I’m well into the final stages of producing our upcoming “Holy Land: Israelis and Palestinians Today” special for public television. Doing this work, I’m struck by the value of actually meeting people in faraway lands.
Recently, a friend shared this photo essay from Iran with me. These photos (by Brandon Stanton, of Humans of New York fame) bring back memories of wonderful moments from my travels to Iran. Check it out. And as you look at these people, imagine them on your street, in your place of work, dating your children, sharing a retirement home with your parents. It’s a wonderfully small world and, as far as I can tell, people are generally good… motived by fear and love.
Comments
Thanks for sharing that photoessay. We really are all the same. There aren’t really borders when it comes to how we feel. I see the same expressions of these Iranians everyday.
Brandon Stanton says that the Iranian government provided a guide. In Travel as a Political Act, Rick Steves wrote that the guide provided to him was really a minder. That helps explain why the book doesn’t provide one person critical of the regime even though it was almost overthrown by a popular revolt a few months later. It explains why Brandon Stanton is so positive. He only learned what the Iranians allowed him to learn. These political pilgrimages should be taken with a grain of salt.