It was coulpe of nights ago as I was watching a Iranian programe I had downloaded earlier. It’s a yearly celebration or festival that gathers all directors, filmemakers, actors and actresses in Iran. legends such as Ostad Entezami, Parviz Parastooi, Nassirian, Mehrjoui and other younger artists were present. It was through their speeches and jokes and conversations that something called my attention. Their honesty, sense of humor, humility and respect towards others artists and above all their breef explanation and analysis of the characters they have played. It was not the first time that I have come to realize the obvious, that somehow, for some reason the vast majority of our fellow Iranians in Iran, despite all the inconveniences and hardships, still try to make sense of out life, actually they do see and feel the sense of humanity. They try to express these things in their films, books and poems, Iranians have always had this need for expression, since very ancient times. However, it’s been a long time since I started wondering where has all this gonne among us outside Iran? No matter how much I try to find some of the Iranian positive atributes in the large Iranian community outside Iran, there’s isn’t much to be found, specially in this known and so much wanted country called Canada. This country with a very large and increasing Iranian population could have one of the most robust and strong Persian cultural representations, however; for the most part the only gathering point, the only interesting events that gathers people in droves, is none other than the concerts. Every month or so there’re concerts here and there for which tickets are sold very quickly, the best dresses and best suits and cars are to be seen in such gatherings. Everyone seems to be interested in showing up with a good looking couple, even good looking blond blue eyed girlfriends, while there, the more english words you use while speaking Persian, the more sofisticated you look, everything is so positive in appearance so ‘chick’ that even the non-Iranians present or simple bystanders are amazed at the ‘glamour’. There shouldn’t be anything wrong with this, but somehow, for some of us there’re lots of things missing, too many gaps, an emptyness hard to describe. It makes you wonder why we cannot or do not want to gather for other reasons, why is it, that other communities such as the Italian, Greek and Croatian and so many others do seem to have lots of things to say to each other, but we don’t. Should we assume that people from a very old and culturaly rich land have no other reasons to gather? other than concerts, which resemble showing off sessions of what I have and you don’t. This is not what I was watching in the programme I mentioned earlier, these are not the same people I met during the years I lived in Iran, these are not the middle class teachers, bus drivers, workers and millions and millions of Iranian man and women in Iran.
There’s this recent Iranian film called ‘che kasi amir ra kosht’ casting, Sharifinya and amin hayayi and the final soundtrack or song of the film says:
Khoshbakhti yani yek marde khikki
Hesabe banki, mashine meshki
Ezdevaj shekle yek zane chaghe
Daspokhte ali, jahizi kamel
Movafagiat yani ghabooli to konkoor
Raftan be Canada ba reshveo pool
The ultimate question, crossing one’s mind is, are these the kind of things these Iranians leaving Iran, were dreaming of before leaving the country? Please, don’t get me wrong, having some spare and leisure time is needed, be this a concert, movie or parties, However, what I’m referring to is the ‘overall’ attitude, the sad fact, that our cultural existance as community abroad has to be reduced to one-dimensional activities that do not go beyond concerts and bezano beraghs, for which Vancouver is second to none.
