The Devil's Festival

In October 1971, a vast - and vastly expensive - event was held at the ancient Achaemenid capital of Persepolis, 70 km from Shiraz in modern Iran. Its nominal purpose was to celebrate the 2500th anniversary of the Iranian monarchy, assuming this to be in direct line of descent from the empire of Cyrus the Great. Such a presumption of course contains many elisions and distortions, and any claim by a modern regime to possess any validity resulting from events two and a half millenia in the past should be treated with the utmost suspicion, if not outright contempt.

 Mohammed Reza Shah in, um, traditional despot Persian dress.

Whatever the justification, this beanfeast was a spectacular affair. The choice of Persepolis as the site was a matter as much of security as history, for the ancient site had become, by modern times, relatively isolated and underpopulated, so that access could be easily controlled. this was no public festival, but a grandiose entertainment and banquet for the world's rich and powerful. The Duke of Edinburgh and Princess Anne, Vice-President Spiro Agnew of the USA (1), Emperor Haile Selassie (2) and Prince Mikasa of Japan, rubbed shoulders with Nicolae Ceausescu (3), Joseph Mobutu (4) and Imelda Marcos (5). The guests, having been ferried from the airport by a fleet of hundreds of scarlet Mercedes limousines, were accomodated in fifty prefabricated luxury apartments made up externally to appear like traditional Persian tents. The sumptuously decorated domestic arrangements were supposedly inspired by the Field of the Cloth of Gold, the infamously extravagant meeting between Henry VIII of England and Francis I of France in 1520. They were treated to a five and a half hour banquet created by Maxim's of Paris, attended by flunkies wearing uniforms specially designed by Lanvin, served on Limoges dinnerware, topped off by a lavish son et lumieres and fireworks display accompanied by an electronic music piece commissioned from the composer Iannis Xenakis (6).The next day, after their roast peacocks had been digested, the dignitaries were treated to a parade by over 1700 Iranian army personnel in various period costumes, followed in the evening by a less formal "traditional Persian party" in the banqueting "tent".

Iannis Xenakis - Persepolis (1971)

(File under screeching, academicised totalitarian anti-music.)

The spectacle - broadcast across the world - was a clear attempt by the Iranian monarchy to present itself as a rich and powerful state, both modern and the inheritor of thousands of years of history, whose ruler was worthy of sitting alongside the greatest of his peers. Of course, it would have been impolitic to point out that the Shah had been put in power by a Soviet-British intervention at the expense of his German-leaning father in 1941, and that the British (with, this time, the assistance of the CIA) had again weighed in to dispose of his inconveniently nationalist prime minister in 1953.

Eight years later, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi was deposed, driven from his country by an Islamic Revolution. The figurehead of that uprising was a cleric who, from his exile in Paris, had described the Persepolis celebration as "The Devil's Festival", the Ayatollah Khomeini. The vast expenses involved in mounting the few days of events - disputed, but anywhere between $22 million (~$270 million at 2012 prices) and $200 million (~$2.5 billion), depending on whose version you accept - had caused unease, both abroad and at home. The government was hardly Protestations that much of the expenditure had been on infrastructure improvements, which would continue to give benefit after the celebrations had finished, fell largely on deaf ears. The increasingly centralised monarchy, dependent upon the support of the Army and the secret police, seemed not only remote and profligate, but desperate to impress foreigners. The Persepolis celebration cannot be counted a success.

Contemporaneous video. En Francais, malheureusement.

What? You didn't think I was going to be crass enough to compare this crock of shit to the London 2012 Olympics, did you?

I am so looking forward to the opening ceremony.

Please let there be Morris dancing.

Notes
(1) Resigned in disgrace, October 1973
(2) Deposed, September 1974
(3) Deposed, Devember 1989
(4) Deposed, May 1997
(5) Husband deposed, February 1986
(6) Xenakis is usually pictured in left profile - he lost his right eye when shot in the face during an uprising against the Nazi occupation by Greek communists.

EDIT: Music link retired 2/1/2013