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Wednesday
April 11, 2001

Satire's hallowed place in Iranian journalism

As amusing as I found your April Fool's feature, "Not without my mom", it was not half as interesting as the responses from your readers. My first reaction was, "Gee, I did not know there were so many irritable royalists out there."

But, I am wondering if the resentful cries of "poor taste", "irresponsible journalism" and, most interestingly, "lies", speak to a cultural divide as much as a political one.

Although satire has had a hallowed place in Iranian journalism (I think I'd actually be relieved if somebody besides Qajar loyalists at the time criticized Ali Akbar Dehkhoda for "Charand o Parand"), it has rarely been seen as anything but an insulting, apolitical or (at a minimum) irresponsible act.

Iraj Mirza's "Arefnameh" was social criticism no less than Jamalzadeh's "Farsi Shekar Ast" but it's very sexual and abusive language tied into older traditions of satire that were highly personal and clearly insulting.

"Nahid" in the 1920's and "Baba Shamal" in the 1940's tried to hide behind the disclaimer of "satire", but there was never any doubt about the leftist political leanings of these periodicals.

Add to this a long Perso-Islamic intolerance for criticizing leaders. It is forbidden to insult Islam or Prophet Mohammad. Iranian press laws were always careful to prohibit attacks upon the royal family and government officials along with Islamic norms and tenets.

I'm not sure, but I don't know of any equivalent holiday in Iranian culture to "April Fool's Day." I can see the argument forming now, "The Iranian Times used the cover of a Western holiday to attack a fellow member of the Iranian diaspora -- how gharbzadeh is that!"

In the U.S., however, satire (especially political satire) is almost institutionalized (consider the extremely lame "Capital Steps" routines that occasionally ooze onto your National Public Radio broadcast station) and has become the very weak alternative to hard-hitting, investigative journalism in this country, a tradition of American journalism which has fallen prey to an extremely disingenuous preoccupation with "objectivity."

It would be nice to think that there is even one American journalist left with the integrity and courage of Akbar Ganji. As a result, satire in the U.S. has to go "over the top" to even raise an eyebrow.

I am not, of course, arguing that Iran should aspire to become a "Jerry Springer Show/South Park" nation but Iranians and Iranian-Americans might wish to think about the value of taking things like "Not without my mom" in stride. The Islamic Republic, like the Pahlavi and Qajar Dynasties before it, is only too willing to show us intolerant alternatives.

Cam Amin

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