A new kind of Library has opened, where instead of books you can borrow a Muslim – or a single father, or a transvestite, for a chat. Alex Forsyth volunteers to be lent as a ‘book’, and asks whether this concept can really help break down stereotypes.

A Muslim, a Catholic and a transsexual are sitting in a library. An opener to a joke this is not: It is the Living Library – where, instead of books, you borrow people. You pick a person for a 30-minute dialogue in which you can ask questions, engage in meaningful discourse or simply bounce ideas. I wait with the other ‘books’ to be borrowed.

At the front desk there is a catalogue listing the selection of human books on offer, and under each book title there are a handful of negative epithets. The stereotypes range from ‘funeral director’ (adjectives include ‘morbid’ and ‘exploitative’) to ‘Indian atheist’ (‘eccentric’, ‘nonconformist’). As a prerequisite to interviewing the candidates, I had agreed to volunteer to join the Living Library as one of the books; the ‘student’. In the catalogue at the Human Library’s front desk, ‘Student’ was bundled with a healthy handful of clichés: Aside from ‘tax-dodger’, ‘do useless degrees’ and ‘politically apathetic’ I was also down for ‘lazy’, ‘can’t cook’ and ‘spends all money on beer.’

Sitting and chatting with the other books proved a little awkward at first, and there was a whiff of dark comedy in the air. Being asked ‘What book are you?’ and being expected to ask it back prompted surge of panic: If I didn’t ask it would seem like I presumed to already know their title, thus presenting myself as someone prone to racial profiling or shallow judgements, while asking those with obvious outward signs of their title just seemed patronising.

What if I made the faux pas of guessing someone was ‘Immigrant’ when they were there as ‘vegan’? Diffusing the tension, Nihad, ‘Muslim’ (Preconceptions: ‘bearded’, ‘oppresses women’), pointed to me and grinned, “You must be the student… Big night yesterday?” The first time volunteers chatted to the veteran books, trying to dispel their anxiety – “what happens if you don’t get borrowed? What happens if someone borrows you and hates you?”

As the public started borrowing books it seemed that not many people felt the need to challenge the scurrilous prejudices against students, so I took the opportunity to talk to the founder of the Living Library, Ronnie Abergel, and ask him what motivated him towards the project. “I worked at a youth organisation,” he explains in an accent that jumps between American and Danish. “We had kids killing each other with knives for nothing. We had to find a way of making them see the human being behind the caricature. To not see the young immigrant boy, to not see the police uniform but to see the human.” The Living Library has the ethos, ‘To build a relation to the human being and not to the stigma.’ Its aim is to allow members of the public to engage in candid discussions with people that they may not normally have a chance to meet, and to break down preconceptions that they may hold about that social group or people.

The list of books has grown from minority groups frequently confronted with discrimination and social exclusion to a wide-ranging cross-section of society. I ask Abergel if the Library ever has to turn down volunteer books and he nods, rubbing his stubble. “I’ve turned some away, not necessarily because they’re inflammatory, they’re just not relevant for what we are trying to do.”

I?ask him for an example. “We had a person who was pro-slavery,” he tells me, shaking his head. “It’s not relevant, you are not exposed to prejudice, who in their right mind is going to feel sympathy for you?” I suggest to Abergel that it might be beneficial to have access to more controversial books. He insists that in order to create cohesion within the book choices the Library has to be selective. “You set forth aims and objectives to each event and if, like today, it’s to bring attention to mainstream stereotypes then there are certain [books] that are too soft or too weak.”

But how far does the project fulfil its objective? While those already through the doors may genuinely be on the way to breaking down their preconceptions, the Living Library is, by default, its own filter: The type of person willing to attend is someone who is prepared to admit they hold prejudices and are willing to challenge them Those with seriously bigoted views would not even make it to the door. I take this concern to Anne Kilroy, the Facilitator. “Yes that is a shortcoming” she admits. “You are not going to reach the people with very extreme views, no matter what you do. The vast majority of people like ourselves all have negative stereotypes or prejudices and it’s difficult for us to admit that – these are the people we reach.” The real targets of the Library are those who have been lulled into a false sense of tolerance, espousing liberal values and acceptance, while unwittingly harbouring bias against certain social groups. We are constantly bombarded with reminders of how cosmopolitan Britain is, especially in London, but Abergel thinks this is illusory. “A citizen survey of last year showed that most white Caucasian British have very little meaningful interaction with minorities,” he tells me. “And the people that think they do have it? They go into a shop where the owner is from a minority, they say hello and how much and they pay.” He smirks, “They call that meaningful interaction.”

