Dr.Matt Mohtadi
I am sorry to learn of the passing of Matt. I consider myself fortunate to have known him both as a colleague and a friend. He was truly an intellectual who had much compassion and the courage to express his views openly with much wisdom. Regrettably, with his passing the world has lost one of its outstanding citizens.
Over the fifty two years I have known him we had numerous occasions worth remembering and perhaps even reporting. For example in 1977 we went together to Istanbul to attend the World Energy Congress.
It was September, 1977. we attended the World Energy Congress in Istanbul. This Congress was considered as a very important occasion when so many dignitaries in the field of energy including many ministers from a variety of countries were scheduled to attend and speak. We had to share a room in a hotel that was assigned to us.
It turned out that local Turkish politics at the time was highly turbulent with strikes and demonstrations going on throughout the City especially trying to exploit the presence of foreign dignitaries. Accordingly, we found that the staff of our hotel were on strike also providing a minimum of service. One of the actions of the strikers was to make it unpleasant for guests to stay at the hotel and leave. This included cutting suddenly the electric power trapping guests in elevators. An interesting action the Strikers thought might annoy the foreign guests was to have local bands play Turkish music loudly just outside the hotel windows very early in the morning, since presumably they thought such alien music early in the morning was an effective annoyance to the foreign guests. Instead, we found it wonderful to be wakened up by a serenade of beautiful Turkish music that has similarities with Persian and Iraqi music. Needless to note that we were two of the very few guests who stayed put in the Hotel despite these negative actions.
It was also interesting to recall that as a result of the strained atmosphere and the massive security every where including having military personnel with rapid firing guns everywhere including in the dining hall we decided to leave two days early and skip the farewell Banquet. However, we found out later on that while the Banquet was proceeding the following night a bomb exploded just outside the door of the Banquet Hall leaving almost everybody terrified. However, when we did go to the Airport to catch our flight to London we found that there was another flight ready to take off. Accordingly, we inquired whether it was possible to join this earlier flight. We were then instructed to run across the tarmac with our baggage before they closed the plane’s door and took off. We ran and boarded with the door of the Aircraft closing immediately behind us. Thus, this occasion represented the very last flight we ever took without having any of our baggage checked in or inspected. Also, it was the last time we had to run across the runway of a major airport carrying unchecked luggage to join a departing plane. To us, this was a marked contrast to the extraordinary level of security that went on that week and we were exposed to throughout our stay in Istanbul.
Ghazi A. Karim
Emeritus Professor, Mech Eng.
