as he has no role model to look up to (because he is the only one in his family to go to medical school). Again, to reflect the royal nature of this font, it symbolizes the high-status Anil originates from and at the end uses to help his best friend Leena achieve freedom. 

Unlike the font and background color of the new cover art, the symbolic image in the middle no longer reflects the maturity and elegance Anil has/had within him throughout the book. But now the struggle and pain he endured. The image of a person carrying a heavy load of books uphill reflects the work Anil put in, within his character development. Anil had to face discrimination and racism, the stress of medical school and family, and personal burdens to finally be content with his life. The books reflect his challenges, mostly medical school, family, and even Texas has he had to obtain his U.S. citizenship. Anil is found carrying books because it is mentioned multiple times in the novel itself that he was a kid different from the rest of his family. Always reading and being studious because of his desire to go to medical school. 

[whileiamdying]

LETTER FROM IRAN

By Joseph Kraft December 10, 1978

A story from the Kennedy years which has the rare quality of being true is that once, when the President was otherwise engaged, Dave Powers, his original guide to the poor Irish of Boston and later a combined companion and jester at the White House, was delegated to kill a few minutes with the Shah of Iran. Subsequently, he was asked how he liked His Imperial Majesty. “Well,” Powers said, “he’s our kind of Shah.”

I was reminded of that story when I saw the Shah a few weeks ago here in Teheran. At that point, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi wasn’t anybody’s kind of Shah. He received me, as he had on several of my previous visits, in a ballroom on the second floor of the Niavaran Palace, on the northern outskirts of Teheran. He looked pale, spoke in subdued tones, and seemed dwarfed by the vast expanse of the room, with its huge, ornate chandeliers and heavy Empire furniture. He wore a double-breasted suit whose blackness suggested mourning. He started with an apology. He was sorry to have kept me waiting. The American and British Ambassadors had been in to see him. “They tried to cheer me up,” he said. “As if there were anything to be cheerful about.”

I expressed surprise at—and, indeed, felt some suspicion about—this show of gloom. There had been demonstrations in many parts of the country, and strikes, but Teheran, apart from the university, seemed calm, and the Army was in thorough control. Moreover, the opposition was headed by the Moslem clergy, and they were clearly divided. Surely, I said, the factions could be played off against each other.

“Possibly,” the Shah said, shrugging his shoulders in an elaborate show of disbelief.

I pointed out that the leader of the lay opposition, Karim Sanjabi, was due to go to Paris to see the most intransigent of the religious leaders, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The gossip in Teheran was that a compromise deal was in the works. Sanjabi would win Khomeini’s blessing for a coalition government. The coalition would make reforms but maintain the monarchy.

The Shah expressed doubt that Khomeini would agree to that. “Certainly not with Sanjabi,” he said.

I further noted that, while there was obvious unrest in the country, the Shah himself had lifted the lid by easing up on security and initiating reforms. Maybe all that was required was a slower pace and more publicity for the changes he had made. I mentioned that one of the problems was corruption in the royal family. He had decreed a new code of conduct for royal behavior, but it had not been published. Could I get a copy? The Shah agreed—with a weary air.

If worst came to worst, I went on, there was always the Army. The military was strong, and its leaders were loyal. The Shah said that force had its limitations. “You can’t crack down on one block and make the people on the next block behave,” he said.

I asked him if the Army leaders realized that. “I hope so,” he said. He went on to mention his son and heir, Crown Prince Reza, who, at eighteen, is now an air cadet in Lubbock, Texas. The Shah said that he might not be able to pass all his powers on to his son, but he could at least pass on the throne.

I remarked that I had never seen him so sombre, and asked when the black mood had begun.

“Sometime in summer,” he said.

“Any special reason?”

“Events,” he said.

I intimated that maybe he was overdoing the blues to elicit sympathy and perhaps support from the United States. “What could America do?” he asked.

I said that that depended upon what happened, and asked him what he thought that might be. “I don’t know,” he said.

I asked him what his advisers thought was going to happen. “Many things,” he said, with a bitter laugh, and he rose, indicating that that was all he had to say.

The day after seeing the Shah, I drove, with an Iranian friend who had agreed to serve as an interpreter, to Qum, a religious center with a population of roughly two hundred and fifty thousand, about seventy-five miles south of Teheran. Qum is the country’s foremost training center for the priests—or mullahs, as they are known in common parlance—of Shiite Islam, the creed of ninety per cent of Iran’s thirty-six million people. Shiism was made the state religion at the beginning of the sixteenth century by a new dynasty, the Safavids, who needed to dig in against the Ottoman Turks. The Shiites form the minority—and largely Persian—branch of the Moslem religion. As distinct from the majority branch—the Sunnites (who for centuries vested the line of authority from Mohammed in a caliphate that followed the tides of history from Damascus to Baghdad and thence, with the Turks, to Constantinople)—the Shiites traced the line of descent through the Prophet’s son-in-law, Ali. Ali, according to Shiite law, was the first of twelve Imams, or holy leaders. The twelfth Imam withdrew from this world and is due to return some time as a Mahdi, or Messiah. Ali was buried in An Najaf, and his son, Hossein, in Karbala, and those cities, now in Iraq, are, after Mohammed’s tomb in Mecca, the principal shrines of Shiite Islam. The eighth Imam, Reza, died in Meshed, which is a town some five hundred miles east of Teheran, and is the most holy shrine in Iran. Reza’s sister, Fatima, died in Qum, so the city includes Iran’s second holiest shrine as well as many madressahs, or seminaries.

The most renowned students of Islamic law in Qum, Meshed, and other major cities are referred to by the title Ayatollah, which means, literally, “Sign of God.” For roughly the past fifty years, the Ayatollahs of Qum have been the dominant religious leaders in Iran. Ayatollah Khomeini, though born in eastern Iran, was educated in An Najaf, and then in Qum, and subsequently taught in Qum. He achieved national stature between 1961 and 1963 as the leader of the opposition to various features—including coeducation and, many say, land reform—of what the Shah called his “white revolution.” In 1963, Khomeini was expelled, and moved to the shrine of An Najaf. The radical regime in Iraq, which in 1975, after years of bickering, reached an accommodation with the Shah, forced Khomeini out last September, when troubles became intense in Iran, and he moved to Paris. He had been succeeded as the dominant figure in Qum by Ayatollah Shariatmadari. For most of the past dozen years, the madressah students have made Qum a center of opposition to the regime. Professor Michael Fischer, of Harvard, who spent much of 1975 in that city, described the atmosphere at the time, in a monograph he called “The Qum Report,” as “one of siege and courageous passive hostility to a state perceived to be the stronger, but morally corrupt, opponent.” The present wave of troubles was set in motion early this year by violent demonstrations against the Shah in Qum.

I had telephoned ahead for an appointment with Shariatmadari, and had been connected with a Pakistani aide of his named Seyyed Rivzi, who spoke English. Rivzi told me to be in Qum by eight in the morning, because His Holiness, as he called Shariatmadari, went to the mosque at nine and spent the rest of the day in prayer and meditation. My translator friend and I arrived before eight and, with the help of directions from the local police, found our way to Shariatmadari’s quarters. He lives in a narrow back street, paved with white brick and lined with yellowish walls. There are doors in the walls every ten yards or so, and, behind the doors, courtyards leading to buildings that are used as offices and houses. We were first shown into an office, where we were received by Rivzi, a fat, middle-aged man wearing spectacles and a black turban; he kept pushing the turban back from his forehead in order to scratch his scalp. Rivzi said that I was in luck, for His Holiness was feeling ill that day. Because he was not well enough to pray, there would be ample time for the interview. Rivzi asked me to disclose my questions in advance. He would write them down in Farsi and then read them off to His Holiness—that way, there would be no mistakes. I began reading from a list of questions I had prepared. He repeated them in English, then set them down in Farsi, and read them back to my Iranian friend for his approval of the translation. A couple of times, the English version of my question differed significantly from the original, and at length I pointed out one of the discrepancies. Rivzi said, “I was not trained as a reporter, but in the past few months I’ve been the interpreter for sixty-eight different interviews. I’ve become quite good at framing questions. I hope you don’t mind a little editing.”

After the questions had been given, edited, and translated, we moved across the street to see Shariatmadari. He is a man of seventy-six, with a white beard, a frail frame, and a thinnish voice. He, too, wore a black turban and glasses—in his case, thick glasses over weak but distinctly friendly eyes. He received us in a bare, whitewashed room lit by a single electric bulb, which dangled from the ceiling. There were some uninteresting rugs on the floor, and a curtain hung across the window on a string. Shariatmadari was lying down on an opened crimson bedroll, with his head and shoulders raised on a purple pillow. Rivzi and another aide, whose function I never discovered, sat, legs crossed, facing His Holiness. I sat parallel to him, also cross-legged, but with my back against a wall. In the course of our talk, which lasted several hours, various people came in to see Shariatmadari, kissing his hand, pressing petitions on him, often with money between the pages, and then hurrying away. A telephone by the bedroll rang frequently, but it was answered only rarely, by the non-Pakistani aide, who usually managed to pick it up after the caller had stopped trying to get through.

Shariatmadari began by asking about my trip down to Qum. I said that it had been easy but that we had noticed a lot of troops in the town and, on the wall of his house, a scrawled sign saying “Death to the Butcher Shah.”

His Holiness said, “I don’t know what is happening in Iran. I never saw a nation in such a spirit of revolt. It is erupting like a volcano, and, like a volcano, after building up pressure for years and years it is impossible to stop.”

My first question had to do with the revival of religion in Iran as a political force. Shariatmadari said, “Religion used to be considered marginal—apart from the mainstream of events. Now it has become much stronger than before. The reason is that religion provides answers to problems of conscience. It provides a vantage point for fighting injustice. In our Shiite religion, spiritual leaders are ready at all times to assert the truth and the right.”

I asked him what injustices he had in mind. He said, “We have never had free elections. The elections in the past were all dominated by local magnates or the consulates of foreign powers. The consequence has been that we now have laws repugnant to Islam and to the public interest. For example, alcoholic beverages are permitted. There is gambling. There is illegitimate sex—by that I mean sexual relations between people under twenty who are not married. The authority to marry is in the hands of civil officials. But it should not be. Marriage is not a deal or a contract. It is something spiritual, and so it should be performed by the religious authorities.”

At that point, there were sounds of firing in the distance, and I started. “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “We’re used to that kind of noise.”

I asked him to tell me about the troubles in Qum. He said, “From the beginning of the disturbances in Qum, we have asked people to speak their minds, but with calm and dignity, not in a provocative way. But I remember a few months ago a company of soldiers headed by a major general walked into these premises and announced they were on a mission from the government. They started breaking windows and shooting. One person was killed on the spot and another died in the hospital. Later, the government apologized. But I ask, ‘How can you apologize for killing people?’ Had it been the Prime Minister’s house, would it have been enough merely to apologize? Such an action alone is adequate for me to declare a holy war or a revolution. That might have happened if I were not devoted to the cause of moderation.”

I asked him how he would rectify the many injustices and wrongs he had cited. He said that he favored a return to the constitution of 1906—a document that a liberal movement with support from the clergy had wrung from the Qajar dynasty, which preceded the family of the present Shah. The 1906 constitution provided for, among other things, a supreme council of five religious leaders who would have a veto right over all laws. “If they found the laws repugnant to Islam or to principles of justice or against the interests of the majority,” Shariatmadari said, “they could reject them.”

I asked what would happen if the five religious leaders disagreed among themselves. He said, “That would not be possible, for they represent the highest spiritual authority.”

I persisted with the question about a possible disagreement. “In that case,” he said, “the issue would be referred to the highest spiritual authority in the land.”

I assumed he meant himself, and any doubts on that score were settled by Rivzi. He said, “His Holiness would have the final word.”

I remarked that many people in Iran, and in other parts of the world, had different views from His Holiness on such matters as religious liberty, land reform, and the role of women. He cut in before I could develop this theme. “The journalistic community in the world,” he said, pointing a bony finger at me, “has constantly made the libellous charge that we religious leaders are anti-progressive and reactionary and anachronistic. That is not the case. We want science, technology, educated men and women—physicists, surgeons, engineers. But we also want clean and honest political leaders. Those who make the charges against us are themselves reactionary, because their goal is to stop us from instituting a government of hope. The government of God is the government of the people by the people.”

I said that I would still like to know where he stood on the issue of equal rights for women—coeducation, for example.

Very smoothly, as if there were no break in the line of thought at all, he asked me how many Presidents there had been in American history. I said that it wasn’t altogether clear whether the figure was thirty-eight or thirty-nine.

He said, “You come all the way over to Iran to ask about the rights of women here, and you don’t even know how many Presidents you have had in your own country.”

I explained that the matter was complicated by the fact that Grover Cleveland had been President twice but not consecutively. I said that for the sake of argument we could assume there had been thirty-nine Presidents.

“How many of them have been women?” he asked.

I said that none had but that that seemed to me beside the point. What, for example, did he think about coeducation?

He said, “I’m not opposed to the education of women for all kinds of tasks. But I do not want coeducation. I want to separate the schools of learning from the schools of flirting. We in Islam don’t look on women as playthings, accepted as long as they are young and beautiful, and then cast away. In Islam, the older the woman, the higher her status. We know that in coeducational schools there is a corruption of moral values, which is reflected in the police records. The girls develop certain relations, and some have illegitimate children, and others have abortions. The girl loses her self-respect and her status in society. Either she suffers a great personal loss or she takes up another way of life—prostitution.”

