44 Days - Iran & the Remaking of the World
David Burnett
Contact Press Images
Nothing will ever be as it was before,“ said the father of Christiane Amanpour (now chief international correspondent with CNN), commenting on the downfall of the Shah and Ayatollah Khomeini’s return to Iran in 1979. In the space of forty-four days, the face of Iran had changed. The country which had experienced and rejected foreign rule, which had nationalized natural resources, had lived under an enlightened monarchy, an unenlightened autocracy, and a theocracy, this land of vast wealth and extreme poverty, had, in less than two months, undergone radical change. And France, home to the country’s new master during his exile, watched with amazement as he was acclaimed by the people so long oppressed, by the people intoxicated by the breath of freedom, and unaware that it would be so short-lived.
Preview
The American photographer David Burnett had followed it all, reporting on the violence, the clashes, the killings, the departure of the Shah seen as nothing more than an absurd despot, and the spectacular rise to power of an old man adulated by the masses. These were days of great hope as the Islamic Revolution moved ahead, before enthusiastic support became radical and extreme, before visions of democracy faded and ayatollahs came to the fore.
Thirty years on, these pictures could stand as History, the record shown in a year of many anniversary dates and many photojournalistic reports, from the student uprising in China in Tienanmen Square to the fall of the Berlin wall. The aftermath of the elections in June 2009 has now given these photos renewed relevance, bridging the time gap with similar post-election street scenes. There are the same sites, the same crowd scenes, the same expressions of rage and passion. David Burnett describes the scene outside the deserted US embassy in 1979, with one of Ayotollah Khomeini’s henchmen, Ebrahim Yazdi, screaming instructions to his guards: “Don’t let them take any photos!” Fortunately Mr. Burnett could not understand Farsi. The pictures are here as the pictures were then, past and present.
Robert Pledge, Contact Press Images, June 2009
44 Days: Iran and the Remaking of the World, edited by Robert Pledge & Jacques Menasche, published by Focal Point-National Geographic.
