Looking for Hassan

At the time of writing this article, many things seem to have changed since the book: Iran is experiencing a new wave of anti-government demonstrations and the risk of violent repression is very real, if not already realised.

 

At the time of writing this article many things seem to have changed since the book: Iran is experiencing a new wave of anti-government demonstrations and the risk of violent repression is very real, if not already realised. From this introductory caption, it can be deduced that the story of In Search of Hassan takes place in the Iran of the Islamic Republic, but this is only a backdrop: the main message one gets from reading it is the prodigious power that mutual tolerance, sincerity and knowledge of the other conceal. Thanks to them, enormous ideological barriers can be overcome, as high in the East, where the US is portrayed as the Great Satan, as (if not more so) in the West, where Iran is considered by the dominant political party to be one of the so-called 'rogue states'. The story is about an American family of Irish origin, always open to social demands, who once lived in 'good' Tehran during the Shah's regime. They moved away from it by choice, but left behind an enchanted world of places, scents, flavours and, above all, simple and sincere human relationships. After twenty-nine years, with an Islamic revolution and a bloody war between Iran and Iraq in between, the borders of what was once Persia cautiously reopened. And who better than the Ward family to break the ice and bring US citizens back to Iranian soil? By undertaking a tour through the cities of art and the main historical sites, they intended to visit all the major historical and cultural landmarks of the country, but the secret purpose of the trip was to meet a certain Hassan Ghasemi and his family, with whom the Wards had shared their years in Tehran, establishing a relationship that went far beyond that between employer and employee: it was about friendship and a first spontaneous attempt at deep mutual understanding. In the story, the author's emotional involvement is evident: it is his life that is spoken of and what he holds most dear in his heart about his childhood years. However, this does not prevent him from exercising a critical look at reality and admitting without false modesty the mistakes of the West, which then triggered the reaction and the Khomeinist revolution. They also debunk many myths created by the pro-American media, which, as we are learning in recent days about other Middle Eastern realities, often act as an uncritical sounding board for alleged truths pre-packaged in the offices of 'democratic' power. Thus, we learn how the desperate poverty of large fringes of the population has been eradicated and, at the same time, the scandalous wealth of scanty minorities has been mown down; we discover how the condition of women is not at all similar to that of Afghanistan, indeed, the majority of university students are women; we learn what are the roots of the atavistic hatred existing between Shiites and Sunnis, and, at the same time, we find that in the Islamic republic apparently among the strictest in the world, other cults (Christians and Jews) are tolerated, something impossible in pro-Western Saudi Arabia, ruled by Sunnis, but with a Shiite majority population. It is therefore a fair and honest travelogue, but also an educated and sometimes curious one. It is a hymn to tolerance and respect for the customs of others and, for this reason, to be taken as an example for our own holidays, even if of a much smaller scale. Reviews by