Haale

Before Haale Gafori, no singer had made me dig up my collection of Forough Farrokhzad poems to find the one where the poet plants her ink-stained hands in the garden. Yes, Shahram Nazeri, Mohammad Reza Shajarian, Khatereh Parvaneh occasionally send me scampering to the bookshelf for a familiar Masnavi or Ghazal, but flipping through Forough after a concert is new. Finally, after years of putting up with that stubborn staccatoed synthesizer beat in Persian restaurants, a new kind of Iranian-Western theme has arrived that does not trigger a Pavlovian response to order the koobideh*.

Haale, the thirty-something Iranian singing talent is from New York, touring California. Her audience, like her music, is developing fast. These days her mystic compositions are making headway with spiritually curious Americans who delight in Eastern exotica. During Haale’s concert, I watch a young blonde in the front row sway to the lazy throbbing of the music. As the rhythm builds, the woman can no longer bear to remain seated; she stands up and twirls on her toes, palms up, head to one side, like a whirling darvish. Suddenly she skips half a continent and her darvish dance morphs into a reasonably watchable Bollywood routine. Yet this audience member is not being naïve, Haale just gave us a slight suggestion of a raga, accompanied by a hint of a tabla beat. And not just any raga or tabla beat, this texture comes straight out of the familiar John Lennon repertoire. As the saying goes, genius steals! Haale is not merely influenced by the psychedelic sixties, she is resurrecting it. In Haale’s music, the calloused fingers that Jimmy Hendrix planted alongside Farrokhzad’s ink-stained hands have sprouted.

Like Farrokhzad, Haale is overtly sensuous in her artistic mysticism. Stealing a trick from the rock repertoire of stage moves, Haale surrenders her breath to the microphone, letting it rise from her chest into a sexy nasal groan. Rumi’s drunken words first spill out of her mouth then cascade down a length of dark, disheveled hair that only a Hafez could describe. For a moment during the concert I really understood why the Ayatollahs are so intimidated by Iranian women’s hair. As with many superbly talented stage musicians, Haale is difficult to capture in the two dimensions of a photograph. Her beauty is encoded as much in the alluring way she moves and sings as in the aesthetic symmetries of her face.

Unlike many on the music stage, Haaleh doesn’t seem to make a conscious effort to exploit her sex appeal. She goes only so far physically before she turns inwards spiritually. This may or may not limit her marketability depending on whether or not she becomes aware of some of the other ways she may be holding back. She uses the Persian setar mostly as a drone instrument, and it is clear that her acquaintance with the radif of Persian music has only just begun. At times her singing instincts bring her very close to a chah-chah**, which she declines to fully develop.

The Persian chah-chah is a potentially groundbreaking development in rock music. In 1973 a singer named Clare Torry astonished the Western world by giving voice to a musical sensation that many Iranians consider routine in classical Persian music. Torry gave us the famous vocal, “The Great Gig in the Sky” in the Pink Floyd album, Dark Side of the Moon. This wordless lament is arguably the most deeply sensuous rendition of love, yearning and rapture in popular Western music, and yet, according to Pink Floyd, it is about Death and Annihilation. If you asked this most Sufi of popular Western vocals to compare itself to what Persian classical singing has already accomplished, it might say, "Maa hanooz andar khameh yek koocheh eem.***"

As popular Western music turns more and more to the past, recycling idioms from previous decades, Haale has the opportunity to upend the uncreative eclecticism by going full throttle in fusing the soul of Iran’s ancient musical traditions to the kind of profound rock that David Gilmore, Carlos Santana, and Jimi Hendrix began. Then the world can sit back and listen as a new Western musical journey through the haft shahreh eshgh**** begins. Yesterday in San Rafael, California I met a slight, down to earth, musician with enough talent to lead this journey.

*A favorite Iranian kabob dish
** A from of vocalization that sounds like yodeling to the unfamiliar ear.
***Literally "we are still around the bend of the first alley." A humble reference by Rumi comparing Attar's spiritual accomplishments to his own.
****Literally, "The seven cities of love." According to Rumi, the spiritual real estate Attar covered while Rumi was rounding that "bend of the first alley."

An amicus brief to the Iranian Supreme Court

Note: An amicus curiae brief is a letter from a party who is not the plaintiff or the defendant in a case, but who would like the court to consider the ramifications of its verdict beyond the particulars of the case.

The Iranian Supreme Court recently overturned the murder convictions of 6 Basij vigilantes who executed a young couple, Reza Nejadmalayeri and Shohreh Nikpour, on grounds that the couple’s behavior was unIslamic. Since a last appeal to undo this decision is still possible, here is a plea to the full membership body of Iran’s Supreme Court to consider the political and economic consequences of its final verdict.

In 1875 the United States Supreme Court decision, United States v. Cruikshank overturned the murder convictions of a band of white vigilantes who had participated in the lynching of several black men. The Cruikshank case and the Nejadmalayeri case are connected in ways that go beyond the de facto sanctioning of lynch mobs.

Many decades after the infamous Cruikshank decision--and many other racist verdicts--the United States was unable to morally defend itself against Soviet anti-American propaganda. During the Cold War competition for global leadership an amicus brief by the US justice department urged the Supreme Court to consider the international ramifications of how it interprets the US constitution. Similarly, in an atmosphere of anti-Iranian sentiment in the West, Nejadmalayeri should be judged in the light of the current threats to Iran’s national security.

War:
The most immediate threat to Iran’s sovereignty is the possibility of a military strike by the United States. Though support for the Iraq war is fast fading, it is a mistake to take this as an indication that post 9-11 America is ready to make its peace with the Islamic world. None of the leading US presidential candidates, Democrat or Republican are willing to take the option of a military—possibly nuclear--strike off the table. In a country where polls guide politicians' public statements it is not hard to guess what the candidates’ internal polls are revealing about the American state of mind relative to Iran. America’s internecine dispute is mainly about how badly the Iraq war was managed. No American leader is seriously considering reversing the policy of military involvement in the Middle East.

Allowing the basij vigilantes to go free gives the impression that the Islamic Regime has abdicated its authority to the mob. If the full membership body of Iran’s Supreme Court upholds Nejadmalayeri, any anti-war argument which cites Iran’s national sovereignty will lack a solid foundation. A government which does not appropriate enough authority to itself to fully administer the laws of the land, does not have a reasonable claim to legitimacy. In the past, the United States has gained support for military action abroad by successfully demonstrating that the country she is about to invade is run by warlords. Somalia, Afghanistan and the Balkans are examples. The Iranian government’s sanctioning of street justice strengthens such a case for war against Iran.

Economy:
Global warming concerns have made nuclear energy an attractive alternative to oil. As a result nuclear power generation is increasing steadily throughout the world. In the near future any country that cannot generate its own nuclear power will be at a serious economic disadvantage.
International fear of Iran’s nuclear technology program is not just about atom bombs. Due to the extremely dangerous nature of nuclear material, even civilian use of nuclear energy requires trustworthy guardianship. Iran’s government must demonstrate a high level of skill and professionalism in administrating the law, so as to foster respect for order among its citizens. Sanctioning vigilantism is a step in the wrong direction. At this point even the most well intentioned defenders of Iran’s right to advanced technologies would be reluctant to recommend scientific cooperation with Iran. Iran’s growing population urgently needs nuclear energy, and the nation’s efforts to obtain it would be hurt if the current Nejadmalayeri verdict is left to stand.

Civil War:
Citizens give their consent to be governed in order to enjoy the benefits of protection from the governing body. Victims of state-sanctioned vigilantism are denied the important protection of due process. So far secular Iranians have weighed the benefits of rebellion versus its costs and have decided that in the balance it is better to shrug off basij interference as annoyances. But once basij vigilantism goes beyond harassment to include physical harm or death, this balance will quickly change and the citizenry will withdraw the legitimacy of the regime. If Nejadmalayeri is left to stand it could become the turning point where Iran’s pacifism towards the current regime will shift to militancy.

The Cold War eventually led The United States Supreme Court away from Cruickshank towards Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark case which ended racial segregation in America. This turned out to be of enormous benefit to the country. Without Brown v. Board of Education The United States would not today be able to project her power across the globe, as she would be internally wracked by civil strife. Likewise Iran could benefit from her own landmark supreme court decisions which interpret Iran’s constitution with an eye towards national unity and international reputation.

