What I’m Reading Now
I’ve just finished the Yacoubian Building, by Alaa al-Aswany, and I’m desolate that it’s over. I loved it for its storytelling, its scathing indictment of Egyptian dictatorship, its sumptuous descriptions of downtown Cairo in all its shabby splendor. It took less than a week to read, which, given that I have a small baby, should tell you something about the novel’s irresistability. Al-Aswany has a deft, gentle touch, bringing the reader face to face with the brutality of Egypt’s poverty and its vile state security apparatus, without ever lapsing into academic lecture or the tone of a human rights report.
My dear friend Kim Ghattas (Beirut correspondent for the BBC, just recently made State Department correspondent — hooray Kim!) informs me that the book has been made into a movie that is equally spectacular. She’s seen it three times already, which, given that she covers a country torn by internal strife and Islamist hullaballoo, says something about how great it must be. I can’t wait to see it.
Iran and the US: Frenemies, the Treacherous Tango, and Other Thoughts
All sorts of things have me thinking about US-Iran relations lately. The other week I was on NPR’s Talk of the Nation discussing Ahmadinejad, and I realized (or perhaps a caller helped me realize), that because the Iranian president makes such spectacle of thumbing his nose at the US, it has become very easy to forget that as recently as 2003, it was Iran that was reaching out to the US, and it was Washington doing the nose thumbing. My friend Trita Parsi discusses all this and more in his new book called “Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States.” In particular, he explores how Iran reached out to the US in 2003, offering to talk about all the issues that irk Washington, and was rebuffed by the Bush administration, which was feeling ascendent (we’ve liberated Iraq!) and disinclined to talk to the Iranians, of all people. I’m not usually one to spend much time thinking about all the wonky antipathy shared by these two nations, but I attended a talk by Gary Sick in London that I thought captured the dynamic well. Gary noted that both sides only consider talking when they’re down (when they feel all is well, they enjoy nothing so much as telling the other to get lost), and that very rarely does it come to pass that they simultaneously are in a position, both domestically and internationally, where they feel dialogue would be of benefit. There we go. Those are my serious policy thoughts for the year.
Ahmadinejad in New York: The Insolence Factor
The chatter surrounding Ahmadinejad’s visit to the United States simply won’t stop, so at risk of ignoring the gigantic fil in the room, here are my immediate thoughts. Firstly, the president should pay heed to Hugo Chavez’s PR tactics. That particular populist manages to capture international headlines and warm the hearts of anti-globalization college students with far more flair. The notion that there are no gay people in Iran is untellably absurd, and worst of all, is offensive without a point.
Also distressing was the insulting opening address of Columbia University President Lee Bollinger. This may not be the most original point to make, but I think his nastiness carried an undercurrent of racism. Were Bollinger introducing a European official, however controversial or despotic (say a Le Pen or his ilk), I hardly believe he would have spoken in the terms he reserved for President Ahmadinejad. That degree of insolence, which is also offensive without a point, is reserved for figures from the Arab and Islamic world. It brings to mind the needlessly uncivil way in which Mike Wallace dealt with Ahmadinejad. If I were an armchair psychologist, I would surmise that people like Bollinger are subconsciously pleased to be dealing with someone like Ahmadinjead, as it gives them an opportunity to say unspeakable things to an Iranian and disguise it as frankness in the face of evil, or someother such bollocks.
The Columbus Dispatch: Hate Mongering in the Midwest
The very excellent National Iranian American Council (NIAC) headed by my friend Trita Parsi yesterday alerted us that a publication called the Columbus Dispatch on Tuesday published a political cartoon depicting Iran as a sewer and Iranians as cockroaches. I must admit the crudity of the racism sort of took my breath away. I used to have this rather charming childhood memory of being frightened by the flying cockroaches that would make periodic appearances in the Tehran bathrooms of old. Now the insect will always remind me of this horrid, hateful cartoon. I wonder whether the editors of the Columbus Dispatch are aware that after Sept. 11, Iranians held a candelight vigil in the streets of Tehran, while others across the Middle East cheered and passed out pastry.
