Reading ‘Iran Awakening’ with a Bhutanese Heart

English, Expression & Opinion, Ramesh Gautam, Year 13 - Issue 19

Ramesh Gautam
Norway

Background

’Iran Awakening’ is an autobiography penned by a famous Iranian lawyer and Human Rights activist, Shirin Ebadi (The Nobel Peace Prize Winner, 2003), and first published in 2006 by Random House, New York, USA. The book, containing twelve chapters followed by an epilogue at last, aims at changing the stagnant attitudes of the western readers and commoners about Iran and basically Islam. It focuses on how the circumstances are hitting the doors of the ordinary people of present-day Iran, how the pains and miseries were intertwined among the ill fate-stricken Iranians in the past, and how rough is the way ahead for the Islamic Republic to go on with, to some extent.

Ebadi’s journey into Iran’s misery

Born on June 21, 1947, in a middle-class Islamic family, Shirin Ebadi became a judge at 23. The country had already been plunged into the perils of power-sharing with the expulsion of a little-known cleric, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, to Iraq on the grounds that his fiery sermons utterly attacked the government. Later, on January 16, 1979, the ruling monarch, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi fled Iran carrying with him the two millennia history of shahs’ rule in Persia and Iran, known as Persia until 1935, became the Islamic Republic.

Soon after this, the conservative clerical forces established a theocratic system of government with the total power and authority vested in a religious leader known as the Supreme Leader. Shirin recalls that her position as a judge could be at a big risk would Ayatollah’s conservative principles overrule Iran, but she supported the revolution to overthrow the shah. And it happened to her. With the Islamic Revolution of 1979, female judges were removed from their positions, and Ebadi was made a clerk in the court where she had presided (Matembe et al., 2006). The aftermath of the revolution left the Iranians with utterly bitter tastes and experiences.

The first thing the conservatives did was they ordered the implementation of the compulsory veil (headscarf) for women. Women were forced to confine themselves within the four walls of the kitchen. The widespread phenomenon aimed at demotivating the women from getting involved in several salaried positions left many women demoted and Shirin was no exception. Separate busses were introduced for men and women. Women were barred from walking out on slippers and sandals without socks. Public gatherings were confined to men. The morality police force was set up, and several check posts were established to ensure that the Islamic panel code inspired by Islamic law was smoothly functioning. An unaccountable number of women were harassed, threatened, and punished for wrong hijabi (the way the veil was to be worn).

A group of students who identified themselves as the Followers of the Path of Imam Khomeini seized the US embassy and took its staff hostage on November 4, 1979 (Houghton & Patrick, 2001). Though many Iranians deeply condemned the siege terming it illegal and in opposition with the international laws, unfortunately, Ayatollah celebrated the siege calling it ”a second revolution” and ”bravery of the students”. Shortly the relation between Iran and the US started getting frozen, but later it was learned that the US had begun selling the missiles to Iran in exchange for the release of the hostages. The hostage siege ended after 444 days dampening Tehran-Washington relations widely.

Saddam Hussein attacked Iran in 1980. Many teenagers and boys of early twenties were killed in the fronts defending Saddam’s well-equipped armies. Iran was made the battlefield for most of the time, and it suffered deadly. The impacts of Saddam’s chemical weapons were too conspicuous and devastating. Shirin accounts briefly about the war and its hazards, but the brief account itself is too long to be accounted for here. The grudges towards the USA made Iran encounter with America’s Navy resulting in several clashes between 1987 and 1988, and the situation worsened. Iranians started hatching up fathomless wrath and wryness about America. America, in fact, tried to suppress Iran from Iraqi parts. The war ended indecisively in 1988.

It shouldn’t be forgotten that Mojahedin-e Khalga Organization (MKO), which had emerged in the sixties, taking its inspiration from the guerrilla movements in Cuba and South America, took the part of Saddam aiming at overthrowing the ayatollah regime from Iran. Iranians witnessed several harassments, intimidations, and executions being blamed for having links with MKO later.

But who won the war? Obviously, Iran did not. The boundaries remained untouched; the maps remained unaltered. Only the hearts of the people were touched; only the sentiments of the people were hard-hit. And Iraq? Iraqis, too, did feel the highest Richter in their lives. With the irrecoverable loss of national economy, with disrupted fates of the civilians, with its own realm accountably deserted, it can never be concluded that Iraq won the war. Ebadi (2009) says, in her own words, “who were the winners then? The arms dealers. The European companies that sold Saddam his chemical weapons, the American firms that sold both sides arms. They amassed fortunes, their bank account swollen, their families in Bonn and Virginia, untouched.”