Back in the waiting room I raise the issue with Victoria, ‘girl with facial disfigurement’, (‘lonely’). She has a rare genetic disorder known as Cherubism, causing a prominence in the lower part of the face. She sees the social exclusion she experiences as being a result of what she terms as a sort of “mutual misconception” of her disorder. For her, the Living Library is a way to break this stalemate, allowing people to talk to her candidly about her disfigurement. “A lot of people imagine themselves as normal, open-minded, they don’t judge anybody. Then they are faced with someone in a wheelchair or someone with a disfigurement and they don’t know how to react, they don’t know where to look.”

I was curious to know what people ask her. “Helpful questions mainly, about interaction. I’ve had one who just asked me ‘Where should I look if someone has a facial disfigurement?’ I told him the best place is always the eyes, or just above the eyes.” I ask her if she thinks she holds any prejudice of her own. “In a way. I used to hate people staring at me, I thought they did it because I looked different.” But after confronting people, she tells me, it turned out that many of them simply recognised her work on television, “So I was making judgements too,” she admitted.

As the morning turns to afternoon the books start to fly off the shelves. A young lady is poring over the catalogue. She squeals like a child with unlimited book vouchers at the best sellers shelf, “I’ve always wanted to talk to a hypnotist. Though the transgender might be interesting. Ooh! they have a witch!” Overwhelmed with choice she flicks back and forth wondering who to borrow in her lunch break. This indecision was not uncommon as the there were a choice of titles that spark great amount of interest with the readers. The books that are most borrowed are appropriately called ‘best sellers’, and looking at the sign out sheet there are some who have been booked out all day. So far transgender (‘pervert’) and witch (‘satanist’) have been the books of choice.

Another popular book was vegan (‘hippy’). “I don’t know why. I’m quite boring really,” she says returning from another session. “But a lot of people don’t get it. They just keep asking me what I eat.” As ‘lesbian’ and ‘girl with facial disfigurement’ are checked out again, I start to feel like a schoolboy being picked last for sports. I am left making awkward conversation with the ‘stay at home dad’ and ‘humanist’. We, clearly, are books that are being judged by our covers.

The Living Library is, without doubt, striking a chord with its visitors, but could it be easily misconstrued as making light of serious issues? Kerry, a 63 year old pre-op transsexual disagrees. She thinks that rather than make light of the issues, the Library helps reverse “media created issues. I spend a lot of time talking to the media but I can talk straight to people here. Every time they make a joke about a ‘cock in a frock’ in comedy or adverts tell you what men and women ‘normally’ do, it creates expectations. I’m big and broad, I’m 6 foot 3, I wasn’t expected to be a wimp.” The ‘pro-life activist’ comes to the same conclusion. “The news like to show a small group angry [pro-life] people waving boards… attacking doctors… but most of us disassociate ourselves with these people… unfortunately that’s the image created” The media is cited as one of the main contributors to the stereotypes by the majority of people I speak to. Abergel agrees. “If you don’t have access to a social group, where else are you going to find it? Media ethics discussions should be set up, but that’s a whole different thing. The point is, here you can get a second opinion for yourself. You get a second opinion at the doctors, right? If someone tells you all Muslims are killers, what do you do? You find out for yourself, you seek out alternative opinion.”

So where next for the Living Library? “The next dimension,” Abergel says excitedly, “are the post-conflict territories. We took it to Palestine [but] they’re not ready for it yet. There are suggestions of taking it around university campuses and festivals. It’s the perfect audience: that’s where it started. In a festival.” We are nearly at closing time and I am about to give up hope when I am tapped on the shoulder by an avuncular middle-aged man who asks if I am the ‘student.’

We sit with a coffee and I ready my wits for a solid 30 minutes of railing accusations. Instead we end up comparing our experiences as students, studying in the late sixties versus studying in the late noughties. He tells me of riots and values, punting and lectures on acid. I consider telling him that actually most of us spend our days sleeping in and doing little work. That we spend our money on cheesy chips and spend our nights in sub-par clubs. That days drift by on cheap alcohol and fumbled flirtations. That we kept the casual sex but lost the ideologies.

