Inside Iran today
By Praful Bidwai
The News – International, Pakistan
April 28 2007
The writer, a former newspaper editor, is a researcher and peace and
human-rights activist based in Delhi
The Iranian Artists’ Forum is the kind of institution any country
would be proud of — a lively, pulsating place, with auditoria,
seminar rooms and exhibition halls, at which exciting events in
Iran’s flourishing art world happen. It’s similar to Lahore’s Alhamra
complex, only more liberal, multicultural and plural. The Artists’
Forum exudes freedom and creativity. Not many developing countries
have a comparable arts complex.
The Forum is a redesigned military barracks located right next door
to the long-closed down United States embassy. Hundreds of young
people ‘hang out’ at the place. Its ground-floor coffee shop is fully
vegetarian and serves ‘chapatti bread’, besides sandwiches, pizzas,
soft drinks and teas (including ayurvedic tea). Why, it even offers
its own versions of thalis: "Gita Set" and "Lotus Set".
It’s tragic, therefore, that the Forum is becoming a target of
censorship. Last week, it hosted the release of a special issue of a
remarkable magazine "International Gallerie", published from Mumbai,
devoted to Iran’s contemporary culture. But its management turned
down requests to hold a vocal music performance as part of the event.
It also disallowed the display of some posters based on the issue.
"It’s not that the Forum management favours censorship", said an art
critic, who insisted on anonymity. (Nobody wants to be quoted in
Iran for fear of harassment). "But it’s being closely watched. If
the management is to keep the institution running, it must not
say anything critical of the regime – or risk closure. It ends up
practising self-censorship."
Opponents of self-censorship were offered an object lesson last week.
The authorities closed down the cheerful "Cafe 78", located in Aban
Street. "Cafe 78" was the favourite haunt of radical students, both
female and male, who would chat animatedly about avant-garde art,
music, culture, Che Guevara, politics, whatever… As the conversation
progressed, and modern Iranian music blared, veils would recede by
inches (all women must wear headscarves in public), and romantic
words would be discreetly exchanged.
"Cafe 78"’s closure, like the Forum’s self-censorship, is part of
a new drive by Iran’s authorities to regiment individual conduct.
There’s a nationwide campaign against the wearing of tight clothes
and skimpy headscarves by women. This is customary at the beginning
of summer, when hemlines become shorter. Yet, the drive has generated
great fear because it follows countless other repressive measures.
These include detention of dozens of feminists for collecting one
million signatures demanding changes in the constitution in favour
of gender equality. Schoolteachers have been arrested for agitating
for higher pay.
Even worse have been the purges of secular teachers from the
universities and closure of more than 110 pro-reform periodicals over
six years. The repression isn’t a response to a particular threat.
"It’s part of a ‘regime maintenance’ strategy ," says a political
scientist. "Iran’s hardliners don’t want people, especially
the youth, to feel free. They know that young Iranians loathe
regimentation. They take recourse to the constitution’s ‘Islamic’
values and vilayat-e-faqih (Guardianship of the Islamic Jurists)
to enforce discipline."
True, this discipline isn’t extreme. Iran is no "Taliban Lite" – a
Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan. Iran is sufism’s homeland. Its Islam is
more about ritual than rigid doctrine. Iranians interact closely with
the west through their million-plus expatriates, the Internet, and
consumption of mass culture, including Hollywood, jeans and fast food.
The mismatch between "regime maintenance" and popular aspirations to
freedom produces duality, even hypocrisy. Public debate is banned on
"sensitive" subjects, including nuclear issues. But people discuss
these in classrooms, buses, taxis, homes, and cafes. Women "jump"
communications barriers ingeniously – through dummy websites and
blogs. (Iran has the world’s third highest number of blogs.)
Officially, liquor is a strict no-no. But it flows like water in
Iran’s living rooms. The Armenian minority is allowed to make wine,
beer and spirits. Specially established distilleries in neighbouring
countries cater to Iran’s thirst for alcohol. Iran is one of the few
West Asian countries which holds relatively free and fair elections.
But Iran’s democracy is deeply flawed, with little freedom of political
association. Parties are registered only if they conform to Islamic
tenets. Freedom in this deeply paradoxical society has had periodic
ups and downs. Today, it’s on a downward trajectory.
Three factors will influence Iran’s short-term evolution: President
Mahmoud Ahmedinejad’s growing unpopularity; the ability of reformists
to counter the government’s use of the current slogan, "Islam and the
nation"; and Iran’s confrontation with the west, in particular, the
US. Ahmedinejad recently suffered several setbacks, including defeat
of his nominees in local elections. His populist handouts have blown
up the special fund financed by Iran’s oil sales, estimated at $40
billion. He’s increasingly seen as a politician given to intemperate
statements. He’s not fully trusted by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei.
If he’s reined in by the Establishment – as happened during the recent
British sailors’ detention and release – that will strengthen the
reformists. Reformists, including former presidents Mohammed Khatami
and Ali Akbar Hashmi Rafsanjani, could still exercise a restraining
influence. The reformists’ success will critically depend on preventing
nationalism from being used as a self-legitimising platform by the
hardliners. Britain’s recent adventurism on the sailors issue played
straight into their hands. They drummed up national pride and won a
public relations victory. Britain had to open clandestine talks with
Tehran and make a deal.
Much will also depend on how the west deals with Iran’s nuclear
programme. The US is implacably hostile towards Iran, which it wrongly
sees as an "Axis of Evil" state supporting terrorism. In fact, Iran
is anti-Al Qaeda and has behaved with restraint in Shia-majority Iraq
despite its considerable influence there. Iran feels humiliated at
the sanctions imposed on it for running a nuclear programme which is
legitimate – despite relatively minor infractions of International
Atomic Energy Agency rules.
The more Iran is cornered over its nuclear activities, the more
it’ll be tempted to be defiant – and made boastful claims about its
uranium enrichment prowess. Iran is many years away from enriching
enough uranium for a bomb. Its facilities for uranium conversion into
hexafluoride (Natanz) and its centrifuge plant (Isfahan) are under
IAEA safeguard and cannot be used for weapons purposes. Contrary
to the claim that it has installed 3,000 centrifuges, the IAEA says
it has about 1,300 primitive machines. It’s unlikely that Iran has
stabilised these delicate centrifuges, which rotate at extremely high
speeds like 1,000 revolutions per second. (Even India has had serious
difficulties in stabilising centrifuges.)
More important, the Natanz facility produces gas which is probably
too impure to lead to enrichment. IAEA director-general Mohammed
ElBaradei discounts Iran’s claim to "industrial-scale" enrichment and
says "Iran is still at the beginning stages". This offers the US, UK,
France and Germany an opportunity to negotiate nuclear restraint with
Iran while not denying its right to enrichment for peaceful purposes.
Iran is willing to talk -without suspending enrichment. A way out
is possible. But the US must muster the will to explore it while
abandoning ill-conceived plans to attack Iran.
Much of what happens to and in Iran will depend on the US – just as
in 1953, when it toppled Iran’s first elected leader, and in 1979,
when it courted the Revolution’s hostility by backing the Shah.