The vast discriminations went on. Several protests in opposition to the government moves were being made routine in Tehran University. Punishments, life imprisonments, and death sentences were being made government instruments for oppression. A sort of religious extremism was inculcated in the brains of young girls; Islam was wrongly incorporated in them widely and wildly. The public majority antagonism was always overruled. Shirin recalls the one-day incident when she was forced to get permission from her mother to spend some nights out skiing with her husband. ”And that is how I was forced, at the age of forty-five, to dial-up my mother and say, ’Maman, can you tell this man that I’m allowed to go skiing?,” Ebadi (2009) notes.

The pains and miseries of the women went on getting augmented. Women’s realm got narrowed. Mothers always worried if their daughters went out with the wrong hijabi. Young girls were harassed, punished, or even raped in prisons for being out with their male friends. The value of the women was labeled half the men’s. Shirin juxtaposes Iran of the days of her youth and Iran of the days of her young daughters. She recalls that, at least, her daughters grew up when Iran was a little liberal. But the situation became worse again. Shirin has narrated several such stories of the contexts which left my heart nail-bitten each time I tried to fathom the helplessness of the Iranians. Iran’s image in the international forums could never brighten. It was largely accused of supporting terrorism in many places, including Lebanon. The UN, US, and EU went on alarming it for this and nuclear power deals.

Stars of hopes started twinkling among the Iranians when Mohammad Khatami, a reformist, proclaimed of metamorphosing Iran into something different as dreamt by them. He was elected as a president in 1997, but he could never walk light-heartedly under the shadow of the supreme leader. Many of his assumptions fell paralyzed without being initiated. He was always a critic of the Guardian Council and the Judiciary System, the heads of which were appointed by the Supreme leader. Still, he always praised the Supreme leader, who was not a body elected by the people and who was always the biggest threat to the press. The dualism in nature of Khatami had always been examined under suspicion. The women MPs in his tenure were not successful enough to secure their justifiable positions, let alone uplifting the women in deplorable situations. Two-terms Khatami tenure went off, taking with it several undone pledges Khatami made before he was elected.

The Bhutanese context

Man is a social being, and he deserves to live securely. When his existence, roles, and future are under the threat of getting tarnished, he wakes up and tries to experiment with all possible paths to walk along. But at the same time, he will never be able to belittle his existence, integrity, and origin. And it happened to Iranians too.

When the war was tearing Iran apart, many Iranians started fleeing the country as their children’s future was shadowed due to the state-sponsored discriminatory laws and so-called ethics. Their plea was that the children have no future in Iran. This situation led to the immense adversity of brain drains from Iran throughout these two decades. But many Iranians also believed that one should not leave the country when it is under the havoc of several circumstances. They think that one should lay down full-fledged determinations to relieve it from these adversities. One of them is Shirin.

But if you ask most Iranians what keeneh, what grievance, they nurture most bitterly against the Islamic Republic, it is the tearing apart of their families. Memories of the war fade, and very few people have the energy to sustain the intellectual distresses over the course of a life time, but the absence of loved ones–the near-permanent separation of sister from sister, mother from daughter-is a pain that time does not blunt. Shall I count for you the number of families I know who once upon a time all lived in the same city and now are dispersed across the globe, each child in a different western city, the parents in Iran? (Ebadi, 2009, pp. 78 – 79).

And this is the exact case for us too. Let’s forget how and why the political movement started in Bhutan. Let’s forget the pains and miseries we sustained living as refugees in Nepal and consider the present circumstance. The family separation issue has already reached an accountable degree when just 22,000 Bhutanese individuals are resettled. The brothers, who had never chosen to perform Shraddha’s rituals (rituals performed by Hindus in the name of deceased parents) separately, are now on different continents. A sister, who was bitterly pained by the absence of another beloved sister from her eye-sight for a moment, is now going to a language class of a different language. Borders separate them, and they will never meet as they used to. Many older people will never opt for the third-country resettlement, and in a long gallop of time, there can be next to all youngsters opting to be resettled. And think about how the condition will be forth? This issue may not be conspicuous for today, but it will indeed persist as a never terminating pain.

One by one, my dearest friends deserted. They packed up their belongings, said their good-byes, and, in my eyes, turned their backs on Iran. Each time I wearily picked up a pen to cross out yet another name in my address book, my disappointment crushed me. I felt as though I were living in an abandoned house that was decaying by the day, in the company of the ghosts (Ebadi, 2009, p. 79).

Shirin said that the one who left Iran was dead for her. She utterly stresses living in Iran to brighten its face. But for many, sometimes, getting sentimental with the country’s situation is less critical than one’s future. And so, life, children’s future, and many others became essential for many Iranians, and they left Iran. There are many Bhutanese in our context who wish to remain in the refugee camps than getting resettled. The pains and sufferings will always count as something more substantial.

