OPINION

Shah controversy

Re: "If Iran's supreme leader falls, who's next?", (World, Dec 22). Whilst I applaud the Iranian people and their courage in trying to depose the cruel, medieval ayatollahs and their stone age regime, I cannot understand why the demonstrators are calling for the restoration of the monarchy headed by Reza Pahlavi, the son of the Shah, whom they deposed in 1979.

They must have a momentary lapse of memory.

The former Shah and his Pahlavi dynasty were as cruel as the ayatollahs. Shah's secret police, the SAVAK, reportedly tortured and killed the opposition in their thousands.

The Shah's father was a sympathiser of Hitler.

The Pahlavi dynasty has been accused of looting and plundering Iran's riches for generations, amounting to perhaps 50+ billion dollars.

On his departure, the Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, escaped with billions of dollars and at least a tonne of gold on his aeroplane.

He was famous for his love of extravagant, luxurious living style, throwing the biggest lavish party on the 2,500-year anniversary of the Persian empire, which cost over 100 million dollars in 1971. Multiply this fourfold in today's money.

The turn of events would be like "Out of the frying pan and into the fire". Iranians, I wish you all the best, but please put the Peacock throne into a museum and start afresh.

Online limits

Re: "Social media ban for kids", (BP, Jan 12).

While I usually am reliably conservative and against banning most of life's vices, and often feel the pain as my menthol cigarettes are now banned in some places, and clove cigarettes, you might say? Well, good luck with that, in at least my state in the good ol' USA.

Yet, of this proposed social media ban in Thailand, I shall never forget a few years ago, when one of my 11th-grade students walked up to me to tell me he was reading my [redacted name of a particular social media platform] page. He even still had the phone in his hand with the web page up.

I looked at it and then simply replied, "Son, I don't have any social media. I was raised by people born in the late 1890s, and someone opened this pretending to me; look at all the wrong facts and dates."

So, yes, I am very supportive of some kind of workable ban until the age of (ideally) 16 or so, because by then you're old enough to know someone is hoodwinking you and pulling your leg, or listen to a 50-year-old teacher who is telling you so.

Tired of feuds

Could someone from the Bangkok Post please explain to those of us loyal readers why you continue to publish back-and-forth, tit-for-tat disagreements between the same antagonists? These writers are never going to see any issue through the same lens, and it really becomes extremely tiresome to see their same points of view from the same individuals over and over.

While slightly more sophisticated, it's like arguing children saying "no, you're not, yes I am, did too, did not". Enough already!