No Black Wave, After All?

Last February, it was the political fatigue of the Iranian population rather than a strong will to vote that led to the victory of conservative forces in Iran. Now the question is whether or not further limitations on social and cultural freedoms will be introduced. So far fears that this might happen have not materialized. By Volker Perthes

​​Nima Saidi, 27, is the lead singer and guitarist for the rock band Taboo, a group considered by fans to be the best among the five or six bands in Iran producing similar music. Nima and his friends are in the habit of distributing the flyers for their concerts by themselves at other cultural events. Rock music is not exactly what the leaders in Iran deem Islamically correct.

At rock concerts – Taboo is permitted three or four a year – attention is paid to morality. The public is forbidden to dance, and even moving rhythmically to the music is considered an offense and can quickly lead to an early end for a concert.

Relaxed despite the conservative turn

Performing as a rock band has become possible in the era of Khatami, Nima says. It is still unlikely, however, that the government will allow Iranian musicians to play what they want and when they want in the near future. The recent change to a conservative-dominated Parliament is a step backward; perhaps there will soon be fewer permits granted for concerts by Taboo and similar bands.

But taking away the freedom of artistic expression once it has been granted would be very difficult.

What the new conservative majority in the Majlis, the Iranian Parliament, will mean for cultural politics in Iran is not yet clear. Most observers of Iran, including critical and liberal voices, take a relaxed view of the conservative turn.

Khatami: Big talk but little action on his words?

The first reason for this is that enthusiasm for the reform-minded President Muhammad Khatami in Iran is not as great as it is abroad. Many of his former followers accuse him of big talk but little action on his words.

And secondly, the conservatives who now dominate Parliament are predominantly pragmatists who might at least be able to instate sound economic policies.

And thirdly, the conservatives cannot govern in a direction that is at odds with the country's own demography, with its predominantly young population that has learned to take freedoms – sixty percent of Iranians are under twenty years of age.

More censorship to come?

A publisher says she thinks that some conservative authorities will now try to more tightly control film production and publishing. New appointments in central positions of the culture bureaucracy, coordinated to show reverence to the new conservative majority, may further complicate things.

A well-known Iranian actress judges the situation much as the young rock musicians, anticipating longer waits for permits for the more or less socially critical television shows and films made in Iran, but otherwise expecting no fundamental limitations on artistic expression.

Behruz Gharibpoor, manager of the Iranian Artists' Association and of the Artist's House in Tehran, says things may become more conservative, or some of the artistic directors will be replaced.

Art is a necessity

The dangerous phase during which parts of the Islamic system didn't want to see music, cinema or exhibitions is a thing of the past; even the Islamic ideologues now realize that art is a necessity.

In the Khatami era, rules have been established that insure a fit between cultural products and the ideological and moral agenda of those governing. Some of this has had and continues to have a strange effect. Women, for example, are not allowed to sing solo, but they may sing as a duet or in a group, or with male colleagues.

In theater or film productions, women must always wear headscarves, except in scenes set at home or abroad, where a headscarf or veil would not correspond to reality. And if a film scene requires that a father take his daughter in his arms, this is not allowed unless the actor and actress are father and daughter or married in real life.

Prohibitions spur artists' creativity

Artists adapt to these conditions. There is a red line, says one filmmaker, that they have learned to respect. And some prohibitions serve to spur their creativity.

Much of this situation is fluid, and, like Iranian politics, not without its ambiguities. This is true, for example, of the story behind the film "Marmulak" ("The Lizard") by Kamal Tabrisi, a crime and social problem caper about an escaped prisoner who disguises himself as a Mullah and gets a way with it, much like the story from Keiser's Germany about the Captain from Köpenick.

The film makes fun of the Mullahs and their limited horizon in an emancipatory way, and it topped box office sales records in Iran.

Forbidden, but not banned

But after protests by a few conservative representatives of the clergy, it was then forbidden in some states and ultimately pulled from cinemas all over the country. The fact that it was no longer shown demonstrates, according to the director, that a conservative mentality is on the rise.

But at the same time, the film was not officially banned. CD copies of it can be bought on the street. And a review of the film published in "Iran News" (one of the four English language dailies in Iran) just a few days after it was pulled from cinemas praises the film.

According to the review, the film is brilliant for the way it makes fun of the Shiite clergy that are "as popular here as their Catholic counterparts were in Europe during the sixteenth century."

"A closed society is not good"

The relaxed way in which the conservative trend has been commented on in the cultural scene may result from the fact that representatives of the new majority in Parliament promise to deliver a certain dose of pragmatic liberalism.

"We neoconservatives," says Amir Mohibiyan, one of the editors of the conservative newspaper Risalat, "are aware of social change. We do think that an Islamic society should be established, but we do not believe that a closed society is good. Fashionable details such as the question of how young women should wear their headscarves should not be given so much attention."

Repressive tolerenance

A few critical observers see in this demonstrative pragmatism of the new conservatives a kind of repressive tolerance. According to a dissident member of the high clergy, the conservatives essentially want to de-politicize the people.

They will tolerate women wearing their headscarves as they please, and they officially allow satellite dishes and foreign – i.e. "immoral" – television programs. What is ultimately important to those governing is that people stay at home.

An Iranian women's rights activist sees things similarly. The conservatives, she says, are not afraid of "bad hijab," young women's scarves slipping to the back of their heads, but they do fear books and films critical of their power and their sense of morality.

Hafis, Goethe's "intellectual brother"

The conservatives themselves take care to demonstrate in their public appearances the many forms of Iranian culture and identity, thereby also demonstrating its uniqueness. One of the conservatives' mentors says they don't want to enforce a "hard" religiosity.

Even religious Iranians don't just read the Koran, but also the works of Hafis, the great, sensual Persian poet from the fourteenth century whom Goethe spoke of in "West-Eastern Divan" as his intellectual brother.

In Iran, Hafis' writing is exempt from all forms of puritan criticism. In an exhibition on the artist Kamal Alavi in the Museum of Modern Art in Isfahan, among the many artistic illustrations of Koran quotes, a calligraphic painting of a Hafis verse can also be found:

"Come to the tavern and let your face turn purple; don't go to the mosque because there you will find the people whose faces are black," meaning the bad folks. No one here thinks that juxtaposing Hafis' verse and Koran suras is inappropriate.

Volker Perthes

Volker Perthes is the director of a research group on the Near and Middle East at the German Institute of International and Security Affairs in Berlin.

© NZZ, Switzerland

This article was previously published by Neue Züricher Zeitung, Switzerland, 21 August 2004

German Institute of International and Security Affairs

Translation from German: Christina M. White