Persica 22, 47-63. doi: 10.2143/PERS.22.0.2034400 © 2008 by Persica. All rights reserved. IMAGINING WARFARE, IMAGING WELFARE: TEHRAN’S POST IRAN-IRAQ WAR MURALS AND THEIR LEGACY Pamela Karimi ISLAMICIZING THE DISCOURSE OF ART1 In his fi rst post-revolutionary speech, delivered shortly after his arrival in Tehran from Paris in February 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini declared, “We don’t need symbols of the monarchy… we need markers of Islam.”2 In response to this call, “hardliner” intellectuals introduced more “Islamo-centric” ideas about artistic achievements to the general public through a number of publications. In the early 1980s, they founded FaÒlnamah-ya Hunar (The Quarterly Journal of the Arts), one of the few post-revolutionary art journals at that time. Article after article in this journal advised Iranians to reconsider art and architecture. In an early issue, Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi,3 a trained architect, contended that the Shah’s regime had sought to obliterate the essence of the authentic Islamic culture of Iran by building cultural centers and museums according to Western models. He insisted that one felt like a stranger upon arriving at any of these buildings.4 Many of the ideas of the revolutionary period were largely rhetorical and in practice the success of these politically-oriented initiatives varied considerably. Unlike other forms of art, architecture remained intact, even if not all prior developments were considered appropriate in the eyes of the revolutionaries. Granted, a number of monuments glorifying the Pahlavi regime were razed both during and after the Revolution, but a defi nitive approach 1 I am grateful to MaÌmud Shuiaˆybi, Feeroozeh Golmohammadi, Mahdi Qadiyanlu, and Rasul Abidi for kindly dedicating their time to interviews and discussions pertinent to this paper. Professors Afsaneh Najmabadi, Marzolph Ulrich, and Houchang Chehabi provided a number of extremely helpful criticisms and comments. I assume full responsibility for any shortcomings. 2 This quotation is taken from Khomeini’s fi rst post-revolutionary speech in Tehran. See http://www.iranian.com/ Pictory/iri.html+speech+of+khomein; Internet, accessed 08 May 2005. Unless otherwise indicated, all quotations from Persian sources (including those from art and architectural journals, newspapers, interviews, and hearings) are mine. 3 He was the third Prime Ministers of Iran. Ayatollah Khomeini appointed Mehdi Bazargan as provisional Prime Minister in 1979. But he resigned within a year. The second Prime Minister, MuÌammad Rajai, was assassinated in a terrorist bombing in June 1981. 4 Mir-Hossein Mousavi, “Tavazun bakhshidan bih majmu¨i-ya namawzun [giving harmony to a chaotic building],” FaÒlnamah-ya Hunar. Vol. 1, No. 1 (1361[1982]), 209. See also, idem, “Didgah-i muhandis mir-husayn musavi, nakhust vazir, piramun-i hunar-i mu¨aÒir [the prime minister’s views towards contemporary art].”ibid., Vol.1, No. 2 (1361[1982]), 31-39. 11435-08_PersicaXXII_content.indd435-08_PersicaXXII_content.indd 4477 118-02-20098-02-2009 115:33:125:33:12 48 P. KARIMI to “Islamicizing” had yet to be identifi ed.5 Reconfi guring the general atmosphere of exist- ing spaces was carried out through numerous strategies, ranging from increased segregation of the sexes and different functions for pre-existing buildings, to installing loudspeakers in populated urban centers for the purpose of broadcasting revolutionary and religious ideas. One of the most far-reaching efforts was the introduction of propaganda murals. THE PROTAGONIST AND THE CROWD During the climactic days of the Revolution, a propaganda war was played out on the walls of buildings, where revolutionaries spread their views, and activists, wounded by the bullets of the Shah’s army, wrote their messages with blood. This graffi ti was understandably written at eye-level, where it was easier to read, add to, or deface. After the establishment of the Islamic