Being Modern in Contemporary Iran
Event Featuring:
Overview
March 4, 2004 (Washington, D.C.) - Using examples from Iranian film and literature, Dr. Azar Nafisi of Johns Hopkins SAIS discussed the meaning of modernity and how this concept has been understood and expressed in the culture and politics of Iranian society. Modernity carries diverse expressions, including both the freedoms of democracy and the horrors of totalitarianism. Contrary to oversimplified Western analyses, neither Islamic fundamentalism nor a clash between traditionalism and modernity are to blame for instability and human rights violations in Iran. Rather, contemporary Iran is experiencing a quarrel between the best and worst aspects of modernity itself.
Event Summary
Dr. Nafisi explained that a modern individual is someone with a “probing mind” who is driven to question and criticize his or her surroundings. This tendency to reflect and doubt also involves a “dialogue with the past,” in which society and culture progress in a dialectic of continuity and change. At the same time, modernity also has negative, harmful manifestations, such as censorship, totalitarian control, and even religious fundamentalism. In contrast to the probing mind, this side of modernity counteracts free expression and individualism. To illustrate this downside of modernity, Dr. Nafisi provided the example of the “blind censor” in Iran, a government official who decided which films were appropriate for public viewing even though he could not see them physically.
Dr. Nafisi explained that both aspects of modernity are present in Iran today and that there is a fundamental struggle between the two. This struggle is largely responsible for the instability that plagues Iranian society today. The current situation, however, has a complex past. Focusing on women’s rights, Dr. Nafisi provided a historical background to illustrate how modernity has played a role in the development of Iranian culture and politics:
The mid-nineteenth century inaugurated the arrival of modernity to Iran, and with it, a new period of vitality and self-consciousness in Iranian culture. Throughout the next century, Iranians struggled with new ideas and issues regarding individuality and free expression, which became mirrored symbolically in the arts. For example, Iranian films and novels often employed the figure of a strong and illusive woman, with story lines that evoked feelings of both desire and hesitation. This symbolized Iran’s cultural encounter with the modern West, in the form of the aforementioned dialectic. Removal of the veil was an important symbol, especially in the context of Iran’s constitutional revolution and the debate over individual rights in the public sphere. Although the veil is a sign of Muslim faith, the central issue in the cultural sphere was not religion, but rather the choice—as a modern individual—to don or remove the veil.
The theme of individual rights was also important in the political sphere, and if artistic culture embodied the positive, inquisitive aspect of modernity in Iran, several influential political leaders personified the negative. Claiming that ideas from the West “destroy the minds of the youth,” the well-known opponent of the constitutional revolution and early inspiration for Ayatollah Khomeini, Sheikh Fazollah Nouri, reacted to the new images of women in film by issuing a fatwa curtailing women’s rights. Additionally, in a secular approach to combating free expression, the Shah, who was hailed by the West as an icon of modernity in the Middle East, put severe limits on political parties and religion in public life.
The Revolution of 1979 arose in the context of this tension between positive and negative aspects of modernity. From the perspective of politics, it is easy to understand why the situation leading up to the revolution was perceived as a struggle between secular and religious elements. However, choosing to interpret Iran’s cultural and political history as a struggle between democratic and totalitarian tendencies, Dr. Nafisi rejected Western analyses that describe the Revolution a transition from a good, modern system under the Shah, to a traditional and backward society dominated by Islamic culture. Even though support from the West and an abundance of roles for women allowed many people to associate the Shah with modernity, his policies did not promote free expression. Furthermore, although religious leaders hailed the Islamic republic as an example of pure Islamic culture, it actually became a form of modern totalitarianism, denying freedom to all religions—including Islam. Individual liberties—with respect to both faith and doubt—have been at the center of both secular and religious debates in Iran, however the fatal flaw and the tragedy has been an inability to mediate this tension inherent in modernity. Religious culture must be separated from the politics of the state, and imagination and creativity must be allowed to flourish.
About this Event
Speaker Details
Dr. Azar Nafisi, author of the best-selling book "Reading Lolita in Tehran" is a visiting fellow and professorial lecturer at the Foreign Policy Institute of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. A scholar of literature and culture, she has held positions at the University of Tehran, the Free Islamic University, and Allameh Tabatabai University in Iran.
Attributions
This summary was written by Betsy Mesard, an MEI intern who graduated from the University of Virginia with a BA in Religious Studies and Philosophy.