Several years ago the Israeli Supreme Court blocked the attempt by the Israel Land Administration to create separate Arab and Jewish housing developments. The president of Israel’s Supreme Court, Aharon Barak was able to protect Israeli Muslims from discrimination by citing a famous legal precedent. The case he cited was from another country's law history: Brown v. Board of Education. In the long run there is barakat in extending the protection of our laws to all humans, even if at first it seems we are doing so out of expedience. Now Iran's Supreme Court has the opportunity to turn Nejadmalayeri into a Brown v. Board of Education. Leaving it as a Cruickshank is harmful to civilization, Iran's in particular.

300

Directed by Zach Snyder
Based on a graphic novel by Frank Miller

In one scene of this movie two women can be seen openly kissing each other in the court of Xerxes, the Persian monarch. A few cuts later, a man with a disability is welcomed into the Persian court by the great king himself. Even though Persians are a Caucasian race, they have chosen a king who appears to be of African descent. In the movie 300 the Persian Empire seems overrun by American liberal ideology. I half wondered if the bloody battles weren't really over universal health care and gay marriage.

The neo-cons in this allegory are the Spartans. Their king, Leonidas, has taken his troops to war despite opposition from virtually every wise counsel in his land. Like his modern counterpart Leonidas says he is going to battle in the cause of freedom and reason. But 300 shows us that Leonidas is not a reasonable man. In a fit of rage the Spartan king executes Xerxes’ messengers--a deed the reasonable Xerxes seems to have forgiven when Leonidas himself stands vulnerable before the Persian king. And anyone who has read even a little about Spartan society would know that Leonidas couldn’t possibly be fighting for freedom. The slaves in Sparta outnumbered free citizens by seven to one. A common initiation rite for a young Spartan male was to sneak up on local slaves and massacre them. No wonder Leonidas and his 300 braves would rather have died than become part of the Persian Empire: ever since the time of the Persian king Cyrus the Great, such human rights abuses had been against the law of the empire.

On a clay cuneiform cylinder made 25 centuries ago Cyrus declares, “I will never let anyone take possession of movable and landed properties of others by force or without compensation. As long as I live I prohibit unpaid, forced labor. Today I announce that everyone is free to choose a religion. People are free to live in all regions and take up a job provided that they never violate others’ rights… I prohibit slavery and my governors and subordinates are obliged to prohibit exchanging men and women as slaves within their own ruling domains. Such a tradition should be exterminated the world over.” The return to Israel of the Jews held in Babylonian slavery was a consequence of this legislation. Historically, King Leonidas and his 300 Spartans died to prevent freedom, not to preserve it.

So how does director Zack Snyder take these obvious facts in favor of ancient Persia to deliver a pro-Spartan message? The trick is infuriating in its simplicity, and perhaps not an undeserved insult to the members of the audience who carelessly empathize with the 300. Snyder presents the Spartans as a good-looking bunch with chiseled faces, bulging pectorals, and abs that even a computer graphics body would need megahertz crunches to accomplish. None of the Spartan's adversaries on the other hand look like they have seen the inside of a health club except Xerxes himself--and even this character has disfigured himself with unsightly piercings. Persians and other nay-sayers to the war have ugly skin, whereas the hawkish Spartans have manly sex appeal. Also, using swaggering language such as “come and get us,” and “We’ll fight in the shade,” the Spartans establish a locker room camaraderie between themselves and among susceptible members of the audience. The Persians on the other hand have obviously never drank beer in front of the TV on a Monday night.

300 is worth studying because it reflects the cognitive dissonance of American society under the Bush administration. Like the Nazi propaganda footage sometimes aired on the History Channel, one wonders just how much it will take for a human to think black is white and white is black. 300 reiterates the frightening lesson we learned during the heyday of fascism: it takes very little to manipulate the human mind. The simple ingredients are smart uniforms, and pats on the back for enjoying violence. And of course talented film directors with no scruples.

Cafe Transit

Director/Screenwriter Cambuzia Partovi

Having already won best screenplay at Iran’s Fajr Film Festival, Café Transit is now that country’s official entry for the Oscars. How did director/screenwriter Kambuzia Partovi go from having his works banned in Iran to becoming the artistic pride of his country? The answer is that Café Transit is cleverly written so that its domestic message says one thing while its foreign message says the opposite. The Western audience sees a romance between a sensuously forthright European truck driver and an enterprising Iranian widow. We are heartbroken as their love is made impossible by a nightmarish, apparently Islamic custom. Native Iranian audience, on the other hand, know that the practice of widows having to marry their dead husband’s brother isn’t particularly Islamic or Iranian. In their view, the lovers are battling against the absurd anachronisms of a backward Turkic speaking village. Western critics tend to applaud movies that authenticate the “clash of civilizations,” while Iranian cultural authorities reward movies that favorably compare their nation’s regressive gender policies against even lower—possibly fictitious--standards. Café Transit is a well crafted piece of international filmmaking that makes Iran appear developmentally stunted to the Western viewer at the same time that it makes the country’s mainstream values look culturally superior in the eyes of its domestic audience.

Catering to diverse political agendas assures wider acceptance, but a film does not become a contender for Fajr and the Oscars unless its point of view is expressed with artistic merit. Café Transit is a strong candidate for international filmmaking prizes mostly because the protagonist, Reyhan, is a refreshing twist to the standard determined-woman-struggling-against-tradition persona.

Even before we meet the charismatic heroine, the plot reveals that her real name is not Reyhaneh, but Reyhan (basil)--the same name with the feminine suffix deleted. Thus Kambuzia Partovi prepares us for a story about a woman who will transgress gender barriers. The film fulfills this expectation when Reyhan refuses to close down her late husband’s truck stop, choosing instead to use her extraordinary cooking skills to grow the business. Soon truck drivers from all over Europe and Asia are eating at her café on the border of Iran and Turkey. Reyhan’s brother in law, Nasser-- to whom truck drivers queuing up for a home cooked meal look no different than men waiting in line at a bordello--urges the widow not to dishonor the family. She should close the café, follow local custom and marry him so that he can provide for her and her two children. Reyhan, who is not a local, refuses to bend to this bizarre custom. She does not love Nasser, moreover he already has a wife. The jilted brother in law’s campaign to close down Reyhan’s business creates much of the suspense and indignation in Café Transit, particularly since Reyhan’s attraction to a Greek truck driver has made her vulnerable to gossip.

For the Iranian viewer, Reyhan’s breach of local custom is not a rebellion against the country’s mainstream Islamic values. Even though she manages a busy truck stop, she tries to avoid scandal by staying in the kitchen at all times, letting a trusted old male employee deal with her hungry customers. To the Western viewer the need for such precaution is a symptom of life in an intrusively misogynistic society. It creates sympathy for Reyhan. To the traditional Iranian, however, this is proof of the heroine’s sense of decorum. It generates respect for her and convinces the audience that the brother in law’s concern for the honor of the family has no justification.

Despite her conflict with her brother in law, Reyhan remains as respectful to him as possible. Is this because her patriarchal society punishes protest, or is Reyhan’s forbearance a sign of Iranian culture’s wisdom and humility? Fereshteh Sadr Orafaiy, who plays Reyhan, does a superb job of disallowing a straightforward answer. Instead, the Reyhan she portrays seems to understand people by way of their needs, not their threat level. The character’s natural mastery of the universal language of need is why her café has become home away from home for so many travelers from so many distant cultures.

Though Café Transit is unmistakably feminist, it subscribes to the brand of feminism that presupposes a female intuition for nurturing, specifically homemaking. Reyhan’s ability to use flavors, colors, and aromas to create an atmosphere of caring and rootedness is her main ally throughout the movie. This strength gives her success in business, a sense of independence, and a feeling of accomplishment. It also helps her in love. She flirts with Zacharias--the Greek truck driver with whom she falls in love--by sending out plates of food to him, watching him secretly from the kitchen window as he eats. Orafaiy fashions a potent feminine allure out of Reyhan’s passivity. When Zacharias finally tells Reyhan he loves her, she can only walk away without a word, but after a while her widow’s black mourning headscarf is gone, replaced with colorful ones. The heroines actions are as quietly forceful as the colors that affect our moods. Art director Hassan Farsi highlights this “feminine touch” very effectively, not only in the sets and costumes but in the amazing food presentations.

