The mourning show: the politics of Khamenei’s funeral

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1:12Hello and welcome to The Intelligence from The Economist. I'm Rosie Bloor.

1:21Today on the show, Japan's divorce laws get a rethink. And this week, as America's iconic Route 66 turns 100, we take you on a road trip.

1:36First up, though...

1:47Today in Tehran, huge crowds of mourners gathered for the main funeral procession for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The former supreme leader of Iran was killed in February, on the first day of massive strikes by America and Israel. With the ceasefire holding, at least for now, the Iranian authorities have finally deemed it safe to allow this very public demonstration.

2:17It's a religious event, as devotees mark the death of their spiritual figurehead.

2:27But as others out on the streets raise their fists or wave flags with Donald Trump's face on, some chanting slogans calling for vengeance, this is also a deeply political moment. The authorities are billing Hamlet's funeral as a referendum on the future of the Islamic Republic. Nicholas Pelham is our Middle East correspondent. They're celebrating his death and the funeral, not as a defeat, but as a vindication, a final triumph over foreign enemies, something very much in keeping with the arc of Shia tradition. So it's a display of strength, but at the same time, there are deep cracks in the regime's hold on the show.

3:12Nick, we'll come on to what this all shows in a minute, but just explain to us what an ayatollah is and why this moment of the funeral is so important. An ayatollah is the spiritual authority in Shia Islam. They have command over followers across the Shia world. But what was particularly unique in Iran was that the spiritual authority was also the political authority, was the supreme leader of the country ever since the Islamic Revolution of 1979 had been, to all intents and purposes, a theocracy. And at the helm of this was Ali Khamenei, who had ruled over Iran as both a spiritual authority, but as a supreme leader for the last 37 years.

3:59The country is now at a crossroads. It's really not clear whether that theocracy is going to survive. This funeral has been delayed since February when he was killed. What have we seen in the days of mourning so far? They're an extraordinary six days of funeral ceremonies, and we're about halfway through. Until now, we've seen him lying in states surrounded by red tulips in a stadium-sized prayer hall, the Masala, in central Tehran. Today, we're going to see his coffin carried through the capital before traveling to Khom, 150 kilometers to the south. It will then go across into Iraq, thereby revealing the Islamic Republic's reach in the region.

4:43and from there it will be flown to Mashhad which is the birthplace of Khamenei and will become his burial place nearly 1 ,900 kilometers to the east. It's about demonstrating the strength of the Islamic Republic and its rulers at home. They've had a very rocky past few months not just because of the war which pummeled many of their bases but also because of the demonstrations that preceded them when there were nationwide calls for the Islamic Republic to go. And it's also demonstrating its strength in the region and to the world. I don't think it's a coincidence that it's overlapped with the 250th anniversary of the United States.

5:27And who's at the funeral? Pop stars have been enlisted to compose elegies to Khamenei. Businessmen have been prevailed upon to donate meat and rice by the ton. There are tents of supplies lining the procession route to encourage Iranians to join the procession. Millions of civil servants have been given the days off. You've got clerics who are coming from seminaries across the country and thousands of buses have been brought on board to ferry mourners. And there's even an app which provides accommodation for people coming from outside Tehran. And as you'd expect, it's the most prominent commanders, the generals and the politicians.

6:08You've seen President Masud Pazeshkian, the Revolutionary Guards Chief, Ahmed Wahidi. You've seen three of Khamenei's sons. But there's one critical absence, the supposed successor, the current supreme leader, Mushtabah Khamenei. And so far, since his father's killing on the 28th of February and his appointment a few later, nothing has been either seen or heard of him. Islamic convention dictates that he should be leading funeral prayers. And of course, there's still three days left to go for the funeral ceremonies. It might be that he turns up on the last day. And it may well be that the authorities will say that he's absent for his own protection.

6:49But the fact that he's absent, that he hasn't been seen or heard of since his appointment, is leading to major questions in Iran about who is actually in charge. So we've got an absent leader, but otherwise a real attempt to show that the Iranian regime is very much in place since the strikes by Israel and America. But a question, how strong is the regime in fact right now? I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that they have been emboldened by the outcome of this last 40-day war with America and Israel. They are continuing to display their strength and their control of the Strait of Hommels and demanding that all shipping there goes through their shipping lanes and through their procedures.

7:37They were looking extremely wobbly before this current war. Not only had there been this nationwide mobilisation against them, but the repression that followed alienated the population even further. And what you've seen as a result of this war is, to some extent, the country pulling together and much of the population who were disenchanted with Israel are just going to be absent altogether. And we know that peace talks with the US are on hold while this funeral takes place and while, as you say, the US has its own celebrations. Can you tell me about the current state of those discussions? We're only partway through the 60-day ceasefire and that ceasefire period was supposed to resolve all the outstanding issues, the nuclear file, sanctions, passage through the Strait of Hormuz, Iran's place within the region.

