The Stuarts and the Shah

You wouldn't think at first glance that the Feast of King Charles the Martyr, executed 377 years ago today in London, would have much to do with current events in Iran.

But recently I've been reading both my old friend Gareth Russell's excellent new biography of King James I (1566-1625), which I finished last night and which at the end goes briefly into some of the related challenges and tragedies faced by his son and successor Charles I, and for the second time Andrew Scott Cooper's "The Fall of Heaven: The Pahlavis and the Final Days of Imperial Iran." And for all the vast differences between 17th-century Britain and 20th-century Iran, I was struck by at least one parallel.

Reading both books, I found myself often feeling a burning resentment against the kind of literally puritanical religiosity that undermined (and eventually toppled) both monarchies, whether Scottish Presbyterianism in James's early reign, English Puritanism in his later reign and his son's, or militant Shia Islam in the Shah's. In all three cases, a monarch who was genuinely personally religious himself (admittedly, Charles perhaps more so than his father) was nevertheless stridently and relentlessly opposed and criticised by dour clerics who found the Monarchy to be insufficiently "godly." (The Kirk didn't want James's wife Queen Anne to have a coronation, both because elements of the ceremony were thought "papist" and because they feared, correctly, that there might be drinking and dancing.)

An even more curious parallel is that in both countries, an unholy alliance was formed between this kind of strict religious zeal (which today we might call "Right-wing") and the more secular "democratic" kind of opposition (which might be called "Left-wing") to the monarch for being (allegedly) too authoritarian. Of course, in both cases, when the religious fanatics actually took power, they imposed a regime that was far more oppressive than the Monarchy had ever been, though fortunately the English version lasted only 11 years; Iran has now endured 47, almost my entire life.

Will Iran ever get its May 1660? One can live in hope.

Modernity and Loyalty

One reason I have trouble understanding "normal" contempoary people is that I don't believe in unconditional geographical patriotism. I believe in loyalty to Monarchs, not loyalty to "Countries." While fond of some specific places that happen to be located within the USA, I feel nothing for the USA as a whole as a political entity, and while I love England and the United Kingdom, if God forbid Britain ever abolished the Monarchy, I would regard the new republic(s) as my enemy. Had I (or a version of me) been Brazilian in 1889, Portuguese in 1910, Russian in 1917, German or Austrian in 1918, Italian in 1946, Greek in 1974, or Iranian in 1979, I would have then felt that I had no country and no obligations of any kind to the new regime, preferring death (with which I'm sure the Bolsheviks or the Mullahs in particular would have been happy to oblige) or exile to obedience. So the mentality of Iranians who, the New York Times tells us, don't much like the Islamic Republic regime but are nevertheless rallying to it in patriotic anger is incomprehensible to me. I don't accept that countries have the right to abolish their monarchies, or come into existence by revolting against their monarch, and still expect the kind of automatic loyalty that would have been natural when the world was relatively sane and properly ordered.

On a related note, I find the mentality of Catholics who know that the Latin Mass is superior but nevertheless willingly attend Novus Ordo "masses" they find repulsive similarly incomprehensible. (I'm not worried that this will actually happen, but if traditional music & liturgy disappeared from my Episcopal parish, so would I.) I guess I'm not very good at Obedience.

Reza Pahlavi rising?

Iran's long-exiled prince wants a revolution in age of Trump. I usually prefer the term "counterrevolution," but Javid Shah! The Middle East needs monarchies now more than ever. Many of our modern problems can be traced to or were exacerbated by the fall of Reza Pahlavi's father the Shah, who envisioned Iran as a great nation in harmony with the international community, in the evil 1979 revolution.

Who cares about Presidents?

Apparently someone named Mario Soares who used to call himself President of Portugal (whatever that is) died. I suppose it is good to offer prayers for his soul, since he'll certainly need them. But what I can't stand in the coverage is the ubiquitous assumption that the Salazar regime was Bad because it was Not Democratic while the current government is Good because it is Democratic. No. Democracy is at best a tolerable means to an end, but there is nothing inherently good about it. By my standards both the Salazar regime (though it did some good things) and the present republic are bad, because neither one is the Monarchy that shaped Portugal and was integral to its civilisation from its beginnings in 1139 until 1910. Only the Kingdom can be good for Portugal, because only the Kingdom can represent continuity rather than rupture with the glorious past. Only the Kingdom could provide a head of state who represents unity rather than division. Viva o Rei!

As the illegitimate regimes of Portugal and Iran both insist on mourning former presidents, here's a friendly reminder of who those countries' rightful rulers are. Viva o Rei! Javid Shah!