As a strong female character, Reyhan also has the power to protect. Besides enhancing the film’s feminist credentials in the West, this protectiveness serves a domestic function. The parallel between the outdated customs of this village and the reactionary gender policies of the Islamic Republic, is obvious even to the Iranian viewer, so Partovi mitigates this subversive allegory with a moralizing subplot about a young Russian woman whose Western values have led to a life of vagrancy and sex for favors. In a proselytizing gesture, Partovi’s screenplay has some unscrupulous men dump the homeless Russian woman in front of the café where her dignity is nursed back to health under Reyhan’s virtuous and motherly sheltering. There is an emotional scene where both women—neither of whom understand one another’s language—cry upon each other’s shoulders. In this touching invocation of international sisterhood, the sisters are actually grieving over the devastations of war, not the unfairness of patriarchal systems.

Crediting a female role model with special instincts for nest building, passive influence, and motherliness seems a hackneyed consolation for lack of gender equality, but that is what Café Transit offers its domestic audience. Mindful of Islamic cultural biases, Partovi never argues against a woman’s place being in the home; his feminism lies in his expanding the traditional concept of home, not in expanding the traditional concept of woman. Feminists in Iran can only hope the audience will see that the vector of progress from managing a home to managing a café may eventually point to managing a country. Beyond that Partovi knows he cannot go, unless he wants his work banned yet again.

This self censorship is not without artistic penalty. In a scene where Reyhan’s Greek admirer dances in front of her, we are not permitted to see the desire in her face. The resulting absence of information is as annoying as a hole in the canvas or a harsh skip on a music CD. A Global Film Initiative discussion guide diplomatically explains away one such scene claiming that the character is being given her privacy. One wonders why in a feminist movie it is not left up to the actress to decide how much privacy she wants to claim in displaying the inner feelings of her character.

The busy truck traffic of goods flowing north and south in front of Reyhan’s café constantly reminds us that Iran cannot isolate itself from outside influence. The Oscar committee will be flattered to see an Iranian film’s respectful nod to Western feminism, perhaps unaware that Partovi has given Iran’s traditional culture the last word in the movie. In the final sequence, the Russian girl which Reyhan rescued, is somewhere outside of Iran preparing a dish for her male friends.

“What is this? It’s great,” the men ask.

“Mirza Ghasemi*,” she replies.

When it comes to culture or ideology, there’s no such thing as one-way traffic.

*An Iranian dish.

The trouble with denying the Holocaust

As a leader of a predominantly Shiite country, President Ahamadinejad understands the utility of politicizing grief. For over thirteen centuries Shiism has found sustenance in mournful rituals commemorating the death of its Imams. In the mind of a Shiite politician, the Holocaust story is a familiar emotional device for amplifying and channeling political power. However, this interpretation of the Holocaust as an instrument of manipulation is behind the times. In the modern world, the Holocaust lesson serves civilization by helping prevent atrocities that would occur otherwise.

Unfortunately the prevention is not complete. In 1994 Hutus in Rwanda massacred a million Tutsis (and moderate Hutus) in a matter of three months. In the 1990’s Bosnian Serbs attempted to cleanse Bosnia of its non-Serb population; mass graves are still being found. In the mid seventies the Khmer Rouge systematically killed off millions in the ideological cleansing of Cambodia. Our generation does not need to take the word of historians for these events; we witnessed the rising body count daily in the news. Even as I write, the killings in Darfur continue. Genocide it seems is more the historical rule than the exception. Ask any Iranian. Persian culture still displays the scars of the Mongol decimation of Iran’s population eight centuries ago.

Despite our instinct for creating civilizations, the human conscience is a fragile organ of cognition. Our sense of right and wrong is easily overwhelmed by anger, jealousy, greed, or suspicion. This is not all bad news; the unusually rapid evolution of the human brain seems to have been the result of competition against other members of our own species. The down side however--though few of us can face the thought--is that human societies are prone to murdering each other.

The continual refreshing of the horrors of the Holocaust has been the most successful strategy in controlling outbreaks of genocidal behavior in the West. Minorities living in the United States or Europe enjoy the benefits of multiculturalism--arts, music, fashion, food, architecture, cinema, festivals, religion—without worrying about the hazards of being in the minority.

After 9-11, some radio talk show hosts provoked their American listeners by asking “can Muslims be good Americans?” Five million Americans with Muslim backgrounds could have found themselves in concentration camps, or worse. There was no American Bosnia because Holocaust awareness has strengthened the infrastructure of tolerance in America. What kept American Muslims safe during the dangerous times right after 9-11 was Sophie’s Choice, Schindler’s List, The Pianist, Judgment at Nuremberg and a host of other movies, television shows, books and novels about the Holocaust. For years such works have relentlessly shamed and marginalized anyone who would think of putting people in concentration camps.

President Ahmadinejad says European laws against denying the Holocaust are a curtailment of the freedom of speech. He believes these laws are a testament to Jewish power in the West. Here I offer a parallel explanation: these curtailments are a testament to the nearness of another Holocaust in Europe. What European leaders fear more than Jewish power is another Hitler. In the United States we are reminded of the closeness of this peril whenever a Mel Gibson delivers an anti-Semitic rant, or a Michael Richards goes into racist rage, or a policeman brutally tasers an Iranian-American student.

President Ahmadinejad says that guilt created by the Holocaust manipulates Western powers into supporting Israel's harsh behavior towards the Palestinians. Be that as it may, acknowledging the Holocaust has a positive function for civilization which we must not give up even as we condemn its abuses.

Borat

Screenplay by Sacha Baron Cohen.

I heard Sasha Baron Cohen’s mother was of Jewish Persian origin, so I went to see his movie to find out what this "son of Persia" has accomplished. I was instantly struck by how familiar the main character seemed. The disarmingly innocent ignoramus lost in a civilization with a superior attitude took me back to all the Tork jokes I grew up with.

Tork jokes are a form of bragging, an insecure boasting of the Persian cultural dominance. During the centuries that Turkic speaking people held military and executive power in Persia, the Persian speakers consoled themselves with the notion that they were the dominant wit. Here’s a common recipe for a Tork joke: One savvy Persian observer, one illiterate village Tork, throw in a situation, gloat until funny. Borat replaces the savvy Persian observer with the American movie audience--who seem to enjoy laughing at Khazakhs even more than Persians like to make fun of Torks. But what consolation is the American audience seeking? Why did they pay 68 million dollars at the box office to be disgusted into laughter by Borat’s exotic toilet habits, guiltless sexuality, and overly libidinous courtship behavior?

The answer is partly in the cake Cohen has, and partly in the cake Cohen eats. In a commercially brilliant sleight of hand this artist panders shamelessly to America’s post 9-11 xenophobic arrogance, and at the same time delivers a scathing commentary on the nation’s imbecilic state of mind. While we lounge in our theatre seats complacently laughing at the loose morals and crude anti-Semitism of a clueless semi-Islamic character, we are also led to ask whether that last superior laugh isn’t really on us. In one scene Cohen --who does not let his film subjects know he is really an actor--returns to the dining room holding his excrement in a plastic bag, asking what he should do with it. The victim of this Candid Camera joke is a polite Southern hostess who recovers gracefully, and to my great admiration, shows Borat how civilized people use the toilet. So far this is America the beautiful. But later during the party when Borat’s after-dinner guest turns out to be an African-American call girl, Borat is thrown out of the house, along with his guest. Tolerance has limits.

Based on audience response, if I were to divide Borat’s 68 million dollar early box office take between distinct camps of Borat aficionados, this would be my guess,
Brilliant commentary on American hypocrisy : $10 million
I live in the greatest country in the world; supersize my sex and scatology jokes: $58million

As a member of the smaller group, the funniest scene for me was when thousands of rodeo fans held their right hands over their hearts while Borat performed Khazakhstan’s “national anthem” to the tune of “The Star Spangled Banner.” All the time Borat bleated the fake words to this petty and childishly belligerent “national anthem,” the camera panned the proud faces of American patriots who still cheer as their president continues to shred their constitution, desecrate their bill of rights, and disgrace their country in the eyes of the world. This gag made me chuckle more cathartically than any bad Persian joke about how dumb Torks can get

UCLA Taser Incident

On reading the news of an Iranian-American student being tasered by UCLA campus police, I checked the yahoo message board for public reaction.

