Word: bazaar
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Soviet force of 50,000 troops who have invaded and seized control of their land. "Shoravi Padar Lanath!"cried beggars and shopkeepers alike in the streets of Kabul, Afghanistan's shabby, snow-covered capital. The curse ("Goddamn the Russians!") replaced morning pleasantries in the city's ancient bazaar. "Afghanistan is no more," lamented a bootblack in the shopping district of Share Nau. "We have lost everything...
...Shah had alienated almost all elements of Iranian society. Westernized intellectuals were infuriated by rampant corruption and repression; workers and peasants by the selective prosperity that raised glittering apartments for the rich while the poor remained in mud hovels; bazaar merchants by the Shah-supported businessmen who monopolized bank credits, supply contracts and imports; the clergy and their pious Muslim followers by the gambling casinos, bars and discothéques that seemed the most visible result of Westernization. (One of the Shah's last prime ministers also stopped annual government subsidies to the mullahs.) Almost everybody hated the police terror...
...main point to bear in mind is that there is a new era. Iran today is not what it was under the Shah. A miracle has occurred. Under the previous regime, a single policeman could force all merchants in a huge bazaar to hoist flags to mark the Shah's birthday. These very people stood up against tanks and artillery with their bare hands. Even now, they wear burial shrouds, come here [to Qum] and declare their readiness for martyrdom. A nation thus transformed cannot be pushed around. Mr. Carter has not understood this transformation yet. He thinks a dictator...
Despite such official optimism, it is obvious that many Iranians are very nervous about their future. "In the bazaar, nobody will give anybody credit any more," says Siamak Akha-van, a young businessman who runs his family's steel-importing company from the Tehran bazaar. "The system usually operates on a man's word. These days only cash works." The banks, suffering from a loss of both talented employees and nerve, have curtailed credit. "Most of them don't even have a manager," complains Akhavan, who predicts that "we are going to have to live with...
...Bronx (and the fire in the civil rights movement guttered out), most American consumers lived in a world of far greater opulence, variety and mobility than any generation in history. The economy, a $1.4 trillion-a-year wonder, pumped out enough goods to make the U.S. a seemingly endless bazaar...