Portugal and Iran are interesting to contemplate together, because chronologically they constitute "bookends" of by far the worst seven decades in the history of Monarchy. While the idea of replacing a longstanding monarchy with a republic, though often claimed to be "modern," had actually been around since ancient Rome (509 BC), prior to 1910 "successful" attempts other than the French Revolution (itself not really consolidated in France for nearly a century) were rare. One thinks of the tragic cases of Brazil (1889) and Hawaii (1893), but that was about it, apart from failures of short-lived monarchical experiments (e.g. Haiti, Mexico) and numerous anti-colonial rebellions in the Americas that did not displace reigning monarchs at home in Europe. And since 1979, the world's remaining monarchies have seemed fairly secure, and for the most part are probably likely to remain so, Nepal being the main exception (let's hope there will be no others).

But by the time of my first birthday, the damage had been done: between 1910 and 1979, which is to say within less than an average modern Western human lifespan, monarchies in the Eastern Hemisphere fell every few years, transforming half of the globe from a world in which Monarchy was very much the norm (France, Switzerland, San Marino, and Liberia being originally the only exceptions) to one in which it is sadly very much the exception and republics (whether democratic or authoritarian) are widely assumed by Left and "Right" alike to be the "default" form of government. We must live in hope that the errors of those catastrophic seven decades may one day be reversed.

Persepolis Remembered

The BBC's new documentary on the Shah of Iran's 1971 celebrations of the 2500th anniversary of the Persian Empire is now online. I do not, of course, endorse the BBC's evident anti-Shah bias, but there is some terrific footage in this, and some eloquent pro-Shah interviewees as well. Grand spectacle has been a part of all great monarchies, but in Iran too many people were seduced by evil revolutionaries like Khomeini while the naive Carter administration put pressure on the Shah that only emboldened his enemies, paving the way for the Revolution (in my estimation one of history's three worst, the other two being the French and Russian) that destroyed nearly everything he had achieved for Iran. Implicitly blaming the 1971 Persepolis festivities for all Islamic terrorism since 1979 is unfair and myopic. As for SAVAK, well, when I see what republicans in today's considerably gentler constitutional monarchies do with their Freedom, I have a hard time feeling sorry for the Shah's opponents. In the end he was if anything too indulgent. But I wish I could have called such a king mine.

Princess Ashraf Pahlavi (1919-2016)

Just learned that HIH Princess Ashraf Pahlavi (1919-2016), twin sister of the Shah of Iran, has died aged 96, the first royal death of the new year (as far as I know). I have her 1980 memoir, "Faces in a Mirror," which I inherited from my grandmother in 1994. A remarkable woman, fiercely loyal to her brother, she is now again united with him. May she rest in peace.

Monarchy or Republic: Yes, it matters!

Having posted on Facebook via The Pahlavi Dynasty page about his daughter Princess Noor's graduation from Georgetown this weekend, I was looking at The Official Site of Reza Pahlavi and couldn't help finding it depressing to see in a 2011 Q&A that HIH had said that the important thing is for Iran to be democratic and secular and it doesn't matter if it's a republic or a constitutional monarchy because there isn't much difference between Germany and the Netherlands or between France and Spain. With all due respect, Your Imperial Highness, for some of us there is all the difference in the world! People fortunate enough to live in the Netherlands or Spain have a non-partisan head of state who connects them to their history; people in Germany or France have a divisive head of state who cuts them off from their history.

Every day of my life I resent living in a republic, and I would resent it even more if I lived in one that used to have a monarchy of its own like Germany or France...or Iran. For anyone with a deep sense of history and tradition, the illegitimate German and French republics are totally repulsive and cannot represent their monarchist inhabitants at all; neither would any Iranian republic, whether theocratic or secular. Perhaps the most discouraging thing about being a monarchist in the 21st century is the fact that too often it seems like even royalty don't really believe in monarchy. The world desperately needs royal restorations, but who will be our champions if not the would-be kings or shahs themselves?

Princess Fawzia of Egypt (1921-2013)

HRH Princess Fawzia of Egypt, daughter of King Fuad I (sister of King Farouk, aunt of King Fuad II) and first wife of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran, died yesterday at the age of 91. She will be buried in Cairo. As Egypt undergoes yet more turmoil with the military ouster of President Morsi today, one more link to an era when Egyptians enjoyed relative stability and liberty is gone. Egypt and Iran are still paying the price for the ouster of her brother & nephew and husband respectively.

Empress Farah: Iranian Royal Comeback?

Reaction to a new documentary on the exiled lives of the Shah and his widow since their departure from Iran in 1979 suggests that some, though not yet nearly enough, Iranians are beginning to regret the Revolution.  No reasonable person, even if not a monarchist, can deny that what has replaced the Pahlavi monarchy has been much worse, with none of the positive features of the Shah's regime.  Empress Farah remains an eloquent voice for a humane vision of Iran even as she deals with the heartbreak of having lost two of her four children.

Royalty in Washington

Washington, DC may be the world's leading citadel of republicanism, but the area is also home to exiled royalty from Ethiopia, Iran, Rwanda, and Ghana, as the Washington Post reports.

