This Thursday KQED’s live call-in program, Forum, hosted some of the contributors to the book Let Me Tell You Where I’ve Been, New Writing By Women of the Iranian Diaspora. From their comments it was clear that these Iranian-American women writers were careful not to fan the anti-Iran flames that have facilitated the Bush administration's plan to invade Iran. For example, one of the guests mentioned that Americans should not judge living conditions in Iran by what they see in Iranian movies. These films are dramatizations of Iran’s social issues, not literal reenactments. I saw her point immediately. Would we take the bleak and gut wrenching Oscar winner “Monster” as a snapshot of American life? Another guest mentioned that while her work does not paint a rosy picture of Iran, she does not wish to leave out what rosiness there is. One guest hinted at similarities between Iran and the United States regarding the erosion of civil rights and its connection to religious fundamentalism.
In response to this careful land-mine treading, American callers phoned in with attacks. Do you not lose credibility when you compare Iran’s theocracy with the influence of religion in American life? Where is the morality police in America? Where are the veiled women in America? Another caller phoned in his support. Michael Krasny, the host of Forum tried to shield his guests by correctly mentioning that these writers and poets are not experts on the policies of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Yet that did not stop the next caller from asking the panel to comment on Iran’s appointing Saiid Mortazavi to lead her delegation to the UN Human Rights Council. With this request the caller, Judy Stone, shelled with devastating accuracy an already hard to defend position. Among other human rights crimes Mortezavi is accused of complicity in the murder of Zahra Kazemi, the Iranian-Canadian journalist who died while in Iranian police custody. It was a moment of great tension in the show.
Judy Stone is an author and former film reviewer for the San Francisco Chronicle. And she is no Iran hater. On the contrary I consider her to be an Iranophile, because her recent book Not Quite a Memoir devotes many pages to Iranian filmmakers. The philanthropic outlook of this book leaves no doubt that its author wishes to see Iranian artists thrive in a country that is worthy of their talent. She does not however seem to have caught on to the concern of the show’s guests: we live in a political environment where too much negative publicity on Iran could lead to the deaths of thousands of Iranians—millions in case of a nuclear attack-- and the destruction of this country’s heritage and infrastructure. How then to respond to the Judy Stones of America?
The best policy is to follow Iranian Noble Laureate Shirin Ebadi’s lead. Go ahead and say what you believe. Yes, Iran’s government must be held accountable for the death of Zahra Kazemi and for countless other human rights violations, but this does not in any way mean that the United States should invade Iran.
Like the baby’s real mother seeking Solomon’s justice we must make it clear that we do not support a regime change that may cost more lives than it saves. The pillars of human rights rest on the solid ground that life should not be sacrificed to principle. Confronted with rights abuse questions about Iran, our first human rights obligation is to make the questioner clarify his/her position on the subject of military intervention in Iran. “Before I answer that, I would like to know where you stand on the subject of the military invasion of Iran by the United States.” This is not an out of place request under the current circumstances. If the questioner approves of such an invasion then clearly his/her human rights concerns need further maturing. If however the questioner takes a clear stand against war with Iran we have succeeded in distinguishing a person of conscience from a warmonger masquerading as one.
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Monday, June 12, 2006
We Are Here: a San Francisco Bay Area Exhibit
The subdued gallery chatter is in Persian. The young women crowding the Iranian Yellow Pages collage hush each other genially, their giggles like Chihuahuas on dainty leashes. I have found my own display of pages to stare at, these ones yellowed with age. Khosro Golsorkhi stares back from a 1975 poster. “He had courage,” I used to say of the leftist poet who chose execution rather than ask clemency from the Shah. “Our death is eternal life,” the martyr said. “We leave this world so that our tradition of resistance remains.” He had a wife and a young son as I recall, and the Shah permitted a last visit before the execution. As a young college student I couldn’t understand why Golsorkhi turned down the offer. As a father with children I finally understand. His son would beg him to live, and the father’s resolve would not hold.
There’s another giggle, this one coming from a little girl prancing from display to display. She probably doesn't realize it but she’s making funny faces underneath a picture of an old Newsweek photo of Khomeini. “Iran thumbs her nose at grief,” is the title of this brief work of art. I named it that. The creators of this living exhibit, artist Taraneh Hemami and scholar Persis Karim would have been pleased to see it flicker to life then annihilate itself with the call of a harried mother. “I am here,” said the little girl.
