Attonement: Keeping Our Agreement

It was, Kol Nidre, the eve of Yom Kippur 1990. I knew it was a fasting day and the time for atonement. I had never fasted in my life and did not believe in it, but had decided to keep my husband company and minimize my eating to a cup of coffee and toast in the morning. However, there were other problems, such as staying a whole day in synagogue listening to and reading in a language I did not know and listening to alien creeds and prayers to a God who likes some of His children more than others, somehow different from the God I knew, and worst of all repenting from the sins of which I had no idea. Above all, where I was coming from one could not possibly commit sin a whole year around and then repents in one day.


Anyhow, sitting on the pew on the second floor mezzanine, immersed in my thoughts, wondering which one of the my deeds or thoughts or words could have been a sin, and gazing at the 600 pages book which we supposedly had to finish reading by the end of the next day, and thinking about the boredom of the day ahead, I indulged in memory of things passed, and my childhood, and school days, and the feverish hours of Persian language class with occasional charming anecdotes and tales from Saadi’s Golestan or Bustan, or Mowlana’s Masnavi.

Once Moses dreamed of a shepherd who was wandering and, as if talking to himself, addressed God very casually: “Where are you God, so I can sacrifice myself for your sake, where are you that I can put socks on you and comb your hair, at night I could prepare your bed, kiss your hand and rub your feet?” Moses, offended, reminded the shepherd of the glory and supremacy of God; and forbade him from conversing with God in such a casual way. Then it is God’s turn to scold Moses. A famous line of this narrative poetry, “You are there to connect people to us, not to disconnect them,” was used commonly to scold those who create distances and draw a line to separate people form each other.

The soft voice of Rabbi Sammy Barth brought me to myself. No, I was not day dreaming and this was not the anecdote from the Masnavi I knew. It was the Rabbi who was narrating this charming tale from a Jewish text. I extended my hand to squeeze my husband’s, which simultaneously moved towards mine. He saw the joy in my heart in my running tears, through his running tears. This anecdote, even with a very explicit reference to Moses, has gone much beyond its ethnicity and became a general tale of Iranian culture.

That night, walking home, we talked about this little shared virtue. Still worried for the list of my sins, I thought I might borrow some of my husband’s.

The day after, I joined him in the synagogue a little later. The synagogue was packed; I had to squeeze myself where ever I could find a seat. My husband was not around to guide me through the Hebrew text and show me what page or line is related to the hymns or prayers. However, I felt less awkward. I knew I was not among strangers; we shared some wisdom, if not the “sins” which was still bothering me.

Nevertheless, it was tedious and difficult to sustain a whole day. When the afternoon session started after a short break, I decided stop staring at the Hebrew text and just read the English translations of meditations. Little by little, the boredom vanished and the feeling of the previous night returned. The ethics and creeds were not much different than what I had learned; it was all the same and to the same points, towards a humane society, towards goodness, towards peace. Not cheating, not harming, not stealing and not killing, no adultery, not bearing the false witness against your neighbor, respecting our parents, worshiping God and avoid idolatry, keeping the Sabbath holy (we all keep some sort of Sabbath) were all what we human beings cherished and valued. (Yes, lying in general seems missing!)

It was towards the end of the evening, when the Rabbi gave his final talk that my worries gave way to an ease. It was then I noticed I’m a sinner just as everyone else. The Rabbi defined “sin” in terms of “breaking commitments”, any commitments including those we make to ourselves without uttering a single word.

It was a relief; I found what I was looking for. No more gaps between us, my husband and I, “we” and “them”; Jews and non-Jews. I won’t be one of the “others” and my husband won’t be thankful not to have been created like me as an “others”. I was so glad to be sinful, at least virtually. Though I was still puzzled as to why one should repent his/her sins every year and turn to commit them again. To find the answer, I tried to look into the neighboring culture to Judaism, the Iranian’s. Our Mehregan, always in the corner, in October 2nd or 3rd, coinciding with Yom Kippur every few years, might come to some help.

Like almost all Iranian holidays, it has a purely cosmological foundation, it is just the position of the earth to that of the sun. Iranians decided to dedicate this unique cosmological position to an old Yazata Mithra pastoral god who governed agreements and the contracts sealed between the nomads as to the use of pastoral land to graze their cattle’s.

In a nomadic culture when the only resource was the shared pasture, to stay within the boundaries was not only ethical but vital. To break the agreement, thus, was not only unethical but threatened the survival of others, a great violation, and in the language of the time, it was interpreted as a declaration of war.

Mithra, the pastoral god, was the declared guardian and protector of the agreed contracts. Therefore he became the presiding judge over those who broke the contract, and thus the protector of warriors who defend these agreements and fought with those who broke them, and therefore the protector of those who seek and maintain peace, and therefore love and friendship. (I hope this quick chain of title and position would take care of the information we need for the time being. For more information Mithraism by Franz Cumont is useful.)

I found it interesting that our holidays coincide with each other not only time wise, but philosophically as well, both with a great emphasis on commitment and honoring the agreements we make with ourselves and others. They both indeed happen at the beginning of wintertime, just at the threshold of the uncertainty and hazards of the cold season in which any indication of assurance would be appreciated double. It is quite significant that both holidays remind us of any neglected responsibilities and our commitments.

As to the celebration of Mehregan, the religious significance of the holiday has given way to a festivity and celebration. Even with Zoroastrians the celebratory aspect of this holiday overrides its religious aspect overwhelmingly. And equally Yom Kippur, though the religious ritual remains intact, the religious intents and ideas have become less and less paramount and more and more peripheral. I have witnessed Zoroastrians being surprised when learning of the dominant attribute of Mithra as the guardianship of oaths and agreements, and the guardianship of love and friendship has come to him only through the chain of connections. The same surprise appeared in the face of my husband when he heard superficiality and irresponsibility is a sin as well as light headedness, and many of this sort.

It might have been the way of life and the virtues we find in secular life which has transformed all the religious rituals into a mere celebration or some practices devoid of real meaning. But nevertheless, it is the deep concept to these holidays which has kept them alive up to this time, even nominally.

It has been years since that memorable Yom Kippur. Many events have happened in our life as well as in the world. As the two of us lived together in life's ups and downs, there is no need for sin to come between to make us closer to each other. There is a deeper sense of life, its meaning and its ideas as a shared treasure which connects us together. And Heaven knows how much of it has come through our reading and discussing together the literature of our cultures and faiths, and the celebration and observances of our holidays together.

Last week at the end of a long fasting day, when he seemed cleaned of all the sins he had committed, I asked him teasingly when he is going to collect new sins. With his usual humor he told me “I can’t even if I wanted to.”

“How come?” I asked

“Our sage Maimonides teaches that it is like immersing in the water to clean myself while holding an unclean animal.”

“Wow! Where did you learn that?”

“Shul,” He said.

“That means the books won’t be splashed all over. The shoes and socks won’t be all over, and dogs won’t lick all our utensils?” I asked.

“That means I keep my agreements and guard it with the price of my life.”

I squeezed his hand and I’m sure he heard the whisper of joy in my heart.

(Dedicated to Rabbi Sammy Barth.)

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Why Khatami Should Not Run

Nay Khatami, Nay!

The recently-activated site Pouyesh is set to campaign for Khatami as president. Almost everyone affiliated with the reform movement has used a wide range of appeals, begging, advising, demanding, mandating, and appealing to duty and responsibility, ethics and morality, national crisis, the safety and security of the Islamic system, and everything possible on earth, to urge him to run.


It seems there is a general consensus in the leadership of the reform movement that Khatami is the most popular of their party in the country and the most qualified for the office of presidency. The reformists assume that his two terms of presidency have made him immune to further scrutiny from the Guardian Council. “To disqualify him would cost the regime too much,” they reason.

While his friends are absolutely right on their first assumption, on their second assumption they are either too naïve or do not know the Guardian Council. The Guardian Council can disqualify God Himself if they want to, without being accountable to any. Shariatmadari in Keyhan (the official voice of the regime) has already declared him disqualified on the basis of various charges including treason, and called him an American agent, all with its famed thuggish and vulgar language which it seems is very popular in the government higher circles. He even boasted bluntly that “many with much lesser and more trivial charges have been disqualified as candidate.” And Shariatmadari is only one of a dozen representatives of the Supreme Leader’s representative!

