Author: Andrzej Kowalczyk
Source: kolec.pl
Date: 1982

Shah of Shahs (Szachinszach) by Ryszard Kapuściński is a magnificent early book by this outstanding writer and reporter. Enough time has passed since it was written that a new generation can discover it for themselves. For those who decide to re-read it (as was the case with me), Shah of Shahs will unexpectedly reveal its second layer. The references to the world of Islam — variously received and thrust into the centre of media attention after the tragic year of 2001 — may surprise readers with their continued relevance.

Shah of Shahs is worth picking up. Its factual and literary qualities are beyond dispute, and it belongs to that not-very-large category in which pages are turned hungrily without glancing at the page numbers.

The book is not always easy reading, because its smooth and light style carries occasionally shocking content. Nature and architecture interest Kapuściński only insofar as their connection to the people living around them can be discerned. He is not occupied with the superficial or the static. He goes where things are happening and immediately sets about untangling the complicated human stories. He pays no homage to civilisation or to the human race. The Third World offers no shortage of poverty, disease, and the cruelties of power, so it is no wonder that Kapuściński’s books, in telling their stories, also indict.

A long history of fear

Iran’s security service — SAVAK, with the approval of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who sat firmly on his throne — needed no pretext to silence protests and keep society in fear. Iranian everyday life surpassed the bleakest visions of Orwell’s 1984.

SAVAK kidnapped people off the street and savagely tortured them, seeing a threat to the established order in everyone. The Shah poured oil revenues into the army, realising his misguided plan to build the world’s third-largest military. Yet Iran had no one capable of operating supersonic aircraft or warships — so Americans operated them, or the equipment rusted in the desert.

The population remained impoverished and alienated. When popular resentment finally erupted, the one place it could be expressed was the mosque — sacred ground even SAVAK could not easily penetrate.

On disillusionment

The book is also — for me above all — about how any external intervention, however well-intentioned, does more harm than good. It is a story of how a revolution that initially carries an enormous charge of hope for a better life transforms into passivity and incompetence; how it becomes an instrument of revenge, multiplying disillusionment and poverty.

Kapuściński, together with other leading intellectuals, is convinced of the uniqueness and non-transferability of the democratic system to the soil of civilisations with non-European roots — especially by force. Even imperialism, linked inescapably with violence, failed everywhere in the world. Force breeds counter-force, just as revolution breeds counter-revolution.

Shah of Shahs closes with a haunting reflection: “The despot departs, but with his going no dictatorship ends completely. The condition of a dictatorship’s existence is the ignorance of the crowd; that is why dictators always cultivate it carefully. And it takes entire generations to change this, to bring in the light.”

Anyone who has read Shah of Shahs will understand more and extract more meaning from the informational noise served up by the media. Every event has its source, and only in a broader historical perspective can one form any kind of judgement. That plain truth is what Shah of Shahs teaches — and what it makes possible.

source: kapuscinski.info