Iranian Hostage Crisis

Ayatollah Khomeini

• As Khomeini came to power, Western Influence = weakened
• Students/Young ppl: anti-foreign influence and Western interference
• 1979: 3 students take control of US Embassy. Hours later, mass protest appeared outside embassy
• This was because the Shah had been sent to US for medical treatment of cancer. The Iranians wanted to put the Shah on trial
• Thus, anti-US interference + no Shah trial = Students overthrew US embassy
• 3 months after Embassy take over: US enforced sanctions: assets had been frozen (couldn’t upgrade weaponry and machinery) and imposed Oil Sanctions (loss of income and revenue)
• Shah left US in Dec 1979 (eventually sought asylum in Egypt), but Khomeini refused to release hostages
• 24 April 1980: Operation Eagle Claw
• US flew 8 helicopters out to Tehran to try to recapture the hostages
• The helicopters flew low to avoid radar, but flew into a sandstorm. 
• 2 helicopters developed faults in the air, so the whole fleet of copters decided to land  at the desert check point.
• When they landed, a third helicopter had been damaged; they decided to fly home
• When they were flying back a helicopter collided with a refuelling aircraft and the helicopter was destroyed and lives were lost (8)
• September 1980 Iraq invaded Iran
• Iraq thought that the US had been behind the invasion
• The UN called for a ceasefire, but did NOT demand Iraq to withdraw - UN = US puppet?
• January 1981, a total of 444 days of captivity
• A few seconds after Jimmy Carter had lost presidency, and Ronald Reagan had become president, it was announced that the captives had been released
• This = worry: Reagan would have been a lot harder to negotiate with if the negotiations spilled into his time in office
• Perhaps Khomeini = trying to get rid of Carter as president?

Iranian Revolution 1979

Iran Revoultion 1979

• Shah of Israel started rein in 1941
• Muhammad Reza controlled the army & ruled as king for 10yrs, until crisis 1951
• PM Mohammad Massadeq nationalised Iran’s oil. British = upset (GB controlled oil through ‘Anglo-Iranian Oil Company’
• Massadeq = popular amongst Iranian ppl, bc he was pro-Iran Independence, and anti-foreign interference
• Therefore, Shah regarded Massadeq as a threat, so in August 1953, Shah overthrew Massadeq w/CIA & MI6
• This coup (^^^) = not pop. This meant that the Shah’s rule linked w/USA and GB (GB&USA prime interest = safe oil supplies)
• Shah’s link w/USA became more apparent: Shah imported: USA food, farm animals (undercut Iran’s farmers), and USA styled shops (damaged revenue for local merchants)
• Reza continued Iran’s plan to modernise (which started in 1920) - Reza launched White Revolution in 1963
• Reformation of: land, industrial expansion, health and education
• Land redistribution = backfired: the peasants only held enough land to feed their families, thus no extra £, so were no better off
• Most villages lacked water, electricity, roads and other infrastructure
• Numbers of doctors, nurses, hospital beds; but late1970’s, Iran had worst Infant Mortality, & patient-doctor ratio
• late1970’s distribution of income = most unequal in 20yrs: top 10% = 37.9% of Iran’s wealth; bottom 10% = 1.3% of Iran’s wealth
• Oil revenues increased from $34m -> $20bn by 1975, and paid for Army, Air Force and Navy
• After 1953 Shah made his cabinet and parl. up of supporters
• PM’s and ministers = favourites of the Shah (most = Western educated and supported Shah’ foreign interference regime)
• March 1975: Shah established one-party state; ‘Resurgence Party’ = existence
• Shah produced a new imperial calendar, which went against and supplanted Muslim calendar. Was introduced overnight. This = wage of war against Muslim pop.
• Any oppo to the Shah was discovered by secret police ‘SAVAK’, which was supported by FBI. SAVAK = known for brutal torture etc.

Poetry Anthology - Cape Town Morning

Poetry Anthology - Cape Town Morning

Text:

Winter has passed. The wind is back.                       - seasons are clearing+moving: -> change

Window panes rattle old rust,                                   - spring = regeneration/rebirth

summer rising.

Street children sleep, shaven mummies in sacks,   - poverty+street children -> malnourished

eyelids weighted by the dreams of coins,               - mummies = death*

beneath them treasure of small knives.                   - desire to be rich

Flower sellers add fresh blossoms                          - adding new life in dead/sour buckets**

to yesterday's blooms, sour buckets                             - this creates juxtaposition & contrast: life/death

filled and spilling.

And trucks digest the city's sediment                    - enjambment

men gloved and silent                                           - ambiguous: men helping? or sinister?***

in the municipal jaws.

