thedrifter
04-15-07, 07:33 AM
Posted on Sun, Apr. 15, 2007
IRAN'S YOUNG INTELLECTUALS DISDAINFUL OF POLITICS
Literature, art today's popular topics
By RAMIN MOSTAGHIM
Los Angeles Times
TEHRAN, Iran - At Cafe 78 on a recent evening, the stylishly dressed young customers said they had no idea that 15 British sailors and marines at the center of an international drama had just been released by their government. In their circles, no one talks about the day's news, the country's political challenges or its reputation in the West.
They'd rather chat about art, write short stories and organize workshops and literary contests.
''Why should I care about politics? Give me one simple reason, please,'' said Maryam, a 22-year-old Iranian student at Amir Kabir University who asked that her last name not be published. ''My father, when he was young, was revolutionary. He was secular and leftist. But nowadays he drinks, reads literature, poetry and is a self-proclaimed mystic.''
Intellectuals have long been at the vanguard of various movements for political change in Iran, including the early 20th-century constitutional revolution, the 1950s revolt against the monarchy, the late 1970s popular uprising that led to the establishment of the Islamic Republic, and the popular wave of reform that brought President Mohammad Khatami to power a decade ago.
But the Khatami-era political dreams withered away, and intellectual life in Iran has entered a crisis of sorts. In cafes such as Godot or 78, writers and thinkers have escaped into the esoteric and theoretical as a once-promising reform movement buckles under pressure from powerful conservatives.
Behnam Qolipour and his wife, Bita, illustrate the change. A little more than a year ago, they covered the country's feisty political battles as freelance journalists for Iranian newspapers. They trod daringly along the unstated red lines that could get a newspaper shut or a journalist tossed in jail. They worried about their phone calls being monitored and their home being watched.
But they've turned away from the country's day-to-day political struggles, opening the Titr Cafe, a messy haunt for playwrights and short-story writers near Tehran University.
''Please, no politics,'' insisted Qolipour, 30. ''Here we allow only literature and culture, which are lasting and not transient like politics.''
They wait on customers 11 hours a day at their cafe, opened 14 months ago and filled with stacks of film and literary magazines, short-story compilations and novels, as well as underemployed young men and women chatting about Hemingway, Tolstoy, Chekhov and Faulkner.
''We should devote ourselves to literature and social studies and cultivate ourselves and must not waste our energy in the political arena, where we are powerless,'' Qolipour said.
At Cafe Sepidocia, named after a literary magazine published before the 1979 revolution, a group of young men and women chain-smoked as they discussed a Persian translation of ''Anna Karenina.''
Talking about literature instead of politics means not having to watch every word, they said. ''We want to express ourselves without self-censorship,'' said Behzad Barani, 22, an aspiring writer who is a Tolstoy fan.
Some call the new literati self-centered. ''The young feel they do not belong to this country,'' said Ali Dehbashi, a former political activist and denizen of the publishing scene. ''Sooner or later they say goodbye to their motherland and settle and work and enjoy themselves in the West.''
But Barani said the young were engaged in their own way. ''Young writers are thinking deeply,'' he said.
Barani said he dropped out of college because he found Iran's educational system too rigid. He doesn't even bother to apply to authorities at the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance for permission to have his works published, not just because he expects to get rejected, but because he thinks his writing would be misunderstood by a society he deems immature.
''We do not care if we can get our short stories published or not,'' he said. ''Thanks to blogs, our stories are read anyway.''
Many say they've found a solace in literature that they can't find in the public realm. Saman Moradi, 22, an unemployed law school graduate, said she reads novels and writes short stories to escape from a reality she feels she cannot change.
''I want peace of mind, and literature so far has brought me peace,'' she said. ''Politics makes me nervous for nothing.''
They organize literary criticism sessions at which young men and women dissect the works of classic and contemporary writers, such as the controversial Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk, who won the Nobel Prize in literature last year.
Even some reformist firebrands, such as former lawmaker Ahmad Borghani, have removed themselves from politics and become self-styled literary critics.
''Literature, especially these days, makes the bitter political circumstances and the dastardly actions in the political scene more bearable,'' Borghani said.
Moradi graduated with a law degree from Tehran's Islamic Azad University but says she has little hope of finding a job in her field.
So instead of job hunting, she reads.
''In literary criticism, literature is categorized into serious literature and... escape literature produced by less serious writers,'' she said. ''It is ironic that here in Iran, we use serious literature as escape literature.''