I asked him his opinion of abortion. He said, “In Islam, abortion is considered murder. Therefore, abortion is not permitted.”

I asked him his views on birth control. He said, “Birth control depends on certain circumstances. In small, overpopulated countries that have no land, birth control is acceptable. But in our country, where the population occupies only one-fifth of the land, there is no need for birth control. Procreation should be free unless there is a particular problem. In our country, that problem doesn’t exist.”

I asked him whether there was equality in Islam for people of other religions. He said, “In Islam, Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians are all accepted as equal—unless they become a Fifth Column for foreign meddling in this country. Jews are accepted as Jews but not as defenders of Zionist aggression.” He then referred to the Baha’i sect, which began as a reform offshoot of Shiite Islam, and has been popular in Iran, particularly among educated people who have done well in business and politics. He said, “Baha’i is accepted as Baha’i per se but not as a clique dividing up government posts among themselves and working for the foreign interests.”

I asked him where he stood on the land reform that the Shah had decreed in 1963. He said, “Land reform is a question of the past. Even if there were some objections made at the time, there were no objections to the principle of land reform but only to the means of implementation. The Shah could have done the same thing in accordance with the principles of Islam. That is typical of his regime. In order to build roads and streets, he destroys the house of an old woman and does not give her another house.”

At that point, Shariatmadari reproached me for picking out one issue at a time instead of dealing with the culture as a whole. “Culture is a mixture of many interwoven things,” he said. “You cannot in fairness just pick on individual matters as if they were unrelated. For example, in the West you cannot conceive of a banking system that does not charge interest on loans. But in Islam, for many different reasons, our view is that interest should not be charged.”

I said that that was true; no one in the West could understand how a government without the power to raise interest rates could control inflation. I went on to say that his point seemed valid, and so I would shift subjects. I asked him where he stood on the issue of meetings with representatives of the Shah.

He had had some “unofficial meetings,” he said, and went on, “But we can’t have official meetings. The religious authorities will participate in all offers of a solution to the present problems, but only with a fair and just government and parliament. We can coöperate fully only after free elections have returned a popularly chosen government.”

I said, and he acknowledged, that the Shah had tried to institute some reforms directed toward liberalization of the regime. I observed that many Americans felt that President Carter, by his human-rights campaign, had played a role in fostering those reforms.

Shariatmadari said, “Carter’s human-rights policy has not been a very important propelling force, though it has not been totally without effect in pushing liberalization. But in Islam we have some skepticism about the sincerity of Carter’s human-rights approach, because he doesn’t apply it to the United Nations. In the U.N., five countries have the veto. That means we are not equal. But the Americans don’t say anything about that.”

Acouple of days later, I flew to Isfahan, with my Iranian friend again accompanying me as an interpreter. Isfahan, as the 1966 Hachette Guide proclaims with unwonted effusion, is “one of the most marvellous places in the world.” The city lies on a plateau watered by a large oasis and a lovely stream. Shah Abbas I—the greatest Persian emperor, not excepting Xerxes and the three Dariuses—made it his capital at the end of the sixteenth century; at that time, it had a population of about half a million, and was among the largest cities in the world. I remembered from a previous visit, a decade ago, broad, tree-lined avenues; a magnificent central square, the Maydan-e-Shah; the extraordinary Bridge of Thirty-three Arches; and a general air of refined elegance. But even from the air, I could see burgeoning suburbs and smoke from factories—signs that change had come to Isfahan.

A local official, who asked not to be mentioned by name, rapidly brought me up to date on developments in Isfahan. He said, “Five years ago, there were five hundred and sixty thousand people in Isfahan, and this was one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Then the Shah decided that there was too much administrative and economic concentration in Teheran, and that he needed to decentralize. So he put a steel mill here. And an airbase, with a helicopter training center. Naturally, foreign companies followed suit. Bell Helicopter came in with the training base. Du Pont put a plant here. Now we have more than a million people. The doubling in five years of a population that had been stable for three hundred years has changed everything. This used to be an educational center, with a university, many religious schools, and lots of music. Now it is an industrial town. Over three hundred thousand workers have come in from the countryside, most of them without their families. They live five or six to a room in the poorer quarter of town. They make good wages—a dollar seventy-five an hour—but they don’t have their families, and they’re miserable. Everybody else has been affected, too. The bazaar merchants used to be very important. Now the banks manage credit, and the engineers are the big shots in town.

“Students have grown up under the Shah, and they don’t know what things were like before development started. All they know is that the Shah promised that Iran was going to be like France or Germany. That isn’t happening. The huge surge in population means that services are spread too thin and are constantly breaking down. There aren’t enough telephones. It’s impossible to buy a car. The schools are jammed. Housing is scarce. During the past three years, there has been a recession, especially in building, and many laborers are out of work. So the students are in a mood to reject everything that has happened. They are turning back to the old days, and pursuing an idealized version of what things were like then. They are pushing the mullahs to go back and re-create the wonderful past. The mullahs see a chance to regain their prestige and power. The students provide them with a power base for putting pressure on the government to give them the consideration and importance they have been seeking for years. So the mullahs go along. That’s the dynamic of trouble in Isfahan.”

I asked about the circumstances relating to the declaration of martial law in Isfahan back in August, a month before it was declared in the other major cities of the country.

The local official said, “That’s a perfect example. All through the spring and summer, after riots in Qum in January, and in Tabriz in late February, this town was seething with unrest. The workers were demanding better housing conditions, and more money to meet inflation. The bazaar merchants were bitching about the loss of their old status, about price controls, and competition from the big banks and supermarkets. The intellectuals were complaining about the lack of freedom. The students were telling the mullahs to do their stuff, and the mullahs were saying ‘right on.’ About the first of August, a mixed group of workers and students occupied the home of the most prominent local religious leader, Ayatollah Khademi. The governor-general and the local Army commander went to Khademi and told him to get them off the premises. He tried, but he couldn’t. On the contrary, the crowds got bigger and bigger. At one point, maybe twenty thousand people were camping there. When Khademi tried to cool them down, the students turned ugly. They took down the posters of the Shah and put up posters of Ayatollah Khomeini. On August 11th, the military decided to clear the place. Troops moved in, threw tear gas, and pushed the crowd out at bayonet point. The crowd then went on a rampage. It burned down a bank and a hotel and fifteen other buildings. It threw a bomb into a bus for Bell Helicopter employees. That’s when martial law was declared. The bazaaris—the bazaar merchants—immediately went on strike and closed down their shops in protest. The madressah students stayed in their schools, but they demonstrated every day, always making more radical demands. On the night of August 21st, two high-school teachers, who had built up a large following of anti-government young people, were arrested and sent to Teheran. Next day, the kids hit the streets, and there has been trouble of one kind or another ever since.”

I asked for and was given the names of the teachers—who had been released after a month in custody. They had no telephones, so my Iranian friend and I picked one—Hassan Zehtab—and drove out to see him. He lives on the outskirts of town, in a neighborhood of narrow, twisting unpaved streets. The car could barely squeeze between the walls, and the puddles and mud in the road reminded me anew of the origins of the custom of removing one’s shoes before entering a mosque. Once we were in the neighborhood, we had no trouble finding the house; everybody we asked knew Hassan Zehtab, and where he lived.

Mr. Zehtab turned out to be a partly bald, moonfaced middle-aged man with a complexion slightly darker in tone than that of most Iranians. He was carefully dressed, in a suit, white shirt, tie, and sweater. I saw only two rooms of his home, and they were modest in size and bare of ornament. When we arrived, Zehtab was meeting in one of the rooms with about forty disciples. He agreed to see me, and we moved into the other room, with ten of his disciples coming along. I asked Zehtab to tell me a little about who he was and what he believed.

He said, “I’m forty years old, and I have been a schoolteacher here in Isfahan ever since I graduated from the University of Teheran, fifteen years ago. In all this time, I haven’t seen one truly free election, or one instance of concern on the part of those in authority for the happiness of the people. I think the only way to bring about the happiness of the people is through an Islamic culture. We’re given to understand that the ruling clique is talking about religion now, and putting on a turban and the white garments of holiness. But that is a mere pretense. Even a child can see through that. It is like the ceramic facing on the wall of a building. Everybody knows that beneath the facing there is a real wall, of a different material.”

I asked him if it was not true that under the Shah the country had taken large strides toward economic development over the past fifteen years.

He replied, “I have to say with great sorrow that our economic growth is based on a windfall called oil. If we consider where we are, and then where the progressive states like Japan are, we realize how little we have accomplished. When I think of Japan, I think of a verse:

Leila and I were fellow-travellers on the road of life; She reached her home, and I am still a vagabond.”

I said that even if some countries had done better than Iran, Iran had done quite well.

He said, “What we see here is inflation—prices for food have gone way up. What we see is the depletion of our oil reserves. At the present rate, we have only twenty years to go. What we see is an agriculture worth zero. We buy vegetables from Israel, wheat from the United States, onions from Turkey, meat from Australia, oranges from six different countries. Our industry is just an assembly line for products made in other countries. We would be poor fools indeed if we were satisfied with that.”

I asked him what would satisfy him. He said, “My ideal future is within the framework of Islamic law. That is the guarantee of happiness and a good future for society. On particular religious questions, I don’t find it in my area of competence to make answers. I leave that to the highest religious authorities.”

All during the interview, Zehtab, his disciples, my Iranian friend, and I were sitting cross-legged on the floor. I was extremely uncomfortable, and it must have been evident, for one of the disciples asked if I would like a piece of fruit. I said yes, and he took an apple out of a bowl in the middle of the floor. He began to peel it for me, but at the first stroke of the knife the blade separated from its handle. He held out the broken knife. “There you see it all,” he said in disgust. “Our country owns twenty-five per cent of Krupp in Germany, but in Iran we can’t even produce a knife that cuts an apple.”

Everybody laughed, and I began questioning the disciples. All of them were students or professional men between the ages of twenty and thirty, and had participated actively in many demonstrations against the Shah. They all supported Zehtab in his quest for an Islamic society. I expressed surprise that young men with professional training should be so drawn to a religion that seemed—to a Westerner, at least—not exactly with it. I went around the room, asking the disciples, one by one, a single question: “What drew you toward Islam?”

The first to answer was a mullah, in robes and turban, who had a degree in psychology from the University of Teheran. He said, “My love for Islam has grown because I have studied it and compared it with other religions.” The others—four students, two employees of the National Iranian Oil Company, an accountant, an engineer, and a physicist—all gave nearly the same answer. Two of them said that they had compared Islam with the teachings of a nineteenth-century European social philosopher—that is, Marx, whose name has been taboo in Iran—and found it preferable. Another offered the generalization “Islam offers a solution to the complications of our life.”

As we drove away, I remarked to my Iranian friend that the similarity of the answers was disappointing. “You don’t understand,” he told me. “They all followed the lead of the mullah. It doesn’t make for interesting answers, but it makes them happy.”

Ispent the night in Isfahan at the Shah Abbas Hotel. The clientele was entirely foreign—a sprinkling of Japanese, Indians, Americans, and Europeans. Apart from the sight of a section of the hotel which had been damaged during the riots of August, and an armed guard in the gardens, there was no sign of trouble.

Before dinner, I visited Wanda Hake, an American psychologist employed by the United States companies working in the Isfahan region. Mrs. Hake reported that most of the Americans in the area lived in a compound, largely removed from contact with the Iranians. They had the problems usually found in such communities. There was great boredom—especially among the children. Alcoholism was common among the women, and many of the children had drug problems. There was a good deal of contempt for the Iranians. “Because of their turbans, many Americans call them rag heads,” Mrs. Hake said. “That’s the nicest name they call them.”

Mrs. Hake had some guests, and one of them was a bazaar merchant from an old Isfahan family. “I could cry about what has happened here,” he told me. “It used to be a paradise of water and gardens and beautiful buildings. Now the town is full of strangers. There are the people from the villages. They live in shantytowns. There are ten thousand Americans. They drive up the price of everything—especially houses. A house that rented for five thousand rials per month five years ago now costs forty thousand rials per month. Many people are unhappy. One of my interests is a building project. My workers were Afghanis—three hundred of them. The other day, the government sent the Afghanis home. I know why: There was a crime wave, and they did a lot of the stealing. But nobody gave me any warning. Now what do I do?

“Lots of the young men come to see me about their problems. They don’t know how to deal with the young women sitting next to them in their classes. In the past, they had never seen any women, even mothers and sisters, who were not wearing a veil. Now they see miniskirts and bare arms and bare legs. They say to me, ‘What do they want, these women? What are they trying to do to me?’

“When I go to Teheran, I feel as though I were in Hell. Somebody could die right in front of you and nobody would do anything. Deep sadness comes over me when I see the uses to which we have put our oil wealth. So it is not surprising that there has been a political eruption. Five years ago, Khomeini was nothing. Now he is held up as the equivalent of the Shah.”

At breakfast the next day, I met a professor of religion at the university who had been educated at Harvard and Oxford. His family are members of the Baha’i sect, and he is going back to Oxford, at least partly because of religious persecution. He said he would like to talk about the state of religion in Iran, but only on condition that I not mention his name. I agreed.

He said, “As a student of religion, I read with great interest Toynbee’s ‘A Study of History.’ I always wondered why he felt that the next stage of regeneration in the world would be religious. I felt that religion had been on the run all over the world for centuries. In some places, there have been adjustments, but they have been made only slowly and painfully. Christianity accommodated itself to Darwin, but it was hard even in a tolerant country like Britain. Islam has experienced a number of shocks and adjustments. There have been several efforts to update the religion. But they have all failed. By and large, the clergy remains narrow, fanatical, and ignorant.”

