In & out of Iran
We all now recognize that we need all of our intellectual
resources to overcome this tyranny
December 21, 2004
iranian.com
Are you one of the in crowds? Did you live inside Iran during the horrible decade
of war with Iraq, in those dark times of illegal arrests and execution? Or did
you escape the more recent years of mafia economy, high unemployment, poverty,
addiction, depression and prostitution? If you did survive all these years of
misfortune struggling with the evils of daily living, do you feel bitter about
the Iranians who instead chose the easy life of Europe, the USA or Canada?
One of the important consequences of the failure of the reformists
has been a reassessment by the Iranian intellectuals and even ordinary
people at large of the question of exile or emigration. Many Iranians
left Iran on the eve of the Iranian revolution, or shortly after,
escaping the radical justice of summary trials, unfair prison sentences,
torture or execution. In the 80's, the authorities always
referred to these immigrants as "counterrevolutionaries."
Soon after the victory of the revolution, the regime extended
its witch-hunt to include many who were until then considered to
be the "children of the revolution," such as the Mujahedin,
the Communists, the secular left, and Kurdish independence activists.
Some of these activists were fortunate enough to escape arrest
in the eighties, the years of war with Iraq. And a few of these
opposition groups joined Saddam Hussein during his brutal war on
Iranian cities and civilians. This unwise and desperate choice
contributed to the negative image of emigrants inside the country.
In those days, people still believed that emigrants were either "counterrevolutionary
Royalists," allies of Saddam Hussein, or at best well-meaning
elites alienated from the masses. Even those who had not collaborated
with Saddam and merely took refuge in the West were seen as people
who have abandoned their country during the hard times.
In an ironic twist, all too common for the Iranian politics,
the revolutionaries of the 80's became the reformists of
the 90's. In sharp contrast to emigrants, the disillusioned
reformists remained somewhat loyal to the revolution. The presidency
of Khatami was presumed to be the proof that they had made the
right choice. They stayed and fought when others had run away to
preserve their wealth, dignity or national pride. They stayed and
took great personal risks to make a democratic system, when emigrants
had chosen peace, prosperity, and above all security in their Kebob
houses in the US, Canada or Europe.
The reformists made a sacrifice by living under a Rafsanjani
monopoly and a Mafia economy when the émigré were
busy making a descent living and a future for their kids and family
in the West. Even the secular intellectuals who had decided to
live under the tyranny of the Islamic Republic were bitter about
their emigrant counterparts.
The celebrated poet and cultural icon, Ahmad Shamlou, ridiculed
the Iranian émigré.
In the speeches made while visiting Europe and the US, he frequently
commented on the absurdity of mixing English words with Farsi in
daily conversations of diaspora community, and believed it to be
a sign of cultural decay. He considered the inability of the children
of the Iranian emigrants to speak fluent Farsi a source of national
shame. The Iranian intelligentsia abroad was superficial and decadent.
To him and many other Iranians in the 80's and 90's,
intellectual life existed only inside Iran.
Such ignorance combined with constant Islamic state propaganda
against the Iranian ÈmigrÈ made it much easier for
the reformists to monopolize the political discourse at the time
when all the secular political leaders inside were banned from
the press and public. Not only Iranians but also foreign observers
were convinced that the intellectual life existed exclusively inside
Iran and among the reformists. In their search for influential
opinion-makers, the Western media and particularly Europeans focused
on the Islamic reformists as the only important players on the
political scene. The vibrant émigré community was
considered as marginalized observers who could offer no insights.
But 2002 changed all that. The reformists were purged and political
reforms failed. Now, the life in the Islamic Republic was not possible
even for them. They started to experience exile like the rest of
us. This, in part, changed the views of even the reformists about
the ÈmigrÈ community. More importantly the youth
inside Iran had already started to pay attention to what was going
on abroad and people who were living on the fantasy islands of
the West, in freedom, dressing the way they desired, going to school
and parties and socializing with the opposite sex.
 Gradually, the intellectuals inside Iran started to look at the
important work that had been produced abroad. This was the moment
of awakening for our people. They began to realize that the Iranian
emigrants were more than those mindless and superficial characters
they saw on the expatriate TV shows produced in Los Angeles. They
began to see some of the groundbreaking work that has been produced
free of the Islamic Republic censorship.
The work of philosopher, Aramesh Doostdar, dissecting the poverty
of the Iranian-Islamic thought, the secular insights of Mohammad
Reza Nikfar about an emerging Iranian civil society, the clever
historiography of Delaram Mash-hoori singling out the dominance
of Islamic discourse as the cause of Iran's backwardness,
the tireless international human rights work of Karim Lahidji,
the critical research published in Iran-shenasi and Iran
Nameh,
the important historical analysis of Homa Nategh, the original
literary work that appeared in magazines like Persian Book
Review and Baran, the essays of
Ali Ferdowsi, Faraj Sarkouhi, Fereshteh Davaran, Abbas Milani,
Naser Pakdaman and intellectual reflections
and reviews of Kankash magazine, the investigative journalism of
Ali Sajjadi, the stories of Shahrnoosh Parsipour, Mehrnoosh Mazarei,
and Goli Taraghi, the poetry of Nader Naderpour and Esmail Khoi,
and finally the internet community building of Jahanshah Javid
and Iranian.com to just name a few.
It was only after the Islamic Republic decided to shut down all
the avenues for independent and free expression, and exiled a new
generation of reformists that Iranian civil society took a second
look at the émigré and their work. It was as if a
captive nation suddenly realized that this important body of work
could not have been produced under the scrutiny and oppression
inside Iran. That those who made the difficult personal choice
of leaving Iran suffered and sacrificed just as much as those who
stayed. That they went on to write some of the most important texts
of Iran's modern intellectual thought.
If our nation has been looking inward, reflecting on the errors
of the past and departing with the Islamic tradition, it is partly
due to the important work of this émigré community.
For nearly two decades, the regime has tried to divide Iranians,
to make solidarity between those living inside and outside Iran
impossible.
We all now recognize that we need all of our intellectual
resources to overcome this tyranny. That those who are blessed
with more safety and security outside Iran must continue to express
what is not possible to voice inside the country. That those
who live under the tyranny must record and disseminate their observations
of the mechanisms of oppression and those who enjoy the safety
of the outside, with sufficient distance, calm and access to
resources
to formulate strategies for non-violent resistance. Together,
they must recruit the support of the outside world and do what
is impossible
to do alone: liberate a captive nation.
 About
Ramin Ahmadi is the cofounder of Iran Human Rights Documentation
Center [news], associate clinical professor of medicine at the
Yale School of Medicine, and the founder of Griffin Center for
Health
and Human
Rights. Since 1999, the center has conducted several Health and
Human Rights projects in East Timor, Nicaragua, Uganda and Guyana.
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