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Tuesday 2004-05-25 - Tabriz, Iran
Meeting in the park
After we take our leave form the carpet seller and his younger brother, ‘Green jacket’ no longer follows us. Our next goal is a visit to the beautiful Blue Mosque of Tabriz (Masjed-e Kabud, still in the process of being restored, very expertly) and after spending quite some time there we decide to call it a day and head for the park. We find a bench in the shade and watch the locals relax. Soon a man approaches us and asks if he can talk with us; we agree and he joins us on our bench.
He turns out to be an Azeri (not all that surprisingly as we should have known: this region is actually called East Azarbaijan and many Azeris live here; Tabriz is the capital of the province). His story matches that of the Armenian at the Maryam church and the carpet seller but adds new insights. He tells us that as opposed to the very small minority of the Armenians which obviously don’t form any threat, Azeris aren’t allowed to use their own language: Turkish is forbidden here in Iran. Of course people speak it all the same (when they feel safe enough) but it’s not taught in any school and thus they can write only in Farsi.
Another surprising tidbit he tells us is that while alcohol is strictly forbidden — if you are found drinking it you may end up in prison for six months — some two million people are addicted to drugs which are easily (though not openly) available; they can go to some parks to use the drugs. Also according to him, many young people (four million) are depressed. Except at university, young men are not allowed to speak to girls, and if caught, a young man may even be forced to marry the girl in question (frankly, that sounds a bit far-fetched to us). Like the carpet seller, he brings up the point of access to information, and tells us that many people have a satellite dish, which is forbidden. A dish can be bought secretly if you know the way, and is kept indoors. At the recent elections for parliament here, when so many liberal candidates were removed from the list, only 14% of people in this region actually went to vote — partly because there was no candidate left which they wanted to vote for, partly as a form of protest. In general, it seems that while things were gradually getting more liberal before, now that’s being turned back again.
Of course we can’t check all the things he tells us, but he seems remarkably open and clearly eager to talk about the problems in his country and for the Azeri minority he belongs to. We end up staying much longer in the park than we had planned. All in all, an interesting day, even more for the people than the sites we visited.
