Read The Ministry of Guidance Invites You to Not Stay: An American Family in Iran for Free Online Page B

powers or native despots, often disguised as liberators of the Persian people. Ingeniously, the Islamic Republic’s peculiar form of democracy has not only subverted traditional notions of dictatorship (there are still, even after the 2009 elections, few absolutes in Iran, as my own experience showed), it has also endowed its supporters with a sort of moral righteousness that makes them truly believe they are not just doing God’s work but serving the cause of justice and doing right, much as other ideologues, such as communists, have believed elsewhere. Perhaps that is the reason for the republic’s longevity, despite its vulnerability to an educated and intellectual class’s demands for change. That same class, arguably smaller then than it is today, supported the revolution against the shah, and while it is generally not looking to overthrow the current Iranian system by force, at least not yet, it continues to struggle against the authoritarian state it helped to usher in. (The irony of the Persian Islamic system—rule by clerics with unquestioned authority—is that Shia Islam, the sect to which 90 percent of Iranians adhere but a minority sect worldwide, was founded in response to the tyranny of Sunni caliphs.) I wondered as I left Tehran—my mind swimming, trying to reconcile my run-in with the Intelligence Ministry with my decision to move to Tehran—whether, given my fear of a flaw in our national character, if today’s Iranians ever succeed in bringing true change to their country and making Iran a democracy with freedoms unheard of, Mr. Bad and Mr. Worse will simply find themselves with a new master to serve.

2

TOUCHDOWN

    Flying from the United States to Iran is taxing under the best of circumstances, but when flying with an eight-month-old baby, it is an altogether different experience. Especially if one is traveling with enough suitcases for an extended stay, a Cadillac-size stroller, and a Barcalounger-size baby car seat; and especially if that baby is accustomed to organic and natural foods that must be transported in bulk to one’s destination, for god forbid that he consume what other babies do; and especially if his mother insists on bringing the water filter, weighing some pounds, along with its multiple cartridges, from our home in New York, where the quality of the tap water, just like Tehran’s, is boasted about by its residents (but not this mother, who believes that fluoride is a poison, even if only applied to the skin). I was, in the past, accustomed to the mild culture shock of boarding a KLM or Lufthansa flight to Tehran in Amsterdam or Frankfurt—it’s as if one were already in Tehran, okay, a nice part of Tehran—but my wife, Karri, wasn’t. She was nervous as we waited in line at Schiphol airport to board our flight to my hometown, surrounded by Iranians, the Farsi language, and women in various states of Islamic-friendly dress, from head scarves already firmly in place to shawls draped over the shoulder, ready to be summoned for duty sometimebefore landing. Besides the suitcases we’d checked, we had the stroller, a baby in arms, and as much hand luggage as would ordinarily serve my baggage purposes for a four-week solo trip. Karri asked me if breast-feeding in public was taboo in Iran or among Iranians abroad, for she would be feeding our son on the flight, and I had to confess that I didn’t know.
    A short while before embarking on our trip, we had attended a friend’s birthday party at a New York restaurant. As soon as everyone was seated, he had announced, only half-jokingly, that the party was in fact not in celebration of his advancing age but an intervention designed to persuade us to refrain from moving to Tehran for a year. He had insisted that it was too dangerous an endeavor for me, let alone with an American wife and child in tow. I had laughed it off, but now I wondered if his words had had any effect on Karri. To be fair, she mostly kept her apprehension hidden