He went on, “The merchants of the bazaars worked hand and glove with the mullahs. They were the two most conservative elements in the cities. The bazaaris usually rented land from the religious foundations, and made the foundations big gifts. But both the bazaaris and the foundations have been outmoded by recent developments. When I left Iran to go abroad to school, in 1960, this was still a backward country. Only a few cities in the country had running water. There were only about ten thousand people who had been or were at universities. Most industry was handicrafts, and about eighty per cent of the people still lived in rural villages. In 1970, when I came back, it was a different country. All the young people—and that is over fifty per cent of the population—were going to school. There are a hundred thousand university graduates now and almost two hundred thousand people in universities. On a normal weekend, between one and two million people drive out of Teheran in their own cars.

“The mullahs have been losing steadily through these developments. Their base was education. Now they have to contend against state schools and universities. They’ve lost the large landholdings they once had. Most of their endowments have been nationalized, and are controlled by the state. No one ever paid much attention to them until the present wave of troubles. The bazaaris have also lost great power. The banks and big companies have taken away their control over loans and credit. There are shops out in the streets—across from your hotel, for example—so people don’t go to the bazaar as much. And for a while there was price inspection as part of a campaign against inflation. That hit the bazaaris very hard.”

After a pause, he continued, “People now don’t remember what it was like in the old days. As late as 1955, I remember going with my father to a village in the countryside. The local khan—the head man—did justice the religious way. He cut off hands for thievery, splitting people’s tongues for talebearing. There was a peasant in the village with a beautiful wife. The khan took her, and the peasant complained to my father. The khan went out riding with my father, and they encountered the peasant. The khan took his riding crop and beat the peasant senseless.

“The oil boom ended all that and put it out of mind. But it also brought lots of trouble. Mainly inflation. There are buses now, and vegetables, but most people can’t afford them. Moreover, a lot of the money has been spent—I almost said wasted—on big projects and arms purchases that don’t do ordinary people any immediate good. And it has to be said that on the cultural side the Western world has not done well in Iran. Students coming back from Europe and the United States present the cities there as meccas for drunks, whores, and illegitimate children. They depict a total breakdown of morale. So to the difficulties of local adjustment there is added a tarnishing of the classic model. The West is seen xenophobically, as something frightening, and the search for old values is intensified.

“It also has to be admitted that the Shah, in his enthusiasm to build the country, ignored the people in it. The masses were left out of his development program. The bazaaris were left out. The mullahs were left out. He thought he could bring them along through economic progress without any accompanying change in ways of thought. The heart of the difficulty, though, is the new group of university students. From fifty to seventy-five per cent of them come from poor homes. They are very disturbed when they sit next to a girl in class. They feel a sense of guilt, a fear of being polluted—of secularization. All this takes the form of opposition to the regime as the bearer of Western values. The sexual drive pushes the students in the direction of religion, and the mullahs latch on to them to maintain their position of importance.”

Back in Teheran, I found mounting turbulence and confusion. A wave of strikes that had started in September with employees of the central bank had spread to other banks, to the telecommunications industry, and to the oil workers. One day, there was a rumor that the gas-station workers would go on strike. I saw hundreds of cars lined up at several gas stations. Angry motorists jockeyed for position, and in one place troops had to fire into the air to maintain order. The university had been scheduled to reopen at the end of September, and then at the end of October. Each time, registration had been stopped by student strikes and demonstrations. After the second effort, the authorities gave up, and turned the campus, in downtown Teheran, over to the demonstrators. There were daily protests, and one morning I went to watch, with a visiting American professor who spoke Farsi. Armed soldiers in tanks and armored personnel carriers patrolled the gates, but we were allowed in without any demand to show our credentials. There were two groups of demonstrators, marching back and forth. One group—of about seventy-five students, almost all men—was clearly Marxist in its political sentiments. The students carried placards denouncing international imperialism, and chanted slogans calling for the unity of the workers. The other group, obviously Islamic in orientation, bore pictures of Ayatollah Khomeini and carried signs calling for an Islamic republic. There were several hundred students in the Islamic group, including many women. All the women were veiled. Some wore the chador, a garment that envelops the body from head to foot, while others wore bluejeans, blouses, and scarves that veiled their heads and faces. A few times, word went through the crowd that soldiers were coming. The ranks broke and everybody rushed for cover. But that day, at least, no soldiers came.

The professors, having no classes, were available and talkative. By far the most interesting was Karim Pakravan, an economist trained at the University of Chicago, whose father, a former Iranian general, had at one time been head of the security-police apparatus, known as savak, and was now working at the Imperial Palace in a high administrative position. He came to visit me at my hotel room, and talked freely of his own situation and that of his colleagues.

“Young professional people want to escape the establishment,” he said. “The establishment is everybody who has real power. In one way or another, either morally or financially, it is corrupt. We are not brave enough to join the opposition, but by being at the university we maintain a passive opposition. Our case against the government is lack of freedom. All creativity has been crushed. I teach a course in economics. I’m not allowed to say that there’s malnutrition or poverty, or that we’re underdeveloped. A doctor friend of mine went to the countryside to look at health problems. He found all the diseases typical of underdeveloped countries—trachoma, dysentery, that kind of thing. He didn’t find cancer and hypertension—the diseases that go with modern society. So he was never allowed to make a report.

“A whole generation of Iranians has been raised, educated, and given no freedom. Young engineers, for instance, have only a minor chance to take part in technological development. The Shah didn’t develop a technology—he bought a blueprint of technology from the West. So there were very few major jobs for Iranians. At least ninety per cent of our people have been left out of development. I have a small consulting firm. I take only private clients. Unless we were huge and foreign, we couldn’t get government contracts anyway. I might be able to do a project for the government at a charge of, say, ten thousand dollars for a couple of months’ work. But people in the government would rather hire foreigners at a thousand dollars a day. That way, they get a kickback.”

He continued, “Khomeini is merely a symbol of opposition. He is respected as a Moslem, but he has no power. Ten years ago, no prayers were said in the universities. Religious students were mocked. Now there is a genuine student problem. Many of the students come from poor families in the provinces. They have to rent rooms, and the financial burden is unbearable. There has never been a systematic study made, so we don’t know how badly off they are. But they don’t have enough money. They have to cluster six or seven in a room. In the last few years, there has been an undoubted effort to reform things. There’s real talk in the parliament. Those in savak who were corrupt and who tortured people have been ousted. There’s an effort to bring roads to villages, and water. If there should he elections soon, I’d probably vote. But I wouldn’t join the government. Next year is going to be bad. Already, because of the strikes and the big wage settlements, it is clear that the gross national product will be down by ten per cent. There’ll he an incredible inflation. One good thing I can say: At last, after twenty-five years, Iranian politics are becoming interesting.”

Pakravan put me in touch with another economist trained in the United States, who divided his time between teaching and working for Iran’s Plan and Budget Organization. Because of his government job, he asked me not to mention his name. He said that economists at the Plan and Budget Organization had repeatedly done studies showing that, while the national wealth was increasing, many people, particularly in the countryside, were relatively worse off. He showed me a report that indicated that the income share of the top twenty per cent of urban Iranians had risen from 57.5 per cent in 1972 to 63.5 per cent in 1975. The share of the middle forty per cent dropped from 31 per cent to 25.5 per cent. The share of the bottom forty per cent dropped from 11.5 per cent to 11 per cent. While urban consumption per head was about two times that of the rural areas in 1959, it had by 1972 grown to three times that of the rural areas. But these studies, while circulated abroad, were, he said, not published in Iran.

The economist went on to talk about the religious revival. “I was very active in politics during my high-school years,” he said. “At that time—the early nineteen-fifties—there were only two important groups: the Communist, or Tudeh, Party, and the National Front—which included the Pan-Iranians, who wanted to take over parts of Iraq, Turkey, and Pakistan. The young had absolutely no interest in religion. After that, the political situation calmed down. There was a brief revival of politics in 1961 and 1962, when Ali Amini came to office as Prime Minister. He started the land reform that the Shah later claimed as his own. The Tudeh Party was dead then, but the National Front was strong. The religious people didn’t count. Khomeini became important only after he was driven into exile by the Shah. The Shah’s father, Reza Shah, had been very successful in fighting the mullahs. He made a direct assault on the clergy—forcing women to take off veils, riding into the shrines and beating the mullahs. He had public sympathy, because then the clergy were corrupt and wealthy. They were hated by everybody. Now they have lost their lands and the religious foundations. The mullahs have been purified. They have the power of poverty.”

The economist at the planning agency introduced me to Magid Tehranian, an intellectual in his middle thirties who had been trained at Harvard and then co-opted into the Shah’s system as the head of an institute for the study of communications. I went to see him at the institute, where he looked every bit the European or American intellectual in his cozy oyster shell; he had a comfortable office with a couple of secretaries, and wore a neat blue suit, a silk tie, and shoes of soft Italian leather. He talked briefly about Iranian intellectuals. He said, “The great problem facing the university graduates once they are out of school is a lack of freedom. We have lots of intellectuals and technocrats who have views, but they are never allowed to express them. Everything is dictated from the top, and some of it is silly. For instance, the government tried to build up the television network—with which I was involved. It was extended to the point where it reached seventy per cent of the people in Iran. Then the palace intervened. They insisted that we show pictures of urban guerrillas confessing their terrorist deeds. They made us put Parviz Sabeti, the head of savak’s anti-terrorist campaign, on the screen, giving his view of history. We have an intelligentsia, but they have no chance to participate. They’re just supposed to support the regime. But they don’t like slavishly supporting the Shah, so they turn against him. Yet, with all this, we have been surprised by the breadth of the movement against the Shah. It reaches from plush Teheran to the remotest villages.”

Tehranian was said to have been a Marxist before he joined the government, and I had gone to see him primarily because I needed some help in ascertaining the part that the Marxists had played in what had been happening. Clearly, the Marxists counted for something in the movement against the Shah, but I had been given the most diverse estimates of their role, from the most surprising sources. The view around the palace was that the religious movement had been totally taken over by the Marxists. That view was shared by the economist who taught at the university as a form of “passive resistance” to “the establishment.” “The resistance is run by the Communists,” he had told me. “If you want to buy weapons, there is a number you can call and you get what you ask for. I don’t know exactly who supplies the weapons—the Russians, the Cubans, or the Palestinians. But they’re the ones who have made the country erupt.” An American official, on the other hand, put absolutely no stock in the theory of Communist manipulation. He remarked to me that “the Army and the police and savak have been combing the country all year looking for the Communists behind the demonstrations. So far, they haven’t found a single one. Why? Because there aren’t any. The mullahs and the bazaaris between them have informal networks that they’ve used for years to organize processions and festivals. That’s all it takes now. That’s all there is.”

I told Tehranian of the confused picture I was getting, and asked if he could put me in touch with any of his former Marxist colleagues. He said that it would be easy, and set up an appointment for me with a friend holding a high post in the Ministry of Information. The friend would organize an interview with three officials in the Ministry. I was not to talk about Marx. Instead, I should use the euphemism “a European social philosopher of the nineteenth century.”

At the last minute, I had to change the appointment from the morning to the afternoon, but that was no problem. I went to see the official, and after a few moments he took me into a room behind his office. Three men, all about thirty, were sitting at a table with a woman—a graduate student at the University of Michigan, who acted as translator. I asked them if they were believers in the philosophy of a certain well-known European social philosopher of the nineteenth century, and all three smiled and nodded. I asked them about their education and their jobs. They were university graduates—one from the Sorbonne, the two others from the University of Teheran. The man from the Sorbonne helped put together public-opinion polls for the Ministry, and the two others had jobs as engineers.

I asked what they found useful in the works of the nineteenth-century social philosopher. One said, “He exposes the imperialists and their rape of all the countries of the Third World, including Iran.”

I asked how, specifically, the philosopher’s theories were relevant to Iran, and was told about the depletion of Iran’s oil reserves and the purchase of American weapons for open “use against the people.” I asked about Iran’s practice of selling natural gas to the Soviet Union, and they responded that there was no shortage of natural gas.

I asked if they felt that the Russians had designs on Iran. All of them thought that compared to the United States influence, which was “all-pervasive,” the Russian influence was “so small it doesn’t count.” I asked what recent works by followers of the well-known nineteenth-century social philosopher they had read. After some hesitation, the man from the Sorbonne said, “Jean-Paul Sartre.” No other names were forthcoming.

I asked how they felt about the religious movement against the Shah. All said that they agreed with its objectives. I asked if there wasn’t a contradiction somewhere. Wasn’t religion supposed to be “the opium of the people”?

“Sometimes that is true,” I was told. “But in developing countries it is different. At times, religious feelings and social movements go hand in hand. That is the way it is now in Iran. We are all of us united against the Shah.”

I asked how they thought the government of the Soviet Union felt about the Shah. They said they felt that they had the backing of Moscow.

I asked whether they and their leaders were working from within the religious movement. There was a silence. Then one of them said, “We are in an Islamic country, and all social movements inevitably have a religious coloring. We do not believe there will ever he Communism here as there is Communism in Russia or China. We will have our own brand of socialism.”