But I decided not to in the end. It sounded like a bit of a stereotype.

Alex Forsyth takes a wrong turn in Beirut and ends up at the very heart of Hizbollah.

When the recent spat of violence broke out in Lebanon in May it looked like the country was on the brink of another civil war. Hasan Nasaralla, the leader of Hizbollah, had declared war on Sunni rivals, ferocious gun battles had erupted in the streets and burning roadblocks littered the city.

On the ground in Beirut, some feel the group to be terrorists, whilst others feel they are a necessary and constructive presence that helps the community. Then there are those who simply don’t care. When I spoke to DJ Samslam, who was living in the city throughout, he laconically identified himself with the latter group. However, it is not until it is taken in context that one can appreciate why people, whether its the Lebanese or ourselves, have such conflicted reactions to Hizbollah.

Hizbollah are clearly aware that the media plays an enourmous role in the swaying of public opinion. It has a powerful and prolific media output, including a radio station, Al-Nour (‘The Light’), and a television network, Al-Manar, (‘The Lighthouse’ – itself on the terrorist list). It was clear that there was a media war going on when I arrived in Beirut. Emerging in the early 1980s, during the civil war, the Shi’a Islamic party Hizbollah (‘Party of God’) was a reaction to Israel’s invasion of Lebanon. They primarily called for a destruction of Israel, decolonisation and the instating of Islamic theocracy but Nasralla has since stepped them back on these fronts. Hizbollah is a political party with democratically elected MPs in the Lebanese parliament, but the actions of their military wing has invited a lot of negative media attention. Accusations of terrorism by the US government, including kidnap and suicide bombings, have all been denied by Nasralla. Even so the USA, Israel and the UK have together branded Hizbollah and their ‘external security’ wing as such. This was briefly lifted when Hizbollah condemned the 9/11 attacks and but was reinstated soon after. According to Hizbollah’s 1985 manifesto the militant wing is necessary as it states; “(we are) in a state of permanent alert in order to repel aggression and defend our religion, our existence, our dignity.” It insists that the party are not “a bunch of fanatic terrorists whose sole aim is to dynamite bars and destroy slot machines.”

I got in touch with a contact who worked at Beirut’s Daily Star, a young British woman called Caroline Anning, and agreed to meet in the heavily westernised street, Germezeh. She told me Hizbollah had set up an exhibition of their last victory. “It’s in the south of Beirut somewhere… a sort of show of everything Hizbollah did, everything they captured I think. You might need a translator. It’s very one sided. It’s a bit mad… there is a big poster of a wounded Israeli solider being carried on a stretcher and in really big letters it says ‘It’s Lebanon, you fools.”

I drove into the suburbs of southern Beirut in search of the building. The difference in Bierut’s districts after only a few miles of road was substantial. Here the effects of the conflict were inescapable. The glittering boutique shops and chain restaurants were replaced by pock-marked husks of grey buildings. The odd car, unmoved, flattened by debris or riddled with bullet holes, sat as sentries for sites of untouched destruction. The level of support for Hizbollah was apparent too. Posters of Hassan Nasrallah dotted the walls, as did the flag. The most impressive show of support was the enthusiasm of a young man, Ali, who we asked for directions. When hearing our destination he was delighted to escort us and be our translator, flatly refusing any payment.

We were greeted by a tall man who, after searching us, took us inside. Uneasy and very aware, I sat at the man’s bidding. First, he showed me pictures of amputees, destroyed hospital wards and burn victims. Next, pictures of Israeli children writing messages of hatred on bombs and missiles to be dropped in Beirut. “They hate and want war always from young age,” I?was told. Having set them up as monsters the next room went on to mock Israeli’s army for their weakness. “The Israelis are very like children when they fight, and that they would run away when I fight with them,” I was told.

By the end I felt like I was taken through a house of horrors. While it was clear that Israel were responsible for countless atrocious acts that occurred the arrogance and lack of compassion almost voided any sympathy I felt. This side of Hizbollah does nothing to help their image. As I leave I see a blue collection box with the slogan “the hand that fights, the hand that builds.” This is the side that runs fours hospitals, that runs schools, clinics and agricultural centres. The side that supplied running water after the war, that paid for reconstruction and rehousing, the side that Ali, my translator, adores.