Here’s a tally:

KarlwithaK2002 said, “It was probably a N!gger, huh? Or a damned Muslim bastard-why are we letting these bastards into the country?” Karlwithak2002 received a recommendation from yahoo news readers for his comment.

Fuad98 also collected a recommendation with his, “They should have shot the motherfu*r!”

Thebrink2003 (musician according to his yahoo profile) wrote, “This nut job could have had a gun and killed the cops[;] they should have shot him with a sniper rifle at some safe distance. Suicide bombers like him kill loads of people every day all over the world!!!!” Though more informative than KarlwithaK2002 and Fuad98, this writer tied with his competitors for the single recommendation they each received. Losers all of them, because Scoutman1712, has so far collected an astonishing 20 recommendations for a clever piece of writing connecting the UCLA incident to terrorist activities from 1968 to present.

Scoutman1712, who according to his profile, likes camping and hiking and whose favorite quote is “No man stands so tall as when he stoops to help a boy,” appears to be a Boy Scout supporter and a pillar of his community. His commentary is in the form of a long multiple choice quiz which include question like:

In 1979, the US embassy in Iran was taken over by :

a. Lost Norwegians
b. Elvis
c. A tour bus full of 80 year old women.
d. A Muslim male extremist between the ages of 17 and 40.


On 9/11/01, four airliners were hijacked…Thousands of people were killed by:
a. Bugs Bunny…
b. The Supreme Court of Florida
c. Mr. Bean
d. A Muslim male extremist between the ages of 17 and 40.

and so on for a list of 13 questions all ending in "d. A Muslim male extremist between the ages of 17 and 40"

A few voices on the message board do condemn the use of excessive force by the UCLA police, but the tone of the discussion is overwhelmingly xenophobic.

As an educated minority, Iranian-Americans understand the urgency of spending more effort on community outreach and on the education of the general American public about ourselves. On the other hand, we also understand that if this humiliation of an Iranian-American student goes unchallenged, it will weaken our position in American society, leading to more such incidents. A collective response is appropriate. Unfortunately marches, and protests are not as effective as they used to be in the sixties. The media doesn’t give protests much attention, and when there is coverage, the tendency is to cast the protestors in a violent light, particularly if the protestors have an Islamic connection.

The way around this is to exert the Iranian-American influence in quieter ways. For example, our writers and journalists must tenaciously follow up on the story with engaging and informative articles, keeping the public interested in the case. This incident must not be allowed to fade in our minds until all questions are answered and everyone responsible for the events is held fully accountable.

Not respecting the law had its cost for young Mostafa Tabatabainejad, but mistreating him so brutally must have its own consequences. The repeated use of a taser gun on a member of our peaceful community deserves a stinging response. Iranian-Americans have no use for electric shock devices, but the rank and file of UCLA police must be conditioned to learn that our political sting is as much to be feared.

Children of Heaven

Directed by Majid Majidi

This movie was produced by Iran’s Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults, an important fact for the Western viewer to keep in mind. Children of Heaven is a charming fable that teaches us how to be good Iranians. Paradoxically, its simple plot also reveals the tragedies that befall those who learn their lesson too well. The gentleness, compassion, honesty and courage that the narrative so ably demonstrates give rise to the protagonists' questionable act of forbearance: their noble resolve not to burden authority figures with their problem.

Through no fault of his, nine-year-old Ali loses his little sister’s shoes while on an errand to have them mended. He worries less about punishment than the reason for it. His family is in terrible financial straits, rent is five months overdue, and his mother is sick. Ali is concerned that another piece of bad news could break his father. The only person who needs to know about the shoes is his little sister. Those were, after all, her only shoes. How is she supposed to go to school?

Ali’s father likes to yell a lot, but we soon realize that he is a gentle and impeccably honest soul who truly loves his family. Most of his blustering is directed at his sick wife for not taking it easy; he saves the rest of his voice for Ali for not helping his mother enough. In his quieter moments he likes to dream about what jobs he could do to make life better for his family. The father is so honest that he drinks his tea without lump sugar—which he can’t afford-- even as he is chopping up a mountain of lump sugar belonging to the mosque.

The mother of the family is an angel of forbearance and charity. Though she has been ordered not to work, we learn she tried to wash the family rug--an exhausting task even for a healthy person. The tiny living room, which also serves as the family bedroom, TV room, children’s study, tool shed, and kitchen, is orderly and spotless. Despite her poverty she feels she has enough to send a bowl of soup now and then to an elderly neighbor.

Ali and his sister Zahra cannot bear to saddle their hard working parents with yet one more burden. So they scheme to share Ali’s dilapidated sneakers until a solution presents itself. Since they go to school in different shifts, little Zahra wears the sneakers to school first, then runs out in a flopping rush to pass them on to her anxiously waiting brother.

Director Majid Majidi does not paint a picture of poverty, he depicts need and healthy struggle. Poverty is lonely and despairing, while need encourages cooperation and innovation. To solve the problem of having only one pair of shoes, brother and sister team up in a beautifully coordinated relay. It is only later--when the camera takes us to an affluent neighborhood where Ali’s father has found a job--that we encounter loneliness in the midst of plenty. There, a young boy living in a mansion with his grandfather begs Ali to play with him. As father and son enter the mansion, reeking of struggle and eager sweat, we feel sorry for the isolated residents of these marbled mausoleums.

Ali’s neighborhood, on the other hand, is teeming with activity. In the sun baked, clay and brick alleys, the vegetable seller separates his potatoes into fat ones that he can sell to his credit worthy customers, and scrawny ones for which he may not get paid for a long time. The cobbler is busy with shoes he has mended over and over again. A mother unravels the yarn from an old sweater to knit a new one for her newborn. The daughter of the blind knick-knack seller plays hide and seek with her father, while another door-to-door junk trader swaps a used plastic colander for a pair of worn shoes. Kids play soccer in alleys much narrower than the distance between goal posts, and grown men cry over their tea while the mullah recites a passion play in the mosque.

Yet, despite being surrounded by a spiritually prosperous community, Ali and Zahra refrain from sharing their problem. This bit of martyrdom, likely lauded by Iran’s Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults, fits the overly considerate spirit of Iran’s ideal culture. These children, like the other denizens of these alleys, wish to lighten the collective load, not add to it. They are children of heaven, after all. Why should their parents have to suffer for the loss of the shoes? Here we start to see the tragic contradictions in the commendable principles of Iranian social interactions.

Saying that his mother is ill, Ali declines his teammates’ invitation to play in an upcoming soccer match. As he is the best runner in the neighborhood, this is a huge let down for the team. If he had let his teammates know of his shoe problem, the plot could have taken the direction where the team cooperates in getting the family a new pair of shoes. A win-win situation. As it is, they were not given the opportunity. If Ali had let his school master know why he was late to school every day, the school could have devised a solution. Instead, the school master was put in a position of almost expelling a desperate child. The toll on his conscience would have been great.

Zahra’s secretiveness is even more frustrating. She finds out that one of her schoolmates is wearing her lost shoes. She does not accuse the schoolmate of theft, a praiseworthy postponing of judgment. On the other hand, Zahra keeps this schoolmate completely in the dark about a situation the girl has a right to know about. The tragedy here is that the friendship that could have formed between these two as a result of the mix-up would have been much stronger if Zahra had shared her thoughts. As it was, this schoolgirl remains a charity case, no more. Majdi does not present this as a loss. The audience admires Zahra for keeping quiet, reinforcing the dubious notion that compassion trumps sorting things out.

After numerous episodes of annoying non-communication, Ali discovers that third prize in a long distance running event is a pair of shoes. With the help of a kindly gym teacher—in whom he does not confide—Ali sets out to win third place in the contest.