Recently, Hojjatoleslam Mojtaba Zolnuri, a cleric and the Supreme Leader’s representative in the Revolutionary Guard, in a similar tone, worthy of lowest of low, reduced Khatami to a nothing in his speech at a meeting of Ansar-e Hezbollah. Sadly, Khatami’s friends responded as if they aim to gain seats in heaven as martyrs rather than the office of presidency. Though once more the bitter truth of the Islamic Republic comes to surface; plain and simple, without heart, mind and wisdom, they have successfully reached the realm of, what we call it here, ‘beyond chutzpah!’

As for his popularity, yes, he is the most popular person in the country (of course next to Afshin Ghotbi, if I may say). Of this, there is no doubt, nor is there any need to prove it. But is that enough? If I understand Khatami, the public figure we know, he is the first one to be against anyone running for the office on the popularity ticket. His two terms as president stand as a witness: Not only did he never try to be a populist; he never harbored the idea of becoming a hero or savior either. We all remember him quoting from Bertolt Brecht that when Galileo gave in to the Inquisition court and denounced his theory to save his life, his disappointed followers lamented, “Pity us, now we have no hero” and Galileo responded, “Pity you to need a hero.” If nothing else, he was notorious for urging friend and foe alike to take a lead in their lives and not to sit idly, waiting for someone to come.

Many of Khatami’s friends argue that he is the only one who can unify all factions of reformists the way that no other candidate would. Though this might appear as a good reason for his friends to urge him to run, Khatami would be, also, the first person to go against it as well. If we all understand him correctly, his commitment to democracy, even though it takes a back seat to his commitment to Islam, is nothing to remain unnoticed. It is his steadfastness in this regard that reassures me he would not submit to the static and absolute ideas that his followers hold regarding the various institutions of democracy. I think he is wise enough not to believe that the qualities attributed to him, even if proven true, would necessarily be positive or helpful for the advancement of democracy in Iran. In a democratic system the candidate, even sometimes unknown to many, comes into an open competition, with competing ideas and plans, to advocate certain causes. It is in the process of challenge and confrontation and disagreement that the fittest survives and not vice versa. Deciding beforehand that Khatami is the best only brings us closer to the democracy of a “life time” presidency rather than the one we are hopeful to have.

And no, I do not have any problem with Khatami getting reelected for a third or even four term, provided that he runs for an election and competes with his opponent regardless of who he might be.

We do not need to have precedents, with or without a lapse, to justify his running for a third term. It is true that Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Margaret Thacher, and François Mitterand are among the examples given, but they were all elected for the third time only after they managed to compete with their opponents and their victory over their opponents was the only factor that gave their term legitimacy. Their third term campaigns were as fresh as their first. None of them won the election on the basis of their past record and their past term’s popularity. Let Khatami run a fair election, let him express his new ideas and his new plans, let him be challenged by his opponents, whomever they may be, and let him win. As it stands, we do not know what to expect from him yet.

Finally, it is the risk factor which is in the mind of his friends. His friends are more likely right to consider him the best qualified candidate and the least risky one among all, though what would we achieve by having our best candidate amongst the army of thugs?

Is Khatami a different person? Is he better equipped now to deal with those “third persons” who were “thorns in his way” during those two terms of his presidency? Is he able to run a country whose police, military forces, judiciary, national security, and, to a large extent, its foreign and interior affairs are all controlled by some other authorities? Is he able to run a country within a system which does not believe in representative government though it calls itself a republic? Is the Guardian Council more cordial? Is the Revolutionary Guard more polite? Are the fundamentalists more civilized? Reading article after article all urging him to run for office, I wonder if his friends are even concerned about why he should run at all. In none of those articles is there any indication as what is expected from him if he becomes president again. Within a corrupt, chaotic, primitive, unaccountable, demagogue, autocratic system, what can a person like Khatami possibly be able to do?

Undoubtedly he is popular enough to win by a reasonable margin if he runs against almost anyone at present time. But emphasizing on winning or losing is just evading the question. The presidency is not just occupying the office. It is about planning, organizing, establishing, producing, achieving, reaching, gathering, forming, and ultimately doing something. Is Khatami able to do anything? I mean, besides talking. (And please do not get me wrong. Talking is very important and Khatami is really good at it, both in style and in content, though at this point that particular skill won’t do us very good, particularly those of us living in Iran, some seventy millions of us.)

I’m sure Khatami’s friends are well aware of his limitations in dealing with those that, for better or worse, he is much closer to, by marriage, by his uniform, and by his faith to go against them; and too distance from them by his politeness, sweetness, civilized nature, and wisdom to be able to cope with them. Eight years was enough time to tell us that what we expected from him won’t ever happen. With all his differences from these people, he won’t turn his back on them as he turned his back to us. Yet, he is obliged to do precisely the opposite if he wants to be an effective president this term, and this is the choice that he will never make.

Truly if Khatami runs for the election, I will vote for him and so will many who believe in voting even if it is not a healthy election, despite my wish that he not run.

My ultimate hope and my wild dream is that Khatami announces that due to the corruption and lack of security and the absence of any guaranty for a fair election, he would refuse to accept the nomination. Also, consistent with all his teachings, I wish he would announce that due to his commitment to democracy, as it is in the nature of democracy, he prefers to pass the torch to another person whom he trusts and he endorses like many other presidents in other democratic countries. The fact that Khatami is popular is not a good justification for asking him to stay in office until he looses his popularity. People’s love and trust for him should be guided into helping the democratic process of the election and to strengthen other democratic institutions. A strong, systematic, healthy and responsible election process is far more essential than occupying the office of the presidency. Let’s give him that high place of the leadership and guidance, let’s make use of his virtues to our advantage rather than wasting it in the presidential office.

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Sarah Palin, a Woman's Perspective

Here is a link to an article I've just posted on iranian.com. To read the rest, click here.

Birthday Card from Carmen and Alireza

Thanks...! To read the rest, click here.

Iranians for Obama!

Let's organize Iranians for Obama!

Here's our logo, designed by the incomparable Ali Darvish.

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Hooman Majd, The Ayatollah Begs To Differ

“This stylish, witty, and enlightening portrait of contemporary Iran brilliantly captures the too-often-misunderstood character of the people and their complex, paradoxical, and changing nation.” So says one of the book’s blurbs.

Hooman Majd introduces the book to us as a result of his personal experience. “In 2004 and 2005 I spent several weeks in Iran as a journalist, and in 2007 I spent almost two months in Tehran, working on what was to become the manuscript.” He, of course, has been in touch with whatever and whomever is marked “Iranian” to make sure he is as informative and as accurate and as objective as possible. In his book, and also a letter to his publisher (I have used the editor's copy of the book issued prior to its publication), he writes that his friends consider him 100% Iranian and 100% American which puts him in a unique position.

Being the son of a diplomat and the grandson of an enlightened ayatollah, Hooman seems pretty well connected to all sides, secular and religious, Western and Eastern, modern and traditional, all in one package. Knowing a little of his family, I’m sure that, if it would have been necessary or relevant, he could have pulled a few more social connections, in England for instance, in additions to one with president Khatami.

I liked the preface of the book. It was witty; it was concise; it was diverse; and all together interesting. But, either I was too taken by visualizing a young Iranian man, half aristocratic, standing at Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park, shouting until his voice was hoarse, the song of his liberation with his British accent, through an Islamic Revolution, or I missed the clue when his Jewish friend admired Ahmadinejad’s sincerity and patriotism. His encounter with the “Egyptian vendor in the vicinity of Ground Zero, full of admiration for Iran as the only country standing up for the Islam and Muslims, as well as the United States, which, by the way, is a dream land of his earthly opportunities,” did not alter what the title of the book suggested, that modern life is paradoxical and Iran is no exception.

Neither was I alarmed when, on page 12, he wrote on the subject of hijab:

“Let me tell you a story about hijab. ….Reza Shah made the chador for women and turban for man illegal in mid 1930s; he wanted, fascist as he was, to emulate turkey’s Kemal Ataturk, who not only had banned the fez and the veil but had even changed the Turkish script from Arabic to Latin, rendering the vast majority of Turks illiterate overnight to force his people into a modern, which he saw as European, would.”

