Prince Charming or Good King?

This week, I painted a portrait of Reza Pahlavi, exiled Crown Prince of Iran. My family have been confused.

I started off wanting to paint a new portrait of my late husband, but after sitting down to analyse the photo, I realised it was too soon, too intimate to risk sending me back into grief. So, I looked about me and wondered who else I could paint that was not too close, an interesting face, a story I could relate to.

The Iranian revolution was in it's first week. Reza Pahlavi was just beginning to talk directly to the Iranian people, deafened and blinded as they were by their internet shut-down, and Elon Musk was in the process of deploying free Starlink signal where he could. I'd never actually heard of him before. I know only one Persian personally. I'd heard of Kurds, and been ignorant of their battles. It's that far-away syndrome the daily news creates in many brains.

I'm no fan of daily news. I was raised in apartheid South Africa with a liberal father and I was really aware of the propaganda strangle-hold regimes have on the press. Through my adult years I have watched the local press fall into the hands of civil propogandists who push anti-western messages with liberal politically correct veneers. I paid attention during the Gupta-Zuma-Bell-Pottinger years. I've seen global media fall into the hands of the few, the globalists, the social engineers, the overlords. It's not a secret, not a conspiracy theory. Just a conspiracy. So I've been listening to a range of independent media channels from all over, seeing localised ideas, opinions. The quality isn't great, the opinions tend to be shallow, but often the content is current and immediate, unfiltered by big-press agendas, free (for better and worse) of the editorial hand.

Iran has featured strongly in independent media - almost not at all on legacy media at this point (19 January 2026). For me, that means it's a topic worth looking at. And, Iran is a flashpoint in my consciousness. Since the ANC was bought by the IRGC, and some more of those skeletons have come out of the closet, the removal of an Iranian stranglehold in my country is news I can relate to, will have pertinent effects on our local balance of power. The most obvious question: who will the ANC sell themselves (and us down the river) to next? The next possibilities: can our country break free from the huge, internationally funded, corruption fueled, vice grip of the cartel government?

But to return to Pahlavi - is he the hero Iranians (and the opponents of the Islamic Brotherhood) are waiting for? As a symbol, as a rallying force, he certainly seems to be a motivation to the Iranian protesters. As a governor, or an interim governor, or, perhaps a new cycle of monarchy in Iran, is he as good as his word?

I don't know. I hope so. The Iranians couldn't do worse that what they currently have - and they are throwing themselves into the front lines to prove it. Pahlavi says all of the right things, seems to have a good grasp of what's going on, the risks the stakes, claims to have a plan, an insight, a heart for it. Time will tell. When last did we have a Good King on this planet?

I watching. So is the world. I'm hoping.

Maybe I'll sell the painting to someone to whom it can mean something deeper.