‘The Persian revolution was triggered when a Belgian minister had the disastrous idea of disguising himself as a mullah.’
That, however, was not so far from the truth, although for Shireen the beginnings of the revolt were discernible at the time of the Shah’s course of treatment at Contrexéville in 1900. Wanting to go there with his retinue, the Shah needed money. His treasury was empty as usual and he had asked the Tsar for a loan and was granted 22.5 million roubles.
There was almost never such a poisoned gift. In order to make sure that their neighbour to the south, who was permanently on the brink of bankruptcy, would be able to pay back such a large sum, the St Petersburg authorities demanded and succeeded in gaining control of the Persian customs whose receipts were now to be paid directly to them. For a period of seventy-five years! Aware of the enormity of this privilege and fearing lest the other European powers take umbrage at this complete control over the foreign trade of Persia, the Tsar avoided entrusting the customs to his own subjects and preferred to have King Leopold II take charge of them on his behalf. That is how thirty or so Belgian functionaries came to the Shah’s court and their influence was to grow to dizzy heights. The most eminent of them, namely a certain Monsieur Naus, managed to haul himself up to the highest spheres of power. On the eve of the revolution, he was a member of the Supreme Council of the Kingdom, Minister of Post and Telegraph, General Treasurer of Persia, Head of the Passport Department and Director General of the Customs. Amongst other things, his job was to reorganize the whole fiscal system and it was to him that the new tax on freight carried by mule was attributed.
It goes without saying that by that time Monsieur Naus had become the most hated man in Persia, the symbol of foreign control. From time to time a voice would arise to demand his recall, a demand which seemed the more justified as he had neither a reputation for incorruptibility nor the alibi of competence. However he stayed in place, supported by the Tsar, or rather by the retrograde and fearsome camarilla who surrounded the latter and whose political objectives were now being expressed aloud in the official press of St Petersburg — the exercise of undivided tutelage over Persia and the Persian Gulf.
Monsieur Naus’s position seemed unshakeable and it remained so until the moment his protector was shaken. That happened more quickly than anyone in Persia had dreamt and it was precipitated by two major events. First, the war with Japan, which to the whole world’s surprise ended with the defeat of the Tsar and the destruction of this fleet. Then the anger of the Russians which was fuelled by the humiliation inflicted upon them because of incompetent leaders: the Potemkin rebellion, the Cronstadt mutiny, the Sebastopol uprising and the events in Moscow. I shall not discuss in detail these facts which no one has yet forgotten, but I shall content myself by emphasising the devastating effect that they had on Persia, in particularly in April 1906 when Nicolas II was forced to convene a parliament, the Duma.
It was in this atmosphere that the most banal event occurred. A masked ball was held at the residence of a Belgian functionary which Monsieur Naus decided to attend dressed up as a mullah. There were chuckles, laughs and applause; people gathered around him to congratulate him and posed for photographs with him. A few days later hundreds of copies of this picture were being distributed in the Teheran bazaar.
CHAPTER 34
Shireen had sent me a copy of this document. I still have it and sometimes I still cast a nostalgic and amused glance at it. It shows, seated on a carpet spread out amongst the trees of a garden, about forty men and women dressed in Turkish, Japanese or Austrian garb. In the centre foreground appears Monsieur Naus, so well disguised that with his white beard and salt-and-pepper moustache he could easily be taken for a pious patriarch. Shireen had written on the back of the photograph: ‘Unpunished for so many crimes, penalized for a trifle.’
It assuredly was not Monsieur Naus’s intention to mock the religious. On that occasion he could only be found guilty of naïveté, of a lack of tact and a touch of bad taste. His real mistake, since he was acting as the Tsar’s Trojan horse, was not understanding that, for a while, he should allow himself to lie low.
The distribution of the picture caused some angry gatherings and some incidents. The bazaar shut its gates. First of all Naus’s departure was demanded, then that of the whole government. Tracts were handed out demanding the institution of a parliament, as in Russia. For years secret societies had been at work amongst the population, invoking the name of Jamaladin and sometimes even that of Mirza Reza, and were now transformed by circumstances into a symbol of the struggle against absolutism.
The Cossacks surrounded the districts in the centre of the city. Certain rumours, propagated by the authorities, gave out that unprecedented repression was about to fall upon the protesters and that the bazaar would be opened by the armed forces and left for the troops to pillage — a menace which had terrified the merchants for centuries.
That is why, on 19 July 1906, a delegation of tradesman and money-changers from the bazaar went to see the British chargé d’affaires on a matter or urgency: if people in danger of being arrested were to come and take refuge in the legation, would they be afforded protection? The response was positive. The visitors retired showing expressions of gratitude and making solemn bows.
That very evening, my friend Fazel presented himself at the legation with a group of friends and was enthusiastically received. Although he was hardly thirty years old, he was, as his father’s heir, already one of the richest merchants in the bazaar. However, his rank was even more elevated by his vast culture and his influence was great amongst his peers. To a man of his status, the British diplomats had to offer one of the rooms reserved for visitors of distinction. However, he turned down the offer and, mentioning the heat, expressed his desire to install himself in the legation’s vast garden. He said that he had brought with him a tent for that purpose, along with a small carpet and a few books. Tight-lipped and frowning, his hosts watched as all these items were unpacked.
The next day thirty other merchants came in the same way to profit from the right of asylum. Three days later, on 23 July, there were eight hundred and sixty. By 26 July there were five thousand — and twelve thousand by 1 August.
This Persian town planted in an English garden was a strange sight. There were tents all around, clustered together by guild. Life there had been speedily organized with a kitchen being set up behind the guards pavilion from which enormous cauldrons were sent around to the different ‘districts’, each sitting lasting three hours.
There was no disorder and very little noise. Taking refuge, or taking bast as the Persians say, means giving oneself over to a strictly passive resistance in the shelter of a sanctuary of which there were several in the area of Teheran: the mausoleum of Shah Adbul-Azim, the royal stables, and the smallest bast of all, the wheeled cannon in Topkhane Square — if a fugitive clung to it, the forces of order no longer had any right to lay hands on him. However, Jamaladin’s experience had shown that the powers that be would not tolerate this form of protest for long. The only immunity that they recognised was that of the foreign legations.
To the English, every refugee had brought his kalyan and his dreams. From tent to tent there was a world of difference. Around Fazel was the modernist elite; they were not just a handful but hundreds of young and old men, organized into anjuman — which were more or less secret societies. Their debates raged ceaselessly around the topics of Japan, Russia and particularly France whose language they spoke and whose books and newspapers they assiduously read — the France of Saint-Simon, Robespierre, Rousseau and Waldeck-Rousseau. Fazel had carefully cut out the section of the law on the separation of church and state which had been voted on a year earlier in Paris. He had translated it and handed it out to his friends and they were now debating it heatedly albeit in hushed tones, for not far from their circle there was a gathering of mullahs.