“…during the early days of Islamic Revolution women were harassed and sometimes beaten and imprisoned for not wearing proper hijab, but the exact same things, for opposite reasons, occurred on the streets of Tehran less than fifty years earlier. In 1930s women had their chador forcibly removed from their heads…”

Was it my poor reflexes or the lack of a conspiratorial mind which did not allow me to go beyond the book's face value? When the author said, 

“I refer to some of these failures whether they be the imprisonment of student protesters or feminist activities or the crackdown on civil liberties, but this book is not about the injustices of Iran’s political system or, more important, the sometimes outrageous abuses in that system which many courageous Iranians such as lawyers, journalists, and activists living in Iran, fight against every day. Rather, my hope is that this book, through a combination of stories, history, and personal reflection will provide the reader a glimpse of Iran and Iranians, often secretive and suspicious of revealing themselves, that he or she may ordinarily have the opportunity to see.” 

I did believe him. It took me days to think why he omitted the mass executions, mass murders, chain murders, murder of prisoners, long jail sentences without any specific charges, from the list of these "failures"? Or why he used the word "failure" rather than "crime"? It took me even longer to think why talking about the hijab he has to bring about the names of two dictators (Reza Shah and Ataturk), twice repeating the word "fascist", and his choice of words such as"forcefully", "beaten", "rendering the population illiterate overnight"? (By the way, for Hooman’s information, it was by Ataturk’s forcefulness that the primary education became mandatory in Turkey, just as in Iran in Reza Shah’s time. Prior to that, the people were in fact illiterate. Illiteracy did not happen overnight with the change of script from Arabic to Latin. Indeed, the people were illiterate.) It was almost towards the end of the book that I figured out the answer to most of my bewilderment, though many remained still unanswered.

Hooman Majd is adamant that there is misunderstanding of Iran and Iranians which needs to be explained, and that he is uniquely qualified to do so. (These two words "understanding" and "misunderstanding" always send a shiver down my spine since the time President Carter tried to "understand" us.) Of course what needs to be understood is always the weird, antisocial, and irrational behavior of our beloved regime which does not translate to any social codes accepted by the international community.

He defined Iran as a “Muslim country, a Shia country and significantly a Persian country.” As Shiites, Iranians are marked with an inferiority complex, and are devoted to protect their rights (haqq). Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammad, who was killed by Yazid, has become the embodiment of haqq for Iranians and his death is still mourned by men and women in commemoration of his anniversary at Tashu`a and Ashura.

It is through the revival of this monumental wrong that Iranian will celebrate the Shia’s creed of crying for haqq. According to Majd, the understanding of this little word haqq is the key to understanding Iran's puzzles and paradoxes, from the emergence of the Islamic Revolution in the most secular nation in the region to the implementing the laws of the Sharia, designed for an uncivilized nation centuries ago, in the country which has a claim over to culture and civilization.

Majd argues further that even the nuclear issue is a misunderstanding of Iran’s obsession with its rights or haqq, the centerpiece of Shia dogma. For him, what appears as a confrontation with the international community is nothing but Shiism's pursuit of haqq and its persistence in not letting its rights to be violated.

The notion of pursuing haqq to the point of death, symbolized by Imam Hussein's martyrdom, is so embedded in Shiite Iran that it has become a model of conduct as well as part of the nation's language and thinking. Colloquial Iranian expressions such as “haqqam khordeh shodeh” (meaning ‘my rights are eaten’) and also khak bar sar kardan (meaning putting dust over the head) are taken as testimony.

However, his arguments are shorn of any merit. His examples of Ali the American who believes his rights had been taken away because he had not been born in the United States might be witty and humorous, but far from proving any point; and his example of dust and mud  being heaped over the heads of the mourners in Tasu`a and Ashura suffers from misinterpretation of expression linked to it.  The expression khak bar sar is used when some intense grief has befallen someone or when grief is wished upon someone against whom one has hard feelings. Placing mud or dust over the head is just a very old mourning sign, (it appears in the Hebrew Bible) and stems from a belief that soil-dust would cut off the emotional attachments one has towards a departed loved one. In burial sites, a pinch of dust is poured over the head of the mourners to relieve them. (The expression of khak bar sar indicates a wish for an intense grief as of a mourning for a dead one.)

I wish he would have clicked on Youtube for Shia’s mourning and seen for himself the kids, with drums and dafs and sometimes with other instruments doing raps for Imam Hussein,  who do not appear to have any intention as of dying for anybody. They are simply participating in a ritual, nothing more and nothing less.

I do not know when and where this genre of writing became so fashionable among the Iranians. This is the second book (the first being Jasmine and Stars) of this nature in which the author tries to cherry pick the evidence to prove his/her point and ignore whatever does not suit his or her purposes, or to connect points without any causal relations between them, or reduce and minimize evidence to the contrary to almost null, or divert the real problem to a banality and then defend it, or, in short doing whatever makes an argument fallacious and delivering as if it is sound. I found Majd a smart, talented and educated enough to be able to avoid all these errors if he wanted so. But unfortunately he chose not to avoid them, if I dare say, quite intentionally and purposefully. Though it might be the political subject matter of these books that legitimizes the use of manipulations, or just that author's relying on and praying for the carelessness of the readers, or the book has different function unknown to me.

Hooman Majd, unfortunately, did not live in Iran long enough to notice that there is a vast majority, at least seventy percent of the people, who are only nominally Muslim. They are the vast majority of people who do not even perform their daily prayers (noticed by almost all journalists and observers who traveled to Iran.) He tries to maneuver his way in response to such obvious omissions by attributing them to the flexibility of prayer times in Shia Islam. As a matter of fact, Iranians are notorious in being more lax in their religious rituals than any other Muslim nation in the world. “Do you mean there is prayer in this religion?” is a joke among Iraqi Shiites referring to this laxity. Had he stayed a few more years in Iran, not only would he not give that much weight to Iranian piety but he would have written his book differently.

The other enigma which has puzzled the world as well as many of us Iranians is the Islamic Republic's endurance despite its apparent extreme unpopularity owing to its abuse of its citizens' rights, returning to the Sharia (stoning, public lashing, execution without the trial), and setting the clock back at least to the nineteen century if not fourteen. Majd sees the magical factor in the perseverance of the Islamic Republic its ‘respect for privacy’!

Since the Islamic Revolution, the ruling clerics have been under attack both by foreign journalists and observers as well as Iranians for creating a double life for their citizens. Iranians were among the first to express their dissatisfaction over this dual existence, forcing them to tell lies to their children and behave differently in private than in public. Majd very cleverly turns the table around to the advantage of the Islamic Republic. He argues that Iranians were the first one who built walls around their gardens so they could separate the outside from their private domains. Through a labyrinth of name changing to indoor gardens to paradise, Iran to Persia, Reza Shah's fascism, to Hitler's Third Reich and many more, he concludes that it is only in this private domain and inside this wall that Iranians need to be free and that the Islamic Republic is clever enough to respect this wall around the privacy of people and does not cross it as the Shah had. (I do not know why I have such an urge to say Jall al-Khaleq!) Numerous example are given from the parties in resorts of Shemshak’s ski ramps to those of northern Tehran, where people are free to have booze, music and dance,  where people can express their ideas freely to each other without being worried that they are being spied on. Even president Khatami and Ambassador Javad Zarif and some other ambassadors (no names given, just in the case!) could sit in Zarif’s apartment and laugh at the fanaticism of those mullahs in Iran without being worried that anybody would spy on them while all these are taking place in their respected privacy! (another Jall al-Khaleq!)

Missing in this book is Iranian humanity. Majd’s view of Iran is devoid of any humanity, as if the country is populated by robots that just perform the way they are programmed to work. Two days holidays in a calendar, for centuries, would create a whole dictionary of meanings and associations around it which sometimes has nothing to do with the original intent of the holiday. Tasu`a and Ashoura are no exceptions. They are mixed with fourteen centuries of millions of people practicing it, adding to it bits of their compassion and modifying it to fit into their sensibilities and the surrounding norms. (I’m surprised he did not refer to the celebration of this occasion in New York City.) Today, the ritual is simply a commemoration of a religious rite like any other rites observed and celebrated by other religions. Easter, Shavuos, Simchas Torah, Lag B'Omer, and various Saints Days such as St. Patrick’s Day and St. Francis' Day are just a few that brings people together in commemoration of a cause and ideas attached to each, and with people things does not stay static, never!

