Politics: Death to Traffic!

TORONTO, ONTARIO - Travel writer Rick Steves is more willing than many of his peers to talk about the political implications of what he learns when he travels. While his most out-spoken political position may be on the legalization of marijuana, two stories he told on various radio shows and on a blog about his trip last spring to Iran say more about potential relations between the US and Iran than anything heard in the news.

While taking a van around the capitol not after his arrival in Tehran, Steves found himself in a traffic jam. Iran is not immune to western-style slow-downs; this back-up was so bad that cars in a portion of the highway would not move for minutes at a time. (Traffic engineers sometimes call this "level of service F"--I always wondered what they would call it at Stanford, where "F" grades are not allowed, but I digress.) Passengers in a car next to the van noticed that there was a foreigner inside. At one point, they rolled down their window and handed over a bouquet of flowers for the van's driver to give to Steves--they wanted to apologize for their traffic. Can you imagine that happening on the Gardiner Expressway, the 101, or even I-35W in Minneapolis?

Perhaps the most frightening vision of Iran in the American psyche is that of Iranians chanting "Death to America!" But what does that phrase really mean? Steves gained considerable insight in another traffic incident. When caught in yet another traffic jam, his "local guide" (they didn't like the term "government minder") suddenly blurted out "Death to traffic!" Seeing a confused look on Steves' face, he explained, "Because we can do nothing about this traffic, we can all say 'Death to Traffic'." In other words, he didn't literally mean he wanted to kill all the other drivers, but to succinctly express frustration with something that was beyond his control. It rather puts the frightening "Death to America!" saying in context--it's an expression of frustration with something beyond their control, the actions of the United States government.

Somehow, I suspect if I say "Death to Cold!" that people around here won't understand that I just mean to express frustration about something beyond my control. Yet such simple explanations could go a long way to changing impressions about people in a culture that Americans have had little reason to try to understand.

For more of Steves' impressions in Iran, read his Iranian travel blog.