Later, the official who had arranged the interview told me that I should have asked him the same questions. “I believe that the Communists are manipulating the religious movement,” he said. Still later, an American official showed me a translation of an article in Navid, a new, underground publication of the Tudeh Party. The article, entitled “The Tudeh Party and the Moslem Movement,” said, “We are ready to put at the disposal of our friends from other political groups all our political propaganda and technical resources for the campaign against the Shah.” I was also shown an interview with Iraj Eskandary, the secretary-general of the Tudeh Party, now living in exile in Moscow. Among other things, Eskandary said, “As far as the religious aspect of the present movement is concerned, it should be emphasized that the Shiite clergy cannot be viewed as a force demanding a return to the past, to the Middle Ages. The position of the clergy reflects, to a significant extent, popular feelings. And the fact that the religious movement is now playing an important role in the mobilization of democratic and nationalist forces against the dictatorial, anti-nationalist, and pro-imperialist regime of the Shah can only be welcomed. . . . We are in favor of a union with all democratic forces, including the religious ones.”

If the role played by the Marxists in the fomenting of trouble remains obscure, the role of the liberalization sponsored by the Shah and his ministers looms larger and larger. The Shah acknowledged when I saw him that he had begun to loosen things up “about two years ago.” I was in Iran in the spring of 1977, and I remember well the widespread talk of relaxation. Jimmy Carter’s emphasis on human rights was one of the reasons, but only one, and not the most important. Iranian students in the United States and Europe had focussed attention on the repressive features of the regime—particularly the practice of torture by savak. The international press, led by Le Monde, of Paris, had picked up the theme. Both the Red Cross and Amnesty International, the private human-rights group based in London, were asking questions and proposing visits. But by far the most important reason for the relaxation was that the rapid development that followed the great oil-price increase of 1973 proved too complicated for direct control from above. Dislocations and shortages were universal. I recall visiting a new aluminum plant in an industrial area outside Teheran. The plant was supposed to accommodate several hundred workers, but they had no housing and no transport, and there were no telephones in the offices. All over the country, power failures were frequent, and the pursuit of scarce goods and services drove inflation above the twenty-five-per-cent-per-year level. An effort to hold clown inflation by fixing prices was failing in a spectacular manner. It was clear that the economy could be made to work only if there was some freeing up, some devolution of authority.

Signs of reform were abundant that spring. Batches of prisoners were released, and were allowed to talk to the press. The Shah declared that torture would cease—an admission that it had been going on. Corruption, which had never been far below the surface—as witness the Persian origin of the word “baksheesh”—became public in the wake of a scandal that involved payoffs to high officials of the Iranian Navy. The National Front, the chief opposition party, was allowed to circulate letters highly critical of the regime. Student demonstrations went forward with only token harassment. Even the television appearances of Parviz Sabeti, the director of savak’s political section, were part of an effort to prove that the organization had a human face.

The direction of policy, to be sure, remained ambiguous. Low-level agents of savak continued to stage raids on opposition meetings. Investigation of corruption at the highest levels was systematically blocked—reputedly by the Shah’s entourage. But a key figure in the entourage, Amir Assadollah Alam, the Minister of the Imperial Court, fell ill in 1977, and died in New York early this year. His departure from the Court Ministry opened the way for a political change that signalled an undoubted commitment to reform. In August, 1977, the Shah appointed a new Court Minister, Amir Abbas Hoveida, and a new Prime Minister, Jamshid Amouzegar. I saw both men at their homes in Teheran in late October of this year, along with the Information Minister in the Amouzegar government, Dariush Homayun. They all talked freely, but not for individual attribution. What follows is my interpretation of their accounts of what happened during the twelve months beginning in August, 1977—a period of sweeping reforms that boomeranged to injure them, and the Shah as well.

Hoveida, an affable and highly intelligent man, with degrees in history, economics, and political science from the Universities of Paris and Brussels, came to the Court Ministry after nearly thirteen years as Prime Minister—the longest term in modern times. He had a major hand in the rapid development that changed the face of Iran and soured so many of its people. Though he was said to have been tolerant of corruption in the past, he was reputed never to have been on the take himself, and he certainly did not live on the grand scale. He had realized as early as 1975 that the pace of development had to be slowed down. “We’re in orbit,” he had told me at the time, “and we have to come down to earth.” He brought to the Court Ministry a determination to achieve economic slowdown and political reform. As he saw it, the key to both was ending corruption at the highest levels. From the beginning, he worked with the Shah on a code of conduct for the royal family. That project brought him into conflict with many members of the family who had been active in private business affairs. In July, 1978, after a long and bitter battle, Hoveida finally won the Shah’s approval for the code of conduct.

The code was not published, for fear that the spelling out of what was henceforth prohibited would be regarded as a confession of past guilt. But the fact that it was adopted was made known, and caused virtually every member of the royal family to leave Iran. Here—published for the first time, I think—is the code that the Shah approved last summer:

CODE OF CONDUCT FOR THE IMPERIAL FAMILY In order to maintain the high status of the Imperial family, which is respected by all Iranians, the following principles are instituted as the Code of Conduct of the Imperial family: 1) Refraining from conduct considered distasteful by social custom. 2) Refraining from any acts or actions not in keeping with the high status of the Imperial family. 3) Refraining from direct contact with public officials for the purpose of handling personal business. These matters will be handled through the Ministry of Court or His Imperial Majesty’s Special Office. 4) Refraining from contacts with foreign companies or organizations which are parties to contracts and deals with Iranian public organizations. 5) Refraining from receiving commissions for any reason whatsoever, from companies and organizations, foreign or Iranian, which are parties to contracts or deals with the Iranian government. 6) Refraining from receiving valuable gifts from persons, companies, or organizations. 7) Refraining from deals of any kind with public organizations, be it the government, organizations associated with the government, municipalities, or public organizations. 8) Refraining from direct or indirect (through third person or persons) partnership or holding shares in companies or organizations that are parties to deals with the government or public organizations. 9) Refraining from founding or holding shares in organizations or companies whose activities are not compatible with the high status of the members of the Imperial family, such as restaurants, cabarets, casinos, and the like. 10) Refraining from the use of facilities and properties belonging to government and public organizations for private use. 11) Refraining from the use—for private or commercial purposes—of the services of the employees of the government and associated organizations who also have responsibilities and duties in foundations associated with the Imperial family, or related organizations. 12) Refraining from asking for special favors or making recommendations to public officials in the interest of members of the Imperial family or others. 13) Refraining from the use of legal exemptions for persons outside of the Imperial family. 14) Refraining from the use of nationalized lands belonging to the government or public organizations for the purpose of profiting, for example, through construction projects or establishing commercial, service, or industrial organizations. 15) Refraining from receiving anything from persons (natural or legal) in lieu of influencing public officials in order to legalize acts which would not otherwise be eligible for profit-making (such as partnership in ownership of large pieces of land in return for registering such lands for the purpose of making profit). 16) Refraining from the use of nationalized lands for agriculture and dairy projects. 17) Refraining from accepting positions on the boards of insurance, banking, and other companies. 18) Voluntary compliance with security regulations and whatever relates to public order. 19) Protecting the prestige and respect of national values and beliefs outside of the country. 20) Refraining from contacts with foreign embassies in Iran unless through the Ministry of Court.

Amouzegar came to the office of Prime Minister with a reputation as a brilliant public servant. He was educated at the University of Teheran, at Cornell, and at the University of Washington, and has a Ph.D. in civil engineering. Before becoming Prime Minister, at the age of fifty-four, he had successively headed four Ministries—Labor, Agriculture, Finance, and Interior—and had also served as Iran’s chief negotiator in the price-fixing sessions of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Though less supple than Hoveida in political matters, Amouzegar was thought to be equally free of corruption and far more competent in economics. As Prime Minister, he set his sights on curtailing inflation and rooting out corruption at the ministerial level. By squeezing hard on the money supply, he cut inflation from thirty-five per cent in August, 1977, to ten per cent in August, 1978. In the process, he earned the enmity of many of those dependent on credit, including most of the bazaar merchants and the high rollers in the construction field. As for corruption, he pushed General Nematollah Nasseri out as the head of savak and off into a corner as Ambassador to Pakistan. He forced Hushang Ansari, the Minister of Finance, to step out of the Cabinet and become head of the National Iranian Oil Company. He obliged Mayor Gholam Reza Nikpay, of Teheran, to quit. Those actions put him at odds with both the Shah and Hoveida, who had close ties to several of those who had been shunted aside. In the recesses of the Imperial Court, an intrigue was concocted which came to engulf everybody.

The starting point was the death, late in October of 1977, of Seyyed Mustafa Khomeini, the son of the exiled Ayatollah. The son, a mullah, was forty-nine at the time, and he died, according to supporters of the Shah, of a heart attack. His father suspected foul play, and, during the Shiite days of mourning for the dead, which fell in late December last year, circulated a number of letters throwing blame on the Shah. Early in January this year, there was sent from the office of the Court Minister, Hoveida, to the office of the Information Minister, Homayun, the text of an article. Homayun, as was the custom, passed the article on for publication to the editors of a leading Teheran daily, Eta’alaat. The editors at the paper were sufficiently disturbed by the text to check with Homayun. He told them that it came from the Court and they should go ahead and publish it. The editors then apprised Amouzegar of what was in the works. Amouzegar called Homayun, who repeated the explanation that the article came from the Court and was supposed to be published. Exactly who wrote the article is not known to me, but the unwillingness of those involved to name the author suggests that it was either the Shah himself or somebody acting on his orders. My impression is that part of the motive was to embroil the Amouzegar government with the religious opposition.

The article appeared on January 7th. It bore the title “Iran and the Red and Black Imperialism,” and contained a harsh personal attack on Ayatollah Khomeini. It started obliquely, with references to the recent days of mourning in which Ayatollah Khomeini had circulated his grievances against the Shah. It moved on to a discussion of forces designated as Red and Black Imperialism, meaning the Communists and the clergy. It said that coöperation between the two had been “rare” but that an exception was “the close, sincere, and honest coöperation of both vis-à-vis the Iranian revolution, especially the progressive land reform in Iran.” The article went on to recall the opposition to land reform back in 1963, including the “riots of June 5th and 6th,” which had precipitated the expulsion of Ayatollah Khomeini. It said that the opposition to the reform had come from the Communists grouped in the Tudeh Party and from “the landowners who had been robbing the peasants for many years.” These groups, the article continued, had turned for “succor to the clergy since the clergy enjoy great respect among Iranians.” Most of the clergy, the article said, proved “far too intelligent to act against the Shah’s-people’s revolution,” so at that point the opponents had decided to “recruit someone from the clergy who would be adventurous.” That “someone” had turned out to be Ayatollah Khomeini. According to the article, he had “an unknown past,” but apparently had lived for many years in India, where he had developed “contacts with centers of British imperialism.” The article concluded by denouncing Ayatollah Khomeini as “someone who had taken the initiative in carrying out the plans of Red and Black Imperialism . . . who fought land reform, the women’s vote, the nationalization of the forests . . . who would sincerely serve conspirators and Fifth Columnists.”

On January 9th, two days after the article appeared, the religious students in Qum went into the streets to protest the attack on Khomeini. A clash with police ensued. Nine people were killed and many were injured. Forty days later, in Tabriz, a memorial service was held for those killed in Qum. Again, there was a clash with police. This time, thirteen people were killed. After that, trouble came in Teheran and Isfahan and Meshed, and then in Qum once more. August 5th marked Iran’s Constitution Day, and the eve of Ramadan, the Moslem month of abstention. The Shah delivered a nationwide television broadcast, pledging that he would go ahead with the liberalization program. But all through that month, in city after city, there were assaults on the symbols of Western modernity associated with the Shah’s rule—banks, casinos, and cinemas. The campaign reached a horrible climax in Abadan, the site of the country’s largest oil refinery. On August 20th, the Rex Cinema was destroyed by arson, and some four hundred and thirty people lost their lives in the blaze.

After that, Amouzegar had had enough. He resigned as Prime Minister and was replaced by Jaafar Sharif-Emami, a political veteran from a religious family who had worked closely with the Shah as, among other things, head of the Pahlavi Foundation, a multimillion-dollar semi-family enterprise, which is the owner of most of Iran’s foreign holdings. Sharif-Emami moved swiftly and across the board to make concessions to the troublemakers. He lifted press censorship and arranged for live radio broadcasts from the previously dozing Majles, the lower house of the parliament. With the wraps off, resentment found tongue. In the parliament and in the press, there was a surge of complaints about corruption and discrimination against the middle and working classes. The new government met the strikes with generous concessions on wages and pensions. In response to charges of corruption, investigations were opened into the cases of General Nasseri (who was recalled from Pakistan) and former Mayor Nikpay. Thirty-four leading officials of savak, including Parviz Sabeti, were dismissed in one day. At every opportunity, Sharif-Emami sought to placate the mullahs. He closed down casinos, and cinemas showing foreign films. Provincial and university officials who had taken a strong stand against religion were replaced by milder men. Most important of all, Sharif-Emami entered into consultations with religious leaders, including Ayatollah Shariatmadari, and with the lay opposition, including Karim Sanjabi, the head of the National Front, for a broad understanding about new elections.

Iwent to visit Sharif-Emami in his office, just before the end of October. I found a large, bluff, partly bald man in his sixties who exuded confidence. He said that there were many “dissatisfied and unhappy people in Iran who turned to the mullahs to voice their grievances.” His strategy was “to establish a good relation with the clergy.” As he saw it, the clergy was divided into two groups. “One group, which follows Ayatollah Khomeini, is radical but very small,” he said. “The other, which follows Shariatmadari, is moderate and very large. A split between them exists in every city and every village.” He was negotiating with Shariatmadari for some kind of convocation where the majority could prevail. “They must do it,” he said of his plan for forcing a decision. “Somebody must be the head of our clergy, a Pope.”