Shocking, however, is the degree of detachment that author exhibits not only from Iranian culture but from the people. Among dozens of books written on Iran, this book was unique as how the author perceive himself as a breed apart and how unimpressed he was by the life around him. I recall reading books, even highly critical of the regime or even the people, mostly by journalists yet one still felt how at one the author was with the people, if only for a time. I recall reading books in which at least once or twice the author refers to the Iranian people's humanity which surpasses all mundane calculations, where the author bends his/her self to the  love, compassion and humanity of the Iranians which goes way beyond political necessity or social pretence, when the author sees people with souls within them that sometimes react freely without any attention to what is required of them. I recall time and again reading simple pages of these books and being touched.  Oddly enough, there was none of this in Majd’s book. Iranians in this book were a bunch of Islamic rational beings who responded to life exactly as the ayatollahs expected them to do, and as is convenient for Majd to summarize them.

However, my objections all lose their validity if we look at the book from a different angle, if we see it as a cover resume in an application for a position as consultant to the State Department or a liaison between the Islamic Republic and the United States. Majd, with his grandiose invitation, “Give it to me whatever mess you have, I’ll fix it the way you can not believe it was any mess at all,” pictures himself as magician who can put his hands in a hat and bring pulling out doves of peace. And, gee, he is a magician. In some 265 pages there is not a single mess, horror, shortcoming, abuse or mismanagement which is not somehow justified, evaded, or dismissed deftly. Well, hats off man, hats off!

Dear reader, I still recommend the book, though I call your attention to the usage of every anecdote. And I beg your opinion as if I’m wrong or somehow hyper-sensitive.

To those of my readers who are not very patient, I recommend they not miss the last two chapters of the book, The Ayatollah Begs to Differ and Fear of Black Turban. And be patient, be patient. It is just a book, just one person’s ideas. It is about just one person looking through a looking glass sorting out the jumble of masses entangled together and trying to put them into some order. It just happens that he looks for legitimacy and stability of a very shaky and illegitimate system which has nothing to do with us Iranians, as we know ourselves. The good news is that he is not the only one with a looking glass. We each have one too.

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Polygamy and Politics

The family protection bill sent to the parliament by the government has been the subject of heated discussion in Iran these past few weeks. The latest news is that the parliament ignored the judiciary’s order to stop the process and approve the bill sent by the government and return it to the pre-reformist law.

The bill, sent by government, of course, had nothing to do with protecting families. It would only have made it easier for those who wanted to have a few wives (Article 23) in that they would not need the permission of their previous wives anymore. All they need is to supply the court with their check stub to receive the marriage certificate.

No, I did not like it either and like many of women, I had an urge to scream. However my better half, Evan, invited me to calm down and reminded me that I should give the government and the parliament the benefit of doubt. “Good point.” I admitted. It was just two weeks after I performed my jury duty and I gave in easily. I should make sure the “guilty” verdict has passed the criteria of “beyond reasonable doubt.”

No one still knows why the government made the effort to change the laws from bad to worse and why the judiciary decided to stop it and why parliament ignored it. The fact of the matter is that one way or the other it does not make that much difference. What difference does it make to separate a child from her or his mother at the age of seven or one or two. (I personally think younger the better. The child would adjust better when she/he is younger.) Or what difference does it make if a husband tells his wife that he will marry tomorrow or that he married yesterday? However, it tells a lot about a culture that its law books contain laws for cruelty and its law makers are so callous to the most basic human needs. It says a lot about the people who think in this day and age that despicable behavior such as this is such an accepted norm that we need to make a law to facilitate it. It says a lot about a government that claims it has the good of its citizens in mind.

Fidel once said, “If there is a desire, there is a need.” Does a desire for a few wives presuppose a need for it? I wonder if the old caudillo would still believe the connection held if the desire was having several wives?

I tried to imagine the various cases that one feels the need for several families. It should not be difficult since I’m from a generation in which second wives were not a rare species. As a matter of fact, I’m from one of those bi-families, and a good one, at that! All were the remnant of the socio-economic conditions of the nineteen century which, thanks Heavens, do not exist any more. But really, what might urge a man towards such a backward and weird practice?

To tell the truth, the emotional calamity brought to a woman who finds her husband married to another woman and the one who finds out her husband is in a relationship with another, remains the same; both are equally painful. For the last several years I have come to sympathize more with the women in the United States whose husbands were caught in irreversible relationships with women, than those who found out their husbands took a second wife in the Islamic Republic. I cannot forget the horror I felt when one morning, on the front pages of all the newspapers was the picture of a young woman with a new born baby facing the other half of the page with a big portrait of our beloved Rev. Jesse Jackson “apologizing to his family.” I do not know how his wife took it but I would have picked up the heaviest frying pan and banged it on his head, not because of the woman and the baby but for his senseless apology. Of course, that put an end to Jesse Jackson; not my frying pan, but public opinion. He never appeared in public again and he sure deserved it, the idiot!

There have been  similar cases with one Iranian activist which brought such a horror to us all when we heard the news while celebrating Yalda with family and friends at our home. No, I did not pick up my frying pan, but my brother-in-law, with his sense of humor, rescued his old combatant hero and said very naively “there is nothing wrong with young women, they are as good as any other women. What do you have against them, constantly keeping tabs on who left his wife for a younger women?” God bless his humor, at least we could finish our dinner.

Here I’m not concerned about the advantages or disadvantages of polygamy. In my lifetime I have seen enough cases of reasonably happy polygamies and unhappy monogamies. I can also find countless advantages in polygamy if I want to. (I have no such intention, since it is barbaric.) As for unhappy monogamous relationships, we do not even need to look for it in odd places. We can just pick couples at random and find disaster easily.

I am, however, concerned with those who might possibly need to be polygamous. The divorce law made it so easy for men to nullify their former marriages and the laws of temporary marriage (sighe) made it easy to have extramarital relationship without the headache of second or third family responsibilities. I cannot come with any other than a handful of wealthy oversexed illiterates, social misfits, idiots, and the stupidest weirdoes who do not understand the meaning and the purpose of marriage or family.

Since there is not even a single public figure, including the clerics, who have more than one wife (even Mr. Gholamhossein Elham, with such a perfect wife as Mrs. Fatemeh Rajabi, whom everyone desires at least one of for a wive, remains monogamous!), I cannot conclude that this bill is motivated by some self-interest. Nor would it gain the support of some tangible majority in the upcoming election; quite the opposite—educated, and even not so educated, Iranian men find this idea so abhorrent that I do not think they would ever want to indulge in this practice even if they met the qualifications. And the poor people won’t be eligible even if they desire such idiocy. Then I’m left with the question of why and why and why?

My husband came with his voice of conscience again: Give it the benefit of the doubt! Maybe in some weird way the government is trying to protect women by this law. Aha! That is it! Women should know that it might happen to them easily, and therefore should protect themselves against it by setting the condition beforehand when they are getting married. They should have the right to divorce, and also a heavy mehriye. Will that do it? Yes? No, it would not. Article 25 of the same bill repealed taxes on “unreasonable” mehriye. Very clever, indeed very clever. (Here sharia becomes irrelevant!)

The truth of the matter is that our beloved government is not thinking of anybody’s interest at all. This law has nothing to do with protection, securing interests, promoting values, advocating principals—in short, it is not even concerned with gaining any popularity among the idiots. This law is simply about domination.

Humiliation is the foremost tactic used by the occupier. All colonial powers used it in a variety of way and the “Great Satan” the United States still using it as well. Invaders usually make a show of domination first by humiliating the defeated and by violating them. The destruction of cultural institutions and putting down of whatever is considered a source of national pride are among the most common tactics. It is not a mere accident that the invaders first set fire to the conquered people’s libraries and burnt their artifacts. The occupiers were willing to sacrifice the wealth to assert their domination. Public killings, tortures, insults, and rapes would follow to humiliate and damage the pride and honor of the defeated nation.

The fact that the Islamic Republic is enforcing these laws of sharia so gradually indicates how the implementation of religiosity is the last thing which interests them. If these laws are of any religious significance, they should have been imposed immediately after the Islamic Revolution, or within the few years while Imam Khomeini was still alive. Why wait thirty years to taste their fruit?

Progress in any culture is measured by the existence of various institutions. The position of women in society and their place in the culture of that nation is one of the foremost standard criteria measuring the degree of their advancement. Iranian history stands high in that regard among the civilizations up to the advent of Islam. The best testimony to this claim is medieval literature. (Compare the Camelot legends and their spin-offs (like Tristan und Isolde) with Vis o Ramin or Haft Peikar.)

