Letters
March 2005
March 14
Exiles, revolution and identity
In response to Teresa Camacho "Iran
with Lolita in Perspolis":
Just read your comparative study of Nafisi and Satrapy works. I
haven't read Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran. It has been translated
to French and has done quite well in sales. I listened to a lecture
she gave in John Hopkins I believe and was quite impressed although
I don't necessarily agree wit hher interpretation of the poor Humbert
Humbert. Although I have not read Nabokovs novel I saw the screen
adaptations by Kubrick and Adrian Lynn. I found Humbert was the
victime and not Lolita. Its maybe the male in me expressing himself
but not the chauvinist. I can't see why Nafisi sees in Humbert
the pervert evil. You may be able to enlighten me although that
is not the subject of your article.
What I can tell you is that it is a correct perception that both
Nafisi and Satrapy come from educated backgrounds and quite westernized
and therefore it is normal that they refer to western literature,
however this is not just common amongst lets say intellectual Iranians.
You must understand that the generation of Satrapy and Nafisi are
the first generation in exile. I am a little older than Satrapy
but it is true that the experience of the Islamic Revolution was
also a culture clash for us. We were raised with the concept of
the American Dream as being the best reference both socially and
culturally. This was not to say that we denied our Iranian culture,
actually Satrapy is a nickname, no one is called Satrapy, the Satraps
were what the ancient Persians called the governers of the provinces
in the Persian Empire under the Aechemenian Dynasty.
But to come
back to the point I am trying to make is that the generation of
my father for instance who became doctors, engineers or university
professors had the West as a reference and the Western Culture
and values set to them as examples of both professional and personnal
success. Since they belonged to a generation who were truly forging
the country to enter the 20th century and fill in the gap
with the West economically speaking they had to relate to
the role models the West delivered. This is even true in European
countries, one can simply look at the fashion trends which are
often not to say always copied from the Americans and that despite
the fact that Europeans including the British try to distinguish
themselves from the US.
The major problem faced by the pre revolutionary Iranians was in
my opinion their confusion of modernity and adopting Western values
with maintaining a national identity. Iran unlike many third world
countries became a kind of intellectual laboratory. Instead of
developing weapons of mass destruction (even if the aquiring nuclear
energy was considered by the Shah as an alternative to Oil
shortage in a near future and today by the Ayatollahs) the country
developed schools, universities and the example of Shiraz' Pahlavi
University becoming an equivalent of Harvard or MIT, or Oxford
particularly in every scientific or medical research. In fact towards
the mid 1970's many foreign students including Americans were
following courses in Iran's top universities. My father actually
tought to several of them and Professor Barnard the South
African surgeon who gained fame in the field of
heart transplantation was impressed by the works of his Iranian
collegues and congradulated my father for having been the first
Iranian to have successfully practised kidney transplantation.
A look at the Iranian Diaspora as compared to other minorities
show that they are amongst the most successful professionally
speaking.
However the frustrations within the Iranian society was most
probably due to the fact that the country was moving forward at
a fast pace and everyone could not follow. Too much too soon
as some historian put it. The gap was not as much economical for
the living standards were rising for all social categories, in
fact the people from very humble backgrounds were at first against
the Islamic Revolution and for the monarchy as an institution
they respected. Those who were mostly against the Shah's autocratic
rule were the intellectuals such as Marjan Satrapy's parents (according
to her own admission) and Nafisi (also to her admission). That
does not mean that there were not liberal minded and socially
well off Iranians who did not wish change in a more secular manner
than that proposed by the revolutionaries and the mullahs. Shapour
Bakhtiar the Shah's last prime minister who was slained to death
in Paris by an IRI death squad was the perfect example of a Western
educated and secularist Iranian who had struggled both for maintaining
Iranian identity as well as what was accomplished by the former
regime but who was named prime minister too late in order to propose
a serious alternative to the mullahs.
What Western historians and socialogists often fail to understand
is what was particularly unique to the Iranian psyche and
that is that throughout their history they never wanted to be considered
as backward or poor. Its even ironic because it has often misled
us. We refuse to admit that the great majority of our land is composed
of sand and desert. Its true that we do have a more varied landscape
than lets say Saudi Arabia, but we are not a green country with
forests everywhere. Water is rare and we suffer from similar shortages
as in any middle eastern country. Yet what remains is our pride.
A pride that has taken us to the summits of glory as to the gutters
of self destruction. Oil as the late Shah used to say is "Une
arme a double tranchant" aka from French "A two sided
weapon" refering to prophet Ali's Sword who fought the infidels
and created the Shia religion as opposed to the vast majority of
Sunni's in the Arab world.