Children of Heaven was nominated for an Oscar in 1999—Life is Beautiful, another movie in praise of well intentioned subterfuge, won that year. Children has captured high honors across the globe from Singapore to Finland to Canada. In Iran, the film won best film, best director, best screenplay (and oddly, best makeup artist!). These awards and numerous rave reviews are swept away by the display of friendship, persistence, love and trust as brother and sister get their arms around a problem apparently too big for them. The characters and their problems certainly have universal appeal, but I found most of the value of this movie in what it illuminates about the peculiarities of the Iranian psyche. The Iranian respect for uncomplaining forbearance derives from the high value placed on the nation’s unique flavors of humility. Children must ask permission to speak to their teacher, even in answer to a direct question. Yet despite this ritual acknowledgment of the disparity in the student-teacher power relationship, the teacher uses words like “befarmayeed” [command me] on the student. Much of this verbal shadow play is understandably lost in the subtitling. “Befarmayeed,” a word used almost unconsciously by Iranians when they invite a guest inside, is translated as “go [on in].” For the Persian speaking viewer it is difficult not to lament the loss of irony when a principal who has just expelled a student invites him back in with a “befarmayeed.” This odd hybrid of sarcasm and humbleness is one of Persian culture’s favorite assortments humility.

Another example of highly illuminating self-lowering word usage is the word “Bandeh Khoda,” literally Slave of God, used in this movie to refer to a blind person. Iranians so often refer to themselves as “Bandeh,” slave, that the word has almost become synonymous with the pronoun “I.” “Bandeh Khoda” however is a term reserved for those less fortunate than the speaker. In this centuries-old politically correct speech, Iranians acknowledge their own good fortune by disowning their personal pride in it. All slaves are, after all, equal. Every scene in Children seems to feast on Iran’s highly developed art of self depractaion, loosely known as ta’arof. Not surprisingly, humility has been the preoccupation of many of Iran’s most beloved contributors to her civilization, the Sufi poets, Rumi, Hafez, Khayyam, Saadi and so on.

Keeping in mind the Iranian obsession with self lowering, it is not surprising that the movie’s climax has to do with whether the protagonist will succeed in finishing third in the race. The audience has seen enough heart and determination in this little boy to know he could outrun a herd of wildebeest, but will he stay true to his humble quest? Director Majid Majidi has personal experience with this dilemma. He told his family he was studying engineering, a high paying respectable job, when in fact he was studying drama, a much less desirable pursuit because of its low prospects of employment and Iranian society's lack of respect for the performing arts. We are very fortunate that Majidi lied to his family and humbly decided not to finish ‘”first.” It is hard to imagine any kind of engineering work this unassuming and socially aware director may have done to match his contributions to the world of art.

Iran's highly regarded Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults (website in Persian) is also in part a government propaganda organization. Its sponsorship of Children should alert the viewer to possible bias in the movie’s contents. However, Majidi hides a powerful message in this movie that grows more and more subversive as Iran’s global confrontations intensify. Ali does not succeed in finishing third. To his great chagrin he accidentally comes in first. The disappointed face of Zahra, when she realizes her brother has not come home with the shoes, is the face of the people of Iran in the not too distant future. As Iran’s ever advancing military technology continues to drain her resourses , Iranians will say to their government, “We didn’t want first place, we didn’t want glory or fame. We are a people who take pride only in our humility. All we asked of our revolution was bread, education, jobs, medicine.” All we asked for was a pair of shoes.

An American artist reclaims her nation’s flag

During the American embassy hostage crisis of 1979, the wife of hostage Bruce Laingen tied a yellow ribbon around an oak tree in her yard and vowed the ribbon would stay there until her husband came home to untie it himself. This traditional American symbol of reunion soon made its way to front lawns across the US, its heartwarming symbolism quickly becoming an icon of support for America’s heartless war on the people of the Middle East. After the 2003 invasion of Iraq there was hardly a gas guzzler on American freeways that did not try to blindfold the American conscience with a ribbon or a flag. Now, American artist/activist Sandy Eastoak has taken up the challenge of salvaging such important symbols for the many Americans who do not support Western militarism in the Middle East. Having witnessed the brutality of US policy towards Afghanistan, Iraq, and Lebanon, Eastoak does not waste time engaging in the yellow ribbon battle. She charges up the hill to recapture the American flag itself.

I saw Eastoak’s “Take Back the Flag” series at a private viewing in her studio when the paint was still fresh. The pattern of 50 stars and stripes has been preserved faithfully, but in one of the flags the 50 stars have been replaced by a sequence of 50 images of the sun in various stages of eclipse. Our local star goes into an eclipse but emerges radiant once again. In other flags the stars become hearts, doves, plants or the moon in its various phases. The stripes act as ruled paper for writing a list of names. Among the names I was pleased to find a few familiar Iranian-Americans who have contributed to American culture: Ali Javan, the inventor of the gas laser; Classical guitarist Lily Afshar; artist Shireen Neshat; Firouz Naderi, head of NASA’s Mars exploration program. Another flag contains the name of Samuel Jordan, the founder of Alborz High School in Tehran. These are people whose fame testifies to the enormous utility of peace between peoples of different cultures.

Eastoak plans to transfer the artwork to cloth so that her patrons can fly her flags outside their homes. Military families who oppose the war and have lost loved ones to the Middle East war may find more patriotic meaning in receiving one of these flags in place of the traditional flag ceremonially presented to the family of the fallen soldier. The father of war resistor Lieutenant Ehren Watada will be receiving one of Eastoak’s reclaimed flags in an upcoming ceremony in California.

Pacifist American author Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote, “A good symbol is the best argument.” So far all the best symbols of argument have been usurped by war supporters. Eastoak is an artist of our times because with her work the voice of non-violence, too long hostage to paranoia and profiteering, has finally come home to untie the yellow ribbon.

Akbar Ganji at Stanford

During this Sunday's talk at Stanford University, Akbar Ganji devoted a lot of time pointing out the differences between his views and those of his ideological rival Saiid Hajjarian. The audience, some of whom hadn’t even heard of Hajjarian, perhaps wondered at this premature electioneering. Highlighting this impression of candidacy was Ganji’s clean shaven face. It seems he now knows his revolutionary stubble was too Islamic fundamentalist, so he has adopted a less religious public image. Ganji’s gradual transformation from dissident intellectual to politician is a positive development for Iran as a nation. With his proven track record of courage, sacrifice and shrewd politicking Ganji may turn out to be Iran’s first charismatic force for democracy since Mohammad Mossadegh.

He almost said so himself. It is not true, Ganji declared, that the age of heroes is behind us. He insisted that even enlightened democratic movements need role models of courage and leadership. Looking around at Iran’s political landscape there is no one else Ganji could possibly nominate to this hero role but himself. With his death defying 56 day hunger strike, Ganji stood toe to toe with the most powerful elements of the Islamic regime and delivered them a huge moral defeat.

Unlike Mossadegh, however, Ganji is methodical in his approach to politics. His thinking incorporates many lessons from history, and he seems to have digested voluminous amounts of historical facts and social theories to help him avoid mistakes. Also, he seems less intransigent than Mossadegh. Several times during his Stanford talk Ganji mentioned the term “bedeh bestoon,” give and take. Unfortunately Ganji’s English interpreter, the distinguished Dr. Abbas Milani, chose to translate this term as “bickering,” which implies a trivial or impetuous arguing. This interpretation does not give credit to Ganji’s subtle bargaining mind, something Mossadegh could have used more of in his dealings with the British. Ganji seems aware that the power of Iran’s Islamic regime is not a castle in the air; there is a social basis for this power that must be respected as a reality and bargained with.

For the forces of democracy to be able to bargain from a position of strength, first they must demonstrate their political power. Here, Ganji advocates civil disobedience, openly ignoring and deliberately violating unjust laws. He calculates that the regime will then attempt to exact a price on this disobedience. The higher the price we are willing to pay, the more power we can buy. Simply put, Ganji’s recommended strategy for democracy in Iran is to purchase power with courage.

Will the strategy succeed? Judging from Ganji’s statements I don’t think he is so sure himself. He pointed out that tens of centuries of despotic rule in Iran must in some way reflect the mentality of the Iranian masses. Though he relies heavily on political science and social philosophy as tools of analysis, Ganji gave us no data as to why he thinks this mentality may have changed. Here’s where Mossadegh has the edge over Ganji. Mossadegh believed in his ability to inspire his followers, Ganji merely believes in the lessons of history as laid out by Western thinkers. To become the new Mossadegh, Ganji must complete one more step in his transition from intellectual to politician. He must reverse engineer the ideas of his Western mentors Karl Popper, Jurgen Habermas, etc, into a uniquely Iranian format, then begin speaking his mind in the creative and inspiring slang of the Iranian political ethos.

