Criticism
Critiques were voiced in the western press and by Khomeini and his followers – Khomeini called it the "Devil's Festival.". Expenses were said to be as high as $200 million, while the Ministry of the Court placed the cost at $17 million; Ansari, one of the organizers, puts it at $22 million. The actual figure is difficult to calculate exactly and is a partisan issue. The defenders of the activities point out other benefits such as the opening of 3,200 schools, improvements in infrastructure, and the positive effect on Iran's international public relations.
Read more about this topic: 2,500 Year Celebration Of The Persian Empire
Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“A bad short story or novel or poem leaves one comparatively calm because it does not exist, unless it gets a fake prestige through being mistaken for good work. It is essentially negative, it is something that has not come through. But over bad criticism one has a sense of real calamity.”
—Rebecca West (1892–1983)
“I, with other Americans, have perhaps unduly resented the stream of criticism of American life ... more particularly have I resented the sneers at Main Street. For I have known that in the cottages that lay behind the street rested the strength of our national character.”
—Herbert Hoover (1874–1964)
“Cubism had been an analysis of the object and an attempt to put it before us in its totality; both as analysis and as synthesis, it was a criticism of appearance. Surrealism transmuted the object, and suddenly a canvas became an apparition: a new figuration, a real transfiguration.”
—Octavio Paz (b. 1914)