Young and Defiant in Tehran
CONTEMPORARY ETHNOGRAPHY
Kirin Narayan and Paul Stoller, Series Editors
A complete list of books in the series is available from the publisher.
Young and Defiant in Tehran
SHAHRAM KHOSRAVI
Copyright © 2008 University of Pennsylvania Press
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher.
Published by
University of Pennsylvania Press
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
A Cataloging-in-Publication record is available from the Library of Congress
ISBN-13: 978-0-8122-4039-9
ISBN-10: 0-8122-4039-1
To two friends:
To Mansoor. A basiji whose young body is devastated by chemical weapons in the Iran-Iran war. While I write these words—January 2007—he is suffering from irremediable and unbearable pain.
To lovely Behrooz. A fellow traveler (hamsafar). A dissident young man who disappeared without a trace when he tried to cross the border between Pakistan and India ilegally in November 1987.
Contents
Note on Transliteration and Dates
2: The Aesthetics of Authority
4: A Passage to Modernity: Golestan
Note on Transliteration and Dates
The system of transliteration used in this book follows the style of the International Journal of Middle East Studies. Transliteration of Arabic words and words in Persian of Arabic origin follows the system used for Persian. All translations are by the author unless otherwise stated. In the text, dates are all Common Era unless they refer to Persian texts. In the text and bibliography, dates are given in the Iranian shamsi (solar) calendar and are followed by the corresponding Common Era date separated by a slash. Thus the year 2003 is 1382 shamsi.
Preface
It happened in Tajrish Square early one afternoon in September 1993. Tehran was burning under the summer sun. At this time of year, the daytime temperature can reach 45° C in the shade. Years later, in September 1998, I visited this place in north Tehran in the early afternoon on several September days in order to build up an image of the incident. Tajrish Square, a central business zone, is usually crammed with people and cars. On this day the hot sun had driven people away to look for the comfort of their air-conditioned homes. The lively square, like the rest of Tehran, was having its long, tedious daily siesta. Even the peddlers, who usually occupy the southern part of the square, had taken refuge in the calm neighboring gardens. A few taxis were parked in the shadow of large old planes and their drivers were taking a nap.
The teenage girl inserted a small coin into the telephone and dialed. Her friend was waiting outside the telephone booth. Both were dressed in robes, their hair was covered with chic scarves in bright colors. The girl in the telephone booth broke into laughter, causing her friend to laugh too. After a while, the girl waiting on the pavement saw a young armed man jump out of a car. She panicked when he approached the telephone booth. In the mechanical reaction Iranian women have developed since the Revolution whenever they face the moral police, she calmly but with shaking fingers pulled her scarf forward, hid some strands of hair under it, and knotted it more tightly under her chin. She tapped on the glass to warn her friend, who did not react but laughed even louder when she saw the man coming toward them. He passed the young girl on the pavement, pulled open the door of the booth, and asked to whom the girl was talking. She turned her back on him and said that was none of his business. The man snatched the receiver and loudly demanded to be told who was on the other end of the line. Silence. Upset, he accused the girl of talking to a man. He shouted at her to correct her veil and threatened her with arrest. She did not touch her scarf, which had slid backward so that a lot of her hair was unveiled. She told him to “get lost.” He drew his pistol and pointed at her head. If she would not put her scarf straight he would shoot her, he said. She said that “he could do nothing.” She was wrong. He fired. She fell. The bullet had shattered her skull.
The man was never held responsible and the case was dropped. Her defiance, her laugh at the young man who saw himself as the envoy of God on earth, evoke the political as well as the existential standpoint the Iranian younger generation is taking up. The image of the smoke of gunpowder rising like smog and the color of the fresh blood spattered on the glass inside the telephone booth have been with me throughout the writing of this book.
This tragic homicide scene, based on a short report in Iran Times (September 11, 1993), reveals the relationship between banality and brutality at work in Iran. The scene reflects many dimensions of my field of study. Like this book, the scene is about power relations, control over space, bodies, desires, and sexuality. The scene yields a glimpse of life in contemporary Iran, a glance at power and defiance. This is the story of a faceless generation whose voice is silenced. That is how I look at Tehran at the turn of the millennium.
I have nothing to say, only to show.
—Walter Benjamin
Introduction
This is a book about the situation of young people in Iran at the beginning of the third millennium. The book concerns the battle over the right to identity. On one side, there is the state’s effort to construct a hegemonic identity for young people. On