Not Quite a Memoir

By Judy Stone
Silman-James Press

In the year 2000 I went to see Abbas Kiarostami receive the Akira Kurosawa award at the San Francisco International Film Festival. The famed director thanked the organizers, then surprised everyone by giving away his prize to veteran Iranian actor Behrooz vossoghi. Six years later while reading Judy Stones new book Not Quite a Memoir I was thrilled to see this small yet extraordinary event preserved in writing. For over four decades it seems whenever there has been a quality International film, Judy Stone has been there to create portraits of the artists that created those works of art.

In her treasury of interviews with the world’s leading writers and filmmakers, Stone devotes a dozen or so chapters to Iranian artists. Though the pieces are independent and have been written at different times, the chapters read like the different scenes in a single movie, each contributing to an overall picture of the state of the arts in Iran. One theme in this “movie” dominates all others: censorship.

For instance, among Stone’s stories we find that Bahman Farmanara, director of Smell of Camphor, Fragrance of Jasmine suffered a massive depression after censors turned down his tenth script.

Director Tahmineh Milani was thrown in prison after her political drama, Hidden Half, offended some fundamentalists. Her case as described in Stone’s exclusive interview with the director and her husband, sheds light on the odd complexities of Iranian factional politics. For instance, Hidden Half continued to be screened even after Milani was jailed. President Khatami expressed surprise at the arrest, and when a judge realized Milani had not broken any laws she was released immediately. So who ordered her arrest? And if Milani was cleared of charges, why was her home invaded and her property confiscated after her release?


Dariush Mehrjui, director of Cow, has his own tragicomic experience with censorship . In his interview with the author he mentions that the only movie of his that Khomeini ever saw was Cow, and the late Ayatollah liked it very much. So despite the fact that Mehrjui is a strong critic of the condition of women in Iran, the censors have called him in only once or twice, treating him politely.

Abbas Kiarostami on the other hand has developed a more subtle relationship with the Islamic regime’s censorship. He incorporates the reality of censorship right into his art. Stone quotes him, “We can’t hide ourselves and say, ‘I would have made a fabulous masterpiece if I didn’t have all the limitations.’ We have to accept responsibility for what we create and not make it sound as if it would have been very different had it not been for outside elements such as censorship. I strongly believe that choice is what we have.”

In the chapter on Kiarostami we learn that a cow-milking scene has kept the artist’s The Wind Will Carry Us from receiving theatrical distribution in Iran. This scene is perhaps Kiarostami’s brilliant joke on the clerical regime. By goading the authorities into making an erotic connection between milking a cow and ejaculation, these guardians of public morality have effectively admitted to having dirty minds. Thus the director makes a harsh artistic statement through the very process of banishment.

Besides censorship there are also many intriguing sub-themes in Not Quite a Memoir . There is passion, perseverance and humor. Majid Majidi, director of Children of Heaven and The Color of Paradise told his father he was going to engineering school when in fact he was studying drama. Rakhshan Bani-Etemad, director of The May Lady experienced the death of her father when she was only nine years old. Bahman Ghobadi director of A Time for Drunken Horses attributes his love for movies to the sandwich and a Coca-Cola shack that sat next to the ramshackle theater in his hometown.

And there is heartbreak . Kiarostamis’ wife left him for another man. “I’m not sure if a good marriage is when you break it and let the other person have freedom or if it’s when you try to stay together,” the genius wonders from behind his ever-present dark glasses.

Not Quite a Memoir flies around the world to Spain’s Carlos Saura, Chile’s Isabel Allende, India’s Satyajit Ray. At every landing Stone creates a portrait of the artist as a force for social change. Intriguingly, the author backs up her portrait in words by capturing--with unassuming genius—astonishingly insightful photographs of her interview subjects.

No one at the San Francisco International Film Festival in the year 2000 saw Abbas Kiarostami’s eyes when he gave away his Akira Kurosawa award to Behrooz Vosooghi. For medical reasons Kiarostami never takes off those enigmatic sunglasses. Yet in Not Quite a Memoir Judy Stone’s camera flash cleverly shines right through the artist’s dark glasses to give us the first glimpse of eyes that revolutionized filmmaking with how they saw the world. Her short interviews, like that brief camera flash, are just as clever and penetrating.

Love Iranian-American Style

Directed by Tanaz Eshaghian.

It’s been a long time since American documentaries haven't been reality shows. These days even the respected PBS science series NOVA occasionally airs like an unscripted drama. To create the documentary film Love Iranian-American Style director Tanaz Eshaghian recorded over the years her family’s quixotic quest to find her a suitable husband. The result has the charming humor of My Big Fat Greek Wedding layered over the educational substance of a college course in sociology.

Early in the filmmaker's interviews with the politely distraught Eshaghian clan, we find out that Tanaz, unlike other women in her Jewish-Iranian family, has no use for the strictures of traditional matrimony. She won't marry this doctor or that businessman and have children in her early twenties. She was raised in America and she wants to marry for love.

Realistic about Iranian men's fondness for marrying younger women, the family is worried that if their Tanaz delays much longer her suitors will disappear. In one scene a matchmaker offers to find Eshaghian an excellent Jewish-Iranian husband for $10,000. The director retorts that if she can't find a husband on her own in the next five years then maybe they could do business. “By then it would cost you $100,000,” sighs the matchmaker to roaring laughter from the theater audience.

Eshaghian’s comedy is dark. Throughout we are laughing at pain. The pain of guilt and embarrassment for disappointing her clan, and the pain of a traditional family seeing how Western individualism has contaminated their daughter’s psyche with dissatisfaction. She can no longer look at a rich, handsome suitor from her own social class and think “I could grow to like him.” Having breathed American egalitarianism most of her life, she can only see him as a loser too sissy to ask, “who am I, and what do I really want?”

In answering that question about herself Eshaghian scores her artistic victory in this film. To our surprize we find out that she has also documented her failures in finding love outside of tradition. In a moving display of honesty, she interviews ex-lovers about why the relationship didn't go anywhere. Ironically, her previous boyfriends were turned off by her push for commitment and her mental checklist of qualifications they felt they had to meet. One of them even thought he wasn't rich enough for her. All this time she thought she was running away from the traditions of her clan, she was really just circling back to familiar territory.

In a work of fiction this realization would resolve the plot, setting off the events towards a happy ending. But this is real life. New understanding takes a long time to catch up with who we have become. In Eshaghian’s childhood pictures we see a stubborn looking, rebellious little girl whose wide eyes are brimming with inquisitiveness. She has grown up to be a tall beauty with the same inquisitive eyes. But years of saying “Not good enough for me,” have left on her face--like a watermark—a subtle expression of haughty disapproval, as though the Universe is a cheap sale item she is about to throw back in the bin.

After the screening of her movie, I was introduced to Eshaghian and I told her I would be writing about her movie. “Oh,” she said, “Who do you write for?” That expression on her face made me feel embarrassed I couldn't say, "The New York Times.”

Ceasefire

Directed by Tahmineh Milani

The Iranian box office comedy hit, Ceasefire, shows a man and woman in bed together, but the movie still nominally obeys the Iranian film decency code. The feuding husband and wife have sawed the bed in half. Similarly, a bed sheet always magically wraps itself around the actress’s head like a chador. Male and female actors touch each other but only in fight scenes, shoving each other around. These ploys outline an unspoken rapprochement between internationally-acclaimed filmmaker Tahmineh Milani and Iranian cultural authorities. In return for some liberties, Milani moderates her criticism of Iranian society. No more despotic fathers-in-law as in The Fifth Reaction, no more thugs throwing acid at women’s faces as in Two Women. In previous films Milani attacked relentlessly. In Ceasefire… well, it’s an honest title.

Milani aficionados will long for the foreboding air of menace that was her trademark. They will miss that unbearable fury she used to summon against the unjust. What remains, however, is her signature shrillness and over-the-top dramatization. Scene after scene we watch the quarrelling couple play childish pranks on each other. They smash each other’s favorite glassware, dump dirt on each other’s heads, destroy clothing, sabotage dinner parties, all juvenile antics akin to tying shoelaces together. Originality or suggestiveness--such as grapefruit in the face--would have broken the tedium, but innovation has also declared a ceasefire.

