Yesterday there was a Middle East Culture Show at my university, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. I remember these shows, we used to have them at my high school all the time and I never really participated in them: it was usually the “cultured minorities” (read non-white) that would organize and also go to them, which made the whole thing a bit redundant, save the wonderful array of pastries to pick from. But this wasn’t a high school thing and from what I hear (I was too sick to attend), such events at SOAS include music, dance, food and alcoholic beverages, and as they say here, are “good fun.”
I asked a fellow student who runs the Iranian Society if he participated in the show and about the Iranian elements involved. He hadn’t, and he guessed that maybe there was an Iranian musician, or something. Then we discussed a more pressing event, Chahar Shanbeh Suri, which is an ancient Iranian celebration – and the most fun. It happens on the night of the last Wednesday of the Iranian calendar (new year begins on the first day of spring), bonfires are lit on the streets and people jump over them singing: “My yellow-ness is yours / Your redness is mine” (yes, there’s a lot lost in translation here). It’s a prelude to the year and a celebration of purity, and the fires keep the sun alive through the night. But really, in Iran what matters is that everyone goes out on the streets and the youth use the occasion to meet other boys and girls. The light works and the fires are also a huge source of anxiety for parents as “playing with fire” gets a whole new, terrifying meaning. Did I say terror and Iran in one sentence? Are you scared?
I digress.
The question here is why was the Middle East Culture Show happening almost void of any Iranian culture, and on a night when most Iranians would miss it because they had a very exciting “cultural” event of their own. Iranian culture’s predominance and influence on the entire region and beyond is well known and documented. Which brings me to another question: is it really as well known and documented as I think? In my art history class in university my professor spent a few weeks discussing Mesopotamian, Persian and Iranian art, and it was refreshing to see students so pleasantly surprised. It’s true that the borders and boundaries of these categories and empires have mixed and diluted for centuries. But there are still many volumes of literature and history on the region’s art, from its pre-Islamic era all the way to the contemporary cultural productions.
Ironically, since attending the School of Oriental and African Studies, I have realized that the current generation of Middle Easterners, and those who affiliate with the Arabic culture in particular, have the tendency to exclude other cultures and are disinterested in the region’s historic entanglements. I say this because some how half-way through the term I found myself as a sort of ambassador for Iran, correcting and punctuating the class with its past and present history. I was surprised to hear some classmates discussing the Middle East as equivalent to Arab, while dismissing the Kurd, Tajik, Azari, Turk, and Persian populations. This may be a generalization, and it is, but it applies to both sides. Many Iranians who reiterate their Persian distinction are also ignorant toward Arabic cultures and traditions.
This cleft is a bit mystifying and disconcerting to me. Iran’s Green Movement supported the Egyptian revolution and vice versa (on the other hand, the Iranian regime is supporting the brutalities of the Syrian government. Sigh). There needs to be more than sporadic, political signs of tolerance, and/or news of cooperative oppressions. It is true that the political elite in the region make it ever more impossible to understand the people that reside there and what they really want. Corrupted democracies and totalitarian regimes are no measure of a population’s habits, needs and desires. But still, Iranian cinema is a force to be reckoned with in the region if not in the world, Arabic and Turkish series are popular in Iran, Bollywood will always be Bollywood, and the UAE is -for now- spending a lot of money on art.
So, it is disappointing when I tell a story about my school days in Iran and mention the tough dress code (as well as the fun around it – cue Satrapi’s Persepolis) and a classmate says while rolling her eyes, “only in Iran.”
Look, the “Middle Eastern culture” is as un-mappable as the Middle East itself: which countries are included? What languages? Where does it begin and where does it end? But today it is more important than ever to create a dialogue between these nations and their youth. I haven’t even begun to mention Orientalism, but how can we expect ‘Other’ Western observers to “get it”, when as neighbors we are blind and tired of looking at each other?