Persian Gulf
Tonban-e Abu Musa
Squeezing a laugh or two from the Iranian foreign ministry's
secret files
December 10, 1998
The Iranian
In the summer 1976, I visited Tehran to begin research for my doctoral
thesis on the legal status of Great Tonb, Little Tonb and Abu Musa, three
islands located at the strategic entrance to the Persian Gulf and subject
of a contentious debate first between Iran and Britain and since November
1971 between Iran and the emirates.
One very bright and very early morning, armed with a letter of authorization,
I descended on the ministry with a great and purposeful appetite for information,
with a hunger which had been whetted in part by the secrecy which the topic
commanded at the time. The prospects of research soon turned into a process
of begging for information.
To negotiate my way from office to office, from one reservoir of knowledge
to another knowitall, I mastered unintentionally the art of brevity. By
the third day, I could produce a fifty-word, polished response to questions
like, "What is your thesis about?," or "Why do you want
to write about this topic?" I had begun to refer to Great Tonb and
Little Tonb, in plural, as Tonban.
After cooling my heels for some time, in one hot summer day, I was ushered
finally into a dark, cool room, adorned with very long heavy-set curtains,
fully drawn, shrouding state secrets in mystery. At the end of the elongated
room, sat a figure of authority. A cigarette burned slowly in the ashtray,
competing faintly with the lamp on the other side of the desk. His desk
was awash in paper. File after file sat stacked on the floor around his
desk and along the wall half way to where I was standing.
He broke the ice by offering a perfunctory gesture of the hand for me
to sit down, which I did while murmuring a gush of gratitude for the audience.
An eternity later, he raised his head. The guardian of secrets asked me
about the topic and the reason for writing on the subject. I answered as
rehearsed; he, in turn, answered all of my questions, also as rehearsed.
Unlike others, what he shared with me, however, was evidence. Some he digested
patiently into summaries without giving up the store and narrated them
to me. Some he set aside for another day for me to come and only read under
the supervision of a subordinate.
For the next few days, I became a fixture around his department. Familiarity
soon yielded dividend in humor, brought about irresistibly by the notion
that the word "tonban" in farsi means "breeches" or,
better yet, "culotte," and that "tonban" by nature
is a funny reference. And, so one day, in the company of a third person,
he responded to my argumentative point by saying "in baraa- ye Faati
tonbun nemish-e," an Iranian idiom referring to a matter being so
wanting that it could not be made into even a brief for a girl named Faati.
That afternoon, matters escalated. In the company of the guardian of
secerts, a colleague out of polite disinterestedness asked what was I researching.
I replied snidely, "I am studying Tonban-e Abu Musa," alluding
to Tonban as being the culotte of one named Abu Musa. "What for,"
the inquirer then asked. The guardian of secrets, without missing a beat,
offered, "because Faati's tonban are too small."
At the end of that long summer, I saw him at a gathering; he towered
a foot or so over everyone else, a giant of a man in stature as he was
profoundly humble. He kindly placed his hand on my shoulder and in a loud
enough voice to attract attention to his impending mischief, he asked,
"Well, my boy, after all this research, what is the color of Abu Musa's
tonban?"
Overcome by a patriotic urge, I answered, "green, white and red."
He smiled, "You have learned well and I am happy to have been of some
service." As he trailed off, I realized my experience with him had
been invaluable: I had learned more about economy of words, better sentence
structure, and greater focus. I also had learned humor from a very unlikely
source.
The author
Guive Mirfendereski is an international lawyer and adjunct professor
of law at Brandeis University. He apologizes to all named Faati or Abu
Musa. (Back to top)
