03 May 1998 Sunday 06 Muharram 1419
Change or status quo?
By Eqbal Ahmad
UNLIKE the 1970s when the National Front liberals, Tudeh party
Marxists, and the youthful Mujahideen-I-Khalq leftists had challenged
the fundamental premises of Islamism, the idea of Islamic statehood is
not being questioned in today's Iran. At issue rather are opposing
perspectives - a radical Islamist on the one hand and liberal
reformist on the other - on the shape of an Islamic state and society.
Many of the protagonists are men educated in religious schools and
women from clerical families. The contestation is taking place in the
context of praxis more than doctrine. It is a struggle between the
forces of change on one side, and of the status quo on the other.
Whatever its outcome, it is likely to have a significant impact on the
rest of the Muslim world.
The struggle is centred around the person and government of Mohammed
Khatami. But he is more a product of it than the initiator. His
election as President last May by 70% of the votes in a four-way race
was perhaps as big a surprise to him as it was to his detractors. He
had after all been a Minister for Culture and Islamic Guidance in the
cabinet of Hashemi Rafsanjani, and was sufficiently disliked for his
liberal outlook to have been booted out under radical pressure. Yet
his electoral nomination was approved by the Council of Guardians; its
members must have judged the cerebral cleric to be a marginal
candidate likely to garner the votes only of a negligible intellectual
minority.
His victory by an overwhelming majority revealed something about
contemporary Iran that the ruling clerics may have neither known nor
wanted to know: that post-revolution Iran had developed a split
personality; its people lived at two contrasting levels of reality,
one private and the other public, one political and the other social,
one conformed to the officially ordained codes of behaviour and the
other did not. Nearly all Iranians I met during a visit in 1991 were
living double-lives, a self-incriminating existence that made most of
them uncomfortable. "Effectively, we are teaching our children to be
hypocrites," said an old friend.
I met a young woman in a park wrapped in hijab head to foot. As soon
as I had finished exchanging pleasantries with her brother, she was
keen to discuss Michel Foucault and Edward Said and the works of
Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Every time some other walker passed by, she
fell silent. "I have also read Salman Rushdie, all his work except the
Satanic Verses," she confided at one point. In a family home, a woman
novelist discussed Iranian writers for more than an hour. A
fundamental challenge for us, she said, is to deal in "safe and
meaningful ways with this most searing reality" that "honest people
have to cheat all the time." As she wrapped up to leave, I stepped out
with her as I too had to go. "No, you can't," she said, "you are a
na-mahram. We have cheated. Remember?" Smiling, she walked away.
"How do you feel about wearing the hijab?" I had asked the women and
both had given the same reply: "Don't mind it. Other things are more
important." The novelist's latest work was held up by the censor; she
did not know when or if it will be released. Mahmal Baf grew up poor
in a shanty of south Tehran and became a militant activist of the
Islamic revolution. Self-educated, he made propaganda films for the
Islamic regime, then directed films which won international prizes.
When I visited Tehran, his latest film - Nobat-i-Ashighi (time for
loving) - was proscribed. Mahmal Baf was too proud and felt too hurt
to talk. A literary publisher who had been in business since the
Shah's days talked about the changes in publishing since the
revolution. "It's a new environment now. There is a large reading
public. Serious readers. And there are writers, good ones; and so many
first rate translators. It's a publisher's dream. We have a hundred
titles I could print tomorrow." "What explains this surge of
creativity?", I had asked. And he had said: "It is due to the
revolution and in spite of the government."
These encounters occurred in 1991, year of my last visit to Iran. I
wrote about it then, albeit discreetly lest I compromise the people
and places I had visited ( Dawn; June 16, 23, 30 and July 14, 1991).
Tension between the radicals and reformist were then simmering but
Iran appeared to be on the threshold of an intellectual renaissance
more meaningful than it had known in centuries. Despite the censor
which prohibited or merely held up hundreds of manuscripts, publishing
was good business.
Tehran is the only city in the world where I saw queues outside book
shops. Inside, one could find shelves full of Persian translations
from works in foreign languages - Arabic, English, Spanish, French and
Russian. American women writers barely known in Europe - e.g., Jean
Rhys and Fedora Velty - were available in translation. Similarly, a
livelier art scene I had not witnessed anywhere in the Middle East.
In the last decade of the Shah's rule, there were three art galleries
in Tehran, all patronized by Raza Shah's twin, Princess Ashraf. In
1991, when the Thermidor had just started under President Hashemi
Rafsanjani, there were fourteen galleries, all private and none
patronized by power. Iranian music was experiencing a most creative
transformation.
