The following article appeared in the Washington Post on Sunday, July 6.
| 'Do
I Have Life? Or Am I Just Breathing?'
Azar Nafisi
knows something about using language and literature as a means of
withdrawal from a hostile reality. Nafisi, now director of The
Dialogue Project at the Johns Hopkins University in Washington, quit
her job teaching English literature at an Iranian university in
frustration in 1995 and established a secret weekly salon in her home
in Tehran. For two years, she and seven of her former students met to
discuss forbidden works of Western literature. Her memoir of that
time, "Reading Lolita in Tehran," was published by Random
House this year.
When
anti-government protests erupted in Tehran last month, Outlook asked
Nafisi to conduct an e-mail exchange with someone in Tehran. Nafisi
chose a former student and close friend whom she refers to by a
nickname,"Manna," to protect her. Their conversation touched
on many topics: art, literature and, often, film. Indeed, Manna makes
frequent references to movies from the West as she describes her
feelings. She sees the black robe she is forced to wear as
constricting her daily life no less than the censor's black screen
that distorts the French film she describes seeing. But the subtext of
their conversation is often political. Manna, whose identity is known
to The Post, is necessarily guarded, mindful that the e-mails could
well be monitored. For example, she refers to Iranian President
Mohammad Khatami as "Superman," knowing that her former
teacher, whom she refers to with affectionate diminutives (Az, Azi),
will understand exactly whom she means. Excerpts:
Dearest Azi,
Tomorrow I'm
going to the movies to watch a film by Alain Resnais called
"Night and Fog." I wonder why I have chosen this movie among
all the French films shown these days in Tehran. Is it the title? I
also wonder if, like the rest of the foreign movies that I have seen
in this country for the past 20 years, it's censored. . . . The title
. . . very much corresponds to the way I feel now: Something tells me
I should send my next [e-mail using] another address. Not my real one.
Something tells me to stop right now. At this dark moment of the
night. And cover myself in fog. And censor my voice.
Dearest
Manna jan,
. . . There you
are, in the middle of demonstrations, and arrests and the
unexpectedness of the daily life, and you write me not of these, not
of the slogans used in the protests, the numbers arrested, the fear,
the uncertainty or the hope, but of going to a film . . . .
Next to your
massive sense of suspense and uncertainty, I feel so fake, so vacant.
. . . Here [in Washington] I am in the proximity of the best museums
in the world . . . I can go to the latest films . . . and what do I do
all day? I read about those demonstrations.
. . . Instead of
thinking of films that I loved so much, that I so religiously watched
in Tehran, now I give interviews, and read interviews. [They ask me,]
"Do Iranian people want Islamic democracy?" What is Islamic
democracy? Is it not insulting to think that democracy is the property
of a few Western countries? Do Iranian women like to be flogged for a
piece of hair showing? If this was their tradition and culture,
[would] they need to be flogged and stoned and jailed [to] implement
it? Do Americans need the state [to] put a gun to their heads to carry
on their traditions and culture: going to church, reading Mark Twain,
or simply protesting against or for the war? Is this Islam?
. . . You do see
my point: You live in Iran, but the atmosphere craves D.C., its films,
its Degas[es] and Hoppers, and "Law and Order" and Jon
Stewart Daily Show, and I live in D.C. constantly walking in the
showers and thunderstorms of your Tehran. . . .
My highest point
has been two interviews on NPR. [One] was about the concept of exile
in literature, and Dmitri Nabokov also participated, bringing tears to
my eyes, reading his father's poems, telling us what Nabokov missed of
his country was the air and the trees and the skies of his homeland
and more than anything else its language . . . And I talked about our
own sense of exile at home . . . how they had transformed the air and
the trees and streets and yes, the language of our homeland for us so
that home was no more and will never be home again. . . .
Dear Az,
Do they still
use the word "reformists" [in America?] about some people
here? . . . They're very much hated now. Do you remember all those
devotees of our Superman's smile and white aba? He's no longer popular
either. People curse him more than the hard-liners: "This
government has cheated us," said a lady in the taxi yesterday.
(You know that people usually have political conferences in taxis.) .
. . At night they attack the youth, in the morning we see him smiling
(still) on the TV screen.
Dearest
Azi,
As I told you in
my previous mail, I went to the movies yesterday to see three
documentary films by Resnais. While I was standing in the line, I
heard some art students talking about a missing friend. He's been
arrested a few days ago and they had not heard of him ever since. The
first film, "Night and Fog," was about a concentration camp.
Each moment of the movie filled me with horror. . . . The missing
student was on my mind all the time. . . .
The second film
was about "Guernica" -- emerging out of the cruelty of
totalitarianism and celebrating the saving power of art. Each image in
the painting shone against a dark background. Each shines before my
eyes even at this moment. The last film, "Sculptures Also
Die," was about African sculpture. In one of the sequences . . .
the African women started a ritual dance. All of a sudden the whole
screen -- except for the corners -- went dark. . . . This was not a
part of the movie but a part contributed to the movie by the director
of our Auschwitz! A new way of the censor. . . . That black piece
moved from one side of the screen to the other . . . depriving my eyes
of the beauty, of a part of a work of art, of a part of life.
I closed my eyes
and suddenly . . . [saw] shots of my life. I remembered some 20 years
ago, the first day that it was announced on the radio that veil was
obligatory. That day, as a protest, I wore a delicate black lace which
covered only a small part of my head. On the street, a young bearded
man who was on a motorcycle -- perhaps belonging to the same gang
which attack, hurt or even murder the students and people these days
-- approached me and shouted: "Where the hell do you think you
are? Champs Elysees? Cover yourself, bitch!"