For some, like my wealthy DJ?friend, Hizbollah are neither a help nor a hinderence. But for others continuing normal life in this climate is not only difficult but is no longer tolerable. One such, Maissa, a young student, lived with her sister and mother in Beirut but has since moved to Paris to study. Her father was killed in a car bomb and she has since lived a somewhat sheltered life. When we drove to her home in West Beirut we had to pass two checkpoints. We were questioned and both my passports were checked. Her house is walled, guarded and monitored. “You can’t do anything, you can’t go into the center of town because of Hizbollah,” she tells me when I finally get through. “Everything is shut down now. It was so busy before. I want to be able to go to a club and come home and not worry about checkpoints. You think you’d get used to all this, but you can never really forget it”

I got a glimpse at the anxiety she mentioned. As a group of us rode home we took a wrong turn. Faded murals of martyrs and pictures of imams stared gloomily from shadowed walls. My companions’ humour quickly abated, the radio was turned off, a woman sat lower in the seat and covered her hair. “This place could change again at any time” Maissa explained afterwards. “I want to be able to study, and live the life of a student.” It will continue to be unstable and a few will be content with instability but many, notably those who want to study or raise families, will continue to leave until a solution is reached. Hizbollah’s tactics seem to be softening and the recent changes in Lebanon, the restoration of peace and the Doha agreement have lifted some tension. On Promise for the Resistance Movement Support website, over a picture of Hasan Nasralla lies a new dogma; “We do not want to kill anyone. We do not want to throw anyone in the sea. Give the houses back to their owners, the fields back to their landlords and the homes back to the people. Release the prisoners, and leave us to live in this region in security, peace and dignity.”

Now with the lifting of the ban on Islamic headscarves within universities, the phobia of Turkey’s de-secularisation is growing. Many see this as the first major sign of Islamic political control and the beginning of a ‘new Turkey’, but there is also the sense that the ‘issue’ is being magnified by secular media.

With hundreds of thousands gathering last month to protest against the lifting of the ban it seems the two sides of to the country are not in harmony. The protesters, who were brandishing banners that carried the messages “We are the soldiers of Atatürk,” and “Turkey is secular and will remain secular!” are part of a large majority who have denounced the in power Justice and Development Party (AKP).

Though the Islamic rooted party has been in office for five years it was not until their landslide victory in June of last year that they had any real weight. The secular military staged rallies, flexing its political muscles to remind the party of Turkey’s repeated history of military coups. But with the victory, and the succession of party leader, Abdullah Gül as president, the party has gained a new confidence, sporting the slogan; ‘the people have spoken’. This new found confidence has manifested itself with significant changes to the constitution.

Seville, who runs an art gallery in Istanbul, anticipates a break down in the freedoms of the Turkish people. Following the news of the election, her shock and dismay were palpable;  “Everyone is asking who voted for them, nobody wants them. It’s the backward people who think he (Gül) will make them rich.”

Of course one must question who exactly falls into the categories of ‘everyone’ and ‘backward’ with AKP’s 46.6% of the vote. She went on to compare the climate in Turkey to Iran before its Islamic revolution in 1979, “They are crazy, they want to make us like Iran…before [the revolution] the women had mini-skirts. Now they wear only what the Koran tells them.” I asked Seville what she would do if such a change came about; “I think I will leave, maybe I will go back to Cuba”. This reaction is not uncommon.

The country has been in a process of unremitting modernisation for over 80 years, save a few coup ‘interruptions’. Since Atatürks establishment of the republic of Turkey, its exclusion of religion from government has fiercely and proudly been upheld, with instances of parties being shut down  for being ‘too Islamic’

But why the almost fundamentalist vehemence to the preservation of the secular?

There is a subtle irony here: a non-democratic ban to impede what people fear will be the onset of a non-democratic Islamic government.

