Reading “Reading Lolita in Tehran,” and understanding revolutions
[NOTE: I happened across this old post the other day, and I thought it might be a good one to republish right about now. So here it is, ever-so-slightly edited.]
Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran has scored a surprising amount of popular success. I think part of its popularity (aside from its great title) is that it’s the type of book that especially appeals to women’s book groups—in fact, that’s how I came to read it. Most of the members of my book group talked about the book’s main theme: the shocking and depressing ways in which Iranian women’s lives have been stunted and twisted by the authoritarian and misogynistic theocracy in charge in Iran, and how Nafisi and her students somehow managed to feed their spirits by the clandestine study of some of the classics of Western literature.
Apparently, literature can help keep people who live under a totalitarian system sane—the Soviet dissidents also provided evidence of that. But, although of interest, that was not the theme I kept noticing and marveling at when I read the book; no, a very different aspect of Reading Lolita in Tehran kept grabbing my attention: the tendency of literary and intellectual youths in free societies to gravitate towards leftist causes that would end up curtailing that very freedom.
Author Nafisi is currently a literature professor at Johns Hopkins. The biographical blurb on the flyleaf of her book states that she had formerly been an English professor at the University of Tehran but was expelled for refusing to wear the veil, and that she later emigrated to the United States in 1997.
But Nafisi’s story, and her relationship to the revolution that devastated her country, is far more complex and ironic than that. The year 1997 was not her first emigration from Iran; she had left at the age of thirteen and been educated in England, Switzerland, and the US, only returning during the pivotal and fateful year 1979 to her beloved and much-longed-for homeland.
And what a homecoming it was! She writes:
The dream had finally come true. I was home, but the mood in the airport was not welcoming. It was somber and slightly menacing, like the unsmiling portraits of Ayatollah Khomeini and his anointed successor, Ayatollah Montazeri, that covered the walls. It seemed as if a bad witch with her broomstick had flown over the building and in one sweep had taken away the restaurants, the children and the women in colorful clothes that I remembered. This feeling was confirmed when I noticed the cagey anxiety in the eyes of my mother and friends, who had come to the airport to welcome us home.
Nafisi learned through bitter experience that you can’t go home again, although you can try.
The terrible irony of her story arises because Nafisi herself was part of the revolution that ended up destroying her country. Her tale resembles that of so many youthful visionaries, dabbling in politics like a bunch of naive Mickey Mouses (Mice?) in Disney’s “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” not realizing until too late the horrors their machinations will conjure into existence.
Nafisi married early, at eighteen, and attended college at the University of Oklahoma during the 1970s. Her plunge into political activism was as casual (and as literary) as it was leftist:
I joined the Iranian student movement reluctantly. My father’s imprisonment and my family’s vague nationalist sympathies had sensitized me towards politics, but I was more of a rebel than a political activist–though in those days there was not much difference between them. One attraction was the fact that the men in the movement didn’t try to assault or seduce me. Instead, they held study groups in which we read and discussed Engels’s Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State and Marx’s The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. In the seventies, the mood—not just among Iranians, but among American and European students—was revolutionary. There was the Cuban example, and China of course. The revolutionary cant and romantic atmosphere were infectious, and the Iranian students were at the forefront of the struggle.
So, revolution was a mood, an essence, something infectious in the air—rather like bacilli, as it turns out. Nafisi describes the group as markedly Marxist in philosophy and in style, sporting “Che Guevara sports jackets and boots…and Mao jackets and khakis.”
For Nafisi herself, romanticism and literature seem to have been the primary motives, passed somehow through the alchemy of her homesickness and transmuted into political activism:
[I] insisted on wearing long dresses outside the meetings…I never gave up the habit of reading and loving “counterrevolutionary” writers—T. S. Eliot, Austen, Plath, Nabokov, Fitzgrerald—but I spoke passionately at the rallies; inspired by phrases I had read in novels and poems, I would weave words together into sounds of revolution. My oppressive yearning for home was shaped into excited speeches against the tyrants back home and their American backers.
Once in Tehran, Nafisi began to realize that the unsettling airport scene had been only the tip of the iceberg. She soon came to bitterly regret the mindless revolutionary zeal of her youth, and to realize that her revolutionary dream had turned into a nightmare, as they so often do:
When in the States we had shouted Death to this or that, those deaths seemed to be more symbolic, more abstract, as if we were encouraged by the impossibility of our slogans to insist upon them even more. But in Tehran in 1979, these slogans were turning into reality with macabre precision. I felt helpless: all the dreams and slogans were coming true, and there was no escaping them.
Although the revolutionaries back in Oklahoma and elsewhere had been decidedly leftist, the revolution they helped birth was a restrictive theocracy. One of the most interesting portions of the book describes how those leftists, at least in the early stages, managed to rationalize and excuse such clear signs that things had gone sharply awry as the imposition of the veil and the subjugation of women.
Nafisi was not one of those excusers, however; she describes her horror at the relentless approach of the suffocating clasp of the mullahs, a chill embrace undreamt of in her leftist days in Oklahoma.