Second shot: I
was walking with my boyfriend on the street one night when another one
of the gang stopped us to interrogate me about my relationship to this
guy who was neither my brother nor husband. I remember how each moment
of walking for us became an experience of horror for a long time.
Third shot: I
was a student staying at the dorm. One morning at 6 a.m. I was
startled [by] a loud noise. The guard . . . was knocking hard at my
door in a way that I felt, Here comes the time of my execution! It was
a letter: a warning from the Islamic Disciplinary Committee of the
university. I was summoned because of the way I wore my veil.
I remembered and
the black color was moving before my eyes. It has remained with me all
these years. In "Night and Fog" . . . Resnais portrayed
dolls and pieces of writing made by the prisoners in Auschwitz.
"They wove dreams," said the voice-over. Wasn't I, too,
weaving a dream, watching this film at this moment of horror and
bloodshed in my country?
Dearest
Manna,
. . . Do you
remember when we were [both] in Iran we always complained how our
story, our reality was narrated by someone else: the Islamic regime,
the Western academics or journalists. . . . It is important that we
tell our story, no matter how dark, no matter how filled with despair.
I think the first step toward our liberation is to take back our
voices from those who have confiscated [them]. Who else but people
like you who have lived this revolution can point out that Americans
and Europeans are wrong if they think they can have peace and
stability in the [Middle East] without having stable and accountable
governments answerable to their own people, who believe or at least
formally accept a set of principles and laws.
[Iran's leaders]
are prepared to have political and economic relations with the U.S.,
what they are scared of is the fact that their own people demand
freedom and security and democracy and do not want a theocracy no
matter how "moderate." The Islamic regime's main fear is the
fact that today veterans of its own revolution read Hannah Arendt and
talk of human rights, and the children of the same revolution shout
for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and none of them are
buying the myth that their brand of democracy is essentially different
from other forms of democracy the world over. Is it because some in
the West condescendingly think that democracy is a geographical
attribute and the property of a few countries and nations that they
propagate the myth that people in the Muslim world have their own
brand of democracy and human rights?. . .
Very dear
Azar,
Your emphasis on
"our own story," narrated by our own voice and not the
regime or Western media made me search for this voice. This choked
voice. And I felt so bad about this voice because of what it wants. I
felt so ashamed of myself, for what I need is merely some basic
ordinary things that are considered unimportant: watching a musical on
a movie screen, going to an exhibition of Degas's ballet dancers,
reading a book without censored parts, the right to choose not to wear
the veil. This tiny need of deciding about my hair, which neither the
hardliners nor the so-called reformists in this country care about.
Perhaps they are even frightened of it. And some western eyes dismiss
[this] as a part of "our culture" . . .
From the
fictional world of arts choked through the censor to the reality I am
living in, little by little parts and pieces of my life have
disappeared. I remember Woody Allen once saying while editing
"Take the Money and Run" that "I kept cutting the film
down, shorter and shorter, throwing things away, throwing things away.
Finally I had no film."
Do I have life?
Or am I just breathing? I am a part of the "axis of evil"
over there. And over here, [I am considered] some atheist in search of
"American democracy" or what is called a "Muslim brand
of democracy" over there. What I really want is to be an
individual who is sovereign "over himself, over his own body and
mind" (John Stuart Mill, "On Liberty").
Dearest
Manna,
. . . The reason
in the West we are wrongly portrayed is because we remain silent and
passive, or we are most vocal when we are demonstrating in the streets
or talking politics. It is much easier to talk about hard-liners and
moderates, to reduce everything to Khatami and Khamenei than to talk
about the Iranian women's longing to feel the wind on their bare skin
or the sun on their hair. But the truth of the matter is that what you
think are your simple and insignificant desires are at the heart of
these protests, and it will be these details, these urges for genuine
freedom. . . that will cause this regime's failure.
I say this
because although many of the protests are presented as purely
political, they are in fact existential in nature: Millions of people
have been deprived of their right to individual freedoms, they have
been forced to forgo the pleasure of ordinary life: falling in love,
walking down the street hand in hand, dancing, singing, wearing
lipstick -- and this turns the protest against the regime into an
existential confrontation: We are fighting in order to exist, not only
for the right to be politically active. People like you . . . are the
ones who can clarify this point for us: how one ends a day of fervent
protests where the bullet that killed the guy a few yards away from
you could have as easily hit you . . . to go and watch a clandestine
video of, for example, Bergman's "Persona."
Where can we turn
when we are caught by such extreme cruelty as that of a regime whose
vigilantes throw protesters out of their dormitory windows, and an
indifferent world that is too busy finding some saving grace for what
is at best a moderate theocracy to pay attention to such horrific
images? You turn to beauty, to the urge for a magical power that
surpasses the banality and cruelty over which you have no control.
That is why you will continue to seek out good films on your way home
from a protest.
Azar Nafisi's
e-mail: anafisi@jhu.edu
*********
Azar Nafisi
Director, The Dialogue
Project
School of Advanced
International Studies
The Johns Hopkins
University
NOTE: If you have questions regarding my schedule or availability for upcoming events, please contact Adriane Russo either by phone at 202.663.5635 or preferably by email at acrusso@jhu.edu. Thank you.
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