8:32All of those questions remain unanswered and this hope of a new era of relations between the United States and Iran still seems a long way off. And if anything, I think it's typified by this fist that has been part of the symbolism of this funeral. You've got Kamene's fist that is flying from flags across Tehran and that sort of symbolises a mood of defiance, retaliation and of revenge for his death. Nick, thank you very much for talking to me. Thank you, Rosie. Always a pleasure.

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10:00When Shibahashi Satoko divorced her husband a decade ago, she didn't want her 10-year-old son to see the father. Moeka Iida writes about Japan. The breakup was ugly. She resented her ex and hated the thought of him rejoicing over a reunion. and for about a year she kept the two of them apart. But then she came across another divorced mother who was keeping her child away from the father and she remembers thinking, what a terrible mother. But then she realized she's no better than her. Soon after that she called her ex-husband to arrange a meeting and since then he has been a part of the boy's life.

10:44Ms. Shibahashi's story is emblematic of a broader shift taking place in Japan. So what's going on, Moeka? What is that broader shift taking place in Japan? For decades, Japan was the only country in the G7 that did not recognize joint custody after divorce. and non-custodial parents technically did have visitation rights, but those rights were weak and easily withheld. So for a long time, Japan had a system where the parent granted custody, which tends to be the mother, could usually shut the other out. And there was even a government survey in 2021, which showed that only one in three children of divorced parents had any contact with the parent they didn't live with.

11:30And even when they did have contact, that interaction is very limited, a few hours a month or something like that. But there was a really big shift recently. In April, Japan introduced joint custody for the first time and that follows a revision to a civil code that had gone unchanged for eight decades. And this reflects a really big shift in how the country thinks about family life. So what will that change in the civil code, the change in the law mean for how divorce will work in Japan? Well, there are a number of layers to this. First of all, a joint custody system will require parents, even after divorce, to keep collaborating to make key decisions over a child's life.

12:12So that includes things like schooling and relocation and moving places. And it also puts parent-child contact on a firmer legal footing. Is the divorce rate high in Japan? So I think there's this perception that East Asia has very strong traditional values and that divorce is uncommon. But as you've discussed on this show recently, divorce rates are going up in China. And in Japan, around a quarter of marriages end in divorce. So divorce is actually a normal part of family life. And actually, legally speaking, Japan might be among the world's easiest places to get a divorce. Instead of seeking a court order, as you have to do in Britain or America, if you want to get a divorce in Japan, you only have to sign a document and submit it to the local ward office.

12:57Around nine in 10 divorces are settled this way. And that might sound smooth and amicable if you compare it against the idea of long and bitter court battles. But actually, that also creates a lot of challenges. When two people are getting divorced, usually tempers run hot. So key decisions over visitation or child support are made without a neutral third party to cool things down. It seems surprising that the single parent custody norm lasted so long, given that context. Why is that? It sort of fits a broader pattern in Japan. There's a lot of laws and rules in the country that have gone untouched for a very long time.

13:36Legal change or policy shifts often lag behind what's happening on the ground. But I also do think that despite divorce being a normal part of family life, divorce being quite common, there wasn't much of an open conversation around what family should look like after divorce. And there's interesting research by an anthropologist called Alison Alexei, who describes Japan's approach to divorce as following a clean break model. The idea is that when two people get divorced and say the man leaves and gets remarried and forms a new family, he should just stay in this new family and he should have nothing to do with the old family.

14:13To borrow the words of Miss Shibahashi, the divorced mother I mentioned earlier. She said that when an ex-spouse leaves the house, they're often treated as if they had died. This clean break seems to have been characteristic of divorce in Japan, but I think a lot of people have started to question that over the years, estranged fathers campaigning for the right to see their children. There was even a French man who had divorced a Japanese woman who staged a hunger strike because he didn't have the right to see his children. Even without the vocabulary to describe it, you're saying that all of these shifts reflect a bigger change in how Japanese people are looking at the family unit.

14:50How is it now shaking out? I think there has been major shifts in family dynamics in Japan. Men are playing a bigger role at home and are therefore more involved in the children's life. So I think that's why we've started to see more advocacy. Interestingly, it has also faced some intense backlash as well, but I still do think the law is a move in the right direction. Moeka, thank you very much for talking to me Thank you so much for having me Rosie

15:37Route 66 is America's most famous highway running all the way from Chicago to Santa Monica it's memorialized in iconic songs like Get Your Kicks On by Nat King Cole, TV shows, and of course, John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. This year marks not only 250 years of America, but 100 years of cruising this great geographical and cultural archery. Last month, I took a road trip on Route 66. John Fasman is our senior culture correspondent. I did it for two reasons. The first is that I just love a good road trip. And second, Route 66, notwithstanding its fame, took me through a part of my own country that I had never seen before.