And it got worse, much worse; there are many passages in the book that reminded me uncannily of what it must have been like for French revolutionaries to have watched the unfolding of the Reign of Terror (those who survived, that is), not to mention Stalin’s ex-comrades viewing the purges of their ranks:
In later months and years, every once in a while Bijan [Nafisi’s husband] and I would be shocked to see the show trials of our old comrades in the U.S. on television. They eagerly denounced their past actions, their old comrades, their old selves, and confessed that they were indeed the enemies of Islam. We would watch these scenes in silence…I turned and ask Bijan, Did you ever dream that this could happen to us? He said, No, I didn’t, but I should have.
“No, I didn’t, but I should have.” What quiet words of chilling despair! And indeed, one wonders how it was that smart people could have been so dumb; by the mid-to late-1970’s, when Nafisi and her friends were supporting a leftist revolution in Iran, surely the jury was no longer out on the fact that this was a road that would lead to the revolution swallowing its own as well as many others. But we see such a phenomenon again and again, as history repeats itself in its winding, twisting path.
In Nafisi’s case, she seems to have been mainly a romantic, interested in literature almost to the exclusion of other topics—such as history, apparently. Unfortunately for her, she had to learn the lessons of history the hard way, from personal experience. And so, too, did her revolutionary Iranian comrades-in-arms, unfortunately for them—and for us, and for the world as well. They could never have guessed at the trajectory their lives would follow from those long-ago days of sartorial playing at being revolutionaries, sporting Che and Mao jackets, to their final moments in the executioner’s chamber.
And, if you can believe this interview, the Iranian students who took the Americans hostage in the last year of Jimmy Carter’s administration were hardly more serious or more focused than Nafisi herself. Read it and weep.
Nafisi’s story underscores the fact that there does seem to be something in the literary mind that is especially susceptible to romantic ideals of revolution, that doesn’t accept that institutions of government will always be flawed, that seeks a sort of misty perfection, and that believes in the power of youth to proclaim those ideals merely by taking to the streets and wishing it very, very hard.
Another powerful literary account of the Iranian revolutionary movement and its destructive consequences is the autobiographical graphic novel “Persepolis,” by Marjane Satrapi, who was a child when the Shah was overthrown and Islamic fundamentalists rose to power.
Thinking my way through this:
People go into “literature” when they don’t have any serious expectation of needing an honest job. From their family connections, or their social class, they get the impression that they will be taken care of and doors will open.
Therefore, their experience with the real world and issues like compromise, inadvertent consequences, nothing is free, opportunity cost, sometimes life sucks without it being anybody’s fault in particular, is so shallow that they may as well be stuck in the world of the pampered early adolescent.
Since in literature, anything can be anything and there are no–beyond the simplest questions–objectively true and objectively false answers, any brain fart you have is as good as anybody else’s and so testing it against reality is unnecessary.
Little beyond the class schedule needs to be thought through ahead of time.
Jeez. No wonder they seem like ungrounded idiots.
What is particularly annoying is their air of superiority and their insistence that trying to introduce them to the real world is mean.
And anything that sounds good, is impressive, is Truth, since, in their experience, testing such things against the real world is never necessary. That they think it is sufficient.
Our only concern was that this move would be opposed by the Revolution’s leader, but when we took over the embassy, everything changed within a few hours.
Which means that you got shoved aside from your expiration date arrived.
These are the raw material that can be used by either side. It just so happens that Communists, Fascists, and Islamic theocrats are much better at manipulation than those opposed to such.
Instead of helping the Shah and his police forces connect with grass roots concerns and reform movements, they instead polarized the issue and forced the Shah to either accept Khomeini or reject him and the entire protest movement, including international support and bullying from those like Carter.
Counter-insurgency became impossible once Khomeini could disaggregate potential supporters of the status quo regime. And, of course, few security forces are taught correct counter-insurgency methods. Aside from the brute force approach, which does work, but the Shah refused to authorize that. By his decisions and by the decisions of his people, their fate was made.
They will never be absolved of their blood guilt. Because they will never be offered an opportunity to reverse the consequences of their support for evil. It is still here, causing more death and destruction. Every year, the agonies of millions rest upon their shoulders. Not alone of all responsible parties, but even a small fraction of a hundred million is a mountain.
Some people look upon the protests in Iran recently, and feel pride that such death, such liberty and order, came from their youthful works. Other seek bliss in ignorance, an escape from the pain. Still others are hoping for a chance at redemption. They won’t get such a chance, however. They have nothing to offer the superpowers to change Iran for the better. They have nothing to offer those who know how to fix the place, to motivate the competent into doing it.
And so that is how it will be. Until the Iranian regime steps beyond a point of no return and creates a condition where action is called for. Then nations will respond. But do you think those nations will listen to some failed revolutionaries from the past? They’ll ignore you, and nothing you say, nothing you do, will improve Iran’s chances for a better condition. Because that’s just not how credibility is created.
There were many many defectors from the Soviets. But it wasn’t their defection that destroyed the Soviet Empire. And it won’t be your defection, either. All you can do is to prevent it from happening to another place. All you can do is to prevent another from making the same mistakes. But a single person, or even a thousand individuals grouped together, do not have the power to change what was created in Iran.