We have maintained our language unlike countries with an equally prestigious past
like Egypt which became an Arab country.
So modernity was the ground on which as a country we had to acquire.
Its a kind of inferiority complex I'm afraid. You could go to villiages
in Iran and see many kids with a very high I.Q. succeed in entrance
exams to engineer schools (and have their whole education
subsidized by the government ) but who lacked the neccessary
culture to role up in Art schools or litterature courses. One thing
that was created under the Shah was what was called "Sepah
Danesh" i.e "The Knowledge Army". It was an
attempt part of what the Shah called the White Revolution which
consisted of sending Army recruits to Villiages
to teach in any field in which they were competent. So unlike many South
American dictatorships or even Communist regimes Iran
had no real enemy to combat. Throughout the Shah's reign
hardly any Gun was shot except for the three disputed Islands
in the Persian Gulf that is the Tumb and Abu Moussa. For a country
that claimed to be the 5th military power in the world
by the mid 70's Iranian soldiers had no real combat experience.
It is sad to say that it was the case after the Revolution with
the Iran Irak War.
The major frustration in the country I believe was political and
not economic. The nationalists, the liberals fell into the arms
of the most radical forces of the country that is the mullahs by
sheer frustration not to say stupidity. I mean how could an engineer
or Doctor reach the leve of madness to believe that they
could also see the face of Ayatollah Khomeiny on the moon
?
I had a teacher who was a classmates mother and who used to say
I go and shout "Marg Bar Shah" by pure "Oghdeh" that
is frustration or grudg in Persian.
What Iran needed was politcal freedom. It should be recognized
that the Shah did a great deal of good for the country but commited
big mistakes that led to his downfall and as a consenquence to
that of the country he truly cherished. To the risk of shocking
some of Dr. Mossadegs sympathisers and I include myself to them.
The major mistake in my opinion is not the 1953 Coup (which in
retrospective I believe would have happened and would have probably
led to the downfall of Dr. Mossadeg and his government either by
indirect Soviet intervention or by any ambitious politician or
power hungry general which you can find in any third World country)
but the creation of the Rastakhiz Party, which put a final blow
to political pluralism.
All the other accusations of corruption and social inequality I
believe in hindsight are exaggerated not to say ridiculous.
The major problem was that the Shah fell into the a trap which
he created for himself. In the same way that lets say communist
regimes claimed that true communism is for tomorrow that is why
the people have to accept transitory dictatorship, the Shah claimed
that Democracy is on the agenda once we reach the "Great Civilization".
Without justifying this mistake one can find one excuse and that
is that Iran in the height of the Cold War represented a prey for
its jealous neighbours Irak and some Western and Saudi Oil consortiums
but also the threat of communism preached by its great neighbour
the Soviet Union. Were we heading towards the "Great Civilization" so
adamantly declared by a King who was aware that he was suffering
of an encurable disease? He who wanted had named regent his wife
the Shahbanou in case he would have to abandon his power before
his son becoming old enough to assume his role as new Shah (see).
It would seem hard to imagine that he believed that the Empress
or his son had the necessary experience to fill in the gap, he
may have cherished the idea as the above link suggests,both as
a father and King. So yes I would say that the Shah's great mistake
was to have become the Absolute monarch although in practice he
was more of an authocrat than a dictator. Institutionally speaking
however he transformed himself at the center of the politcal life
of his country leaving little or no place for a political substitute.
This in a society which having acquired an economic growth comfortable
enough for a nation belittled as part of the Third World in the
Western Press, and thus he created the political frustration which
led to the revolution.
In conclusion and forgive me to have come such a long way
from the main issue of your article that is comparing Satrapy
and Naficis works, but the point I was trying to make is that the
generation before the Revolution had worked hard, many people
believed that they were building a better future for themselves
and their children. Again the accomplishments of the Iranian Diaspora
today is a testimony of the Shah's legacy and that of the generation
before the revolution even if many of us may be the fisrt to deny
this. But it is an undeniable fact. This may not be the case of
everyone and certainly many Iranians in exile have paid a
dear price to get where they stand and that they worked hard also
to raise socially and professionally.
The question is whether they have lost their Iranian identity in
the
course? That is a question each one of us has to answer
with his or her own conscience.
Thank you for reading me, and hope I have if not answered
at least contributed to some of your thoughtful questions raised
in your article.
Darius KADIVAR Top
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