Three older looking women have been inching their way towards me and Golsorkhi. Finally I can make out what they are saying.
“They were working for the Russians, right?”
“Nah baba, they were great minds.”
“What a waste, they were so young and handsome.”
Yes, Golsorkhi was handsome. It was very stupid of the Shah to hold a public trial for a man of such poise, eloquence and naughty bright eyes. Killing him was the beginning of the end for the despot. Golsorkhi's sacrifice hasn't yet become worth it. I wonder where his son lives now. Under the Islamic regime, or has he fled to freedom?
Some laughter. The young women are following a happier trail in this jungle of memorabilia collected from Bay Area Iranians and laid out in a garage-sale format. There’s a poster of the Iranian theater group, Darvag-I almost ask "how much for this one." No one in Tehran calls a frog “darvag” anymore but in the Gilan province they still use this ancient word from the extinct Pahlavi language. “Dar” meaning tree in Pahlavi and “Wag” meaning frog, tree frog. “O darvag, messenger of cloudy days, when will the rains arrive?” asks the beloved Gilani poet Nima Yooshij (1897-1959). Golsorkhi wants to know the same thing. The dry season for freedom in Iran has lasted far too long.
There’s also a photo of the Bay Area Dance troop, Beshkan. Beshkan, the rhythmic snapping of the finger to dance music, the Iranian answer to flamenco’s palmas. Unlike the quaint darvag, Tehranis still use the word beshkan. It is from the Pahlavi root skastan, to break. The same root as for the word shekast, defeat. How Iranian to use the same root word in both joy and sorrow. Why am I thinking of etymology in a gallery, I wonder. A frivolous drift? Improbable, I am in the presence of art, in fact I am immersed in it. More likely I’m trying to tell myself something. Yes of course, a large part of Iran is missing in this collection. A part of us that does not have its roots in Pahlavi.
Some of Taraneh Hemami’s other works are keenly aware of Iran’s Islamic culture, but in this oeuvre she has surrendered the canvas to the Bay Area Iranian community to put on it whatever they have been saving in the attics of their homes and their minds. And no one it seems wishes to acknowledge Islam as part of their clutter of experiences. Well, not as Iranians anyway. The Islam in this exhibit is the Islam of America. A horrific collage, made even more ghastly because it is made up of children’s drawings, remembers a day of tragedy in America. Stick figures fall out as boxy looking airplanes crash into two towers. The word “Sorry,” is scribbled over and over again in clumsy letters. All over this wall of sorrow Iranian and American flags wave in sympathy and solidarity.
I detach myself from the content and look for evidence of talent in the drawings. Most pictures have the airplanes in them, but one of them shows the towers standing by themselves leaning towards each other and touching as though in friendship or love. This was how the world seemed before the towers were destroyed. This student’s drawing reminded me of Michelangelo’s masterpiece, David. Many other Renaissance depictions of the youth show the hero exuberant after his victory over Goliath. Michelangelo’s David however has yet to put the rock in the sling. It takes genius to look for drama in the time before the event, when things could have gone either way.
I wonder what this Iranian-American Michelangelo will paint when he/she grows up to put 9-11 in an adult context. Will the question arise as to why American students were not asked to create a wall of sorrow for the 290 Iranian passengers of the Airbus that was shot down by the USS Vincennes? In what artful way will the cognitive dissonance express itself when this young artist begins to suspect that the event was not an accident but a murder to leave no witnesses to the accepted fact that the Vincennes was in Iranian territorial waters trying to provoke a fight? Swimming inside this volume of art created by Hemami I have experienced the range of emotions from nostalgia, to realization, to amusement, to sadness, horror, irony and now anger and guilt. Though his image is nowhere to be seen, I imagine President Ahmadinejad shouting slogans at me. ‘Where were you when we were dying by the hundreds of thousands? And you call yourself Iranian?” I try to move away but he follows me, Nima and Golsorkhi pleading with him to take it easy on me. “Where were you?” he keeps shouting.
I try to remember where I was when the Iran-Iraq war was at its peak. I flash back to that glass of Merlot by the poolside, the smell of suntan lotion on my shoulders, and women noisily waving me over to their game of nude water polo. The Ayatollahs had promised Iranian youth that if they died in the war, they would get to join me where I was in Santa Rosa, California. Enough young Iranians died to fill seven Santa Rosas, yet I never met any of them.