Notes:

Title: 'morning' = pun: 'mourning' -> sorrow for Cape Town?

Themes: apartheid, poverty, deterioration of Cape Town

Freeform = economic state of Cape Town

Winter = death; Spring = life. --> as Spring rises, the city gets rid of old death. (Rubbish, flowers, sediment, poor people)

*mummies = death. This contrasts with the youth of the children

** 'fresh blossoms' = hope, but it has been ruined by...

***... the city. The city = a great beast, which consumes all life it withholds.

Poetry Anthology - City Blues

Poetry Anthology - City Blues

Text (NB: the bits in brackets represents the pairings of words in the original poem):

Sunday dawn in a November city

the bully (light)(sun) wades in

set glass aflame

(slams)(puts) (dark)(hard) shadows on anything

not big enough to take it.

The wind (strips)(unzips) trees

makes them tittle-tattle

harsh small talk

(puts)(drives) their leaves into a lurch

somewhere.

A sheet of paper

(followed)(chased) by a coke can

takes ridiculously to the air

(floats)(flaps) into the sunlight

is a (swan)(bird)

tumbles

knows its place

as the less fortunate should.

In the (shadow)(shade)

this (minuscule)(small) steeple

somes to the point

which is more than can be said

for the big-time (corporations)(companies)

and their (skyscrapers)(sky-spoilers)

(napalmed)(lit up) by that

lousy sun.

Notes:

Title: City Blues: urban landscape; 'blue' - melancholic, depressed, sad; 'Blues' - music? 'City' - depressed city, going through recession?

Themes: Conflict: between nature and (the lack of) humans? Between rich and poor?

Structure/Form: free verse; poet gives reader choice: you can choose a synonym or antonym. Good/Bad word in each pair

There is a clear juxtaposition between poverty (here, being the coke can and paper) with the rich (big, commercial buildings).

There is contrast between the weather (wind, sun) and man made things, such as the coke can, paper, big buildings

The reader is allowed to choose his own path, like he would do in life, by given a choice of words to choose. Usually, one word is significantly more powerful and destructive than the other. This perhaps indicates that the author's message is trying to tell us that you have to act powerfully and destructively in the city in order to succeed. If you don't force your way into the city, then you splutter and grind to a halt, much like the coke can and paper.

There are four sections (as represented by the four chunks of text written above):

1) Sunrise

2) The Wind, Trees

3) The Wind, Litter

4) Church, Sky Scrapers

Section 1 - Sunrise:

Streets are deserted

Religious day ('Sunday Dawn')

The sunlight is being personified

Section 2 - The Wind, Trees:

Wind is destructive: 'strips', 'drives', 'lurch'

Section 3 - The Wind, Litter:

Rubbish = symbolic of people

        paper -> elegant/transformed 'bird/swan'

'tumbles / knows its place' -> failure + representing dreams/hopes

Section 4 - Church, Sky Scrapers:

Sun: 'napalmed', 'lousy', 'bully', 'sets glad aflame' --> Sun = bully

Poetry Anthology - City Jungle

GCSE Poetry Anthology - City Jungle

Text:

Rain splinters town.                                       - 'splinters' = metaphor: town = ripped apart

Lizard cars cruise by;
Their radiators grin.

Thin headlights stare -                                  - sibilance - snake-like, hostile, threatening, sinister
shop doorways keep their mouths shut.    -'mouths shut' - is there a terrible secret which can't be said?

At the roadside                                             - town = sick, run down, flat.
Hunched houses cough.                            

Newspapers shuffle by,                   - personification: substitute for humans; humans = not safe outside
hands in their pockets.                  -'shuffle' = passive + cautious. newspapers = subject to propaganda?
The gutter gargles.

A motorbike snarls;                                       - More personification
Dustbins flinch.

Streetlights bare
Their yellow teeth.                       - 'bare their yellow teeth' = aggressive, predatory
The motorway's
cat-black tongue
lashes across                                - sibilance + assonance
the glistening back                      - colour has lost vibrance and is decaying, like city
of the tarmac night.

Notes:

Title: 'Jungle' represents lawless/anarchic/claustrophobic area

Themes: Dystopian world; plenty of hostility and aggression; Predators (vehicles) Vs Prey (Houses and other objects)

Appearance: The flow is disjointed, making it awkward to read -> symbolises struggle and discomfort

This poem represents an apartheid: vehicles Vs houses, and other inanimate objects

There is a lack of humans, which suggests that the surroundings are far too hostile for anyone to be caught outside