Milani has never engaged in the poetic explorations that make Iranian film a worldwide phenomenon. She does not pretend to be a Makhmalbaaf or a Kiarostami. Her plots demand little of the audience, her characters are readily fathomable. She makes no apologies for this earthiness. Usually she makes up for it by extracting unforgettable performances from her actors. This time she has not been as careful with her casting. Ceasefire has no actors on a par with Gohar Kheirandish, whose lion-hearted Zir Madineh stole the show in The Fifth Reaction.

One wonders why Milani has softened her militancy. Some Iranian women artists are catching on to the way the West uses their work as a propaganda tool against Iran, their fame a pact with the Devil. But an earlier Milani film, Two Women, offers a more introverted motivation. In one of her most moving scenes Niki Karimi’s character pleads with her tyrannical husband to become her friend. Ceasefire looks like an olive branch held out in desperation by a woman artist towards her patriarchal society. In this comedy we glimpse the director’s sad spark of hope that the subjugation of women in Iran can be analyzed rationally and resolved to the satisfaction of both men and women.

To start fresh Milani airs out the stench of misogyny from her sets, and perfumes with comedy what odor remains. The sets are colorful and well lit. The successful husband and wife drive expensive European cars and live in a house with modern furniture and a state-of-the-art home entertainment center. The in-laws are supportive, the neighbors are friendly. The couple don’t seem to have any needs other than the need to grow up. This is the most serious problem with the movie. Aside from their good looks there is nothing there to make us like this ever squabbling couple. In Star Wars, the bickering Han Solo and Princess Leia were endearing because the lovers were in deep trouble with the Evil Empire. Their trivial banter stood in ironic contrast to their noble purpose. In Ceasefire, however, the Evil Empire has been cut out of the plot altogether, leaving us with nothing but pettiness.

A curious gay character stiffens the soggy plot with some physical comedy. Judging by audience laughter this character’s dandified manner is a big hit with Iranians. Americans have little room for indignation here--Eddie Murphy, Robin Williams and Will Ferrell also draw laughs with this stereotype. In an Iranian movie, however, the appearance of a gay man may telegraph a loosening of Iran’s rigid codes of public conduct. Here Milani as an artist is participating in social reform. Cultures that disengage their sexuality from their morality tend to replace the old taboos with more humane ones, such as eliminating the death penalty.

Unfortunately, Milani gets so caught up in improving her society that she neglects her primary role as director and screenwriter. As a result she does too much preaching and not enough story telling. The intriguing plot-character interactions that enlightened us with their irony, have been replaced by a tiresome therapist character, lecturing about our inner child, telling us what to think and feel.

The fact that Ceasefire has shattered box office records in Iran is understandable. The movie is comic relief in a nation starved for optimism and lightheartedness. Also, the social messages in the movie offer safe and entertaining activism, a luxury previously available mostly in the West. Having lightened her load, Milani now operates as a reformer, patiently taking small, practical steps. As a filmmaker, however, she has fallen out of the saddle. It may take tough competition and demanding critics to put this director back on her high horse.

A Hunger Strike

Starting tomorrow July 14 there will be a 3 day worldwide hunger strike to protest the Islamic Republic’s crackdowns against Iranians who insist on their human rights. The hunger strike has been organized around the feisty investigative journalist Akbar Ganji who nearly died last year after a prison hunger strike lasting several weeks.

A hunger strike is a powerful political tool. The tactic was used by the pre-Christian Irish as an effective way of demanding justice. There would be tremendous loss of prestige and therefore power for a lord who allowed a plaintiff to die of hunger at his gate. Ghandi used the tactic against the British, winning independence for India, and the IRA used it effectively to win sympathy for its cause. Ironically Bobby Sands street in Iran is named after an IRA activist who died during a hunger strike in a British prison.

We feel hunger as simple organisms in need of fuel. But in resisting hunger we become aware of our own complexity as humans. When other people are fasting with us, empathy and solidarity hugely expand this awareness so that the metaphoric hunger for freedom becomes as powerful as the physical craving for life sustaining food. Akbar Ganji understands this better than most, which is why he has called for this particular way of protesting.

Ganji gained notoriety during the relatively liberal Presidency of Khatami when he was allowed to publicly criticize Khatami’s political enemies. The journalist went for the jugular, tracking the murderers of several of Iran’s influential intellectuals. A few of the killers were tried and executed, but Ganji, never got his chance to fully connect the murders to the ruling Islamic elite. He was sentenced to Jail.

A former member of the Revolutionary Guard Ganji had been assigned to “Doctrine and Politics.” His job as an intellectual was to encourage revolutionary values in Iranians. In a way this is still his job. Disillusioned by the Islamic regime’s stewardship of the Iranian revolution, Ganji has been calling for a more democratic, more tolerant and less misogynistic rule in Iran. He believes religion and state should be separated and has asked the all powerful Supreme Leader to step down.

With his past in the Revolutionary Guard it is difficult to embrace Ganji politically, but he has shown the courage of his faith and he has helped bring murderers to justice. In a democratic Iran he would make a worthy opposition. Meanwhile I stand with him in this hunger strike .

Here’s some where-and-when info on this worldwide protest.

An Ancient Heritage Threatened

American tourist Diana Campuzano was having lunch on a Jerusalem sidewalk when a Hamas suicide bomber struck. Now a US court has ruled that since Iran supports Hamas financially, ancient Iranian artifacts housed at the University of Chicago may be auctioned to compensate Ms. Campuzano for her injuries. Here’s how court records describe the victim’s physical condition after the attack:

A team of doctors performed a five-hour craniotomy on Ms. Campuzano to remove multiple bone fragments, repair the ruptures in her brain coverings, and repair her anterior skull base fracture with mini plates, bone cement , and her own harvested tissue…Ms. Campuzano’s permanent injuries include impaired vision, damage to the retina of her right eye, cataracts in both eyes, destroyed left ear drum.

Ms. Campuzano, one of eight plaintiffs sharing the 300 million dollar award had this to say after Israel assassinated Hamas leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin. ”I'm so happy they killed that son of a bitch. I was so excited, so excited. I hate them. They changed my life. As far as I'm concerned, they can kill them all."

As if all this pain and anger was not enough, Ms. Campuzano’s monetary award carries with it a tragic irony . Having converted to Judaism after the incident, her court victory is about to inflict serious damage to this ancient heritage. The Achaemenid artifacts about to be auctioned off are nothing to Islam and everything to Judaism.

1200 years before Islam, the Achaemenid king Cyrus freed the Jews from their Babylonian captivity. An unnamed prophet in the book of Isaiah says: Thus said the Lord to Cyrus, His anointed one…I call you by name. I hail you by title though you have not known Me (Isaiah 45). About the rebuilding of the Second Temple the book of Ezra says “Thus said King Cyrus of Persia: The Lord God of Heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of earth and has charged me with building him a house in Jerusalem. (Ezra 1). There are verses in Ezra about the rebuilding of the temple that hint at undiscovered stories reminiscent of the support of some modern Diapora Jews for the state of Israel. “All their neighbors [Jews who preferred to stay in the Achaemenid empire rather than move to Jerusalem] supported them with silver vessels, with gold, with goods, with livestock, and with precious objects…”

Who were the Jews who stayed behind? Clues to their stories are somewhere in Achaemenid archeology. The bible follows only a few. Esther became a beloved queen to the Achaemenid king Xerxes. Her uncle Mordechai became the prime minister to the Achamenid empire. An Achaemenid Disraeli. What about the important Iranian Jews that the bible does not mention? Fragments of their lives may have survived in those tablets. The Jewish festival of Purim began with Achaemenid Jews. This festival commemorates a palace intrigue full of political rivalry, romantic seduction, gratuitous violence, and in an outdated sense, justice. What are the juicy historical facts behind Purim? The answers may be encoded somewhere in those ten thousand Achaemenid tablets and artifacts about to be auctioned to private collectors.

It would be misleading to claim that this particular set of Achamenian artifacts contain the history of Achaemenid Judaism. But tiny clues can unravel big mysteries. A seal here, a symbol there, the clues may be in the meaning of the inscriptions, in the chemical composition of the tablet, on a bit of reed or a strand of hair stuck in the clay. Less dramatically, each bit of knowledge contributes to the critical mass needed for the chain reaction of understanding.