“Where were you?”
“I was here,” I mumble.
On my way out I see the mom helping her little girl write her name on a black board by the exit. The black board is a symbolic opportunity for Bay Area Iranians to say “We are here.” The little girl is intimidated by all the names written neatly in Persian script.
“You can write your name in English if you want, dear,” says Mom.
Write your name in Persian, I say to the girl in my mind. Then throw that chalk away and pick up a can of spray paint.
There’s another giggle, this one coming from a little girl prancing from display to display. She probably doesn't realize it but she’s making funny faces underneath a picture of an old Newsweek photo of Khomeini. “Iran thumbs her nose at grief,” is the title of this brief work of art. I named it that. The creators of this living exhibit, artist Taraneh Hemami and scholar Persis Karim would have been pleased to see it flicker to life then annihilate itself with the call of a harried mother. “I am here,” said the little girl.
Three older looking women have been inching their way towards me and Golsorkhi. Finally I can make out what they are saying.
“They were working for the Russians, right?”
“Nah baba, they were great minds.”
“What a waste, they were so young and handsome.”
Yes, Golsorkhi was handsome. It was very stupid of the Shah to hold a public trial for a man of such poise, eloquence and naughty bright eyes. Killing him was the beginning of the end for the despot. Golsorkhi's sacrifice hasn't yet become worth it. I wonder where his son lives now. Under the Islamic regime, or has he fled to freedom?
Some laughter. The young women are following a happier trail in this jungle of memorabilia collected from Bay Area Iranians and laid out in a garage-sale format. There’s a poster of the Iranian theater group, Darvag-I almost ask "how much for this one." No one in Tehran calls a frog “darvag” anymore but in the Gilan province they still use this ancient word from the extinct Pahlavi language. “Dar” meaning tree in Pahlavi and “Wag” meaning frog, tree frog. “O darvag, messenger of cloudy days, when will the rains arrive?” asks the beloved Gilani poet Nima Yooshij (1897-1959). Golsorkhi wants to know the same thing. The dry season for freedom in Iran has lasted far too long.
There’s also a photo of the Bay Area Dance troop, Beshkan. Beshkan, the rhythmic snapping of the finger to dance music, the Iranian answer to flamenco’s palmas. Unlike the quaint darvag, Tehranis still use the word beshkan. It is from the Pahlavi root skastan, to break. The same root as for the word shekast, defeat. How Iranian to use the same root word in both joy and sorrow. Why am I thinking of etymology in a gallery, I wonder. A frivolous drift? Improbable, I am in the presence of art, in fact I am immersed in it. More likely I’m trying to tell myself something. Yes of course, a large part of Iran is missing in this collection. A part of us that does not have its roots in Pahlavi.
Some of Taraneh Hemami’s other works are keenly aware of Iran’s Islamic culture, but in this oeuvre she has surrendered the canvas to the Bay Area Iranian community to put on it whatever they have been saving in the attics of their homes and their minds. And no one it seems wishes to acknowledge Islam as part of their clutter of experiences. Well, not as Iranians anyway. The Islam in this exhibit is the Islam of America. A horrific collage, made even more ghastly because it is made up of children’s drawings, remembers a day of tragedy in America. Stick figures fall out as boxy looking airplanes crash into two towers. The word “Sorry,” is scribbled over and over again in clumsy letters. All over this wall of sorrow Iranian and American flags wave in sympathy and solidarity.
I detach myself from the content and look for evidence of talent in the drawings. Most pictures have the airplanes in them, but one of them shows the towers standing by themselves leaning towards each other and touching as though in friendship or love. This was how the world seemed before the towers were destroyed. This student’s drawing reminded me of Michelangelo’s masterpiece, David. Many other Renaissance depictions of the youth show the hero exuberant after his victory over Goliath. Michelangelo’s David however has yet to put the rock in the sling. It takes genius to look for drama in the time before the event, when things could have gone either way.