There is always an extensive diversity in Asian culture, and it is seen that culture matters much to Asians. Many problems arise when one migrates away from a place with a long-practiced and beloved culture to a place of a strange culture. The transition and transformation will be terribly challenging for one and all. It is apparently tough for an overnight shift to occur, and sometimes, this transformation can be adverse, as has been noticed in many cases of Bhutanese transformation. There can be several issues regarding religion, festivals, rituals, and other cultural norms and practices. One needs to stand deliberately on the margin of everything, defining himself as a neutral being. Doing this can be a big challenge to many.

Each generation needs to stay in the place it was raised. If you and I leave Iran, what are we going to do? Here we’re somebody. We’re accomplished and have worked to reach a particular position in this society. Our friends, like us, are bright and educated. If we go abroad, do you think we’ll be accepted- with our foreign degrees and foreign accents- with open arms? Our kids are young, and they’ll absorb the culture of their new world. And after some time passes, we’ll lose them too (Ebadi, 2009, p. 80).

This situation probably does not meet our status of leaving the country. Everybody knows that the movement for the establishment of democracy in Bhutan started with an easy vision. People were not aware and organized for what they would do should the severe suppression been done by the regime. The monarch could easily play an efficient role in dividing people. This was much detrimental to the people in the south. Let’s again forget why people opted to flee the country and come to the regard of resettlement, which has, to some extent, a prominent professional, social, and cultural impact. Many took resettlement as a short-term solution to the protracted refugee crisis and were ready to face the challenges ahead. Today the same thing has happened to most of the Bhutanese resettled in different parts of the world. Regardless of how much they are qualified and specialized, they are compelled to propel with entry-level jobs. Their experience and qualification (degree) have a little value, if not null. It is a bitter truth that one needs to be reborn and accept several sorts of cultural shocks, as mentioned by Ebadi.

Look, a girl who has grown up abroad from the age of seven will likely marry a foreigner. Naturally, she’ll adapt to his culture, and distance will slowly creep between us. One day we’ll wake up and realize we can never exist in each other’s worlds- her in ours, and us in hers- in the same way again. We should think about this, anticipate such a day from right now, and keep our children here (Ebadi, 2009, p. 80).

It is the brutal truth that we are facing today. There are vivid gaps among different generations of ours. With the resettlement, getting absorbed into the new culture has been easier for the younger generation and a big punishment for the older. In many aspects, trying to become American, Australian, Canadian, or European sooner than we actually should have been widening the gaps and creating a vacuum. Misinterpretations of the so-called global culture and misuse of apparently liberal cultural norms and values have invited some problems in different parts of our world. If the youths do not take big responsibility to address the issue wittily, the issues are likely to get augmented. If we cannot keep our age-old culture intact, our shout and suffering for the sake of culture will prove meaningless.

At the same time, it is a matter of pride that many cultural organizations established from within the Bhutanese communities are shouldering greater responsibilities to protect and promote our culture, which has incorporated a unique identity. It will be wise to build up small heavenly worlds (where we are) where the flowers of charismatic culture will be blooming. And with this, for sure, we will be able to remain what we were.

It has already been mentioned about the presence and role of MKO in the socio-politics of Iran. In many cases, the Communist Party of Bhutan (Marxist Leninist Maoist) is allegedly supposed to have relations with India’s separatists and underground outfits like The United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), The National Democratic Front of Boroland (NDFB) and Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KLO) and others (Adhikari, 2007). Recent reports say that the CPB(MLM) claimed responsibility for the Sarbhang bombings (APFANews, 2008). It should not be misunderstood that the bond between these outfits and CPB(MLM) will be fruitful in dethroning the Wangchuk regime from Thimphu; instead, this will threaten the national integrity and sovereignty of Bhutan. Bhutanese people will have the same fate of the suppression as Iranians had should this continue befouling Bhutanese politics. Political changes are inevitable in Bhutan, but the short-term means made instrumental for so-called changes will invite political upheavals and chaos. The monarch will seize ample opportunities for his nascent reaction in intercepting the wills of the people.

The Dress Code incorporated in Bhutan (Bray, 1993) can be, to some extent, compared with the Islamic panel code inspired by Islamic law. Both the theocracies have ruled out the possible public voices, and the people have been made the victims of state-sponsored terrorism. The Iranian context widely accounts for the public’s helplessness when the rule of law is ruled out. Bhutanese people have been the victims of the same system. But it is also clear that the oppressions go on, and so do the revolts. And the political equations can sometimes be overcomplicated and confusing.

Nevertheless, history should never be misinterpreted, making it loyal to a subject. We can never equal the Iranians on the grounds of misfortunes, pains, miseries, and adversities they suffered, but reading history will help us develop balanced subjective narratives of the events as they happened. We can extract inspirations from Iranians dispersed across the globe on different matters. Let Iran awake, and so do we!

References

[Editor’s Note: This article was published in three parts in Bhutaneseliterature.com in October/November 2009] 

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