The ban that is being lifted was introduced 11 years ago, with the ousting of an ‘overly Islamist’ government. According to recent regulation of the Higher Education Board,  female students must not wear head scarves when submitting application photos or sitting exams, but over two-thirds of women use some form of head covering. As a result the ban has prevented many of these women pursuing further education. The AKP are calling this an issue of human rights, and with the party pushing for EU integration, they must be seen to be improving Turkey’s murky human rights track record. AKP’s Aziz Babuscu sums up the party line; “We can’t be expected to remain indifferent to social expectations…We shall do what is expected.”

Yet the worry for many is that ‘what is expected’ is Islam playing a larger role in public life. The AKP focus on the headscarf ban, rather than on laws granting human rights has caused concern. Gursel Tenkin, of the Republican Peoples Party, sees this as a thin end of the Islamic wedge; “they are planning more…they want to go ahead in stages.”

The issue will remain on the forefront of the secular  media in the upcoming months, even with the Prime Minister’s assurance that, “People who are devout and who cover their hair are in favour of secularism just like anyone else.” Some see this as a blip being blown out of proportion by the western media, but others like journalist Mehmet Ali Birand believe that “We must get ready to live in a completely transformed Turkey in 5-10 years.”

We are understandably apprehensive about criticising books dealing with non-fictional accounts of child abuse. Yet now that the market is glut with titles like Shamed, Damaged, Abandoned or Don’t Tell Mummy, and swathes of eager readers compile their ‘Top Ten Tragic Life Stories’ lists on the web, it is time to take a closer look at this genre. Are people really choosing these books in order to learn something new? Or are we as readers addicted to the twisted misfortunes of others?

In 2005, a last minute book purchase at Heathrow landed me with Dave Pelzer’s A Child Called “It”, one of the first misery-biographies. An enthused Amazon.com reviewer describes this disturbing tract as a “vivid memoir…which moved the world to appreciate the extent that child abuse can reach.” I assumed this was a literary glitch, a shocking whistleblower certainly; but ultimately a one-off. Yet I was forced to watch in disbelief as their popularity grew. A year later, they had even earned their own genre: ‘Tragic life stories,’ which is absurdly placed, without the slightest hint of irony, in the ‘Entertainment’ section in many big bookshops. Now it seems you cannot pass a bestsellers shelf without a parade of pastel-shaded children staring miserably at you from their front covers. They are unofficially known as “Misery Lit” – though let’s call them miseographies, if no-one has already coined that phrase.

The miseography movement was kickstarted by the success of Pelzer’s book in 1995, although the genre was arguably evidenced earlier. Since then, countless books have surfaced, each with their own “harrowing story of redemption.” The publisher Hodder deals with the majority of them but were silent when approached on the subject and did not return any emails. Their cover designs are comfortably homogeneous; usually a soft-focus photo of a child gazing into the distance from behind a title scrawled in a child’s handwriting. The titles range from Christopher Spry’s sentimental, Child C to Stuart Howarth’s unpleasant (but unintentionally darkly-comic) Please Daddy No!, followed by short descriptive taglines inevitably including the words “damaged”, “struggle”, “abandoned” and other equally emotive buzz-words. Each book purports to be more shocking, more harrowing or more inspirational then the last, anxiously trying to stand out from the miasma of misery and earn its place as a bestseller.

According to Kate Elton, of Arrow Books, the reason these miseographies are so popular is that they are “genuinely a testament to what the human spirit can endure. We all have problems in our lives. This is a way of putting things in perspective.”

This idea, that by reading these catalogues of abuse we would gain some inspiration for our own problems, is put forward by author and publisher alike to justify them. Yet it is hard to see what inspiration we may gleen from the graphic detailing of how “…she was the slave of her stepfather – in every way imaginable,” as detailed in the synopsis for Jane Elliot’s The Little Prisoner. Surely the most we stand to gain from reading such books is a gentle schadenfreude and a sense of relief that it is not happening to us; which might be charitably rephrased as ‘putting things in perspective’. The Observer columnist Carol Sarler believes the books are bought not for advice or for self-help, and show instead “that, as a nation, we seem utterly in thrall to paedophilia. We are obsessed with it. With these books we are wallowing in the muck of it. It’s all rather disgusting.”

Does veracity really matter? Should the reader demand their money back because a child was not actually abused?

