Pastmaster: The Narcissist's Party.
When Mary Austin told Freddie Mercury to stop burning
the candle at both ends, he said, “Oh! but the light is glorious”. When a middle-class
working professional hears something of this sort, his mind is sure to jump to
the charming Oscar Wilde who cautioned humanity by saying, “everything in moderation,
including moderation”. While this was a caution back then when extravagance was
the order of the day, it serves as reality in the pandemic-stricken times where
moderation is extravagant and making do is the order of the day.
In the award-winning series ‘The Crown’ (streaming on ‘Netflix’),
when Princess Elizabeth goes to school, her teacher makes her sit separately
from the other students and gives her a different set of books and tells her
that she does not have to give any examinations. When she asks about it, he
says, “that does not suit The Lady”, and explains that examinations are for the
ones who go through the human hassle of struggle and normality, whereas the Noble
Crown is way above these realities of other peoples’ lives. This leads to the
most obvious question: if the Monarchs’ education is devoid of realities of other
peoples’ lives, isn’t their perspective on things naturally so? Isn’t wealth a reality,
and the lack of it, an impossibility?
The people of Iran de-throned their delusional ruler,
Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, after he hosted the world’s most expensive party in
October, 1971 to commemorate 2500 years of The Persian Empire. The Shah left no
stone unturned in ensuring that the celebration would be remembered all over
the world and the glory of The Persian Empire will be known to all. It is
generally presumed that when a country is spending an amount as hefty as 650
million dollars, that there will be job creation, establishment of new business
and a good amount of foreign exchange which will coalesce to make the country a
known entity and a major hub for foreign investments. This is a matter of international
geopolitics as well as common sense. However, the Shah’s realities of life were
different.
The Shah spared no expense and sought services from
The French, right from flower arrangements to food, the world’s most expensive
party that was supposed to commemorate 2500 years of the glory of The Persian
Empire was actually French. While the party and the festivities
portrayed how wealthy Iran was, it also portrayed that the Shah had no liking
for his people and was a slave to Western ideology.
When a particular
culture is supposed to be celebrated, it is only a matter of common sense that
things pertaining to the culture should be a part of the festivities, the
attendees of such a function should be given a flavour of the country whose
function is supposed to be celebrated. However, The Shah’s perception of himself
and his country led to his ultimate downfall. In the time when ‘The Leviathan’ was
written, the Late Thomas Hobbes stated that the King was the custodian of the
People by the Divine Right bestowed upon him by God himself. The Shah was one
of the few rulers who perceived himself as God and drained his own people.
The two fundamentals that should have been given importance in the party were:
That Iran itself had so much to offer to the world that the involvement of the most expensive French restaurants was unwarranted to say the least.
2. There were avenues galore for the purpose
of enterprise as well as job creation.
The Shah’s actions were
narcissistic in the sense that he sought to commemorate Persian culture, but
ignored his people. Many Iranians at that time were fighting realities about
which The Shah neither knew nor cared. While The Shah may not have explicitly
exploited his subjects, his narcissism and the inability to see beyond himself cost
him his throne and many Iranians their possible livelihoods and opportunities.
Biting off more than one
can chew is a risky business and the people of Iran rightly gave The Shah a
taste of his own medicine by de-throning him. He had to run to Egypt for exile.
The extravagance of the festivities was one of a kind, (think Air Conditioners
in a desert in 1971), with women being allotted separate bunkers for
their jewellery. The Shah could not make a difference between him being wealthy
and his country being wealthy and in his perception of himself as Iran, he
spent 650 million dollars of what could have bettered so many Iranian lives, to
the detriment of his country and himself.
No wonder children are
taught history in school with the intent of not repeating the mistakes of the
past.
While the past is done
for, and the future is unpredictable, only one question remains:
Will the mistakes of
the future be acts of uncanny extravagance or a last resort to unending destitution
caused by the mistakes of the past?
Images Courtesy: Google, Pinterest.
Author: Ms. Radhika Sunil Vaidya.
E-mail i.d: radhika.vaidya98@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/radhika.vaidya.50
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/radhika-vaidya-908aa1167/
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