16:26John, what is it that makes Route 66 so famous? Well, it was one of America's first major highways. And while the interstates that are set up now go from east to west or north to south, Route 66's shape was unusual. It goes south from Chicago into Oklahoma and then bends out west. It traverses eight states using paths mostly that settlers and Native Americans had used for centuries. It's also an all-weather highway. It's not too far north, so it's not impassable with snow in the winter. And it's a storied road. Refugees from the Dust Bowl in the 30s used it to find new lives out west in California.

17:03John Steinbeck called it the Mother Road in The Grapes of Wrath. He sent his protagonist, the Jodes, out from Oklahoma on Route 66. African-Americans used it to migrate out of the South to Midwestern industrial cities like Chicago and St. Louis, as well as out West. And its heyday coincided with the rise of American car culture and pop culture dominance, which meant it became known throughout the world pretty quickly. And what that popularity meant is that businesses, mostly mom-and-pop shops, competed for customers' eyeballs and wallets. There was this huge flourishing of commercial activity.

17:35You had giant fiberglass statues advertising roadside hot dog stands. You had motels made up of concrete teepees because it was unusual looking and would get travelers to stop. Route 66 popularized motels, service stations, and arguably the road trip, in which the journey is not just a way to get from one place to another. It's the whole point of the trip. And yet some of that car culture is declining. So what's happened since? Well, Route 66 is picturesque and fascinating. It's also small. It's often just one lane in either direction. And starting in the 1950s, America built the interstate highway system, which really overtook it.

18:12It's a much more efficient way to get from one place to another. Route 66 was decommissioned as a highway in the mid-1980s, just before its 60th birthday. And a lot of the small towns it went through died. But they didn't disappear. At least most of them didn't. You can see a few ghost towns on the way if you want. And Route 66 didn't disappear either. It has endured as an iconic American highway that people spend weeks traveling on just to see their country up close and personal. So we're standing in downtown Joliet, and a couple of things have struck me. The road went out of Chicago through some fairly small towns.

18:46Joliet is not a small town, but it's smallish. The two things that struck me is that the towns along the route, many of them had Route 66 sort of signage and attractions, and they're trying to milk their association with the road for very good reasons, which is that when the road was designed, there were businesses that sprung up around it. And when the interstate system was devised, those businesses started dying. So these towns are trying to milk their associations for travelers who are deliberately taking Route 66 rather than doing it out of necessity. For the next week, I'm going to take you with me on the Mother Road and introduce you to some of the people I met along the way.

19:26What are you excited about this particular trip? Well, when I was a kid, I watched the television show, of course, and there's songs about it and things like that, and it's been fantasized forever. And my wife and I did Route 66 kind of backwards. We started in California and went to Tulsa about, that was about 15 years ago, in an RV. So we had a great time. So we were in Arizona and standing on the corner of the Eagle Song, you know, Cadillac Ranch, all that stuff. So we're hoping to see some things along the way. Some of those people are traveling the route. Yeah, I'm Eric Wall, and this is my wife, Patty, and we're from McPherson, Kansas.

20:03We've done Route 66 several times, and with it being the 100-year anniversary, we thought we better do it again. So we're doing part of it this spring, and then we're going to do the whole thing with some friends of ours this fall. Why do you keep coming back to this trip? Because we love it. It's just so interesting, and you see something different usually every time. Others have worked in the same spot for years. My name is Jennifer. You're at Fanning 66 Outpost. This store's been here for many, many years. It was one of the original stops on Route 66. It's been lots of different things. There was a garage here at one point.

20:40It was a post office, a community center. So we're just here to, you know, keep 66 alive. Tell me how business has been this year as opposed to other years. We've seen probably 50 % more people this year. I've seen a lot more Americans traveling Route 66 this year than normal. Oh, that's interesting. So you often see people from other countries more than Americans. Yeah, normally 80, 90 percent of our traffic is international. So this year I've seen lots more Americans doing it. So that's exciting. What do you think brings people here from overseas? It's just really popular over in Europe and, you know, the U.K.

21:15And they love Route 66. It's just their, you know, the American dream. I heard that over and over again. There's something uniquely, deeply American about this highway. And it has a lot to do, I think, with the romance of the American West, which we'll discuss tomorrow.

21:49That's all for this episode of The Intelligence. See you back here tomorrow. Thank you.

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