The details of the legal tragedy are complicated. Basically the Islamic Republic of Iran did not bother to show up as a defendant, and the plaintiffs won by default. The issue has caused the executive branch and the Judicial branch to lock legal horns so that at this point an act of congress is the most promising way to save these artifacts. Elected officials however do not wish to appear to be taking the side of Iran. To make the job more attractive congress needs to know that there is public support for it. In a predominantly Judeo-Christian nation, emphasizing the connection of these artifacts to the bible would make it more likely for congress to act.

On the International front, Iran has threatened to retaliate if the artifacts are auctioned. Retaliate how? One may worry. By further destroying humanity’s common heritage? Iran must make it clear that this is not the content of its threat. By taking a morally strong position Iran would make it easier to gain public support for the cause of keeping these artifacts where they belong, in universities and museums.

The state of Israel is paying Diana Campuzano’s medical bills. To add farsightedness to generosity Israel should do what it can to help save these Achaemenid artifacts from being cast into the winds of commerce. Not only are the artifacts relevant to her own history, Israel should keep in mind that Iran may not stay a radical Islamic Republic. When the time comes for Iran to reassess her policy towards Israel, the Achaemenid Cyrus would be pleased that the nation he once freed from slavery remembered him and returned his favor.

Refrences:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrus_in_the_Judeo-Christian_tradition
Esther’s Children A portrait of Iranian Jews.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purim

Let Me Tell You Where I Have Been

Let Me Tell You Where I Have Been:
New Writing by Women of the Iranian Diaspora
Edited by Persis Karim

“Ey khoda een vasl raa hejraan makon,“ says Rumi. God, do not let this union become a hejraan. The Persian word hejraan begins with a sigh and breaks like a sob. It cannot be translated into English. Yet in her poem “Separation,” Iranian-American poet Farnaz Fatemi hints at the meaning:

“…I have learned too much
about movement, not enough about
how the heart can translate
the language of separation into words.”

Let Me Tell You Where I Have Been translates the language of hejraan into English. The result is deep literature sometimes surpassing what could have been said in Persian. Perhaps circumstance has led the writers in this collection to appreciate an extra dimension in the opening verses of Rumi’s Mathnavi:

"Listen to the reed for it tells a story,
complaining of separations"

Rumi too was writing in a land far from his ancestral home. His mystical desire to return to the Beloved is rooted in the earth of his birthplace. Like some of the contributors in Let Me Tell You, Rumi’s exile began when he was just a child. His family was driven away by the Mongol invasion. This thirteenth century social upheaval decimated Iran’s population and gouged deep wounds in the Iranian psyche.

The trauma of Iran’s 1979 revolution has now added another scar. Many of the modern day Rumis in Let Me Tell You have been driven away by the revolution and Iran’s subsequent war with Iraq. How the pain is expressed in writing reflects individual personalities. Gelareh Asayesh is mystical. She says, “With that first trip back [to Iran], I began the long, slow road toward resurrecting a buried self. And vowed I would never suffer that inner shriveling of an isolated core, the immigrant’s small death, again.”

Niloofar Kalaam’s “The Sun Is a Dying Star” seems a rambling Jane Austen dilemma of love and money in marriage, but suddenly snaps into harsh focus as a powerful tale of imprisonment and rape.

Parinaz Eleish makes her lament this way:

"And my brother’s off to war.
How thoughtlessly beautiful the persimmons
Feel in the bloody dusk.
I long to hang from a tree
Watch my grandmother pray in the shade.
For even one more day."

Refusing to board the back of a bus in Tehran, Mitra Parineh’s American-born female character explains to her aunt, “We did this with black people in our country, a long time ago. How can you be serious? I will not ride that fucking bus.”

To which the aunt replies, “Stop it. This is not your country. This is not your people.”

Yet a few pages into the story the ache of hejran begs for reunion:

"Ay Khaleh, she says to me and sighs big. I am listening carefully, hoping she'll say something
and it occurs to me for the first time: why do we do this in Farsi? I call her Khaleh, Auntie, and
she calls me Khaleh back. I think of my father. Baba, Daddy. Baba Joon, he calls me, Daddy
Dear. They reverse the casual term of endearment and it becomes that-- endearing,
affectionate."

Yes “they” do speak with the voice of their beloved, and the effect is more than endearment, it is oneness. It is “they” being “us.”

Michelle Koukhab’s hejraan manifests in her yearning for the tender touch of tradition in the postpartum ritual of the public bath, where

"Sisters wrap my mother’s waist with egg yolk
and chick-peas paste…

[In America] I can have children, but no healing ceremony.
In my healing of parts below the navel, I can only spread

Glue with tongue depressors. This gap opens sometimes
Between the places we are born and the places that we live."

Hejraan in English.

Yet with poetic irony some of the writers protest that their Western refuge is not far enough from tradition. Sheila Shirazi, perhaps after a bitter breakup:

"…The hands of the cultural clock
are closed ‘round my throat…
Are you happy now, Maman, Baba?
No more fucking."

Some have concluded that their Western refuge is no refuge at all. In an excerpt from Funny in Farsi, her best selling panegyric on America, even Firoozeh Dumas manages a suppressed ouch. “My relatives did not think Americans were very kind,” she complains timidly. But the Iranian American writer PAZ is more colorfully outspoken:

"[Before the 1979 revolution] one of my favorite memories is of the time when Becky
showed me how to use a red plastic Barbie golf club to get myself off, and then subsequently
to get her off as well. After we were done playing in the lazy, sun-strewn desert
afternoons we would slip away to Becky’s apartment to eat an early American supper....

[After the 1979 revolution] Becky’s family stopped inviting me over for pork
dinners.TheWright sisters, who were my favorite orange tree pals, were no longer allowed to
come over in the afternoons to play. Their father who was a minister at the Presbyterian
church around the corner, stopped dropping by to have enlightened religious conversations
with my father. And someone—to this day I don’t know who—blew the cover on my sexual
adventures....

It was 1979 and I realized that my whole world has shifted. I was going to have to reinvent
myself so I could belong in America, belong to my Muslim Iranian family, belong to a world
which didn’t like me as I was. I had a long, hard road ahead of me."

For PAZ politics was a slap in the face to wake up to the realities of tribalism, while for Poet Sanaz Banu Nikaein the awakening moment comes every time she looks in the social mirror, "I am an Iranian with terrorist tattooed on my forehead…."

The brilliant Azadeh Moaveni needs no awakening to politics. Her book Lipstick Jihad sometimes dazzles with insight. The excerpt in Let Me Tell You is one of her dimmer moments, but it does reveal an interesting phenomenon—how Iranian-Americans import Western values into Iran. When an Iranian girlfriend seeks advice about a romantic partner, Moaveni offers this bit of naïve American feminism:

"So I tried to explain that like many men, her boyfriend was intimidated by how much he
wanted sex and that it was easier for him to vulgarize intimacy than admit that she (a mere
girl/woman) controlled the supply of the most powerful physical experience of his existence.”

Supply?? Capitalist feminism at its most crass! The politically savvy Moaveni would agree that righting of Iran’s policy towards women is more urgent than any military preparations. Gaining the women’s support is not only a human rights issue, it’s a matter of national survival. Therefore, we look to thoughful people like Moaveni to think out-of-the-box, to discover new, workable solutions that do not trigger Iran's immune reaction to transplantation. Western feminist rancor has proven counter-productive even in the West.

And in return for such Western exports, what have these Iranian-American women writers imported from Iranian culture? Its most valuable treasure—Iran’s literary tradition. Mimi Khalvati’s poem in the ghazal style of Hafez is such an astonishingly beautiful love poem I am tempted to reproduce it here in its entirety. But it feels like sacrilege to put such gentleness through computer hardware. Read it in the book.

Some Muslim Iranian-Americans don’t place the Koran on their Haftsin table anymore. The excesses of the Islamic Republic have inclined them to decorate the traditional spread with a book of Hafez instead. Perhaps Diaspora Iranians should start a new custom. Each year place the new book that has most clearly expressed our hejraan. I nominate Let Me Tell You Where I Have Been as the Haftsin book of the year.

Iranian women writers on KQED

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.

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.