Iranian cinema enjoyed a certain official indulgence. Officially
approved films were allowed to enter international festivals. Many won
prizes and most received lavish praise from critics. American and
European newspapers and magazines frequently published glowing reviews
on Iranian films. 'Once again Iran has sprung a great surprise...' was
a common refrain. Yet, no one ever asked what these films conveyed
about the state of culture in Iran.
Films, after all, are products of collective endeavour. Good film
making depends on the availability of good scripts, actors, composers,
cameramen, editors, technicians and, above all, a sizable and
discerning audience. Films reflect cumulatively the state of art,
literature, and outlook in a society. Until Mohammed Khatami's
electoral blitz surprised the world, it kept missing the signals from
Iran.
The world was focused on the Iranian state while ignoring the society.
There was a preoccupation with power not processes. This same mistake
was made - and perhaps is still being made - by Iran's Islamic
radicals who controls the institutions of power and patronage. If they
noticed it at all, they assumed that the cultural renaissance was
confined to an intellectual minority alienated from the Iranian
mainstream. In fact, its constituency was broad-based involving
millions of Iranians.
Several factors contributed to this phenomenon: One, Iran's educated
population has increased greatly. Thanks to the policy of the Islamic
regime, large numbers of rural and working class youth have had access
to higher education. Hence, education in Iran has a broader social
base than most, perhaps any, Muslim country. Two, it is a noteworthy
fact that Iran's educational system is, by and large, modern in its
emphasis on contemporary science and social sciences, and does promote
a habit of reading and inquiry among students. Three, Iran's
intellectuals write and speak in Persian and, in other ways too, their
medium of expression remains Iranian.
Unlike the English speaking South Asian writers', theirs has been not
a foreign but a growing Iranian audience; hence they have non-exotic
connections to Iranian life and realities. Four, the Islamic regime
sought to change Iran's culture, and in this pursuit discouraged even
such popular mediaeval poets as Ferdowsi and Hafiz whose works have
been central to Iranian identity and aesthetics. Naturally, public
discontent became gradually linked to the question of cultural
freedom.
Mohammed Khatami's electoral campaign provided the framework for the
'coming out' of the other Iran. As the cleric who had favoured greater
freedom as Minister for Culture and was dismissed for it, he was
believed capable of significantly advancing Rafsanjani's liberalizing
agenda. His electoral promises of reforms from within the Islamic
system, rule of law, end to abuses of privacy and human rights, an
opening to the world, and the creation of a "safe environment" in
which "everyone, including dissidents who respect the law, can enjoy
their liberty" had broad appeal.
His emphasis on the "promotion of civil society, progressive ideals of
Islam and equal opportunity for women" ignited the enthusiasm
especially of younger and women voters. His campaign assumed aspects
of a mass movement whereby, as an Iranian commentator put it, "fear
vanished and people gained self-confidence."
What Iranians now call the "soccer revolution" symbolizes the new
mood. It happened last November when Iran's team won a closely
contested match against Australia, qualifying for the 1998 world cup
matches. This was the first such victory since the revolution. Also,
the team's Brazilian coach had replaced, on public pressure, an
Iranian coach more keen on getting the team to pray than play.
Citizens went wild with joy. There was dancing in the streets, bakers
distributed away their sweets and pastries, shops closed, housewives
brought out halva, and some women even let their hair down. The
dreaded Komiteh wallahs and Basijis were ignored when they tried to
intervene. At the 100,000 capacity all-male stadium 5000 women too
turned up to greet the team, demanded and got a section assigned to
themselves. "The only time I saw such happiness break out was during
the revolution itself," Mahmud Daulatabadi, the well-known novelist is
quoted in the media.
The popular commitment to change may be put to a severe test soon. The
guardians of the status quo are gearing up for a showdown. On April
29, some school teachers and shop owners were arrested in Najafabad,
the hometown of Hussein Ali Montazeri, for having participated in a
strike to protest against the Ayatollah's persecution. On the same
day, General Yahya Rahim Safavi, chief of Iran's National Guard spoke
ominously from Qom against "newspapers which are threatening our
national security," and "liberals who have entered the foray with
cultural artillery. They have taken over our universities and our
youth are now shouting slogans against despotism... We are seeking to
root out anti-revolutionary elements wherever they are. We have to
behead some and cut off the tongues of others. Our language is our
sword." As though this were not enough, General Safavi identified
Minister of Culture Ataollah Mohajerani and the Ministry of Interior
which is led by another Khatami ally as the main culprits. Iranian law
forbids the General from meddling in politics. If the Faqih does not
fire him, the wrong message will have been conveyed.