It is the nature of large organizations to pay little to no attention to individual input or initiative. Even when that input may have done some lasting good. (SEC for example)
If she had read science fiction, particularly military science fiction by well advanced and sophisticated authors such as David Weber, she would have gotten a primer on real world ramifications. But she read counter-revolutionaries, which did not deal with either revolutionaries or counters to it. the military field was where you would most likely find sources and knowledge pertinent to deciding what to do about Khomeini, before Iran fell. Reading poetry and literature wasn’t going to do it, unless those two had something to do with wars.
Y.
You can’t expect them to read Weber or Clancy. That would be icky.
Their heroes are guys like Ferlinghetti during whose drug-fueled, obscene life as a counter culture hero, dull guys with crewcuts and pocket protectors were fixing to go to the moon.
Actually doing stuff is sort of lower-class.
Until they get a chance, and then they couldn’t possibly screw up more.
You can’t expect them to read Weber or Clancy.
The good thing is that life has plenty of ways to educate them otherwise. But it’ll be far more costly.
Great post, again, Neo!
There was the Cuban example, and China of course.
Yes, and if there hadn’t been a ‘cone of silence’ around the really really Smart folk, like those I knew at Stanford, there would have been the Killing Fields example of anti-capitalist French educated Pol Pot’s commie Cambodia.
I recall the ‘Death to the Shah’ chants, and recall thinking — and then what.
The real issue of the romantics is a failure to be clear about what they favor. Bill Whittle’s Critical Theory video is good on this … just ‘criticize’. There’s too much of that in pseudo-education.
literature can help keep people who live under a totalitarian system sane
its quite disturbing that when US went to Iraq the majority who cooperative and helped US are in fact Iranian midwife, like Al-hakem party and his followers, Maliki and Da’awa party, those names and militias that well founded and created by Iranian’s Mullah.
What they done in Iraq they striped the women rights they replaced the schools and universities using Mullah Madrasah, Al-Hakem touring schools promoting Temporary Marriage, they starting radio & TV stations promoting the bad a bad witch with her broomstick with her broomstick .
The evidence there just tern to any station of these Iranians midwifed bad witch you see them with their sermons and self-punishments on the streets from time to time its there on the ground in Iraq.
How come Satan working with bad witches? May be Mutah or Temporary Marriage
@ sam
cheili mamnoon for the link.
what’ s the difference between Mutah and Sighe?
(gh being gim-resch)
My guess is that samis another name for our old friend Truth.
> Nafisi’s story underscores the fact that there does seem to be something in the literary mind that is especially susceptible to romantic ideals of revolution,
As I have commented many times and many places — the leftist mind (which encompasses most so-called “literary” minds) is utterly lacking in anything resembling wisdom or “common sense” — it does not learn from its own experiences, much less that of others.
And so it is always prepared to do something categorically insane (in the sense of insanity being to do the same thing over and over again expecting each time a different result) in the pursuit of its goals — it does not learn, will not learn, that to do “this” is to get “that”. Surely, if we did something different this time, when we do “this” it will produce “the other thing”, not “that”.
Magical thinking: Maybe this time all we need to do is wave our hands to the left, not to the right, and things will work as we want.
The Left is profoundly uncivilized — they reject all the lessons of history, of our inheritance of Greek Culture — the entire basis for modern civilization — in an effort to return to those days when magical thinking was everywhere, and no one thought anything wrong with it.
bloody
There are two things necessary to defeat magical thinking. One is a sense of history, if only of the last two weeks, say. Keeping track of things done and not done, results one way or another. If everything just happens, there’s no reason to try to reason things out.
The other is protection from getting it wrong. There are two kinds of protection. One is that you luck out, and the other is that you don’t make the connection. In either case, you don’t learn you need to learn.
I was a fraternity graduate adviser back in the day, watched things going on, plans made, and so forth. I had about five years’ experience. I can easily recall the older guys saying, “We tried that. Id didn’t work.” The younger guys–by only two or three years–would invariably say, “It will be different this time.” That is a statement and concept which is almost literally beyond argument.
It’s a function of immaturity, and, as I said earlier, protection extends immaturity and literary types are protected.
I think it is a shame that we allowed her back. Most likely, even in her regret, she will never be able to change what she is. She is infecting others, ours. Send her home, to the bed she made. Along with 3/4th of our useless idiots. Those who dream what she dreamed and support what she supported. And, no, with what modern academia has become, we will not miss them.
Not a surprise, although depressing. And what do we see with the present leadership in Washington, which sprang from the moronic Left? The same revolutionary rhetoric, the same attacks on the enemies of the ‘State’, the same direction of the dim-witted from the ‘Leader’ in the Capitol.
“Those who do not learn from the …,” yeah, and it goes on and on.
Well, it got me to read Lolita which turned out to be a very powerful story not about anything I thought it was about before I read it.
She is infecting others, ours.
THe rate of infection is primarily from your own people, not hers. It was, after all, Jimmy Carter that refused the Shah medical services after Carter’s Iranian backed Revolution succeeded in fauking up millions of lives. What’s one more life in that bargain?
Very relevant today. Thanks, Neoneocon, for reminding us about this post.