BY KATHLEEN MCCAUL
Azar Nafisi is best known as the author of Reading Lolita
in Tehran: A Memoir in Books, an often harrowing portrait of how the Islamic
revolution in Iran affected one professor and her students. Her new book,
Things I’ve Been Silent About, is a memoir of growing up against the
background of Iran’s political revolution. She is a visiting professor and the
executive director of Cultural Conversations at the Foreign Policy Institute of
Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in
Washington, DC. Nafisi is a professor of aesthetics, culture and literature and
teaches courses on the relation between culture and politics. Al Jazeera
gets her thoughts on the Iranian elections.
Q: What has just happened in Iran?
A: Well, what has just happened in Iran is a continuation of what
has been happening for 30 years. Iranian people took up opposition and used an
open space to express what they want. Their vote was not just against [incumbent
President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad but for what he stood for.
Q: But it seems like Ahmadinejad has
won an overwhelming majority?
A: But the most amazing thing is that so many people came out
into the streets to demonstrate and protest and to make their wishes known.
This is great because it disproves the myth that the Iranian
people want the extreme laws imposed on them by the Islamic regime. In any
society, you will have extremists. There will always be people who will support
those like Mr Ahmadinejad in the same way that many Americans supported Mr Bush
or support Christian fundamentalists. But that does not mean that the Iranian
people prefer a theocracy to a pluralistic country with freedom of religion and
expression for everyone.
In their slogans and demands during the elections, they asked
for freedom and democracy and repudiated the repressive laws. But just as
important is the fact that many within the ruling elite in Iran are realising
they cannot rule society the way they claimed they could. A good example is Mr
Mousavi himself.
In order to win, Mousavi had taken up the progressive slogans
which he had previously fought against. I was there at the beginning of the
Islamic revolution when he was the prime minister and implemented many of the
repressive measures which he now denounces. I (like many others) was thrown out
of the university that Mousavi helped to shut down as part of the cultural
revolution.
The fact that Mr Mousavi or Karroubi choose to talk of freedom
and human rights shows the degree to which the divisions within the regime are
affected by the resistance of the Iranian people. I think these are the
important points about the elections and not only who won or who lost.
Q: But don’t you think this election
result, the election of hard-line Ahmadinejad as opposed to a reformist Mousavi,
suggests that the majority of Iranians want their theocracy to continue?
A: For me, elections in a country such as Iran don’t have the
same meaning as in countries such as the US. We hardly have a choice in who we
vote for anyway. There was also not one single international observer.
A sizeable number of people can’t even read in Iran and they
will vote for Ahmadinejad.
I admit that I might be wrong but for me, the real poles are not
the number of votes. The real poles are what sort of platform the candidates use
in order to win. It was really amazing and interesting to see what Mr Mousavi
chose as his platform to win. He didn’t just campaign against Ahmadinejad but
against the very foundations of the Islamic republic.
The fact that Mr Mousavi risked his political career to take up
this position suggests that a sizeable number of the population don’t want what
exists now.
Q: So you, as a liberal, are optimistic
about these election results?
A: Yes, definitely – let me say – not optimistic but hopeful. I
lived for 18 years with the Islamic republic – through the worst years. What
gave me hope was the way this society non-violently resisted official rule. And
I have had no reason to change this view.
But the Iranian people voted for this official rule – they voted
for the Islamic republic. They have now voted for an orthodox president.
One of the problems with revolutions is that it is a time of
great excitement but also great confusion. It always worries me. People are very
certain what they don’t want but not very certain what they want. When people
voted for the Islamic republic, they didn’t know what they were voting for.
Q: The results of these elections have
taken the world by surprise. Was there a failure here of the international media
to gauge Iran’s affairs and sentiment?
A: Yes! That is what fascinates me most ever since coming to the
US. When I wrote about students reading Lolita in Tehran, I was accused
of saying western literature is great. That is not what I was saying – I was
saying people in Iran are taking these texts and analysing and seeing them in
their own way – in a way the West doesn’t.
The homogeneous picture of extreme belief where the majority of
people believe in orthodox Islam which comes out of Iran is not true. Iran is a
country of different ethnic minorities and different religions. Many of the
Muslim minorities have been oppressed by the regime. This is not Islam – this is
a state using Islam for power and we have to break this myth.
Q: You’ve talked about and written
about the importance of literature and culture in the fight for human rights and
liberty in Iran and around the world. But is art, culture, literature, ever
going to be more powerful than religion? Is it enough to start a revolution?
A: If you look at it in the long term – yes, it is. I never
forget that when Paul Ricoeur, the philosopher, came to speak in Iran. He was an
80-year-old but was treated like [the American rock star] Bon Jovi. At one point
the minister for Islamic guidance said to him: "People like us [politicians]
will vanish but you people will endure." That will always remain with me. We
don’t remember the king who ruled in the time of [14th century Persian
poet] Hafiz, we remember Hafiz.
Q: You work for Johns Hopkins
University as executive director of Cultural Conversations. How is this election
going to influence Iran’s conversations with the rest of the world?
A: Part of it depends on the rest of the world – how will they
choose to converse with Iran?
The US government is sometimes silly in its response to Iran.
For them, supporting human rights translates into giving money to various groups
and individuals and to have a hostile stance on the country. But the point is
not to go behind one individual but to give voice to the people. Shirin Ebadi,
the Nobel Prize-winning lawyer, is someone whose faith in Islam cannot be
disputed. The media should give as much space to her as to Ahmadinejad.
I think [US President Barack] Obama should acknowledge that the
Iranian people have a history, a culture and aspirations, which is different
from what the regime claims.
Q: Your last book focuses on a group of
women living in Tehran and you have conducted many workshops for women on human
rights and culture. What does this election result say about women in Iran
today?
A: I think Iranian women have become canaries of the mind. If you
want to gauge a society and how free it is, you go to its women.
Iranian women have really worked for their freedom this
election. Look at their signature campaign – they choose a non-violent campaign
to educate people inside and outside Iran about the country’s repressive laws.
They played an important role in the beginning of the last
century in bringing about a constitutional revolution. In the beginning of this
century they will play a central role in changing society towards openness.
(Kathleen Mccaul is a freelance journalist. This article
was posted on Aljazeera.net on June 14, 2009.)
Courtesy: Al Jazeera;
http://english.aljazeera.net