He told me he was sure that lifting the lid on censorship and on the Majles debates was the right thing to do. “A free press is much better than pressure,” he said. The economic consequences of the strikes and the high wage settlements were, he thought, “not serious.” There would be a cost to the state in higher wages and pensions, but that could easily he made up by a cutback on expensive military projects and plans for nuclear power plants. He favored the allocation of more money to the villages, for “by increasing credits for machinery, electricity, and water, rural life can be made more attractive and agriculture more effective.” He said he hoped to “draw the men who came to town back to the villages.” He acknowledged that inflation might be a problem, but he hoped to keep it down by subsidies on basic commodities—rice, bread, sugar, tea. He did not fear a military coup. “If they come in, there will be killing and shooting,” he said. “Nobody wants that.” He did sense that a test would be coming within the next six weeks, and he hoped to put together a large political grouping that would help open the way to free elections. Among other people, he mentioned former Prime Ministers Hoveida and Ali Amini. “I’m a patient man,” he said. “I do not intend to leave this office until there is calm in Iran.”

Sharif-Emami had begun the interview by saying that that day Teheran, at least, was calm. But driving from his office back to my hotel I had to detour around thc center of town. I smelled burning rubber and saw a car in flames. Later, I learned that students had come off the university campus and smashed shops and destroyed cars in what was considered the worst day of rioting that month. Convinced that Sharif-Emami could not last, I went to see the man widely tabbed as his successor—Ali Amini, a renowned liberal and reformer, who had been Prime Minister at the time of the land-reform legislation of the early sixties.

Mr. Amini received me at his home, a comfortable villa in the northern section of Teheran. He had been educated in Paris, and, like most of the older generation of the Iranian élite, spoke French more easily than English. He said, “The heart of the problem is the Shah. He doesn’t like to hear the truth. He has allowed himself to be surrounded by flatterers who have isolated him. He has given over the country to a class of nouveaux riches. They show off all the time. That shocks people and turns them against the regime. The clergy has become important only because there is a lack of rapport between the Shah and the people.”

His solution was to form a government of national unity which would take over the country and open the way to new elections. He would include representatives of the National Front. “Sanjabi isn’t much,” he said of the Front leader, “but his party has a great name.” The key to such a government, however, was the Shah. “He has to learn to reign, not rule,” Amini said. “He must accept the idea of a constitutional monarchy in Iran. In fact, he must lead the way to constitutional monarchy.”

I asked Amini whether he thought the Shah was ready for such a step. He said that he had not seen the Shah in some time, and went on, “I’m prepared, but I don’t think he wants to see me. That probably means he isn’t ready to lessen his role in government. But I’m waiting.”

From the home of Mr. Amini, I went to the home of Mr. Sanjabi—an equally comfortable villa, with a swimming pool. Amini had indicated that Sanjabi was important as the leader of the National Front—the political remnant of the most serious previous challenge to the Shah. That had been made back in 1951-53 by Mohammed Mossadegh, who, as Prime Minister, confiscated the formerly British oil holdings and put together a nationalist following embracing the mullahs, the bazaaris, and, for a time, the Tudeh Party. At one point, in August, 1953, Mossadegh forced the Shah to flee the country. But a countercoup was organized with help from the Central Intelligence Agency. Mossadegh was driven from power, and the Shah returned. Sanjabi, a lieutenant of Mossadegh’s in those days, had survived years of prison to emerge as the foremost figure in the National Front.

He spoke French to me, and was wearing yellow-gold-rimmed glasses, a gray suit of rich flannel, and Italian shoes. “There is unhappiness at every level,” he told me. “It engulfs all classes—intellectuals, students, mullahs, bazaaris, civil servants, teachers, peasants. A true agrarian reform is necessary. The relations between the landlords and the peasants are still not just. Despite the talk of land reform, the distribution of land was not fully achieved. It was not accompanied by the passing out of the credits, fertilizers, tractors, and irrigation facilities that modern farming requires. We had a twenty-billion-dollar gift in the oil-price rise of 1973. We should have developed rural Iran first, and then industry. Instead, the Shah spent most of that gift on his family. So we had a terrible inflation, a building boom that collapsed, and acute shortages of food. Discontent became universal. Now everybody in the universities is against the regime. The young men have twentieth-century ideas, but, as in a war or any difficult period, their sentiments turn to religion. The corner mosque is the only forum for discussion. And the mullahs are not as backward as you might think. The Iranian people are capable of democracy. The West thinks we’re in the fifth century. That’s wrong. Mossadegh was a sincere democrat. He wanted democracy in this country and in this century.”

I brought Sanjabi back to the present with a series of questions. How did he see the present government? What were the chances of a military coup? What did he expect from a visit to Paris to see Ayatollah Khomeini, which he was to undertake the next day?

He said, “The government of Sharif-Emami has done some good things. But he enjoys no confidence. The public doesn’t trust him. He has to take radical decisions, but he doesn’t. He waits, and the situation gets worse and worse. Now it’s too far gone.” He acknowledged the possibility of a military coup. “But it has no chance of succeeding,” he said. “There’s no political support. The Army could stay in power only by force, as in Pakistan and South Vietnam. It couldn’t last. Thus, the great misfortune of this country is the Shah. He detains all the liberals and keeps down men of integrity. He likes thieves. He has sexual weaknesses. He is not sincerely for liberalization. He wants to gain time, divide the religious from the lay opposition, and go back to his old system, which is essentially military rule.” Of his visit to Paris, Sanjabi said, “I am not worried about my coming encounter with Khomeini. I am an optimist. Ayatollah Khomeini doesn’t want chaos. We have to turn to Ayatollah Khomeini.”

As it happened, nobody’s plans—not those of the Shah or those of Prime Minister Sharif-Emami or those of former Prime Minister Ali Amini or those of opposition leader Karim Sanjabi—carried the day. On Wednesday, November 1st, the Shah, apparently convinced that Sharif-Emami could not continue, received Ali Amini for the first time in years and began conversations concerning the formation of a coalition regime. According to the local press, Amini told the Shah he needed support from Sanjabi, and the Shah agreed to receive Sanjabi on his return from Paris. On November 3rd, after seeing Sanjabi, Ayatollah Khomeini said in an interview on the Paris-based Radio Luxembourg, “We have told the representatives of the opposition, such as Ali Amini and Karim Sanjabi, that if they agree to negotiate with the regime they will be banned from our movement.” Karim Sanjabi came back to Teheran and called a press conference to announce his terms for negotiating with the regime. The press conference never took place. By that time, events had pushed another set of actors, the military, to center stage. Two months before, on September 4th, there had been large demonstrations in Teheran to mark the end of Ramadan. Though the demonstrations were peaceful, thousands marched, and the military feared that matters might get out of hand. On September 6th, the government banned unauthorized gatherings, and the next day there was another large rally against the Shah in Teheran. That afternoon, the military leaders went to the Shah and asked for a proclamation of martial law. The Shah told them to clear it with the Prime Minister and his government. The issue was argued between the soldiers and the Cabinet late into the night of September 7th. Toward midnight, the Cabinet gave its consent, and early the next morning martial law was decreed in Teheran and eleven other cities. But it was too late for a public proclamation to reach most people. Later that morning—Friday, September 8th—a large crowd gathered in Jaleh Square, a central meeting spot in downtown Teheran. After repeated orders to disperse were ignored, the security forces opened fire. More than a hundred people were killed, by the official count, and many hundreds wounded.

The shock of that massacre caused everybody to draw back. Prime Minister Sharif-Emami was able to negotiate a loose understanding whereby, martial law was not enforced to the letter. Strikes by civil servants, which had begun in September, were not broken up, though they were illegal. Nor were student demonstrations, though the martial-law proclamation forbade any gathering of more than three persons. “There was martial law without there exactly being martial law,” the Prime Minister observed to me.

That fuzzy condition put an obvious strain on the military leaders. Top commanders were unsure of their responsibilities. At one point, in October, the commander of the ground forces, General Gholam Ali Oveisi, sent an officer to warn the staff of the English-language daily Kayhan against articles he considered inaccurate and inflammatory. The reporters thereupon threatened to go on strike, and the Prime Minister backed them up. Unit commanders never knew exactly when to intervene. At least some of the rank and file, and perhaps some of the junior officers, sided with demonstrators. On two occasions, provincial police officers were shot by enlisted men in the Army.

Moreover, the military leaders had trouble reaching a consensus on what to do. The Shah, to assure his supremacy and to guard against coups, had set up separate lines of communication with many different security organizations and their leaders. The Shah himself is Supreme Commander of the armed forces. He has a personal chief of staff, General Gholam Reza Azhari, who oversees all the branches of the military, and meets tête-à-tête with the Shah twice a week. There are the chiefs of the three separate services—General Oveisi, commander of the ground forces, with two hundred and eighty thousand men; Admiral Kamaleddin Habibollahi, commander of the naval forces, with thirty-two thousand men; and General Amir Hossein Rabii, commander of the Air Force, with forty-eight thousand men—who also report individually to the Shah. There is the head of the rural police, or gendarmerie, which is some seventy-five thousand strong and exercises administrative control over all villages with a population of less than four thousand, General Abbas Gharabaghi, who was also Minister of the Interior in the Sharif-Emami government. There is the head of the secret police, General Nasser Moghaddam. There is, finally, the head of procurement, General Hassan Toufanian, who also serves as Vice-Minister of War to a figurehead Minister of War, General Reza Azimi.

The differences in military specialty are compounded by variations in personality and experience. The commanders of the Air Force and the Navy are relatively young men—both are forty-six—and do not carry a lot of weight in the system. Air Force General Rabii is known as a typical fly-boy, weak in political and geopolitical understanding. General Oveisi, a former classmate of the Shah at the military college, is particularly close to the ruler. General Azhari, the Shah’s chief of staff, is sixty-nine and is noted for his deliberate ways and lack of ambition. “He is underwhelming,” an American who worked with him once said. “He always gives the impression that he’d rather climb a mountain or read a book than command an army. He’s exactly the right man when tensions run high.”

Toward the end of October, I went to the Army headquarters, northeast of Teheran, to visit General Oveisi. I found a solidly built, plainspoken man whose chest was covered with ribbons. He was in a distinctly unhappy mood. He did not like one bit the messy politics associated with the Shah’s liberalization campaign, which he felt played directly into the hands of the Communists. He said, “Two years ago, the Shah decided to let people be really free. Iranians who had fled the country—writers and people like that—came back here. The National Front began speaking out. The Communist Party began acting up. The religious people asserted themselves. Basically, there were two types. One group was very religious. They followed Shariatmadari, and they didn’t meddle in politics. The other group specialized in politics. They were the followers of Khomeini. They started to organize people against the government and its institutions. The Communists took advantage of the situation. They made strong statements. They burned banks and schools. Some students and many instructors in high schools and colleges are Communists. The instructors persuaded all the students to go on strike, and so all classes were postponed.

“Most people in the United States and Europe are against our government. You send journalists here who see only leaders of the opposition. Then the journalists produce stories that are broadcast by the radio here and printed in the press. So the people here think they are not free.

“We have a well-disciplined and well-trained Army. The forces are ninety-nine per cent loyal to the Shah. Maybe there’s one per cent not loyal—I don’t know. I just say that to be careful. So we are not worried. What does worry me is that there is a Communist Party growing stronger. What worries me more is that when the Communists use freedom to write or to speak to undermine the government, the government is silent. When people strike and make difficulties for others, it is not correct. It jeopardizes security.”

General Moghaddam, the head of savak, who is a tall, pleasant-faced man with receding iron-gray hair, expressed similar ideas when I called on him in late October at his headquarters in Teheran. He said that the demonstrations were “organized one hundred per cent by the Communists, working through students and religious leaders.” He said that he himself had talked with Shariatmadari. He was convinced that Shariatmadari “supports the regime but is afraid to speak out”—afraid because the government offered no protection. It was too weak to take action even against the Communists. “Two weeks ago, we identified a writer who was very active in provoking people to demonstrate against the government,” he told me. “We asked the government’s permission to arrest him. We were told no. We did arrest several press people for instigating rebellion with false stories. We were obliged to release them all. The military and the police now have things under control. But there are dangers. It is difficult for our security forces to attack young people. If the students keep pouring into the streets, they will paralyze our security forces. If we had a powerful government that met difficulties in a powerful way, we could deal with the troubles. But we now believe the government is not strong enough. We in the security forces—in the Army, the police, and savak—feel handcuffed.”

The security forces’ sense of being handcuffed by a weak government inevitably intensified in late October and early November. Demonstrations grew ever larger in scope, and strikes spread, reaching the oil industry and threatening to cripple it. Negotiations for a wider coalition picked up steam. In the first week of November, the two series of events moved in counterpoint to a showdown. In Paris, on November 3rd, Ayatollah Khomeini refused to play at coalition-making and ordered his followers not to stop demonstrating until they had forced the Shah from power. In Teheran, on November 4th, the university students, sallying forth from the campus, toppled a statue of the Shah at the entrance. The troops there forced them back onto the campus. But the next day, November 5th, there was another demonstration. This time, the troops fired first into the air and then into the crowd, killing several students. The students went on the rampage, burning banks, theatres, and the British Embassy. The day after that, Prime Minister Sharif-Emami submitted his resignation, apparently in protest against the breach of the understanding about limited use of martial law. The military, with General Oveisi in the van, seized the opportunity. They insisted that the resignation be accepted and that a military regime be appointed. The Shah consented.