I spoke to a victim of child abuse, who wished to remain anonymous, in an attempt to explore the concept of publishing books as a way of dealing with inner pain. “I know why people would maybe write it down in a diary or a letter,” he said, “I’ve done that. That can help. Once you have written it then it’s yours.” He offered some advice for those who might be in a similar position: “If you want to talk about it, find someone you trust, a support group or a close friend, someone you know is going to listen. Selling your stories won’t help you; though it might make you money.” I ask him whether he thinks publishing can be a redemptive or empowering process for the author. He laughs sarcastically; “Yeah, that’s why they publish 10 books – they want to be empowered 10 times.”

However, as public demand continues to grow, some authors have decided to be liberal with the truth. James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces, a harrowing tale of drug abuse, was redubbed ‘a million little lies’ by the media when it turned out to be a fabrication. Interestingly, Frey had previously submitted it as fiction and had been rejected by publishers. It was only picked up when it was a ‘shocking true story’. Clearly verifying the testaments of these cases are difficult, but does veracity really matter? Should the reader feel cheated and demand their money back because a child was not actually abused? Many of the public did seek refunds, claiming to having felt cheated out of real life misery, causing Random?House to eventually pay out $2.35m in compensation.

So where next for miseography? Pippa Vaughan, from the Audiobooks Publishing Association, explained, “Publishers love them because they’re money-spinners, and the public’s appetite will ensure that they remain big business. I’m glad to say that the ‘misery’ genre hasn’t really found its way into the audiobook lists… Personally and professionally, I wouldn’t touch them.”
Less discerning publishers, however, show no signs of slowing, as a new sub-genre emerges that sweeps the problem of ‘truth’ under the carpet: the Fictional Misery Memoir. One such book, drawing publicity because of its recent film adaptation, is The Kite Runner. Written in the same testimonial style, the only difference between The Kite Runner and other novels is that it’s set in Afghanistan. How wonderfully topical.

The future seems bright for the miseography enthusiast. A new wave of sequels to the most disturbing classics are scheduled for release over the coming year. So while people anticipate Sebastian Faulks’ new Bond novel or the next McEwan, I will be on the lookout for Daddies Little Earner, Beyond Ugly and my personal favourite, My Lobotomy; A Memoir.

Propaganda is a wonderful thing. It involves striking headlines, bright colours and memorable slogans. What’s more, it can be funny. Of course, today, propaganda seems a distant concept for those living in the west, and it’s certainly not what we expect from our ‘liberal’ media and democratic governments.

Unfortunately, however, western political and media culture is riddled with inherent prejudices, which contribute to a gulf of ignorance in the public consciousness. On a three month trip around the Middle East this summer, I stopped off in countries that are blacklisted by tourism boards, branded as rogue states by western governments, and written into the proverbial ‘axis of evil’ by the western media. Iran, which was my main port of call, dominated the international headlines for the weeks leading up to my departure. In going, I wanted to find out whether these places really are as hostile as is commonly made out, or just misunderstood.

Before I left, I glanced over various media sources, and found that the BBC website and various newspapers presented the Middle East as a dangerously hot climate to be stepping into. In the previous months, the Iranian military had taken 15 British marines hostage. Riots had broken out over Salman Rushdie’s OBE award, and the British embassy had been surrounded by angry mobs who shouted “Death to the British” and threw stones with such frequency that jokes were made about the embassy starting a rock garden.

Furthermore, there were reports of the vehemently righteous Moral Police cutting men’s hair in the streets and arresting women for bad hijab. The most frightening article was headlined ‘Behead those with long hair’, andchillingly spoke of execution threats for those whose hairstyles are deemed homosexual (essentially anything longer than a few inches). I got my hair cut first thing the next day.

No matter how seriously you take the media, no matter how finely tuned your propaganda antennae, incessant bombardment with fear-mongering tales has probably left you at least a little reluctant to pack your bags and go a-holidaying in the Middle East. Though I felt just about prepared with my short hair and bag full of plain t-shirts, my first steps on Iranian soil were nonetheless taken with trepidation.

This mentality lasted approximately seven seconds. The moment I stepped out onto the streets of uptown Tehran at night, I knew that the truth about Iran had been distorted. Older citizens in traditional dress mixed freely with young men sporting coiffures to rival Noel Fielding’s, teenagers garbed in glittering Franz Ferdinand t-shirts and skinny jeans, and glamorous women wearing oversized sunglasses and bright headscarves. That night, I met with Behruouz, a wealthy, Canadian-born Iranian who was repatriated when he was 15.

