Culture and politics under Iran's 'new conservatives'
Government 'afraid' of books, films that criticize its rule

 TEHRAN: Nima Saidi, 27, is lead singer of Taboo. According to his fans,
Taboo is among Iran's top five or six rock bands. Nima and his friends hand
out flyers for their gigs at different cultural events themselves. Tehran's
rulers do not exactly deem rock music "Islamically correct" and during
performances - Taboo is granted three or four gigs per year - moral
standards are carefully upheld. Dancing or any rhythmic movement is
prohibited, and violation of this rule can result in speedy termination of
the concert.

It is during the Khatami era, says Nima, that performing as a rock band has
become possible at all. Certainly, the government is not about to grant
Iran's musicians freedom to perform what, when and how they want. A
Parliament dominated by conservatives, as it has emerged from last spring's
somewhat manipulated elections, is deemed a setback by Nima. Perhaps, he
says, his band - and others - will not be permitted to perform as
frequently. Yet he reckons it would be difficult for the government to
renege on those liberties of artistic expression it has already granted.

It is not yet clear what impact the new conservative majority in the majlis,
Iran's Parliament, will have on the country's cultural politics. Most
observers, including critical and liberal voices, seem to be rather relaxed
about the recent turn toward conservatism. One reason for this may be that,
nowadays, Iranians' enthusiasm for reformist President Mohammad Khatami is
markedly lower than it is in the West - many of his former followers
accusing him of holding pretty speeches without implementing any of his
promises. Secondly, many regard the conservatives now dominating Parliament
as pragmatic in their outlook, and there is hope they will at least be able
to properly run the country's economy. Finally, argue the backers of
reformers and of the new majority alike, the conservatives won't be able to
rule "against demography," against an overwhelmingly young population - some
50 percent of Iranians are under the age of 20 - that has already demanded
its liberties.

According to one publisher, some of the conservative authorities are now
likely to seek even tighter control over film production, book publication,
as well as producers and publishers. Things might get more complicated if
key positions within the cultural bureaucracy are reshuffled so as to
reflect the new majority in Parliament. A well-known actress agrees with the
young rock musicians, though. From now on, she thinks, it will probably take
more time to get permission for the production of critical television series
or films, but curtailing artistic freedom of expression itself will prove
difficult.

Perhaps, says Behruz Gharibpoor, the manager of the Iranian Artists' Forum,
things will get a little more conservative, perhaps some of the more
progressive officials will even have to leave their posts. The dangerous
days, however, when parts of the Iranian system abhorred any kind of music,
film or exhibition are definitely in the past. According to Gharibpoor, even
Islamist ideologues have come to realize that art is a necessity.

The Khatami era, after all, has had its own regulations to ensure that
cultural production is compatible with the ruling elites' moral and
ideological parameters. Some of these rules appear a little strange.  One
bans female singers from performing on their own - while duets with either a
man or woman are deemed correct. In theater or film productions, women are
obliged to wear a headscarf at all times, even during domestic scenes or in
foreign settings - though wearing the garment does not correspond to the
reality it is supposed to depict. A script that has a father embrace his
daughter on screen is also not doable - the actors are not married or
actually related in real life, after all.

Artists adapt to such regulations. As one director puts it, there are some
red lines that everybody has learned not to cross - and some proscriptions
actually lead to more creativity. Many aspects of cultural policy are
constantly evolving and, like Iranian politics in general, are characterised
by ambiguity.

This is true for the history of "Marmulak" (The Lizard) by Kamal Tabrisi, a
comedy whose main character, a prisoner on the run, dresses up as a mullah
and thus manages to escape the law. The movie, which mocks Iranian mullahs
and their cumbersome code of conduct in a liberating way, was an
unprecedented success at the box office. Following protests by conservative
elements in the religious establishment, however, the film was taken off
theater schedules first in selected towns and later in the country as a
whole. According to the director, this clearly reflects the upsurge in
conservative sentiment; at the same time, however, the film was never
officially banned.

Copies on compact disc are freely available on the streets and a review in
Iran News, one of four English-language dailies, was most enthusiastic in
its praise. The film's humor, it said, was brilliantly mocking the country's
Shiite clergy who "are as popular here as their Catholic counterparts were
in 16th century Europe."

Partly, the calm with which Iran's cultural scene accommodates the turn
toward political conservatism is accounted for by the prospect of pragmatic
liberalism held out by members of the new majority in Parliament.

"As new conservatives," says Amir Mohibiyan, co-publisher of Risalat, a
conservative newspaper, "we are aware of societal change. We do believe in
building an Islamic society, but we do not think a closed society is a good
idea. We should not pay that much attention to questions of fashion, such as
the way young women choose to wear their headscarves."

Some critical observers, however, regard the new conservatives' ostentatious
pragmatism as a sort of repressive tolerance. The conservatives' main goal,
says a dissident cleric, is essentially to depoliticize the people. To that
end, he says, they are willing to accept that young women wear their
headscarves in whatever way they want, and put up with the spread of
satellite television, which gives access to foreign - immoral - television
channels.

The most important thing for the conservative leaders of the regime,
according to the same cleric, is to keep people at home, away from the
streets. A proponent of women's rights agrees with him. The conservatives,
she says, are unafraid of young women's "bad hijab." They are, however,
afraid of books and films that criticize their rule.

The "new conservatives" themselves are eager to stress the many-faceted and
original nature of Iranian culture and identity. They have no interest, says
one of their intellectual leaders, in imposing a "hard" sort of religion.
Even devout Iranians, he argues, revere the verses of Hafiz, the great 14th
century poet so much in touch with the sensual sides of life.

The work of Hafiz is indeed beyond the reach of any puritanical criticism in
Iran. At Isfahan's Museum of Modern Art, a special exhibition by painter
Kamal Eddin Alavi featured, among many artistic renderings of Koranic
quotes, a calligraphic painting with a Hafiz verse: "Come to the tavern," it
reads, "and let your face turn purple; do not go to the prayer house, for
there are those whose faces are black," meaning those who are bad people.
Nobody seems to mind Koranic verses peacefully sharing the same exhibition
wall as those of Hafiz.

By Volker Perthes
The Daily Star, Beirut, Monday, August 16, 2004