Persepolis, 40 years later

In honor of the 40th anniversary of the Shah of Iran's celebrations in Persepolis (October 12-16, 1971) of the 2500th anniversary of the Persian Empire, I post a link to this beautiful and thorough 2002 tribute from the "Glittering Royal Events" site. The celebrations (nicknamed "Disneyland in the Desert" by Western journalists and attended by most of the world's leading royalty) surely constituted one of the most spectacular royal occasions of the 20th century, though alas the lavish event was easily exploited in propaganda by the Shah's enemies in spite of the good it did in terms of infrastructure and publicity. I wonder, as the evil current Iranian regime stumbles from one insanity to another, when those who spent the 1970s denouncing the Shah as a "tyrant" as if nothing could be worse will apologize. Something tells me we shouldn't hold our breath...

Prince Ali-Reza Pahlavi of Iran (1966-2011)

HIH Prince Ali-Reza Pahlavi, second son of the last Shah of Iran, committed suicide in Boston this morning, according to his brother's official website. This is a terrible tragedy for his family, especially his mother Empress Farah, who has now lost two of her four children. Apparently Prince Ali Reza, who was deeply saddened by Iran's suffering since 1979 and more recently by the death of his sister Leila, was never able to come to terms with being exiled from his homeland by the revolution that deposed his father. He can therefore be considered yet another casualty of the evil Islamic Republic of Iran, an illegitimate abomination that has no right to exist and has already claimed so many lives. My heart goes out to his family; may he rest in the peace he was not able to find on Earth.

27 July 1980

RadicalRoyalist reminded me that today is the 30th anniversary of the death in Cairo of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran (1941-79). The Shah was betrayed by his Western "allies," particularly the incompetent American President Jimmy Carter (who 30 years later, not content with having helped destroy Iran, would cheer on the collapse of yet another monarchy in Nepal), and rejected by the people for whom he had tried to do so much. His regime was not perfect but infinitely superior to what Iran has endured since, as anyone familiar with the history of revolutions should have been able to predict. R.I.P.

The Queen and I

The Queen and I (2008; featured at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival) is a unique documentary by Iranian expat filmmaker Nahid Persson, now a resident of Sweden, about Empress Farah. Apart from both being exiled Iranians, the two women have little in common; Persson in her youth before the 1979 Revolution was a leftist agitator dedicated to opposing the regime of Farah's husband the Shah. But the documentary shows how the two women became, if not exactly friends, able to understand each other, and is sympathetic enough to the Empress to appeal to viewers like me whose views are quite unlike the filmmaker's. Scenes with exiled Iranian royalists, especially those visiting the Shah's grave in Egypt, as well as old footage of imperial pageantry, will stir any monarchist's heart, even if such a reaction is quite contrary to Persson's intentions.

When pressed, the Shahbanou ably defends her late husband's much-maligned regime, pointing out among other things that in the context of the Cold War the Soviet Union really was trying to make Iran Communist necessitating a security service, that the allegedly all-powerful SAVAK left the mullahs who would overthrow the Shah untouched, and that the Iranian leftists opposed to Khomeini all fled to the [formerly Shah-allied] Western countries they had denounced as "imperialist," not to their beloved USSR, Cuba, or China. While I certainly do not endorse Nahid Persson's political perspective, which inevitably colors the narration, she has made a film I think monarchists will enjoy almost in spite of herself.

Young Monarchist in Danger

In a grim follow-up to its recent executions of two other Iranian monarchists, the Islamic Republic of Iran has arrested 26-year-old Omid Dana, an admirer of the late Shah. Dana is reportedly now in danger of execution. A friend of Dana's eloquently pleads for his life, mentioning how Dana wore a symbol associated with the Iranian monarchy despite having been warned it might get him in trouble. I wonder how many monarchists comfortably ensconced in the West, myself included, would have the courage to do something so simple yet so absurdly dangerous. I hope the international community will do everything in its power to prevent yet another unjustified execution.

Reza Pahlavi in the NYT

The heir of the late Shah of Iran answers some impertinent questions from the New York Times with rather more dignity than they deserve.

More from Empress Farah

The Shah's widow may have been in exile for 30 years, but Empress Farah has never lost touch with events in Iran.

Iranian monarchist hopes

Exiled de jure Shah Reza II Pahlavi and his mother Empress Farah view the current turmoil in Iran as a threat to the Islamic Republic. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem that most opponents of the Ahmadinejad regime see monarchy as the answer. Crown Prince Reza says that he is not necessarily fighting for the the restoration of the monarchy, but only for a democratic and secular government which might or might not include a European-style constitutional monarchy; I wish he would, but perhaps he is simply being prudent.

Keep pretending

The Economist, which in the past has made clear its contempt for the world's surviving monarchies, provides an irreverent "retirement guide" for pretenders to vacant thrones.