When I inquired about the Moral Police and their impact on Iranian civilians, he replied, “Oh them? Dude, they come out for a few weeks in the summer just to remind people they exist. Yeah they piss us off and sometimes some really bad shit can happen but usually you just give them ten bucks and they leave you alone.” He went on to explain how mostly, for young, affluent, liberal Iranians like himself, life is a cycle of “going to house parties, smoking up, getting wasted and choppin’ girls” (which to my relief was slang for picking them up, not hacking them to pieces). But how, I wondered, did that work under such a stringent Sharia law?

The only way to find out was to try it myself. As it turned out, to my surprise, it is still possible to break the rules in a country that is ruled by an extreme Islamic theocracy. At night, Behruouz and his friends drive shiny vehicles to meet a dealer, who sells both drugs and drink in whatever quantities are required, and then, after ‘choppin’’ a sufficient number of women, head back to a large house for all-night parties, Iranian style.

After this turning point in my perception of the country, the more time I spent in Iran, the more it became apparent that the frightening situation presented in the media back home was a fabrication. The people, for one, are incredibly warm. The word ‘hospitality’ does not even begin to describe the friendliness that Iranians will bestow upon you. Not an hour would pass without someone, somewhere, offering something for free. Smiling old men proffered cigarettes stuffed with ‘herbs’; laughing vendors offered ice creams, and people I’d only just met welcomed me into their homes. While it is true that a system of T’arof (a code of hospitality) applies in Iran, the people, along with practically all those I came across in the Middle East, were unquestioningly generous and gracious.

So, why should this have surprised me? The answer, of course, is the portrayal of the Middle East in the media. Iran is presented as a dystopia where crazed police roam the streets, machete in hand, itching to deal out Moral Thought Justice, while rioters explode anything they can get their dissenting hands on. And yet here were children chasing each other round on roller-skates and BMXs, whilst plump mothers invited me to join enormous family picnics that continued until sunset. Of course, one should not become carried away with idyllic notions of Iranian life and forget the country’s problems. Something is definitely rotten in the state of Iran. Singing and dancing are illegal, the right to free speech is essentially void and women are subjected to what I would consider inhumane treatment (although that is another discussion). What is crucial to understand, however, is that the danger is not from the Iranian people to us, but from the government to its own people. Countless Iranians I spoke to expressed disgust at President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his band of Imams, rather than at the British people. More importantly they also distinguished us from our government. Over a Nargile in Esfahan, I spoke to Khalid Houssein, who commented: “I love the English, but your government will rule the world in the end and you won’t have to fire a bullet.” This chimed with an earlier report I had heard about a media fostered conspiracy theory that the British, ‘the little Satan’, were behind everything in Iran (even the attacks on the embassy.)

Media propaganda works both ways. The US branded Iran’s revolutionary guards as terrorists so Iran branded the CIA as terrorists. Amnon Levy, an Israeli, told me how “the Israeli news tells us how groups from Gaza want to kill us on holiday.” The Palestinians have created a Micky Mouse lookalike, ‘Farfur’, who gets beaten to death by Israeli settlers on live television. Then there is the Turkish pro-US television news which flashes up numbers of killed terrorists to a soundtrack of gaudy, Wagnerian synth.

There is a somewhat questionable saying that every country gets the government it deserves. Perhaps it gets the media it deserves, too. We may ask ourselves why we are being told that the Middle East is full of people who threaten our freedom and jeopardise democracy. Or why there is more negative media about Iran than China, whose government executes far more of its own people and has Tibet to answer for. What is clear to me is that the public perception of Iran panders to leaders’ political agendas, and that the media greases the wheels of government propaganda. What better way to break down communication between countries and cultures than to present them as hostile, radical and unapproachable?

If the time finally rolls around for the west to invade Iran, the public will probably perceive the country as an abstract land of Islamic violence, stubborn dictators and intolerant people. Even if you believe that you are worldly enough to spot a lie when you see one, the fact remains that all the while your perceptions are vicarious: you are already submitting yourself to somebody else’s version of the truth. So do it. Go travelling. Find out for yourself.