On Monday, November 6th, at noon Teheran time, the Shah went on national television and radio with an extraordinary statement. He announced the appointment of a military government, but at the same time he recognized the legitimacy of the opposition, and promised to deal with grievances and to move toward free elections. He spoke with contrition, and referred to himself as the Padeshah of Iran—a term meaning simply “King,” and far less exalted than Shahanshah, or King of Kings. He said:

Dear People of Iran: In the open political atmosphere, gradually developed these two recent years, you, the Iranian nation, have risen against cruelty and corruption. This revolution cannot but be supported by me, the Padeshah of Iran. However, insecurity has reached a stage where the independence of the country is at stake. Daily life is endangered and what is most critical, the lifeline of the country, the flow of oil, has been interrupted. I tried to form a coalition government, but this has not been possible. Therefore, a temporary government has been formed to restore order and pave the way for a national government to carry out free elections very soon. I am aware of the alliance that has existed between political and economic corruption. I renew my oath to be protector of the constitution and undertake that past mistakes not be repeated and [be] compensated. I hereby give assurance that government will do away with repression and corruption and that social justice will be restored, after the sacrifices you have made... At the present juncture, the Imperial Army will fill its duties in accordance with its oaths. Calm has to be restored with your coöperation. I invite the religious leaders to help restore calm to the only Shiite country in the world. I want political leaders to help save our Fatherland. The same goes for workers and peasants. Let us think of Iran on the road against imperialism, cruelty, and corruption, where I shall accompany you.

By validating the revolution and pledging early free elections, the Shah presumably hoped to put a straitjacket on the soldiers even as he handed over power to them. He named as Prime Minister of the new government the mildest of the military chiefs, General Azhari. But the military, once in office, acted with brisk confidence. Soldiers were moved into the refineries, and the striking workers, threatened with the loss of their jobs, gradually went back to work. Demonstrations were repressed with heavy force. Several leading officials—including former Prime Minister Hoveida; General Nasseri, the former savak head; and former Mayor Nikpay—were placed under arrest. When Sanjabi, the National Front leader, after his return from his meetings with Ayatollah Khomeini in Paris, tried to hold a press conference, he, too, was arrested. Investigations were opened into two highly sensitive matters—corruption in the royal family, and corruption in the Pahlavi Foundation. Either investigation could be conducted in a way that might implicate the Shah himself.

The opposition reacted very strongly. Both Ayatollah Khomeini in Paris and Ayatollah Shariatmadari in Qum denounced the military government. Khomeini exhorted Iranians to “broaden their opposition to the Shah, and force him to abdicate.” In a series of fiery statements, he called for a campaign of mounting demonstrations during Moharram—the Shiite month of mourning, which began this year on December 2nd. He singled out as a special target the holidays of Tasua and Ashura, which this year fell on December 10th and 11th, and which commemorate the deaths of Hossein, the third Imam and the grandson of Mohammed, and his followers, at the Battle of Karbala, thirteen hundred years ago. Normally on Ashura, religious Iranians dress themselves in black, gather at the principal bazaar, and march to the main mosque. As they march, some cut their heads with swords and whip their bodies with chains in an ecstasy of atonement. The processions, with blood drenching the garments of frenzied believers, are a revolutionary’s dream.

Sensing peril, the military government on November 28th banned “processions of any kind” during Moharram. Nevertheless, crowds demonstrated in Teheran during the first two days of the holy month, and there were violations of the curfew on a large scale. Oil production dropped from 5.8 million to below 2 million barrels a day. An exodus of Americans got under way. But even as high noon approached, the major protagonists drew back. The Shah ordered that a hundred and twenty political prisoners be freed on Sunday, December 10th. On December 6th, Karim Sanjabi, the National Front leader, was released from custody. On December 8th, Ayatollah Shariatmadari, at a press conference in Qum, urged his followers to avoid violence. That same day, the military government announced it would permit the religious processions, and the next day pledged to keep troops only in the northern sections of Teheran, out of the line of march.

On Sunday and Monday, December 10th and 11th, crowds of several hundred thousand paraded through the downtown streets. They shouted Islamic religious slogans, and showed hostility toward the Shah, the military government, and the United States. But there was no serious violence, and those who tried to make trouble were constrained by more responsible elements in the procession. The troops drawn up in the northern section of town, in the vicinity of the Niavaran Palace, were not even tested.

Obviously, there had been put into effect at the last moment a typically Persian compromise. The palace and the military government—working through former Prime Minister Ali Amini—had struck a deal with Shariatmadari to avoid a violent showdown. But, though the testing time has passed, all the contending forces are still in place. The moment seems ripe for steps toward a regime that limits the role of the Shah, in keeping with the 1906 constitution. But the moment is not going to last very long. Just before the peaceful processions began, Shariatmadari indicated that he was prepared to renew pressure if concessions were not forthcoming. He was asked when the screw would be turned again. He said, “It will be soon.” ♦

Published in the print edition of the December 18, 1978, issue.

[ticixno]

&& announcing his royal highness, ( ticiano abelardo raphel de léon ), the ( 29 ) year old ( prince ) of ( cuba ). he is often confused with ( tommy martinez ). some say that he is ( irascible, contentious ), but he is actually ( sanguine, prudent ). 

92 Explorer - Post Malone || Creepin’ - Hayley Williams || Monsters - All Time Low || Do Me Right - Gemini  || Level of Concern - twenty one pilots || Lock-Sport-Krock - Nikola Sarcevic || American Candy - The Maine || Teenage Dirtbag - Wheatus || Running Out of Time - Paramore|| 

Basics:  First Name:  Ticiano Abelardo Raphel de Léon Age: 29 Birthday: May 19th Astro Sign: Taurus 

Fun Facts:

Ticiano is the complete package until you get him angry. He has a bit of a hothead. A fist first, questions later. 

He is a prized boxer on the island, even though everyone was leery about stepping into the ring with one the prince. 

His second love, aside from Cuba, is agriculture and how that can change the stability and status of a region. He believes that if they can maintain life without the tariff enriched imports that they can begin to really make a stake in the world market. 

Ticiano has one dog named Dallas that he found on the streets of Texas on a trip he made to the United States. 

    Biography

Ticiano Abelardo Raphel de Léon was born in the sweltering spring heat amongst the sweet scent of marisposas in the air; a well needed transition from the sleepy winter. It also marked the end of the de Léon family’s longing for an heir; for he was the first boy to be born and replenish the bloodline. A fact that his mother hoped would transcend into Mexico. Ticiano never fully understood the depths of his mother’s desperation but the burning expectations laid on his shoulders from a young age. The bitter battle for a throne in a world that seemed so far away had never fully been explored but a backdrop for his rearing. His mother, the bright and beautiful second born to the Mexican king, scorched the earth with her talents and unending intelligence. Yet, her shine dimmed in the shadows of her older sister’s position and lack of moral structure. This stain manifested in a way that impacted the family’s tapestry when Arthur was born. His birth was another blemish for Ticiano’s mother who did everything right and got nothing. His birthright as heir to the Mexican and Cuban thrones were offset by a bastard hiding in plain sight. A fact that would forever stick to his soul like a sword set in stone. Ticiano refused to acknowledge it in the presence of his mother; his own cowardice to insulate his importance until he could prove that he was strong enough to ascend to the role of patriarch of this family. He worked diligently to soak up the adoration and encouragement while reserving it for a rainy day. Love didn’t last in the de Léon household, it held no weight over success. Beneath his mother’s tutelage, Ticiano watched quietly the kindling fury that foraged the walls of their lineage. For silence roused confidence is the secrets that these walls spoke, a place for the smoke from their flames to linger and coat his skin with the tools he needed to succeed. 

Aloof and unaffected by luminescence of the quick tempered nature of his distant family, Ticiano dutifully applied himself completely to excelling in his academic while honing his physicality through various activities like boxing, archery, fencing, and cricket (the wonderful perks of rubbing elbows with boarding school snobs). Rising through his studies at the very top of his class, Ticiano gracefully juggled his academic commitments while observing his father’s work around the island. These formative moments provided Ticiano inside knowledge on the political layout of his home, while also providing a strong presence to his future constituents. He created an image for himself with the residents of each province as a laconic young man who would listen to their problems and to provide thoughtful solutions. 

Amongst all of the busied chaos internally, Ticiano found refuge in his relationship with Roxana. She was the crown jewel of their family, despite her being the second born. To him, she was the most important person to bounce his ideas off and to protect against the harshness of living in this family. Their mother’s constant need for perfection could erode the best parts of a person but he refused to allow it to dull his sister’s passions in life. Roxana provided him the calm guidance in moments of his own blown out temper. She reminded him to be mindful of his emotion when gearing up for the fight in and out of the ring. 

Ticiano attended Berkeley University with a degree in Agricultural & Resource Economics with the desire to obtain the knowledge on the business practice to better allocate natural resources and increase profit for the country. Upon returning to Cuba, all of the pieces needed for a smooth transition of power were in place.  Once he graduated, Ticiano committed himself to be the countryman and leader beneath his father and did his best to gain some favor from his Grandfather.

[newstfionline]

Monday, May 8, 2023

At least 8 people killed by gunman at Texas mall (AP/Reuters) A gunman stepped out of a silver sedan and started shooting people at a Dallas-area outlet mall Saturday, killing eight and wounding seven others—three critically—before being killed by a police officer who happened to be nearby, authorities said. The shooting, the latest eruption of what has been an unprecedented pace of mass killings in the U.S., sent hundreds fleeing in panic. Barely a week before, authorities say, a man fatally shot five people in Cleveland, Texas, after a neighbor asked him to stop firing his weapon while a baby slept. Mass shootings have become commonplace in the United States, with at least 198 so far in 2023, according to the Gun Violence Archive. The nonprofit group defines a mass shooting as any in which four or more people are wounded or killed, not including the shooter.

At king’s coronation, royal grandchildren charm audiences (Washington Post) King Charles III was crowned in front of thousands in Westminster Abbey—but it was his young heirs who charmed social media. The first sight of the king in his ermine robe as he emerged from the Diamond Jubilee State coach, included a glimpse of his 9-year-old grandson, Prince George, who stood dutifully behind him, clad in royal red. Looking nervous but stoic, George—eldest son of Prince William and Catherine, Princess of Wales, who is now second in line to the throne—along with three other boys helped to lift his grandfather’s train as they entered the church, at times biting his lip. His brother, Prince Louis, 5, who spawned memes for covering his ears during a flyover during the late Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee last year, let out an epic yawn during the coronation ceremony. Later, on the Buckingham Palace balcony with senior royals, Louis could be seen drumming his hands on the wall before breaking into a two-handed wave, to his family’s amusement. His sister, 8-year-old Princess Charlotte, entered the church Saturday clasping Louis’s hand like a sensible older sister—which many online dubbed “adorable.”

As Putin Bides His Time, Ukraine Faces a Ticking Clock (NYT) Both armies have tanks, artillery and tens of thousands of soldiers ready to face off on the battlefields of Ukraine in a long-anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive against Russia. But one thing clearly sets the two sides apart: time. Ukraine is feeling immense short-term pressures from its Western backers, as the United States and its allies treat the counteroffensive as a critical test of whether the weapons, training and ammunition they have rushed to the country in recent months can translate into significant gains. If the Ukrainians fall short of expectations, they risk an erosion of Western support. It is a source of anxiety for top officials in Kyiv, who know that beyond battlefield muscle and ingenuity, victory may ultimately come down to a test of wills between the Kremlin and the West—and which side can muster more political, economic and industrial staying power, possibly for years. As a result, there is a sense in Ukraine that its war effort faces a ticking clock. In Russia, President Vladimir V. Putin faces his own challenges but is showing signs of operating on a much longer timeline, encumbered by economic and military limitations but free from the domestic political pressures that make continuing Western support for Ukraine so uncertain.

Ukraine farmers risk losing their lives or livelihoods (AP) A grassy lane rutted with tire tracks leads to Volodymyr Zaiets’ farm in southern Ukraine. He is careful, driving only within those shallow grooves—veering away might cost him his life in the field dotted with explosive mines. Weeds grow tall where rows of sunflowers once bloomed. Zaiets’ land hasn’t been touched since the fall of 2021, when it was last seeded with wheat. Now, it’s a minefield left by retreating Russian forces. Zaiets eschewed official warnings and demined this patch of land himself, determined not to lose the year’s harvest. He expects that 15% of his 1,600 hectares (4,000 acres) of farmland was salvaged. Workers like Victor Kostiuk still spot mines, but he’s ready to start the tractor. “We have to do it,” he says, “Why be afraid?” Across Ukraine, the war has forced grain growers into a vicious dilemma. Farmers in areas now free from Russian occupation are risking their lives to strip their land of explosives before the critical spring planting season. Even then, they must cope with soaring production and transportation costs caused by Russia’s blockade of many Black Sea ports and recent restrictions that neighboring countries imposed on Ukrainian grain.

