The best thing about getting out of the office to report is that you get to spend time with the subjects of your stories. Since we don’t have rolodexes full of names and telephone numbers in Iran like we might in the U.S., we have to rely on local help to get started.
Here we have to bank on agencies that work as intermediaries between foreign journalists and the Iranian people — the agents write official letters seeking permission for filming and interviews. This makes the process more complicated.
So, when we first arrived in country, I called a friend who is a filmmaker (and the local Newsweek correspondent). He was excited that I was back in town and told me to join him the next morning at the Second Annual International Seminar on the Mahdism Doctrine.
The Mahdism Doctrine is a belief held by President Ahmadinejad and many Shi’as worldwide. It holds that the Mahdi — the 12th Imam in succession after the Prophet Muhammad — has been in hiding for the past 11 centuries. He is expected to return to establish justice and restore righteousness on earth.
This year’s conference coincides with the 12th Imam’s birthday. We had plans to head to Jamkaran (the site of a well where many believe the Imam will actually return) on Friday for the celebrations.
So a local conference — with President Ahmadinejad as the keynote speaker — was an irresistible element, even without cameras (our crew had not yet arrived). I told my friend we’d meet him there.
But all my excitement was dashed when, during a phone call to our agents, I was told that the seminar’s sponsors had decided not to host any American journalists out of solidarity for the plight of Iranian journalists who are refused entry in the U.S., even to cover the United Nations. She advised us that showing up might jeopardize our ability to work here and could be unnecessarily provocative — just what I needed to hear.
It was during this conversation that I realized one of the things that makes working here so much different for me: We’re trying to report a story but are getting very little access to officials -- no members of Parliament, parliamentary staff or staffers within the executive branch of government.
I don’t know if that’s just the way it is or because we’re foreigners. Regardless, it’s been frustrating and I thought this seminar would be a good reporting opportunity.
So without permission and the requisite passes, Imtiyaz Delawala and I proceeded to the Islamic Conference Center. We got there with no problems, but getting inside proved more difficult. We had to negotiate our way past three barriers: the man on the door, the man on the X-ray machine and the conference organizer – who proved to be the most challenging.
The editor in chief of the Bright Future Institute (sponsors of the conference and the leading Mahdism think tank in Jamkaran) eventually conceded and let us enter. We were later told he felt some solidarity with us: I am black and my colleague is Indian — both members of groups "oppressed" by the American government. If that’s what it takes, so be it — we were just glad to get in.
We were led to a "salon"— where I thought we’d see the speech and hear a translation, but instead were greeted by the conference’s badge makers and told to wait.
Then another Bright Future official came to us and asked, "Would you like to go inside the auditorium?" Of course we did, so we followed him and found our way inside to listen to a speech that we could not understand.
On the other hand, we had finally broken through and gotten a bit closer to the subjects of the story we’re here to report. And for me, that’s a great way to spend part of our first full day in Iran.
