Photo by: Dave Lorish
“American? What are you doing here?” the Iranian tea shop vendor asked the man before him, “Don’t you know that all Iranians are terrorists?” The vendor and his customer, Donald Liebich, shared a laugh along the Zayandeh River in Esfahan. When Liebich tried to pay for the man’s tea and ice cream, the vendor refused, saying, “No, you are my guest. You are American.”
Liebich spoke to a diverse audience at the Graduate School of International Studies (GSIS) last Thursday to present his findings from a two-week trip to Iran last May.
Liebich and his wife, Marcia, traveled to Iran on a “citizens diplomacy” tour, which was neither political nor officially diplomatic. It was, in essence, a non-political, grassroots approach to diplomacy: ordinary Americans met ordinary Iranians and related to one another on a personal level.
Fittingly perhaps, the Liebichs were in Iran during a period of saber-rattling, between the U.S. and Iran, which gave reason for both Iranians and Americans to believe that their respective governments might employ military violence against the other. In the end, the conflict was just another tiff between governments that has become the nature of the convoluted relationship between the coutries.
The two events that compose the American image in Iran, Liebich says, are the American removal of Iran’s democratically elected prime minister Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh from power in the 1950s and the American support for Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq War in 1980.
Americans, Liebich said, view Iranians through the media lens that covered the hostage crisis in 1979, where Iranian students captured the American embassy in Tehran and held American personnel hostage for more than a year.
There are innumerable cultural differences between America and Iran, but it seems that some cultural and political parallels can be drawn between the two countries.
In Iran, women are required to veil their face and the “fashion police,” will arrest women who violate the dress code. A young Iranian woman in the audience during Liebich’s presentation said that it was a form of rebellion to not wear the full hijab (head and body covering), and that if you know where the “fashion police” regularly patrol, you won’t get arrested. Still, many women show only their face, so plastic surgery is gaining popularity in Iran, according to Liebich.
Iranians are anxious for their next parliamentary election, shadowing the anticipation of the American presidential election in November. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s president has failed to live up to his promise of taking “oil money and putting it on the dinner table,” so many Iranians are anxious for change.
Liebich said that many of the Iranians he encountered said the government needs to change and it will change. Iran desires self-sufficiency. The way to improve their government is for there to be no more revolution and no more interference, which America has been guilty of in the past.
Iranians differentiate between Americans and the American government, Liebich explained, which gives them an enlightened perspective on our democracy. However, because we are a democracy, and we elect our leaders, that differentiation may start weakening.
In the Liebichs’ experiences, Iranians and Americans have much in common and perhaps the best path toward warmer international relations is through connections made between ordinary people.