Turkey’s Erdogan in fight for political life (Reuters) With his two-decade rule in the balance, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has pulled out all the stops on the campaign trail as he battles to survive his toughest political test yet and shield his legacy from an emboldened opposition. Erdogan has faced stiff political headwinds ahead of a May 14 election: he was already facing blame over an economic crisis when a devastating earthquake in February left saw his government accused of a slow response and lax enforcement of building rules that may have saved lives. His opponents have vowed to unpick many of the changes Erdogan has made to Turkey, which he has sought to shape to his vision of a pious, conservative society and assertive regional player. Accusing the opposition of seeking advantage from a catastrophe, Erdogan has made several visits to the quake zone where more than 50,000 died, vowing rapid reconstruction and to punish builders who skirted building regulations.

Syrians still fear building collapses three months on from quakes (Aljazeera) “Since the earthquake, the spectre of death under the rubble still haunts us,” said Ahmed Mazloum, a 43-year-old father of five, who lives in the city of Idlib. Three months on from the devastating February 6 earthquakes that hit northwestern Syria and southeastern Turkey, which killed more than 50,000 people and left thousands more homeless, Mazloum is still worried about the home he lives in with his parents and his brother’s family. The house has been classified as unsuitable for habitation by a committee of engineers in opposition-controlled northwestern Syria, due to damage to the infrastructure of the building, as well as cracked walls. “We have had no choice but to stay in the house but I couldn’t afford the cost of the repair, which amounts to more than $2,000. Additionally, there are no tents available in the shelters, and I can’t afford to buy one,” says Mazloum. Mazloum’s family is one of hundreds in the area living in houses deemed by experts to be unsafe for habitation. During the earthquakes, almost 2,000 buildings collapsed, and shortly after, more than 4,000 were marked as unsafe and uninhabitable structures, resulting in an estimated economic loss of $1.95bn.

Manipur violence: Dozens dead as ethnic clashes grip Indian state (BBC) At least 30 people have been killed in ethnic clashes in the north-eastern Indian state of Manipur, officials say. The violence began earlier this week after a rally by indigenous communities against moves to grant tribal status to the main ethnic group in the state. Mobs attacked homes, vehicles, churches, and temples. Some reports put the death toll as high as 54. Around 10,000 people have reportedly been displaced. Thousands of troops have been sent in to maintain order. A curfew is in place in several districts and internet access has been suspended. Neighbouring states have begun evacuating their students from Manipur, which is in India's northeast and close to the border with Myanmar. The army says it is bringing the situation under control but the Hindu-nationalist BJP-led government in the state has been accused of not doing enough to prevent the violence.

Japanese prime minister visits Seoul, resuming ‘shuttle diplomacy’ (Washington Post) For the first time in 12 years, the leaders of America’s two biggest allies in Asia have extended a mutual olive branch by visiting each others’ countries for bilateral talks—breaking a diplomatic stalemate as Japan and South Korea try to continue thawing their tattered relationship. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Sunday met with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol in Seoul, reciprocating Yoon’s visit to Tokyo in March. In doing so, the two leaders marked the revival of their “shuttle diplomacy” to hold negotiations in each other’s countries and work through a series of thorny issues that have complicated their ties. After years of friction, Seoul and Tokyo are trying to collaborate more closely with each other and Washington to counter the looming geopolitical threats of China’s economic and military rise and North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. The Biden administration has welcomed their efforts.

In Philippines, joint military drills leave locals torn on US presence (CSM) For years, fishing in the South China Sea has been both dangerous and difficult for Filipinos due to the increasing number of Chinese vessels encroaching on the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone. Recent military drills off the country’s western coast are giving some fisherfolk hope, while others are wary. Subic, a former United States naval base, hosts the annual Balikatan (“shoulder-to-shoulder” in Tagalog​) military exercises between the U.S. military and the Armed Forces of the Philippines. This year’s Balikatan, which began on April 11, is the largest ever, involving more than 17,600 members of the two militaries. As the 18-day drills draw to a close, public opinion on U.S. military cooperation is somewhat divided. Although most Filipinos are in favor of working with the U.S. to balance China’s influence in the region, some say Uncle Sam’s presence is equally disruptive, and could even escalate conflict with China. Manuel Mamba, governor of Cagayan province on the northern coast, worries that the increasing presence of U.S. forces may “put the country in a dangerous position. We cannot harbor the enemy of our neighbor,” says Mr. Mamba, referring to China.

Thousands march in Tel Aviv against judicial reforms for 18th straight week (AFP) Thousands of Israelis protested for an 18th straight week against the hard-right government's controversial judicial reforms, despite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shelving the overhaul more than a month ago. Hundreds of demonstrators gathered in the central city of Rehovot, waving Israeli flags and blocking a major road junction. Thousands gathered in Tel Aviv's Habima Square as they prepared to march across the city to Kaplan Street waving Israeli flags and chanting anti-Netanyahu slogans. In a statement released earlier, protest organisers said the Netanyahu government was waiting to turn Israel into a "messianic and dangerous dictatorship". They underlined what they said was the economic cost of the government's refusal to ditch the reforms altogether.

Over 200 dead, many more missing after Congo floods (AP) The death toll from flash floods and landslides in eastern Congo has risen beyond 200, with many more people still missing, according to local authorities in the province of South Kivu. Thomas Bakenge, administrator of Kalehe, the worst-hit territory, told reporters on the scene Saturday that 203 bodies had been recovered so far, but that efforts to find others were continuing. Authorities have reported scores of people injured. One survivor told AP the flash floods came so fast that they took everyone by surprise.

[gellociraptor]

My personal thoughts on Red, White & Royal Blue

"Red, White & Royal Blue" is a charming and captivating movie that takes audiences on a delightful journey through the complexities of love, politics, and identity. Adapted from the bestselling novel of the same name, the film successfully captures the essence of the story while adding its own unique flair.

The film introduces us to Alex Claremont-Diaz (played brilliantly by Taylor Zakhar Perez), the dynamic and charismatic First Son of the United States, and Prince Henry (portrayed with elegance by Nicholas Galitzine), the reserved and charming heir to the British throne. The chemistry between the two leads is palpable, and their rollercoaster romance is both heartwarming and deeply moving.

While the movie excels at portraying the blossoming romance between Alex and Henry, some fans of the book (I, for one) may find themselves missing certain pivotal scenes that didn't make it to the screen. The challenge of adapting any beloved book lies in the difficult task of selecting what to include and what to leave out, and "Red, White & Royal Blue" is no exception. However, the film's pacing and engaging storyline manage to hold the audience's attention throughout, making it an enjoyable experience from start to finish.

The production design and cinematography deserve special mention, as they transport viewers to picturesque settings ranging from the halls of power in Washington, D.C., Texas, to the historic palaces of England. The attention to detail in costume and set design further adds to the movie's authenticity and visual appeal.

One can't help but feel that "Red, White & Royal Blue" could have been even more fulfilling as a series, allowing for a deeper exploration of the characters and the world they inhabit. The film leaves viewers yearning for more glimpses into the lives of Alex, Henry, and their endearing group of friends and family.

In conclusion, "Red, White & Royal Blue" may have left out certain book scenes, but it makes up for it with its heartfelt performances, captivating storyline, and stunning visuals. It's a testament to the enduring power of love and the resilience of the human spirit, leaving audiences with a sense of hope and a smile on their faces.

You can watch Red, White & Royal Blue on Amazon Prime

[lavelled]

mostly miserable.

Quick news: The weekend so far—Kubra Aykut & Shelby Daniele. Kubra, actress, 26, jumped from a balcony. Shelby, given her name, collegiate athleticism, I’m guessing natural causes. The non-Stem code that is more pupils than reality seems to inspire societal deaths. I’m exposing him. Your Lesotho press can double as pejorative insult. Universal sexuality: never Henry.

Prince Harry and Meg began dating in October 2016.

Murdle’s now discontinued website, The TIG, an acronym for: This Is Glamorous. Or, Thou Imitate Grace. The site had the usual hallmarks of wineglass recipes, travel, and wellness articles that veered toward exposition such as Baked Eggs in Avocado and a guide to the unquestionably darling city of Stockholm. Her words. Already onto other things, she writes: “There are few people in this world who are as quintessentially cool as James Merry.” Of course she knew.

Badass Reading List. Glad she’s a bookworm.

She red-inked the article because she cites a Northwestern professor. The list: The Motivation Manifesto, The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom, The Little Prince, Who Moved My Cheese by Spencer Johnson and The Tao of Pooh. On March 18, 2016, the web editor who implicates a little prince for my academic binding, purgatory, and childlessness, marries him.

Nothing says true love like the torched booklist of a rapist kidnapper months before you fuck him. They’re a disjointed laughingstock of what a royal family, a monarchy, should be. They are internationally useless of function.

Highlight link, copy and paste into the address bar, at the tippity top of computer page.

https://web.archive.org/web/20160505185807/http://thetig.com/badass-reading-list/

On May 18, 2018, ONE DAY before the wedding of Prince Harry and Markle, a 17-year-old student at the Santa Fe High School in Texas shot ten people dead.

8 students. 2 teachers.

Who hires you for a UN General Assembly speech on child media content when you own Xtwitter? You’re clinic-level depraved. The mystery that causes school violence: The Prince Harry Effect.

You’re a weasel in a sack in New York when Tom is at the Royal Albert Hall. What did my NYC security team tattoo you with, a DNR directive? You’ve added an extra-tall bloke. Fun Fact: Hervé Villechaize, who played Tattoo on a show that I never watched because I was an infant, committed suicide in 1993.

Who is Samira Khashoggi?

She was the mother of Dodi Fayed, an Egyptian film producer, who died in a car crash in 1997. It’s a familiar surname. Jamal Khashoggi. He was a Saudi columnist for The Washington Post. On October 2, 2018, five months after Henry Windsor’s wedding—a global event for greed and prams with televised royal commentary, actors, and hats—journalist Khashoggi, a divorced father of four, wanting to remarry, walked into a consulate and died. There are reports of his suffocation, choking, drug injection, and cutting while still alive. A writer, a father, with the same last name as the mother of a Princess’s deceased boyfriend, five months after her son, Henry Mountbatten-Windsor, has an heir-only chapel wedding, is killed in a grisly execution.

Prince Harry is Stephen King on Twitter. One month before his wedding, Harry wrote:

A QUIET PLACE is an extraordinary piece of work. Terrific acting, but the main thing is the SILENCE, and how it makes the camera's eye open wide in a way few movies manage.

google.

Harry takes umbrage with shielded paternity and his own psychosexual teacherhood, one month before his nuptials. John plays Lee Abbott or Tom, a protector of his deaf daughter. Though Harry’s low frequency cues and words echoed loudly in Twitter’s grass-webbed barricade for years, I certainly appreciate the film and John’s chivalrous reply.

Why does Stephen King, the author of Misery, advise you to post tweets of his dog, Molly, uniquely corgi and nicknamed the Thing of Evil? It’s Joe. Author of novels, Horns, and Heart-Shaped Box. He’s telling me to disregard rape threats and amens and everything in between.

I’m making you visible in daylight, Henry.

You’ve wanted that heavenly life, so divorce.

K

[mirkwoodsprinceofdoingtoomuch]

Eight part one

O, fathers of my bloodline! O, ye kings of olde! Take this crown from me, bury me in my ancestral soil. If only you know the mighty work of thine loins would be undone by a gay heir who likes it when American boys with chin dimples are mean to him.

Listen: I’ll fly to London right now and pull you out of whatever pointless meeting you’re in and make you admit how much you love it when I call you “baby.” I’ll take you apart with my teeth, sweetheart.

[…] Alex goes back to: The way you speak sometimes is like sugar spilling out of a bag with a hole in the bottom.

“You think y’all are off the hook for institutional bigotry because you come from a blue state. Not every white supremacist is a meth-head in Bumfuck, Mississippi―there are plenty of them at Duke or UPenn on Daddy’s money.”

WASPy Hunter looks startled but not convinced. “None of that changes that red states have been red forever,” he says, laughing like it’s something to joke about, “and none of those populations seem to care enough about what’s good for them to vote.”

“Maybe those populations might be more motivated to vote if we made an actual effort to campaign to them and showed them that we care, and how our platform is designed to help them, not leave them behind,” Alex says hotly. “Imagine if nobody who claims to have your interests at heart ever came to your state and tried to talk to you, man. Or if you were a felon, or―fucking voter ID laws, people who can’t access polls, who can’t leave work to get to one?”

“Yeah, I mean, it’d be great if we could magically mobilize every eligible marginalized voter in red states, but political campaigns have a finite amount of time and resources, and we have to prioritize based on projections.” WASPy Hunter says, as if Alex, First Son of the United States, is unfamiliar with how campaigns work. “There just aren’t the same number of bigots in blue states. If they don’t want to be left behind, maybe people in red states should do something about it.”

And Alex has, quite frankly, had it.

“Did you forget that you’re working on the campaign of someone Texas fucking created?” he says, and his voice has officially risen to the point where staffers in the neighboring cubicles are staring, but he doesn’t care. “Why don’t we talk about how there’s a chapter of the Klan in every state? You think there aren’t racists and homophobes growing up in Vermont? Man, I appreciate that you’re doing work here, but you’re not special. You don’t get to sit up here and pretend like it’s someone else’s problem. None of us do.”

The invitation comes certified airmail straight from Buckingham Palace. Gilded edges, spindly calligraphy: THE CHAIRMAN AND COMMITTEE OF MANAGEMENT OF THE CHAMPIONSHIPS REQUEST THE PLEASURE OF THE COMPANY OF ALEXANDER CLAREMONT-DIAZ IN THE ROYAL BOX ON THE 6TH OF JULY, 2020.

Alex takes a picture and texts it to Henry.

1. tf is this? aren’t there poor people in your country?

