Alas, a Blog

The connection between literature and politics is always a difficult one. Treating politics as if it were literature, politicizing literary texts, are strategies that people use to advance agendas that are fundamentally political, and often not progressive/egalitarian, in nature. Especially in connection with what is going on in Iran right now, when people are really dying and when the Iranian government is doing everything it can to isolate the entire nation of Iran so that it (the government) can restore what it believes should be the (clearly repressive) order of things, to talk about life imitating art, to read what is going on in Iran through the lens of Iran’s own literature, has felt to me like a self-indulgent and gratuitous intellectual exercise. Yet literature, and in this case specifically poetry, also helps people give meaning to their lives; it can inspire, and it can connect us to something larger than ourselves in ways that political feelings, not matter how strongly felt and/or acted upon, often cannot. And so, precisely because people are really dying in Iran–because I really do believe, along with William Carlos Williams, that people die every day for lack of what is found in poetry–and precisely because there is so much at stake over there, and because Iran is a culture that loves and reveres its poets, I have decided to write. Perhaps connecting the unrest in Iran not only to the specific history of the Islamic Republic and the revolution out of which that republic was born–which most analysts, reasonably, are focusing on–but also to the Iranian culture that is larger and older than both the Republic and Islam, will make a difference. What that difference might be, and to whom, I have no way of knowing, but I just don’t think it is mere coincidence that the current unrest finds echoes in a story Iran has been telling itself about itself for centuries: the tale of Kaveh and Zahhak from the poem commonly referred to as Iran’s national epic, Shahnameh (Book, or Epic, of the Kings), part of which I am in the process of translating. I will include my translation at the end of this post.

Written by Abolqasem Ferdowsi in the 10th century, Shahnameh tells the story of the Iranian nation by telling the story of its kings, from the nation’s mythical beginnings right up to the moment of the Muslim conquest in the 7th century CE. One of the themes that runs through the poem is the question of how to respond to an unjust ruler. The tale of Zahhak and Kaveh is one of the narratives that explores this theme. First, though, some backstory: Zahhak is Shahnameh’s first evil king. Son of an Arab monarch named Merdas, Zahhak is seduced by Eblis (the devil in these stories) into killing his father to assume the throne, and he is eventually cursed by Eblis with a serpent growing out of each shoulder, to which he must feed one human brain per night. In other words, he must kill two people a day in order to keep the serpents fed. so, as you might imagine, Zahhak does not turn out to be a benevolent ruler, and when he conquers Iran–whose previous king, Jamshid, made himself vulnerable when he declared himself a god and so lost the “real” god’s favor–Zahhak’s cruelty kicks into high gear.

One night, Zahhak has a dream that disturbs him. When he asks his advisors to interpret it, they say that the dream foretells his destruction by a man named Feraydoun, who will kill him and assume the throne. Zahhak goes on a killing rampage trying to hunt Feraydoun down, and though he is unsuccessful, he does manage to kill Feraydoun’s father. Finally, out of a kind of desperation–and here is where, if you have not seen parallels to what is going on in Iran until now, the parallels start to get obvious–Zahhak summons the prince of each province in his kingdom and asks them to sign their names to a proclamation asserting that he, as their leader, has only ever been concerned with justice, righteousness and spoken only the truth. He wants this public acknowledgment so that he can raise an army with which to defeat the nemesis who is coming to challenge him. The heads of the provinces, knowing that their leader will kill them if they refuse to sign the proclamation, sign. It is at this point that Kaveh walks in, and from here I am going to let the poem speak for itself, because I think the parallels to today’s situation–a ruler afraid he will lose power, a rigged statement of approval, a (failed) attempt to appease the citizenry and opposition marches–while not exact, need no further explanation. (The poem will appear in an upcoming issue of The Dirty Goat Magazine.)
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Got this from Andrew Sullivan, where it is attributed to Karroubi, one of the opposition candidates in Iran’s recent election:

Here’s the translation:

1 (Girl in street): Defending civil rights
2 (Boy next to old man): Counterbalancing poverty/deprivation
3 (Boy pushing away donation box): Nationalizing oil income
4 (Man standing on rooftop): Reducing tension in international affairs
5 (Boy sitting next to satellite dishes): Free access to information
6 (Girl sitting besides her mother): Supporting single mothers
7 (Girl with cast): Knock down violence against women
8 (Boy): Education for all
9 (Boy infront of man locking car): Increasing public safety
10 (Girl on rooftop): Ethnic and religious minority rights
11 (Man on rooftop): Supporting NGOs
12 (Girl in front of wall): Public involvement
13 (Boy and girl): We have come for change
14: Change for Iran

Now, a campaign ad is a campaign ad, and it’s very easy to be cynical about them. Just imagine for a minute, though, in the context of Iran, how chutzpadik–it’s a Yiddish word meaning audacious, ballsy, and it’s the only one that fit my response to seeing the ad–it was for an Iranian politician to say he wants to accomplish these things; and notice as well the prominence given to two issues related specifically to women’s status.

As events in Iran continue to unfold, the usual suspects are griping that Barack Obama is not spending enough time going on the teevee and proclaiming loudly that we’re on the side of the Iranian protesters, and that we want the Iranian government to topple.

That would be, of course, absolute insanity. Mousavi is not a liberal reformist who wants warm ties with America. And for obvious historical reasons, Iranians are deeply distrustful of American interference in their internal political affairs. If Obama came out strongly on Mousavi’s side, it would give the forces supporting Ahmadinejad a great card to play — the ability to paint Mousavi and his supporters as American puppets. It could sap support for the budding movement, stop it in its tracks. It would be the single worst thing Obama could do to the protesters.

And I think the right knows it.

Hilzoy is more charitable here than I would be in laying out the situation:

[C]omparisons to Reagan and Eastern Europe are ludicrous. We can debate how important Reagan’s various pronouncements about Eastern Europe were, but I do not recall anyone suggesting that they would not be welcomed by Eastern European dissidents, or would harm their cause. In this case, they could do real harm, which is why no Iranian human rights activists and opposition leaders that I’m aware of have called on Obama to speak out.

Question: do the people who make these arguments not know this? If they don’t — if they really believe that the question how Obama should respond is in any way like the question how Reagan should have responded to Eastern Europe — then they are completely ignorant of Iran’s history, and have no business commenting at all.

If they do know this, then either they genuinely believe that Obama ought to come out in favor of the protesters or they don’t. In the first case, I think they are deeply unwise. (Matt Yglesias on McCain: “a dangerous madman whose ideas would risk incredibly suffering and destruction around the world.”) In the second, they are advocating a policy that they know would harm the demonstrators they claim to support, demonstrators who are risking their lives. That would be deeply cynical, and vile beyond belief.

Deeply cynical? Vile beyond belief? That pretty much describes the right these days.

You see, the right is hammering Obama here because they assume that he cares enough about American interests in the region not to take the bait. They figure they can hammer Obama for not showing overt support because they know damn well that he can’t, not without harming the very movement that Obama’s words are supposed to back. Moreover, they get to paint Obama as “soft” on Ahmadinejad, and they get to play their favorite game, which involves our nation being Team America: World Police, but for real.

Of course, they know in their hearts that Obama is doing the right thing here, that jumping too hard right now could destroy a fragile movement for justice in Iran. But they don’t care. They don’t care about the people fighting for their freedom, and they don’t care about the people of Iran, and really, they don’t even care about the people of America.

They care about regaining power, and maybe starting a war. That’s it. And the only thing decent human beings should do is shun them utterly.