Coll 28/39(2) ‘Persia. Printed Correspondence, 1937–’ [‎72r] (143/320)

3. No further articles have appeared since that of the 12th January,
and it is to be hoped that the storm has abated. The Ministry of Foreign
Affairs have made no reference to the English press since the publication of
these articles.
I am sending a copy of this despatch to the Secretary to the Government
of India in the External Affairs Department, No. 7.
English Publications Spread Poison.
Our London correspondent sends us unpleasant news this week.
According to him matter which is tendentious and unfriendly towards
the Imperial nation of Iran is constantly appearing in British publications.
Not a day passes without a book being written by some insignificant
tourist or some sort of articles being published in one of the newspapers when
their quiver is empty, they set about discovering what some Swedish tourist
has written about Iran or what some Finnish traveller has noted down in the
course of his journey. Then taking this as their basis and foundation magnify
it for the purposes of comment, criticism or narrative begin their onslaught
and, passing over in silence all the good points, make everything the object
of criticism, address it all to us and so insult us.
According to our correspondent’s report in all this nonsense which
appears in the English press under various forms the subject-matter is
common to all; that is to say there is but one theme and that disparagement
of the sacred person of the monarch.
To such an extent do they persist in this behaviour, which is contrary
alike to reason and courtesy, that any man of experience and sagacity must
inevitably regard it as no simple affair, no mere tourists’, no mere study of
the situation of Iran, and must feel certain that their aims and objects are
more profound and more discreditable than they apparently wish to admit.
Otherwise what intelligible explanation is there of the behaviour of writers
and tourists, who, wishing to describe the situation and condition of a country
(however biassed they may be with regard to it) repeatedly make the sacred
person of the monarch the target of their poisoned shafts and hold forth
about the noble character and personal genious of one whom we consider
glorious because of his great deeds, who is the object of the world’s admira
tion and respect ?
What can it mean but that these selfish and self-satisfied elements
which wish to make the world a sacrifice to their greed are hostile to the
growdh, development, progress and evolution of Iran and therefore attack
that sensitive heart ( ) on which are centred the nation’s thoughts,
its activities, its very life ?
For one point, which to us is self-evident, is hidden from no one who has
the least knowledge of the position and situation of Iran, namely that a life-
giving movement has arisen in every walk of the nation’s life, has rescued
the country from the position, which the English wushed it to occupy, of a
buffer-state between India and other European countries, and has trans
formed it into a nation which, dependent from every point of view r on its own
will and inspiration alone, capable from every point of view of defending
its own interests, will no longer serve as a shield to the imperial ambitions of
any other power. Moreover the nation knows that this resurrection, this
transformation of the Iran of 1919 to the Iran of 1937 is the fruit of the
inspiration, the will-power and the devotion of that GREAT MAN who has
restored the greatness of Iran, the splendours of the days of Darius the Great,
and has expended every minute and second of his glorious life and the w 7 hole
of his natural strength in pursuing this sacred ambition, this refulgent ideal.
Therefore, to disparage in any way this Royal person, who serves as the
inspiring force, as the dynamo of the ship of state, is to disparage the entire
population of the country and to insult the whole Iranian nation.
We wdio fully understand the reasons for the dissatisfaction of the English
press lords (or these gentlemen of the English press) can well account
for their anger and resentment. We in no way expect them to be pleased,