Iran’s Ministry of Culture and Guidance has this week refused publication of Nezami’s Khosro and Shirin, a love story read by generations as a classic of Persian literature.
Writers and publishers in Iran are well-versed in the language of the censors, but this latest incision has come as a shock to all, with members of the literary community voicing their outrage and concern. One can only guess that it is the beautiful depictions of Shirin’s “embrace” of her husband Khosro that have been deemed unsuitable or even “indecent”, according to the regime’s tapered view.
Thousands of books await the censor’s eye with huge backlogs arising from the number of applications from some 70,000 publishing houses, but also the time that censors devote to assessing existing publications. Omid Nifarjam, himself a translator of books by Nabakov and other non-Iranian writers into the Persian language, provides an excellent insight into the situation.
Perhaps the spoken word is all that can remain untouched, delivered clandestinely by the brave. In this clip, prolific contemporary poet Hila Sedighi recites a poem of protest against the atrocities of the Islamic republic (begins at 0:41 seconds). She refers to Rustam and Siavosh, heroes in classical epic poetry, and declares, “of a country of philosophy and poems and piety, we’re left with ignorance and anger and denial”.
State media in China and Iran have both offered their two cents in response to the riots that have swept the UK over the past three days.
A commentator at Communist Party mouthpiece, People’s Daily, opined that this sort of chaos is precisely the result of a lack of censorship of social networking websites:
The West have been talking about supporting internet freedom, and oppose other countries’ government to control this kind of websites, now we can say they are tasting the bitter fruit [of their complacency] and they can’t complain about it.
News agency Xinhua, remembering Beijing’s smooth staging of the 2008 Olympics, said:
After the riots, the image of London has been severely damaged, leaving the people sceptical and worried about the public security situation during the London Olympics.
Meanwhile, Press TV reported that Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast “urged the British government to order the police to stop their violent confrontation with the people.” He also “asked independent human rights organisations to investigate the killing in order to protect the civil rights and civil liberties.”
Earlier this week I was working with the ballet maestro Jean-Pascal Cabardos, who trained Billy for Billy Elliot. Not that Little Black Fish has been dancing en pointe (we were working on texts), though I have indulged in the ballet craze that has swept London and joined classes at Everybody Ballet, dancing whenever it took my mood and wearing whatever I felt like wearing.
This concept of ballet open to everyone is incredible when reading Her life as a Persian Ballerina. It is an insightful account of life as a dancer and choreographer in today’s Iran — the compromises to approach and style required. As well as the more obvious clothing restrictions, the more sensual performances are assigned to male performers. It also touches on the representation of dance and its psychological effects.
It’s hard to imagine a time when things were different. But they were. My introduction to ballet began in 1970s’ Tehran. At the time the Ministry of Culture had established the Iranian National Ballet Company, performing Swan Lake, The Nutcracker and Sleeping Beauty among other classics at Tehran’s Roudaki Hall. The company collaborated with dance schools worldwide and Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn visited Iran in 1969 and set up Le Corsaire.
Needless to say the Islamic government terminated the company in 1979. A concise and very interesting history of dance in Iran can be read here, written by Nima Kiann who founded a successor company, Les Ballet Persans, in Sweden in 2001.