I assume that even the statements of “God’s satisfaction is resulted from Fatima’s satisfaction” attributed to Prophet Mohammad, PBUH, was meant to reconcile the Islamic misogynistic laws to that of the Iranian view of women.

The Islamic Republic from day one tried to humiliate Iranians by asserting its domination by crushing what was so dear to our hearts, starting with our national holidays rooted in pre-Islamic Iran, putting down those that we were so proud of, such as Ferdawsi, Dr. Mosaddeq, and all those who are more associated with Iranian heritage and playing up who did have any sort of Islamic affiliation though not such a good name, Sheikh Fazlollah Nuri. They purged or killed the nationalist activists, artists, poets, and intellectuals as much as they could, just to press us by eliminating the sources of our pride to make our submission faster and easier.

Amongst the sources of our pride was the women’s rights, unique in the Middle East, and number one among the Islamic nations. The advancement of women in various artistic, scientific, professional, and academic fields was so overwhelming that it took the Islamic Republic quite a while to lower it if not completely crush it. It should not have been difficult to predict what would befall us in that regard, though still I’m puzzled as what stopped us from seeing through it.

It did not last long for the first arrow to be shot, targeting the appearance of this institution, Islamic hejab. It was not difficult to suspect that it would not stop there and it did not. Marriage age and legal age were dropped to nine. (Yes nine! It is a wonderful age to run a family!) The Family Protection Law was returned to the Dawn of the Faith, child custody was given back to the father and the father’s side of the family (though modified a little, thanks to the Shirin Ebadi’s efforts, now of course is going back to its previous stage) and then the whispering about rationing the entrance to the university on the basis of gender (which I think will happen if Ahmadinejad is re-elected,) and last week the masterpiece of all was the new bill, or “polygamy made easy.”

Fortunately, the overwhelming majority of Iranians abide by Iranian culture which is deeply based on the fairness and balance, with family and women as its main vital core. The shariat had to wait for centuries to have a major effect in Iran, and that only if lucky, if the Hidden Imam really appears in person today with the laws in his hands!

I’m sure our concern is not geared to the actual effect of this law, nor towards those few women who are affected by it, since they should have many other worries living with such creature. These laws of the shariat, stoning, divorce, child custody, guardianship rights in marriage, demanding sexual submission, limited movement in life (requiring permission for work and education), inheritance (thanks to Khadija, PBUH that women could maintain the right to their own property still, the only right left to them after marriage), and many others all in favor of men, are so outdated and backward that they would never find their way into our life. Indeed, none of these laws, in comparison to our secular laws, or even our traditional customs, are considered progressive or even compatible with the world we live in. Focusing and fussing about one of them is just a futile effort to lead us to more disappointments. Either we have to resist it altogether or its sources or at least if we are to fight the details we should do it in order of their priority. In either case, we have to be well aware for what reasons we are fighting these laws:

• Is it because they do not fit into Iranian tradition and culture? 
  
• Or because they produce more pain to most of the people? 
  
• Or, though they do not produce pain to so many, but if they become a norm and become a widespread practice, then they produce pain to a large majority? 
  
• If they become a common practice, then the order of the society would be disturbed? 
  
• Or that their concepts are so grotesque and weird that they are disturbing? 
  
• Or that they would make daily life messed up if they were practiced beyond isolated cases?
  

A long list of these questions should have been asked by each and every one of us prior to voting for the Islamic Republic. But at least now we should answer some of these questions in order to be able to stand up and protest against it.

Of course we should not expect miracles. We should not expect anybody to listen to us since we all are irrelevant. Our efforts are just to clarify for ourselves why these laws are undesirable, just in case our children and our grand children one day would come to us ask our opinions.

To read the rest, click here.

“Wild, Wild, West”: The Right Hemisphere of Islamic Republic.

Eye opening , if not shocking, Serge Barseghian’s interview with the producer of the controversial film The Execution of Pharaoh baffled me more than the even the news of Photoshopped photos of missile tests.

Barseghian introduced the producer as one of the so-called students who climbed the American Embassy’s wall and “fell on the right side of the Islamic Republic’s political arena.” Indeed it was a good analogy, this division of the Republic’s right and left side. But as to the nature of its “right side,” Barseghian, a highly professional journalist, skillfully gives the interviewee a chance to portray it better than any of us could imagine.

Thanks to Serge, the interview took me to the imaginary “Wild Wild West” (if anyone is old enough to recall that popular late sixties TV western serial) where I found myself in view of the Islamic Republic’s right hemisphere which, oddly enough, in spite of all its anti-American diatribes, is politically modeled America’s own neocons. The interview revived the memory of the early days of the Revolution when independent groups led by self-appointed sheriffs took the law in their own hands and, with their private armies, were about to rule the way they wanted. Many of those sheriffs survived and indeed have been promoted to high offices.

Foruz Raja’ifar, one of those promoted sheriffs, is the producer (compiler?) of the controversial series, The Execution of Pharaoh, a derogatory title for a film on assassination of Anwar Sadat, the late president of Egypt, who had given refuge to the Shah after the revolution, by an Islamicist named Eslamboli. Apparently a street in Tehran is named after “Shahid Eslamboli” either in simple appreciation of his religious bravery to kill Sadat or to get even with Egypt’s naming a street for Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi or purely as an act of provocation. The government of Egypt, after some deliberation, responded to the Iranian demand to change the name of the street and probably as a good will offering, changed it to something even worse in the eyes of Islamic Republic, Dr. Mosaddegh Street, and demanded the Islamic Republic reciprocate. The second city council, with an overwhelming fundamentalist majority, voted in favor of this, though it never took placed due to a strong protest from a staunch fundamentalist Islamic group, the Organization for Honoring the Martyr of the International Islamic Movement, headed by Foruz Raja’ifar, who generously offered, “One street named Eslamboli? All of Tehran is nothing but Eslamboli.”

As why a film with such an inflammatory title should be made in such sensitive times in Iran-Egypt relations, the country which apparently had been instrumental in Iran—American relations, without the permission of the government, was answered by Raja’ifar, “Making this film was publicly announced. As a civil organization we are not obliged to obtain permission from any governmental institutions. Indeed, the government agencies knew we were making the film and they should have pursued it, and if they needed some clarification, we would have answered if they would have asked.” And her reaction to the Iranian Foreign Ministry, which announced that the film does not represent the Iran’s official position? “Hearing this, I thought I was dreaming. Did not the Imam say that this Eid-e Ghorban is more holy and cheerful since Sadat has joined Pharaoh?”
Barseghian tries to argue that if the government, a fundamentalist, and not a reformist, tries to established relationship with Egypt, it must have had the support of the Supreme Leader, and the making of a film as such expresses the opposite of what she and her group advocate. It is more a display of conflict with the government they claim to support. To that, Raja’ifar is very blunt: “I need to hear it directly from the Supreme Leader. Then we would be the first to comply with his wishes” She continued, “We asked the government about the establishment of relations with Egypt and why it was happening. Has anything changed? Have we changed? Has Egypt changed? They have not responded yet, and we are still waiting.”

Raja’ifar seems to have a full autonomy in her own domain, with her own rules and laws. She questions the legitimacy not only of the institutions of the presidency or the foreign ministry, but those of the city council, Islam (Is opening a grave permissible in Islam?), the constitution, all the Iranian traditions, and human decency. She is still demanding the extradition of the Shah’s skeleton. (What does she want to do with few pounds of bones?) She had collected 60,000 signatures from the various protestors who were ready to get involved in “martyrdom operations” abroad. (The mission was never accomplished due to some considerations she prefers not to discuss!)

Perhaps this provocative film has been made with the knowledge of the government official. Otherwise, it is one of those secrets that we won’t discover any time soon, and probably not in my lifetime. But judging from the last thirty years of the Islamic Republic’s affairs, I’m not surprise at the emergence of these self-appointed guardians and spokesmen ever so conveniently exercising their right of freedom of expression. I’m not so sure as to the production of a film with such a scope in this stage of our history would be just a mere coincidence or the simple documentation of an historical event; but it certainly resembles many of the coordinated political events occurring in the Iran, as parts of an ongoing Islamic Republic political maneuver, and their way of sending a message and communicating their diplomacy with other nations.
If that is the way the Islamic Republic is managing its affairs, so be it. I can even desensitize myself to the emergence of these autonomous ringleaders, and their activity. But it is difficult to ignore their effect and its reflection on us all. A film as such portrays us, the Iranians, as Raja’ifar intents, as hateful, aggressive, wild, unbridled horsing around a lawless land. It is interesting that the government officials who are so sensitive towards “protecting the public order and social stability” turn a deaf ear to all this rowdiness.