Ellie
IRAN'S YOUNG INTELLECTUALS DISDAINFUL OF POLITICS
Literature, art today's popular topics
By RAMIN MOSTAGHIM
Los Angeles Times
TEHRAN, Iran - At Cafe 78 on a recent evening, the stylishly dressed young customers said they had no idea that 15 British sailors and marines at the center of an international drama had just been released by their government. In their circles, no one talks about the day's news, the country's political challenges or its reputation in the West.
They'd rather chat about art, write short stories and organize workshops and literary contests.
''Why should I care about politics? Give me one simple reason, please,'' said Maryam, a 22-year-old Iranian student at Amir Kabir University who asked that her last name not be published. ''My father, when he was young, was revolutionary. He was secular and leftist. But nowadays he drinks, reads literature, poetry and is a self-proclaimed mystic.''
Intellectuals have long been at the vanguard of various movements for political change in Iran, including the early 20th-century constitutional revolution, the 1950s revolt against the monarchy, the late 1970s popular uprising that led to the establishment of the Islamic Republic, and the popular wave of reform that brought President Mohammad Khatami to power a decade ago.
But the Khatami-era political dreams withered away, and intellectual life in Iran has entered a crisis of sorts. In cafes such as Godot or 78, writers and thinkers have escaped into the esoteric and theoretical as a once-promising reform movement buckles under pressure from powerful conservatives.
Behnam Qolipour and his wife, Bita, illustrate the change. A little more than a year ago, they covered the country's feisty political battles as freelance journalists for Iranian newspapers. They trod daringly along the unstated red lines that could get a newspaper shut or a journalist tossed in jail. They worried about their phone calls being monitored and their home being watched.
But they've turned away from the country's day-to-day political struggles, opening the Titr Cafe, a messy haunt for playwrights and short-story writers near Tehran University.
''Please, no politics,'' insisted Qolipour, 30. ''Here we allow only literature and culture, which are lasting and not transient like politics.''
They wait on customers 11 hours a day at their cafe, opened 14 months ago and filled with stacks of film and literary magazines, short-story compilations and novels, as well as underemployed young men and women chatting about Hemingway, Tolstoy, Chekhov and Faulkner.
''We should devote ourselves to literature and social studies and cultivate ourselves and must not waste our energy in the political arena, where we are powerless,'' Qolipour said.
At Cafe Sepidocia, named after a literary magazine published before the 1979 revolution, a group of young men and women chain-smoked as they discussed a Persian translation of ''Anna Karenina.''
Talking about literature instead of politics means not having to watch every word, they said. ''We want to express ourselves without self-censorship,'' said Behzad Barani, 22, an aspiring writer who is a Tolstoy fan.
Some call the new literati self-centered. ''The young feel they do not belong to this country,'' said Ali Dehbashi, a former political activist and denizen of the publishing scene. ''Sooner or later they say goodbye to their motherland and settle and work and enjoy themselves in the West.''
But Barani said the young were engaged in their own way. ''Young writers are thinking deeply,'' he said.
Barani said he dropped out of college because he found Iran's educational system too rigid. He doesn't even bother to apply to authorities at the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance for permission to have his works published, not just because he expects to get rejected, but because he thinks his writing would be misunderstood by a society he deems immature.
''We do not care if we can get our short stories published or not,'' he said. ''Thanks to blogs, our stories are read anyway.''
Many say they've found a solace in literature that they can't find in the public realm. Saman Moradi, 22, an unemployed law school graduate, said she reads novels and writes short stories to escape from a reality she feels she cannot change.
''I want peace of mind, and literature so far has brought me peace,'' she said. ''Politics makes me nervous for nothing.''
They organize literary criticism sessions at which young men and women dissect the works of classic and contemporary writers, such as the controversial Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk, who won the Nobel Prize in literature last year.
Even some reformist firebrands, such as former lawmaker Ahmad Borghani, have removed themselves from politics and become self-styled literary critics.
''Literature, especially these days, makes the bitter political circumstances and the dastardly actions in the political scene more bearable,'' Borghani said.
Moradi graduated with a law degree from Tehran's Islamic Azad University but says she has little hope of finding a job in her field.
So instead of job hunting, she reads.
''In literary criticism, literature is categorized into serious literature and... escape literature produced by less serious writers,'' she said. ''It is ironic that here in Iran, we use serious literature as escape literature.''
Ellie