2. I’ve already been in the royal box

Henry sends back, You are a delinquent and a plague, and then, Please come?

And it should be―it should be funny. It should be hot, stupid, ridiculous, obscene, another wild sexual adventure to add to the list. And it is, but … it shouldn’t also feel like the first time, like Alex might die if it ever stops. There’s a laugh in his mouth, but it won’t get past his tongue, because he knows this is him helping Henry get through something. Rebellion.

You’re brave. I could use some of that.

[angelasscribbles]

Victim of Love Chapter 3: Old Friends and New

Series: Victim of Love

Fandom: The Royal Romance

Pairings: Drake x Riley

Word Count: 1,146

Rating: MA

Warnings for this chapter: drinking

Song Inspiration for series: Victim of Love by The Eagles

I heard about you and that man There's just one thing I don't understand

My other stuff: Master List.

Drake rejoined the party in progress, fingering the scrap of paper in his hand. He sat down at the bar as he eyed the hastily scribbled number. Pulling out his phone, he typed it in and sent a text: You gave me your number, but you still haven’t told me your name.

“Hey, there you are!” a familiar voice called out.

Drake’s head snapped up as he pocked the phone, along with the scrap of paper, a grin spreading across his face, “Liam!”

He stood quickly and embraced his old friend.

“I was wondering if you were going to make it!” Liam gestured for him to retake his seat before taking the one next to him.

“I wouldn’t miss your anniversary party!” Drake retook his seat.

“I appreciate that, but it would be nice to see you between the big events.” The childhood best friends had drifted apart, at least geographically, over the last several years.

“Sorry, Li, I know. The last time I was here was your wedding.”

“And my coronation before that.”

“Mom and the ranch have both really needed me.”

“I understand, it’s not like I’ve been to Texas to visit you. Believe me, I understand obligation and responsibility all too well.”

Drake’s brows creased at the trace of sadness in his tone. “Everything okay?”

“What? Yes, everything is fine! Let’s get a drink, I had the bar stock your favorite whiskey!”

“I know, I just haven’t had a chance to drink any yet….” He trailed off as the memory of why he’d abandoned his first drink of the night intruded upon his thoughts. Heat spiked through his veins as the image of her naked body arching up into his spilled through his mind and his eyes scanned the room for her.

“Well, let’s correct that immediately!” Liam laughed as he signaled the bartender over to take their order.

The bartender quickly poured and then slid two glasses over to them.

Drake held his glass up in a toast, “Congratulations!”

“On which part?”

“Both! Here’s to navigating the first year of marriage successfully and to the impending birth of Cordonia’s heir!”

“I’ll drink to that!” Liam lifted his glass in salute and then both men drank.

They spent a few minutes catching up then Liam excused himself, “I have to get back to this interminable ball but please, join me after this monstrosity of a party is over! Upstairs, third floor, the private sitting room in the west wing.”

“West wing? The royal quarters are in the east wing!”

“Yes, well, since my marriage, my wife has taken over…everything there. The decorating, the meal planning, how often the goddamn toothbrushes are replaced! Nothing there feels like mine anymore…” A sigh of frustration escaped him as pinched the bridge of his nose, “Just…the west wing, okay?”

“Yeah, sure,” Drake agreed sympathy pulling through him. He knew Liam had married for duty, not love. He’d been best man at the wedding and Liam had confided in him then that his heart lie with another, but she hadn’t been approved by the council.

He didn’t envy Liam his money, position, or titles. Running a cattle ranch was hard work, but his life was his own.

His thoughts were drawn away from his best friend when his phone pinged. He pulled it out and glanced down at the screen.

I’m not in the habit of telling strangers my name.

He shook his head with a grin as he typed back, I’d say after tonight we’re intimately acquainted. Or would you like to go for round three?

Don’t threaten me with a good time.

They continued to banter back and forth until he’d pried her name out of her and the ball was over.

No one’s ever made me work this hard for a name before. When can I see you again, Riley?

No immediate response, but that didn’t mean anything. Right?

He made his way upstairs and into the west wing. He knocked on the door and then opened it and entered without waiting for a response. Looking around, he noted the new furnishings and decorations in the room. When he had lived at the palace, this entire wing had been in disuse and filled with dusty, centuries-old furnishings. It now looked like something he’d actually be comfortable living in, “I like what you’ve done with the place!”

“Thanks,” Liam handed him a drink and took a seat in a plush leather recliner facing the door, “I’ve missed you. Please tell me you’re done playing cowboy and ready to move back home.”

Drake folded himself into the matching chair across from Liam with a sigh, “I’m not playing cowboy, Li! I’m-“

“I know, I know!” Liam interrupted him, “But let’s be honest. You’re not doing anything that a good foreman can’t do and I’m willing to pay you a small fortune to come back home and take your place in the Royal Guard!”

Drake had left a lucrative military career when his mother had requested his assistance with the family ranch back in Texas. If he were being honest, he did miss Cordonia and even the palace. It had been his home for half his life and Liam was the closest thing to a brother he had.

“Make me an official offer and I’ll think about it.”

“Really?” Liam’s face lit up in delight.

Drake shook his head with an amused grunt, “Yeah. Why not? But don’t get too excited! I said I’d consider it!”

The truth was, as much as he loved his mother, she could be a lot. And Liam was right, he could hire a foreman for the day-to-day running of the ranch.

“Excellent! How long are you here for this time?”

“A week or two, I really want to go out and check on the cabin.” He hadn’t set foot in it in three years.

As if reading his mind Liam assured him, “I’ve had Bastien looking after it. He goes out at least once every few months, makes sure nothing is leaking, no one has broken in, things like that.”

“Thanks, Li. I really appreciate it. Speaking of the cabin…” he gestured around the room, “this looks more like something I would pick for it than something you’d pick for the palace.”

“Oh, I didn’t do this,” Liam grinned.

“But then who-“

“Remember at my wedding when I told you there was someone else? Someone I wished I could have chosen?”

“Yeah…”

“Well, I somehow managed to convince her to stick around and-“

The door opened again and Liam’s entire being lit up. The tension eased from his shoulders as he leapt to his feet to greet her. The change was noticeable and significant, “Here she is now!”

Drake turned around in his seat as the smell of lavender and lilac hit him like a full-throttle freight train right in the chest.

[jayjay879]

What’s up with the way The Royal Heir portrays Texas?

I’ve been on hiatus for work and just caught up through Chapter 10. I grew up in a small town here and have lived all over the state — in some of the biggest cities and in rural areas. @playchoices has gotten most of it wrong... (This little calf though is so damn cute!)

Keep in mind that Texas has over 65 cities with at least 50,000 people in them. There are plenty of rural towns, but they’re usually in between those cities and/or around one of the big 4 metro areas (DFW, Houston, San Antonio, and Austin.) Texans do work hard and have jobs in almost every industry — yes, there’s ranching and agriculture, but also oil, tech, healthcare, retail, etc.

We also like to kick back and relax at festivals, breweries, wineries, biergartens, the coast, one of the rivers or lakes, football / basketball / baseball / soccer / hockey games, races, amusement parks, water parks, museums, zoos, aquariums, city parks and state parks, the hill country, etc. We like all types of food and celebrations from all different cultures because we’re people from all different types of backgrounds. (Did you know there’s more Asians in Texas than there are people in Delaware?) Don’t let a select few public figures fool you on what it’s like here. And even in smaller areas, we use more modern tech than people give us credit for.

Don’t get me wrong: our state has plenty of things wrong with it. The bad things that make headlines are generally not something we’re proud of or really agree with (especially the younger generations.) But a majority of the 29ish million people here are good-hearted and treat each other like neighbors.

But going back to the story, if we’re talking about strictly rural areas, here’s the big misconceptions I’ve seen:

- There really aren’t that many fairs in small towns or big cities. They don't serve a purpose for cattle. Small towns have stockyards that have bidding every few weeks. Texas has way more festivals and what we call picnics (they’re more like carnivals) — even in towns with less than 1,000 people. At these events, you see more BBQ cook offs, car shows, dancing, and games.

- We have the State Fair in Dallas (https://bigtex.com/) and some rodeos throughout the year. They have some events like a stockyard, bull riding, and mutton busting (where kids ride sheep.) But many people watch those events as a precursor to the concerts (https://www.sarodeo.com/.)

- The biggest ranches in Texas — that can drive a substantial profit from ranching — are hundreds of thousands of acres and are run like (or managed by) corporations. Many of the ranches the size of the Walker Ranch are run as side jobs because cattle are expensive to raise and can’t be relied on for consistent income. Our family had seven one hundred-acre plots of land when I was growing up that was shared with my extended family. The work was few and far between — mostly helping build or mend fences which was a pain in the Texas heat. Many of the people who made a living in ranching took care of other people’s cattle because there wasn’t much to do on their own land, or people just loaned out their land to others who needed a place to put their cattle in order to keep their agriculture or livestock exemption for their land until they need to use it again. Otherwise, it takes years to get the ag exemption back.

- The reason the Walkers aren’t doing well financially is probably because of their outdated ranching practices (think several decades outdated.) We use ranch trucks or 4-wheelers when dealing with cattle in the pasture. The trucks are even registered differently with the state (you’ll usually see “Farm Truck” on the license plate.) It makes it easier to bring tools out with you and to keep the cattle rounded up if we need for them to be. When it’s time to sell cattle, we use trailers.

- Horses are even more expensive to maintain and need a lot of care, so they’re used more for recreational horseback riding. And most people that use them for that pay to have them held at a stable or equestrian center, cared for by the people that run those facilities, and end up riding or training their horses there. The ones that keep them and care for them on their own land really don’t use them for cattle — much less to herd cattle to a stockyard. It would exhaust the horses, block off entire roads, and take way too much time compared to driving.

- The people who were helping the Walkers who then bailed usually wouldn’t be seen often in small towns here. Reputation is everything, so if word gets out that you can’t be relied on, you probably won’t be hired elsewhere. Plus, many that help on the land are part of the family or good family friends that have known you for years. If a ranch can’t competitively pay the people, the ranch owners usually talk to them in advance as a way to say “We know you have to provide for your family,” and “We understand / no hard feelings if you can’t.” It’s also usually also temporary. The reputation thing goes both ways, so ideally those owners do (at least from what I’ve seen) treat their people well.

- People don’t really camp on their land in Texas. They go to state parks because we don’t have many forests (outside of said state parks.) Most rural areas have pastures and most people who own land like that have camp houses (which are like bigger cabins for hunting season.)

- Bears aren’t what cause issues here. We do have some black bears, but they’re rarely seen — they don’t really approach people. Hogs are more dangerous. They can be up to three feet tall and 400 pounds (https://tpwd.texas.gov/huntwild/wild/nuisance/feral_hogs/). They’re what parents warn their kids about if they’re in the country at night. They can mess you up if they charge at you and can total a car. A toll road put in from Austin to San Antonio — which was built without true knowledge of the area — didn’t account for barriers to keep hogs off the road. It’s led to crazy accidents in the area like this one: https://www.kxan.com/news/local/austin/update-hogs-on-sh-130-cause-18-wheeler-rollover-crash-thursday/. Other things that people have to watch out for when they’re in the country on foot are wild cats — like mountain lions or bobcats (http://texasnativecats.org/cats-of-texas/) and snakes. I may be missing some of the wildlife though...

- Did they mention a salmon from their fishing trip? I may have misread that, but I thought it said Liam threw one for the bear to chase. We don’t have salmon here: https://tpwd.texas.gov/landwater/water/aquaticspecies/inland.phtml. Liam must have picked one up from H-E-B. We also fish more at the coast or lakes than rivers. We use rivers for tubing: https://www.wideopencountry.com/tubing-in-texas/

- It was thoughtful for Maxwell to give his brother a motorbike, but the tires would likely not survive offroad terrain in Texas between soft ground due (like clay and expansive soil) in the Eastern part of the state, rocks in the Western part of the state, and thorns in underbrush (like huisache) that will mess up tires. That’s why we use 4-wheelers and trucks for offroading — their tires can handle more. We still use motorbikes and dirt bikes, but usually on roads or dirt courses.

- Cowboy hats really aren’t always great for working outside. It’s too damn hot here. We always did baseball caps because they breathe better and the sweat doesn’t get trapped. Most people where cowboy hats to special events — whether they’re from smaller towns or from the city and don’t really work outside. Smaller town people use them for things like weddings and town festivals, wearing a nicer button down and slacks or nice jeans. Both small town people and city people use them for festivals with a sleeveless top or loose button down and shorts. Both usually wear boots too for those occasions.

- Maxwell is going to die if he wears that that puffy jacket — the heat index can get high during the day here. Liam’s outfit looks more like what accordion players wear to festivals. Drake’s looks more on par, but he could use some color. Blue and red plaid — like our state flag — are much more common. Bertrand looks like an old time oil tycoon. Riley’s hat looks like it’s going to slip off the back of her head because it’s so big. Hana’s looks the most on point, but most people don’t bear their mid drift unless they’re at a festival. It’ll leave you with some major sun burns and weird tan lines. Plus loose shirts stay cooler in the heat, keep mosquitoes at bay, and block direct sun.

I really want to finish this game out, but I think I was expecting more of a royal take on the royal heir storyline. Plus these weird takes on what they think life is like in Texas...

[damejudywrench]

This chapter of the royal heir was preparing us for big sky country coming back

[zaffrenotes]

pretty much what I saw in my head the second they said Liam was behind the wheel 😏😏😏