Raja’ifar, in her interview not only takes us to that other side of the Islamic Republic, to the wilderness in which no one is accountable to any one else anymore, a primitive wilderness in which a chief rules by virtue of his power and nothing else. She asserts her chieftainship as well when she claims that it is the government that should respond to her regarding foreign policy! I wish we all had so many rights! Wow! Such a respect for democracy, for people, for law, for government! Such a distinguished model of citizenship!

Oddly enough, Raja’ifar is not alone. There are whole range of these wild ringleaders in the country who do whatever they want and say whatever comes to their mind, and all are under the umbrellas of the “revolutionary zeal” and “devotion to Imam Khomeini and the Supreme Leader,” while in reality they might very well provide a cover and shelter to the government to get away with many of his wrong doing by claiming, “Well, it is not our position and these are private citizens expressing their ideas!”

It is interesting that as the result of this film, which, even though it is not being distributed, has found its way to Sadat’s family, the relationship between the two countries has deteriorated; the soccer game they had been scheduled to play has been cancelled, the diplomats have been recalled, and still no one is questioning anybody regarding this film. In part of her interview she said that, “The Egyptians are not free in their country to say what they want and do not understand that in our country there is the freedom of speech and we can express ourselves freely.” Truly, I did not know that either. I bet lots of journalists and activists in jail do not know it either, but we all know it now. Yes, we have freedom of expression in our country, but just in the right the side, remember!

Still, there is something more to this interview. It legitimizes the use of pronouns “they, them, and you” not according to the rules of grammar, but as opposites to “us.” I confess that I have used the pronoun “you” and “they” here and there occasionally in my articles non-grammatically, and I should admit that drawing that line never came easy and it won’t be easy now either. However, the pain of being part of the wilderness and lawlessness is much too strong to stop me from continuing this practice.

Furthermore, a film as such, even if it is necessitated and sanctioned by the Islamic Republic’s diplomacy, still bears bitter results. A film, like a book, is an artifact which remains forever. For years to come, there will be “Iranians” making an insulting film about some other country’s leader, there will be “Iranians” who demand such a barbaric request as to extradite the skeleton of a man who died years ago and happened to be a dictator in his life time, oddly enough very much like the current regime but a little less murderous and a little more lawful.

But really, who are these people who dare to talk in our behalf? Who are these Raja’ifars who equate our cities to a terrorist? And who are these people who are so immersed in the pool of hatred and revenge as to demand the skeleton of a man who died thirty years ago? And who has given them that authority?

What sort of civilization do they represent? Is it that of Islamic civilization? Surely it is not Iranian. We all come to the world, live for a while, and go. Whatever our relationship with each other in this life and in this world, when we die our body is respected regardless of how sinful our souls and how malicious our relationships were. The body should be disposed of with respect, whether it be the Shah’s or anyone else’s. Raja’ifar and all her 60,000 signatories could portray themselves as evil as they want, but they should leave our nation out of it. We do not demand anybody’s body for better or worse. Not us, we do not wish to be included in this wild, wild world, although we are included if we do not separate ourselves, the last remedy left to us.

In the absence of any wisdom to remind these fellow “wild” and “free” citizens that every inch of Iran belongs to all Iranians, Moslem or otherwise, and Khaled Eslamboli has no right to any of it, we, the residents of the left hemisphere, have to remind them that at some point their reign is going to end, just as it did for all who invaded this great country of ours; and what would remain of them is what has remained of others, just a name. The only difference would be that there would be left more records of the Islamic Republic than that of the Mongols, or even Pahlavis for that matter, thanks to professional journalism and multimedia. If the past history is registered just with scattered references to terror and violence, the Youtube abundantly spices the Islamic Republic’s violence with a bitter and sad laughter and holds them all afresh and intact for ever. Though I’m not sure that the generations coming, long after we all are gone, will be able to have even a sad laughter at these dark pages of history.

To read the rest, click here.

Just Stay Aside and Be A Viewer

[The following is a translation of an essay by Bijan Safsari.]

In his memoir, Bozorg Alavi, the famous Iranian writer, recalls:

Ostad Dehkhoda would come to visit us occasionally. During the summer, we would gather together in one of the cafés in Lalehzar Alley. The café was inside a large garden. There was a little path in this garden leading to a little pool. An assortment of geraniums planted in clay vases was placed all around this pool. One night, we were sitting together ten feet away form this scene and nagging. We thought we could straighten out the whole world. Ostad listened to our conversation, our criticism, or our fault-finding, and, realizing that we were all unhappy with the current situation, looked at the pool shimmering under the light cast from a lamp above, and said, “What’s the matter with you guys? Why you are so sad? Look at that scene under that light and see how it emits beauty and freshness. Just try to enjoy it. Why do you want to go closer? Each one of these mosquitoes and insects carries thousands of malaria, cholera, and hepatitis germs in them. Let them do their job and you sit aside and watch the beauty and charm.”

This anecdote is very similar to the story of some of our friends and colleagues who unnecessarily expose themselves to the dangerous and deadly mosquitoes of the world of politics without being aware of the political guile, with the hope of regaining lost opportunities. They may nurture a vague idea that if they succeeded, they would leave a good name behind and would be remembered as a savior and a hero in the struggle for freedom. What they are not aware of is that in this chaotic market of politics there is no commodity but lies, deception, and tricks, and what may appear as freedom and liberty in this desert is none but a mirage.

Many might criticize the writer of these pages and object, how could one gain freedom without struggle since it is an ancient proverb that “Rights must be taken” and in the entire history of struggle for justice among the nations, people had never gained any liberty, freedom, or independence by sitting idle. Iranians, too, have never done any different than this ancient wisdom.

In my humble opinion, while agreeing with these words of wisdom, we have to note that what we have all read and learned about struggling and fighting for freedom and justice belongs to the time which today is considered ancient history and old legends. Our time is not the same as our ancestors’, nor are we ourselves the same as our forefathers. There is an anecdote that once [Prince] Zell ol-Soltan visited one of the stables of one of the Bakhtiari tribe’s khans. After the khan showed all his horses one by one and bragged about their breeds, Zell ol-Soltan, nostalgically, said “Khan, what happened to horses like Rakhsh, Samandar, and Shabdiz? Why we do not have those breeds anymore? Where did they disappear to?” The khan answered, “Your highness, those horses where ridden by men like Rostam and Parviz and are gone with them.”

Now why are we neither like our ancestors nor our time like days gone by? I can see only two reasons for it.

First: Thirty years has past of what we mistakenly called a “revolution”, and we are still dreaming and longing for what seems to be impossible. Since a century ago, we, the people of this old country, have faced and borne the wounds of swords, daggers, and bullets in our chests in order to have a house of justice, a house of the people, but alas, no law and no justice obtained. After any change and movement in the system or even the governments in our old history, it took us at least half a century to live in injustice just to find out:

I expected to find a trace of the Kaaba
But found that all roads lead to Turkistan.

And that is while our ancestors were not as we are today. They never gave in to injustice, nor did they ever leave a day’s work for the day after. They were not delusional, waiting for a hero or savior.

Second: in our vernacular, this is the age of treachery, and as a matter of fact, this term connotes politics. What has passed to us these last thirty years is testimony to this claim. From the time that they witnessed the picture of the beloved in the moon to today, where they are wheeling and dealing behind closed doors, when every passing day by revealing some crime, the foundation of the nation’s trust is shattered so badly that it has become difficult to differentiate between friend and foe. For instance, have a look at the figures indicating that American exports to Iran has grown by a factor of ten after they labeled us “terrorist,” and this while the whole world, on America’s insistence, is barred from having any economic or commercial relationship with Iran. In addition, our statesmen, in spite of calling the United States an enemy of Iran for the last thirty years, have make a deal with this “Great Satan” behind the scenes. During the last few days on Saturday, July 12, in the Voice of America which has become a major source of news for many Iranians in Iran, in an interview with a retired official of the United States State Department, the secret meetings (as well as some open ones) between the Iranian and American high officials were revealed. Though, it may have been a political trick to embarrass and discredit its rival; still the quick and easy shut down of the opposition’s broadcasts and agreement reached regarding the final part of the program, lead us to put aside our optimism and believe our statesmen’s claim that the possibility of the US attack should not be taken so seriously.