Intimidation In Tehran
On a sunny day earlier this summer, I took my 8-month-old baby boy Hourmazd for a walk in the foothills of Tehran’s Alborz Mountains. Families and young people crowded the tree-lined path ahead, chatting leisurely and snacking on crepes and barbecued corn. As I pushed the stroller along, a policewoman in a black chador blocked my way. She fingered my plain cotton head scarf, pronounced it too thin and directed me toward a parked minibus. It took a full minute for me to realize that she meant to arrest me. “I’ve been wearing this veil for over five years,” I pleaded. “Surely it can’t be that unacceptable?” My husband soon caught up with us and began berating the policewoman for harassing a young mother. The commotion drew the attention of a bearded superior officer, who came over to inspect me. “The problems are not few,” he said, frowning at my sleeves, which fell a few inches above my unsteady wrists. He ordered me to sign a ta’ahod, a commitment that I would not repeat my mistake. “Now go home,” he said. “Go home, and don’t come back.”
Ostad Lotfi
I’m no expert in Iranian classical music, but I do know that Ostad Mohammad Reza Lotfi is a divine composer and tar player, and that I can listen to his performances for hours, rapt with admiration. I’ve written previously in TIME about how fascinating I find his recent return to Iran, especially his efforts in founding an institute of music. It recently came to my attention that he has a new website: Avaye Shayda . You can find information there about his Shayda institute, and also an upcoming series of concerts in Tehran. They are to be held outside at Niyavaran Palace, and everyone I know is besides themselves with excitement. Finally, something to look forward to in Tehran!
Seeking Signs of Literary Life in Iran
When I moved to Iran in 2000 to work as a journalist, I aspired to belong to a literary circle not unlike that of the engaged women of Azar Nafisi’s “Reading Lolita in Tehran,” who found relief from their authoritarian society in the imaginative world of novels. That bookstores did not exist as such — there were only bookstore/stationery stores, or bookstore/toy stores — was the first sign my plan might not work. I initially mistook Tehran’s most popular bookstore, with its windows full of weathered copper pots and other bric-a-brac, for an antique shop. Inside, the floor space dedicated to books was roughly a quarter of that taken up by kilims, cactuses and Lego sets. “I’m embarrassed to call myself a bookseller,” one store owner told me recently, gazing at the wall of Hello Kitty accessories that dominated his shop. In the hour we spent talking, customers came in to buy watch batteries, a condolence card, wrapping paper and a compass. Not a single person bought a book.
The Unbearable Chic-ness of Jihad
Not so long ago, the only place in Tehran that I might spy a pair of Dolce and Gabbana heels would have been in a smuggled copy of Vogue. These days, I need only walk through my neighborhood. High above a busy intersection where hard-liners hang “Death to America” banners looms a huge D&G billboard featuring a pair of pointy alligator-skin heels and a rather exquisite espresso-colored handbag. The Italian label is not the first to entice my neighbors with the promise of designer brand status: Last winter, an Escada billboard appeared over the local square, advertising “casual luxury look” accessories. As if none of this were enough, two weeks ago Iran’s first full-scale Western boutique opened for business nearby. The first day, as they hung up the Benetton sign and filled the windows with satin flip-flops and beach totes, I stood outside gawking, wondering what the Afghan day laborers waiting on the corner thought of the giant posters of blonde women in effusive motion. Overnight, the women in the poster had the tops of their heads chopped off (no veil), but their frozen smiles still beckon shoppers inside to buy $40 fuschia mini-skirts for girls under six.
Royal Namesakes
Having written previously in TIME about baby names banned under the Islamic Republic, I now feel obliged to share my recent discovery that a handful of names were also banned in Shah-era Iran. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi forbade certain common Farsi names such as Amir (prince) or Homayoun (imperial), whose literal meanings made them, in his eyes, the exclusive domain of the royal family. Given the popularity of such names among ordinary Iranians, this is hardly less absurd than the Islamic government banning names of pre-Islamic, Persian origin. Whether the
impulse to ban names arises from royal delusions of grandeur or an ideological campaign against Iran’s pre-Islamic past, what does seem clear is that successive Iranian governments have exercised their identity anxieties by decreeing what people can and cannot name their children.
“Halal” Music Makes a Comeback
Last summer, when Ostad Mohammad-Reza Lotfi — Iran’s most accomplished classical musician and tar master — returned from exile in the West to found a music school, hordes of eager young musicians stood in interminable lines under the Tehran sun, instrument cases tucked under their arms, waiting to take the entrance exam. The opportunity to study with the legendary composer drew star-struck young people from all across the country. Enough women showed up for an all women’s orchestra.
Located on a dilapidated block near Pich-e Shemroon, a central neighborhood that retains the dusty charm of old Tehran, the school occupies the quarters where Lotfi taught before being shut-down by authorities after the 1979 revolution. He returned once in the mid-1990s to re-open the school, but the government promptly cracked down and Lotfi returned to Europe. So, why now, under the tenure of hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is Lotfi’s school of music is being tolerated?