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Iran Through the Back Door
Rick Steves, the travel guru who is based in Edmonds, WA, has made a career of travel, with his unconventional travel guides PBS documentaries. His philosophy has always been to travel "close to the ground" and to get to know the real people and in so doing, to be a cultural ambassador. He is also politically active and opened his travel agency as a call center during the last election and has raised money for causes he believes in. He has inspired me to travel in the past, and I have now been invited to go to Russia as a People to People Ambassador, a life's dream, but need to decide whether to accept (due to practicalities related to money and time.)
A peek at Tehran, and ourselves is the name of the recent article written by Danny Westneat of the Seattle Times:
Rick Steves likes to say that travel is more than a vacation. It's a political act. He means each journey abroad is micro-scale diplomacy, opening a mind at a time to our common humanity. Quiet politics. Quiet is not how anyone would describe the Edmonds travel guru's own latest junket.
Steves, known for enthusiastically sipping and sampling his way across Europe, has gone in-your-face gonzo. Last week, he set off on a 10-day TV foray into a country we won't even talk to, Iran. The goal, he wrote, is to "give 'collateral damage' a face." To humanize an enemy so as to pre-empt a war before it starts. "If I can help avert an extra war — even just a little bit — this will be a brilliant personal investment — and lots of people will owe me big-time," Steves wrote on his Web site, ricksteves.com.
That's about when the shootout started here at home.
"Sounds like a fun trip," one man wrote Steves. "See if you can interview the Iranians coming back from Iraq. Get a count of the American soldiers they have killed." "Perhaps they will take you on a tour of a terrorist training facility or show you the place they kept the hostages while Carter was president?" wrote another. "Good for you, Rick," said another. "In your discussions with Iranians, you might want to avoid your positions on legalized marijuana or prostitution (or for that matter, gay marriage). They don't tend to be as tolerant about differing opinions there."
Hundreds of his customers posted opinions, many lauding him for going beyond the "Axis of Evil" caricature of Iran. But others unloaded, calling him a propaganda tool. Jane Fonda, off to Hanoi. One mother of a U.S. soldier in Iraq said she's a huge Rick Steves fan. But his "condescension" toward America made her livid. "So long Rick," she wrote. "From now on, I'm traveling without you."
Steves is still in Iran and not available to comment. So far, his Web reports are not puff pieces. The shots of him grinning with soldiers or hijab-wearing women are interspersed with commentary on the "creepy" authoritarian feel or "Death to America" posters. Still, the reaction to his trip makes me wonder: Are we even ready for cross-cultural diplomacy in this country? It has been clear for some time that the Bush doctrine — you're either with us or against us — is over. But what will we replace it with?
If a travel guide can't go to Iran without being branded a traitor, what'll it be like for a new president who wants to reach out?
Now, Steves did bring some of the vitriol on himself. Mostly by comparing himself to the "strong-hearted Americans" who enlisted in the military after 9/11. "While the fire in my gut is just as hot and the concern in my heart just as real, my choice of weapons is different," he writes. "Like them, I don't care about my safety, the cost or the work ... I want to do this. I have to do this." Uh, Rick? You're filming a travel show at the invitation of a country open for tourism. It's hardly house-to-house combat. Still, the reaction to Steves' trip is worrisome. When will we change our posture toward the world, if not after so colossally failing at being the globe's bully? Traveling, like talking, is not appeasement. It seems like a more confident country would get that.
Rick is blogging his trip to Iran. From Rick's Blog:
Sometimes you don’t see an excess in your own world until you find a different world without that excess. Traveling in Iran, it’s clear to me that in the US, our religion is freedom...and materialism. Just about everywhere we look, we are inundated by advertising encouraging us to consume. Airports are paid to drone ads on loud TVs. Magazines are beefy with slick ads. Sports stars wear corporate logos. Our media are driven by corporate marketing. In Iran the religion is Islam. And — at the expense of the economy — billboards, Muzak, TV programming, and young peoples’ education preaches the teaching of great Shiite holy men.
Still, I am impressed by how unreligious this famously religious place is. Unlike other Muslim cities I've visited, such as Istanbul and Cairo, there are almost no minarets breaking the skyline, and there's no noisy call to prayer. I've barely heard a call to prayer since we arrived.
In this theocracy, the women must stay covered. Trying to grasp this in Christian terms, I imagined living in a society where every woman is forced to be a nun. Seeing spunky young Muslim women chafing at their modesty requirements, I kept humming, “How do you solve a problem like Maria?” Pondering the time Pat Robertson ran for president — and had millions of supporters — I wondered what our own country would look like if he had won and dominated Congress. Many people would have been ecstatic, and many would have been oppressed. It seems to me that’s the state of Iran today under Ahmadinejad.
I asked my guide if, in Iran, you must be religious. He said, “In Iran you can be whatever religion you like, as long as it is not offensive to Islam.” Christian? “Sure.” Jewish? “Sure.” Bahá'i? “No, we believe Mohammad — who came in the seventh century — was the last prophet, and the Bahá'i prophet (Bahá'u'lláh) came in the 19th century. The Bahá'i faith is offensive to Islam. Except for that, we have religious freedom.”
I asked, “But what if you want to get somewhere in the military or government?” My guide answered, “Then you better be a Muslim.” I added, “A practicing Shiite Muslim?” He said, “Yes.”
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Wow! Great article Diane. I'd never heard of Rick Steves before.
I think it's interesting to get that prospective. Iran is a dangerous place and most people 'get it.' However, you do bring up an important point: if it's unfriendly for a travel guru then how will any diplomacy work?
I also found the comparison to if Robertson would have won to be interesting. It really puts some of the oppression on a more personal basis.
DiAnne
I posted on your blog re: this article. Thanks for sharing.
Rick Steves often talks about the US and Israel being diplomatic islands routinely outvoted 140 to 4 (or something like that) at the UN and other international bodies. And the Busheviks would prefer to keep things that way.
As for humanizing your enemy, it goes a long way in defusing tensions. The Republicans' fascist buddies in South Korea knew it, and outlawed North Korean leaders' portraits and ordinary North Koreans' pictures for decades, to keep the paranoia level up and the opposition oppressed. The media were forced to use caricatures instead, depicting North Koreans as wolves and vultures. This restriction went away only with democratic protests of 1987 - at which point relations with the North (and other Communist Bloc nations) dramatically improved.