Now, given it all, shouldn’t we take Ostad Dehkhoda’s advice and just sit aside and be a spectator?

To read the rest, click here.

Good Hejab by Choice

One of the first questions raised by Iranian women when Khomeini first appeared was if the Islamic hejab was going to be mandatory. Imam Khomeini’s answer was a blunt, “No.” I think he kept his promises and never issued any order in that regard. However, a year later, when the regime established itself and no one would dare ask such questions, his son-in-law, Ali Eshraghi, who has gone to Khorramshahr to investigate the oil worker crisis, came back with the solution of mandatory hejab! Of course, before that some ministries, such as the Foreign Ministry (of which Ebrahim Yazdi was in charge) had placed big boxes of rupushes and maghnes at its entrance for free to encourage modesty.




Prime Minster Mehdi Bazargan, more experience in politics and more familiar with Iranian culture than anybody else around in the government, disagreed with the whole issue. It is well known that he told Eshraghi, “Don’t wake up this sleeping elephant. If you let it out, you can never get it back into his cage. Do not touch the women’s hejab.”

Well, the hejab became mandatory, women protested, but demonstrations were brutally crushed. I heard from several women that during those days of protest, if it had not been for the generous help of shopkeepers or families along the way, they would have been killed.
With the start of the war and its escalation, the hejab, along with other women’s issues, became secondary issue and gradually turned into law without being challenged. But as soon war ended, women, the younger generation in particular, started their own innovative ways to express their dissatisfaction with hejab as well as other issues, forming a variety of associations, publications, NGOs and online institutions.

Some thirty years later, this piece of cloth over a woman’s hair has turned into a major tenet of the Faith. It is no longer a sign of discriminating believer from infidel, its original intention in the time of the Prophet Mohammad, peace upon him; it is not the sign of modesty, as interpreted by the clerics in our neighboring Islamic country Pakistan, with over a hundred and thirty million Muslims; it is not incorporated into our traditions and customs, as has happened in South Asia and Africa; and it does not even indicate piety, since it has been used by a wide variety of women, including those of ill repute. Instead, it seems to have become a weapon as well as a shield: a weapon in the hands of the ruling authority to curb the most active, united, and organized population in the country, of course with minimal success, and a shield for many women who think covering themselves in this fashion would bring them the reward of a few inches of room in the assembly of the holy, with no greater success.

However, I have known quite a number of pious and religious women before and after the revolution who wear the chador, not to show off their religiosity, but as a modest covering simply to draw less attention and somehow be invisible. The sincerity and honesty of their intent always aroused our deep respect for this article of clothing. I do not know of any Iranian little girl who has not been drawn to this fanciful, cozy device at a certain age. It was a natural stage of life without the interference of any police chiefs or basij officers!

What brought me back to this piece of clothing was a report from Paris and few photos from Oslo. The report from Paris was that of Fakhr os-Sadat Mohtashamipur, a reformist and a women activist, participating in a conference of women scholars. She had delivered her talk while covering herself in a black chador. Noticing the oddity of the situation (credit to her), she felt obliged to explain it to her audience. Apparently, prior to her trip, one women friend half jokingly told her, “No one will listen to what you say if you appear in that outfit,” referring to her chador. To prove her wrong and also, as she said, “being hurt emotionally by all the debates of these last few months regarding the superiority of chador over the scarf (she indicates she has chosen the chador of her free will), she decided to vent her frustration as well as to prove that “people would listen to ‘just words’ even if one wears a chador,” using the platform provided to her by Association of Women Researchers. (It is interesting that since last year, when the ruling authority started to abuse their power to brutally treat women who are “bad hejab”, we hear more about the complaints of women who are “good hejab by choice”—lets call them GHBCs. They are upset because they are considered by those “bad hejab” not as friends but as foes. The unkind looks and sometimes hostile glares of the “bad hejabs” became very hard and unbearable for these GHBCs!)

I do not know what sort of reasoning she used to convince herself, but to my ear it is most incongruous and odd. If a friend makes a joke, one can either take it lightly or answer it in kind. Why should she take it so seriously? Also, what possessed her to think that we who dwell in the West and are educated here pay any attention to appearances one way or the other, or place the same importance on them that the mullahs do in Qom? Most of us receive our information via radio or internet or books, and most of the time we do not know what the speaker or writer looks like or what he or she wears. How did she manage to form such a superficial impression of us?

But given all this, how did she come to the conclusion that she achieved what she was after? What evidence does she have that we, the audience in West, were not overwhelmed with her appearance and listened to her “right or just words?” We might not have! Indeed, we may have been so turned off by her arrogance and her self-righteousness and not by her chador as she expected, that we said to ourselves, “The hell with it, lets take a nap!”

But really Ms. Mohtashemipour, what did you achieve? We here have a life to run and frankly we do not give a fig how you appear on a panel discussion, and it does not matter if you want to cover yourself in hundred layers of chadors voluntarily or otherwise. When you appeared on stage with that outfit, you appeared mostly as a confused, immature woman who did not know what is appropriate. Your further remark and explanation, as it was posted on your blog, embarrassingly enough, confirmed that you cannot even separate your emotions from your work or at least set a priority. Ironically, it was you who placed such importance on your appearance that you forgot to do your homework right and began with a statement like, “Women stepped into the social arena with the founding of the Islamic Republic.”

Let’s imagine that you had used your platform to say the following instead:

My choice of cover is the chador, and that is what I have worn voluntary all my life, but today, as a sign of solidarity with millions of my sisters back home who are forced to wear it against their belief and will, I would like to present my talk with my head uncovered, first to express my sympathy to those who are doing what is painful to them and second to tell those pious Moslem that fresh air touching my hair does not take the least away from my piety and religious zeal, though I feel pained by doing so.

Let me assure you as to what would have happened: You would have ended up jobless upon your return, if not in Evin Prison. Needless to say this would not have been for displaying your hair, but for your solidarity.

(There is one issue I can not resist mentioning. In our Western education, we have learned that choice is meaningless if there is no freedom and liberty and if variety is not provided. Choosing the only option “imposed” on us is in fact a psychological trick to deliver ourselves from the pain of humiliation caused by the helplessness of being forced into a situation. The Christian doctrine of “turning the other cheek” based on the above-mentioned principal was advised when the Christians were under Roman occupation and enslaved. It was meant to ease the pain of the torture and hardship they were suffering. While millions of women in Iran are forced to wear a dress that they resent without having any other option, “chador is my dress of choice” is either a euphemism, tinted with manipulation, or just giving up the shirt when our jacket is stolen, just to relieve ourselves from the pain.)

The second jab came from photos of Masumeh Ebtekar, who was sitting next to former president Khatami in a conference in Oslo. It seems she wore two or three chadors, one on top of the other. Here in the United States we have an expression: “Converts are the worse kind.” I think it is true about Ms. Ebtakar. What is the meaning of those chadors and scarves which recently have extended to cover her hands as well? Do these yards of black fabric (exactly eight and half yards make a chador) have any spiritual function or is it just a statement? Clearly being devoid of any piety, it must be the latter, but what is it? That how virtuous we, the carrier of that black tent, are? That we are better than the others, purer, more pious, more clean? Or does it indicate that Masumeh Ebtekar can sit on a panel of significance with this odd and out of place black cloth wrapped around her, indifferent to the surrounding norm? Then what? Suppose that the entire audience nodded their heads as an assent to her existence as such. What is achieved by all this? Where does she want to go from there?

In every society, more or less, there is a sort of standard of appropriateness for dressing in public. Islam’s bar for body covering might be higher than some other cultures. But Iran is not an Islamic country per se; we are Iranian and have our own culture. Even our Islam is very much Iranianized. Thirty years is too brief, next to null, to establish such a bizarre institution in our society. Of course, women should choose their clothing freely if there is any option. If one wants to cover herself completely to be invisible, it is her choice and is respected. I do not deny the force of brutality, I do not deny the fear of physical pain, I do not deny our limits in tolerating humiliation, and I do not encourage anyone to challenge the ruling authorities since I don’t confront them myself. However, it is the least to expect from our reformist friends who claim to be the torch bearers of progress and civil society not to submit, leave alone cooperate, with the ruling establishment in implementing their invented institutions. The chador, even if it is a pure Iranian invention as some have claimed, has never been institutionalized as such in our country. Indeed, its primary purpose was a way of protecting the dignity of the poor and humble who could not travel with the trappings of the rich and haughty. It was never meant to protect the outsider from the evil emitted from our hair.