I wonder what this Iranian-American Michelangelo will paint when he/she grows up to put 9-11 in an adult context. Will the question arise as to why American students were not asked to create a wall of sorrow for the 290 Iranian passengers of the Airbus that was shot down by the USS Vincennes? In what artful way will the cognitive dissonance express itself when this young artist begins to suspect that the event was not an accident but a murder to leave no witnesses to the accepted fact that the Vincennes was in Iranian territorial waters trying to provoke a fight? Swimming inside this volume of art created by Hemami I have experienced the range of emotions from nostalgia, to realization, to amusement, to sadness, horror, irony and now anger and guilt. Though his image is nowhere to be seen, I imagine President Ahmadinejad shouting slogans at me. ‘Where were you when we were dying by the hundreds of thousands? And you call yourself Iranian?” I try to move away but he follows me, Nima and Golsorkhi pleading with him to take it easy on me. “Where were you?” he keeps shouting.
I try to remember where I was when the Iran-Iraq war was at its peak. I flash back to that glass of Merlot by the poolside, the smell of suntan lotion on my shoulders, and women noisily waving me over to their game of nude water polo. The Ayatollahs had promised Iranian youth that if they died in the war, they would get to join me where I was in Santa Rosa, California. Enough young Iranians died to fill seven Santa Rosas, yet I never met any of them.
“Where were you?”
“I was here,” I mumble.
On my way out I see the mom helping her little girl write her name on a black board by the exit. The black board is a symbolic opportunity for Bay Area Iranians to say “We are here.” The little girl is intimidated by all the names written neatly in Persian script.
“You can write your name in English if you want, dear,” says Mom.
Write your name in Persian, I say to the girl in my mind. Then throw that chalk away and pick up a can of spray paint.
Sunday, June 04, 2006
Islam and the da Vinci code craze
The Christian displeasure over the premise that Jesus was an ordinary mortal reminded me at first of the annoyance we Muslims felt when newspapers published derogatory cartoons of the prophet Mohammad. Yet after careful scrutiny The da Vinci Code can be seen as a deeply religious attempt to actually salvage Christianity. Americans who can no longer maintain their Christian faith while immersed in a scientific culture, showed with mega-dollar enthusiasm that they delight in the intimation that we don’t need miracles to have faith. In celebrating such an idea secular fans of The da Vinci Code have reached an essentially Islamic viewpoint.
Muslims have been saying for centuries that their prophet was just a man. He was born of the union of a man and a woman. He married, had children, got sick, and died. Yet even though Mohammad didn’t walk on water or raise the dead he inspired a major religion equal in spiritual energy to any other.
In proposing a miracle-free version of Christianity The da Vinci Code brings to mind the same challenges we Muslims faced early in our history. Fourteen hundred years ago Islam pried our psyches away from belief in miracles. Even then some new Moslems immediately grabbed onto a surrogate: the belief that the bloodline of the Prophet is special. The da Vinci Code offers the same shelter to a Christianity orphaned by modern rationalism. The allure of Code is the thrill of discovering that Jesus may have left descendents, and that they may still be among us. Shiite Muslims understand this sentiment well. Even though Mohammad was mortal, Shiites believe he and his descendents are unique in a way that you and I aren’t. Muslim Sunnis on the other hand scratch their heads at the thought that God would play favorites with bloodlines. I was raised Shiite, but I can appreciate the Sunni insistence that God looks upon all of us as equals. Yet the popularity of Code demonstrates that the Shiite point of view also has a powerful aesthetic rightness.
To illustrate, the late Harvard scholar, Stephen Jay Gould, relates the story of the Spirit of St. Louis display at the Smithsonian. A scale model of the historic airplane was to be placed low enough it could be touched. When the advocacy group for the visually impaired was contacted for feedback, they commented that the model should be placed underneath and as close to the original as possible. In this anecdote Gould observes how essential it is for humans to feel the presence of the real thing even if we have no way of ascertaining that presence. The Shiite claim that genetic proximity to the Prophet’s blood is meaningful expresses the universal human preference for touch over abstractions. The idea that there are special people among us who physically carry Jesus’ blood will have mass appeal in the Christian West. The biological resurrection of Jesus is a message of hope for many who are culturally Christian, but whose rational minds can no longer accommodate a religion of miracles.
