MOHAMMAD REZA PAHLAVI
CHILDREN OF GREAT LEADERS
by Zaheeruddin Babar
20th century's first half saw the emergence of great
leaders, in regions where people were oppressed by European Imperial powers. 2nd World war had weakened the
Imperial powers all around the world, and created an opportunity for these
leaders to break the shackles of slavery and declare their independence. And many
of them got succeeded.
Then these political leaders become Great Leaders or
founding fathers for their people. This first generation of leaders was mostly humble
and contented at whatever they had achieved and they tried to work whole
heartedly to develop and strengthen their nations.
After them came the second generation of leaders who
inherited the state or political legacy without any struggle. We can call them
the CHILDREN OF THE GREAT LEADERS, this generation was the most AMBITIOUS
GREEDY AND RUTHLESS GENERATION and they created an era which is called DECADE
OF TURMOIL. They not only opposed the ideology of their predecessors but also
set trends in politics which made the life of their people miserable.
The list of these Children is very long but we will discuss
only one in an episode selected from a single region. Our first region is South
Asia,
The child in our list of “the children of the
great leaders” is the “King of the Kings” Shah of Iran. Reza Shah.He was the son of
a king but his father was not the son of any king or queen, but one day he decided
to coronate himself in a lavish ceremony and gave himself the ancient Persian title
of “King of the Kings”. On that occasion he himself said that until that day he
was just a king but now he has realized that he deserves to be the king of
kings.
Then on some other day he
decided to celebrate the 2500 years of celebrations of Persian Empire. Ruins of
a 2500 years old city were searched in the middle of a desert and then an
artificial city was planted there for the venue of the celebrations. Everything
was built in that city from scratch. Then he invited kings and queens, prince
and princess and rulers from all over the world and held a grand party that world had ever seen.
Shah had
spent billions of dollars on that party but he had forgotten one important
guest to invite . His own people, the People of Iran or their representatives ,were
not invited in the party. And people of Iran never forgave the Shah for this
mistake.
Such
nonproductive ideas and wastage of wealth by the Shah caused Economic crisis in
Iran, Shah was also trying to rapidly westernize the Iran and erasing the
Islamic nature of the society. A reaction from the public appeared in form of a
revolution that over threw the Shah and sent him into exile for the rest of his
life.
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