A century and a half of the dark ages of the Qajar dynasty followed by the totally different era of the Pahlavi dynasty is a good indication that even if the Islamic Republic lasts for a century, still the institutions, which do not fit our culture, won’t take root in Iran. I would like to call those GHBCs’ attention to the pictures left from the parties thrown in various clubs on Women’s Day in commemoration of the abolition of female veiling. It is interesting to see how so many women were ready to leave harems and hejab altogether and grasp the freedom, even if it was just a superficial aspect of freedom. Please go to the family albums and look at the faces of grandmothers and grand-grandmothers, proud and happy in their western cloths with those pretty hats. Even better, look at the pictures of early women’s associations and high school graduations and see how confident and determined those women looked in their western apparel and their new self-image looking forward to their new horizon.

Ms. Ebtekar, Ms. Mohtashamipoor and other GHBC ladies, you can appear in any outfit of your “choice” anywhere as individuals, without any justification, explanation, or apology. However we all should keep in mind that millions of us do not approve of that black cloth and that it means nothing but a cruel means of suppression and domination, and, ultimately, punishment. No, we do not accept it by “choice,” as you may have noticed, and not even by force. You GHBCs, you are not one of us, not because we do not believe you, you really might have “chosen” to be clad in that black shroud quite willingly, but just because you are unhelpful. Do you understand? Precisely when police were arresting innocent women and beating them in public for few strands of exposed hair and “their choice” of dress, you choose selfishly to stick to your favorite piece of cloth, which, incidentally happens to be what the rulers try to impose on everybody. And even worse, you get upset and hurt when those women, while beaten with clubs by another GHBC police woman, with blood pouring out of them, look at you with disgust and resentment. No ladies! “Choice” is not the right term. “Betrayal”? That might do. “Self serving”? A little better. “Opportunist”? Bravo! You said it right.

But sisters, hold on tight to your chadors while climbing up the ladder of your choice, but be careful not to fall off. Remember up there everybody is like you yourself, self-serving and self-righteous. One might have one more layer of covering than you, and that will do! I’m warning you, it is very lonely up there! And lonely down there! Watch out! But still, good luck to you all, if that is all you are and that is all you want and that is all you can offer.

To read the rest, click here.

Laughing Without an Accent

Firouzeh Dumas' second book may not throw you off the bed with laughter as the Funny in Farsi does, but it certainly warms your heart as much as any humorous work of art might.

Like her previous book, if there is one unified theme I can point at, it is our humanity which makes us like each other. Reading her memoir, I thought I had already heard each story. They were all familiar and all humane, whether her father's stubbornness, her mother's naiveté, the childishness of most the adults in her own childhood mind; whether she criticizes some Iranian traditions or American modernism, whether she praises the “less” and “limit” or criticizes the abundance and waste, all this makes a point: our humanity.

As someone who has a keen eye and an acute taste for pattern, I could not detect any particular pattern in the collection of her memoir. However, the randomness of the stories is not devoid of merit; it fits into the nature of humor which is itself random and unexpected.

By the first two chapters of the book, I came to expect a more mellow kind of humor, until I moved to the second story, My Achilles’ Meal, when I laughed so hard that tears ran from my eyes. Oddly enough, it was not the language and the text which sounded funny but the imagery implied by the story. It was the visualization of this toothless ancient women in her nineties (? ) who kept making French fries for this little girl was even more hilarious than them winding up in the water closets of department store while looking for bathroom in a story from Funny in Farsi.

The chapter on Iranian style education was my treasure. Besides her praises for Fedowsi and Hafez and Saadi, her acknowledgment of Dr. Mohammad Ali Mojtahedi, the principal of Alborz High School, was past due. Alborz College (as it was called) was indeed a phenomenal institution. It was not a token institution. (It was a trend to have a token of every thing in pre-revolutionary Iran.) Rather, it was a model institution which, thanks to Dr. Mojtahedi, set an standard and kept up to it. He was one of the several dedicated individuals who were the founding fathers (and mothers) of our educational system; and God bless them all, they did a fantastic job.

Maid in Iran was a delightful narrative about the maids in her childhood years in Abadan, who came with their own stories and left. Not only is it a tribute to the all those loving people who were part of the Iranian household, but it was a little corner of Iranian life which really deserves to be exposed. No, it was not the heartbreaking tales of cruelty, abuse, and exploitation of servants, and did not have the slightest resemblance to the Hassan’s fate in The Kite Runner. It was a human relationship in which the less advantaged benefited from the generosity and compassion of the privileged.

Last year, a friend of mine visited me from Iran. Talking about her children who did not have such a passion for education, she said now a days it is the children of servants and laundresses who attend universities and became doctors and engineers. Exaggerated as it may sound, this is good news for Firouzeh and all of us that the children of gardeners do not need to be gardeners themselves (though I should confess choosing between being a gardener and a stock broker, a financier, a dentist, and even a lawyer, with due respect to all, I would not hesitate to choose being a gardener.)

Though the cultural clashes are the main source of humor in her stories, still the greater emphasis is on the similarities which unite us all, and how differences could complement each other. The 444 Days is a delightful example of how deep down we share humanitarian values when we surpass the structural forms and focus on the essence, and when we transcend appearances for the sake of higher goals.

Humanist that she is, she is indeed very critical of American fad culture: excess and proliferation of almost everything, workaholism, the money culture, competition, a misplaced work ethics, as well as some the nuances of Iranian culture: excessive pleasantries, biases, rigid discipline, and “not letting go.” However, she still finds a way to look at the maladies with compassion. Her parents are the permanent target of her wit (whose parents aren't?) and when she picks on them, either it is over their inability as to change the way of the past and let go of the habits, their ideas, or even their clothing and other paraphernalia, or their inability to sense the world beyond their personal world. But after a good laughter she realizes it is time for peace and understanding and she goes on like this:

I’m convinced that she [her mother] holds on to things for the same reason we hold on tight during roller coaster rides; we think we have to. Perhaps with every shipment to the house, she is letting go a little bit. And perhaps she sees that even when she lets go and unexpected things happen, like a revolution that displaces her forever, she still does not fall off.

As much as I admire her peace-loving soul and her ability to wield human beings together through her finding common ground and above all humor, or finding virtue in failure (Mr. Potato), I still wish for a little of Tom and Jerry in her to manifest itself in her writings as well. A while ago I was listening to her interview one of the hostages taken in Iran who, while in the custody of the so-called students, used to tutor one of them who was preparing himself for some board exam. Firouzeh asked her, “Did you really help him?” “Yes indeed.” She answered. “You should have told him ‘the name of the organ which is big and red and pumps the blood into your system is the kidney.’” They both laughed. It was indeed another “I’m sorry” with wit.

I always take delight in reading a book which leaves me thirsting for more, for a “what if she had talked about this or that.” I wished she had talked about her speech in Of Mice and Mandalas even if it would have been irrelevant. I think that means I loved her piece Pomp It Up. That was indeed a great graduation speech. I’m sure those who listened to it had benefited from it tremendously, particularly what she said about brushing the teeth and flossing. I mean it.

And finally she did great on the subject which is forever in the heart of every emigrant “to change or not to change, that is the question.” She says “yes” to the “celebration of life” when someone dies at ninety leaving a wonderful legacy behind, instead of traditional Iranian mourning, and places a question mark on the wedding anniversary of those who have gone through an arranged marriage more that half a century ago, as if to say, “Our families decided we should marry even though I had never met you and frankly, it’s not working out so well,” Particularly when there is not even a Hallmark card saying: “Roses are red, violets are blue, on the day we got married, I couldn’t stand you.”

Laughing Without Accent is another wonderful book to have next to your bed for those nights which the rush of the problems keeps you awake.

And on the last note, as the author of the book requested and the reviewer recommends, please buy your copy of this book (If you buy it at all) from your local independent book store and please buy several copies and give it as a gift to those you love and want them to be happy.

To read the rest, click here.