The parallel between Islam’s Shiism and The da Vinci Code version of Christianity extends to the emphasis on the female as a divine vessel . In The da Vinci Code Mary Magdalene is this vessel, the Holy Grail. The heroine of the story is her direct modern day descendant. In Shiism the lineage of Mohammad is carried through his daughter Fatemeh. The wife of the first Shiite Imam, Ali, and the female ancestor of all subsequent imams. Fatemeh is described in these terms by Ayatollah Khomeini: “Fatemeh is the full truth of humanity. She is a being from the realm of the angels that has appeared in the shape of a human with the face of a woman.” Of course Islam and The da Vinci Code part ways as to how to honor the female connection with the divine. In Islam the tendency has been to venerate through extreme segregation, whereas The da Vinci Code continues the modern Western penchant to venerate through extreme sexuality.
Are there historical lessons from Shiism that modern “da Vinci Code Christians” could learn from? Yes, we Shiites were ultimately unable to accept a miracle-free spiritual diet. Many of us still wait for our last Imam to reappear like a messiah to reestablish justice in the world. So if you are culturally Christian and were fascinated by the book or the movie, whether Jesus was God or mortal is ultimately irrelevant to your experience. If you were drawn in by a sense of deep mystery over Jesus’ biological descendents, then The da Vinci Code has succeeded in putting religion back into you.
Muslims have been saying for centuries that their prophet was just a man. He was born of the union of a man and a woman. He married, had children, got sick, and died. Yet even though Mohammad didn’t walk on water or raise the dead he inspired a major religion equal in spiritual energy to any other.
In proposing a miracle-free version of Christianity The da Vinci Code brings to mind the same challenges we Muslims faced early in our history. Fourteen hundred years ago Islam pried our psyches away from belief in miracles. Even then some new Moslems immediately grabbed onto a surrogate: the belief that the bloodline of the Prophet is special. The da Vinci Code offers the same shelter to a Christianity orphaned by modern rationalism. The allure of Code is the thrill of discovering that Jesus may have left descendents, and that they may still be among us. Shiite Muslims understand this sentiment well. Even though Mohammad was mortal, Shiites believe he and his descendents are unique in a way that you and I aren’t. Muslim Sunnis on the other hand scratch their heads at the thought that God would play favorites with bloodlines. I was raised Shiite, but I can appreciate the Sunni insistence that God looks upon all of us as equals. Yet the popularity of Code demonstrates that the Shiite point of view also has a powerful aesthetic rightness.
To illustrate, the late Harvard scholar, Stephen Jay Gould, relates the story of the Spirit of St. Louis display at the Smithsonian. A scale model of the historic airplane was to be placed low enough it could be touched. When the advocacy group for the visually impaired was contacted for feedback, they commented that the model should be placed underneath and as close to the original as possible. In this anecdote Gould observes how essential it is for humans to feel the presence of the real thing even if we have no way of ascertaining that presence. The Shiite claim that genetic proximity to the Prophet’s blood is meaningful expresses the universal human preference for touch over abstractions. The idea that there are special people among us who physically carry Jesus’ blood will have mass appeal in the Christian West. The biological resurrection of Jesus is a message of hope for many who are culturally Christian, but whose rational minds can no longer accommodate a religion of miracles.
The parallel between Islam’s Shiism and The da Vinci Code version of Christianity extends to the emphasis on the female as a divine vessel . In The da Vinci Code Mary Magdalene is this vessel, the Holy Grail. The heroine of the story is her direct modern day descendant. In Shiism the lineage of Mohammad is carried through his daughter Fatemeh. The wife of the first Shiite Imam, Ali, and the female ancestor of all subsequent imams. Fatemeh is described in these terms by Ayatollah Khomeini: “Fatemeh is the full truth of humanity. She is a being from the realm of the angels that has appeared in the shape of a human with the face of a woman.” Of course Islam and The da Vinci Code part ways as to how to honor the female connection with the divine. In Islam the tendency has been to venerate through extreme segregation, whereas The da Vinci Code continues the modern Western penchant to venerate through extreme sexuality.
Are there historical lessons from Shiism that modern “da Vinci Code Christians” could learn from? Yes, we Shiites were ultimately unable to accept a miracle-free spiritual diet. Many of us still wait for our last Imam to reappear like a messiah to reestablish justice in the world. So if you are culturally Christian and were fascinated by the book or the movie, whether Jesus was God or mortal is ultimately irrelevant to your experience. If you were drawn in by a sense of deep mystery over Jesus’ biological descendents, then The da Vinci Code has succeeded in putting religion back into you.
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