Republic, governmental organizations sponsored murals proclaiming offi cial messages and placed high up on buildings where they were “fi xed and static both in form and meaning.”6 In art schools, these murals became important subjects of inquiry. Renowned professors such as Asghar Kafshchian Muqaddam (who was infl uenced by Soviet and Mexican mural paint- ings) helped the development of this type of art. Despite modern means of mass communica- tion, such as radio and television, political posters and murals remained an important medium of propaganda at the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war in September of 1980.7 These early murals mainly focused on individual heroes of the Revolution or on mar- tyrs from the subsequent war with Iraq. The teeming masses were generally left in the back- ground (Fig. 1). In other forms of propaganda media the masses played a more prominent role, such as the chanting crowds that roared from radios and the images of mass demonstra- tions on TV — what Gustave Le Bon, in his study of “the crowd,” had described as the “magma of human beings gathered from every quarter.” 8 Murals portraying images of the Ayatollahs also included lengthy quotations from their speeches, symbolically assigning to the public space a function that had traditionally belonged to the mosques. This echoed what art critic Zahra Rahnavard (and wife of Prime Minister Mousavi) wrote in the late 1980s: “[Since the Islamic Revolution] Iran as a whole has been turned into a big mosque.”9 The murals that focused on war themes depicted actual battle experiences, going beyond the mere collection of images, to indicate a relation between soldiers and people on the home front as mediated by images.10 5 The most prominent of these monuments was Reza Shah Pahlavi’s memorial. For a detailed account of this monument’s destruction, see Ayatollah Haj Shaykh ∑adiq Khalkhali, “Takhrib-i maqbari-ya riza khan-i mir panj[the destruction of the tomb of Reza Khan mir panj],” Khatirat-i ayatullah khalkhali: Avvalin Ìakim-i sharˆ-i dadgaha-ya inqilab [memoirs of Ayatollah Khalkhali: The fi rst clergy judge of the revolu- tionary courts] (Tehran: Nashr-i sayah, c. 1383[2004]), 341-351. 6 Talinn Grigor. “(Re)Claiming Space: The Use/Misuse of Propaganda Murals in Republican Tehran.” International Institute for Asian Studies Newsletter. No. 28 (August 2002), 37. 7 Although reduced in number, they have yet to lose their signifi cance. 8 Gustave Le Bon. The Crowd, the Study of the Popular Mind (London: T.F. Unwin, 1903). 9 Zahra Rahnavard, Safar bih diar-i zanan-i but (safarnam-ya hind) [A journey to the land of female idols (a travelogue to India)]. (Tehran: Surush, intisharat-i Òida va sima-ya jumhuri islami iran, 1366 [1987]), 13. 10 Reference to Guy Debord’s formulations in La Societe du Spectacle (Paris, Buchet/Chastel, 1967). For a detailed discussion of war murals, see Christiane J. Gruber’s article in this volume. 11435-08_PersicaXXII_content.indd435-08_PersicaXXII_content.indd 4488 118-02-20098-02-2009 115:33:125:33:12 TEHRAN’S POST IRAN-IRAQ WAR MURALS AND THEIR LEGACY 49 1. Mural depicting Ayatollahs Khomeini, untitled, Tehran, man†aqih (district) 7, ca. late 1980s. (Photograph by author, 2000). SHIFTING SUBJECTS Postwar murals manifested themselves in two distinct groups. The fi rst group included the government’s attempts to explain the cost and consequences of the Iran-Iraq war to its citizens. The second group adopted non-political themes, offering a therapeutic means of promoting public well-being. The former overtly glorifi ed the veterans of war and commemorated the martyrs. An image from Firdawsi Avenue, for example, shows a war veteran with an amputated leg along with a caption that reads: “The value of you, the veteran, is more than that of the martyrs.”11 This type of postwar mural had a lot in common with wartime murals; it signifi ed deeper socio-political continuities between the war years and the postwar period. In this sense, wartime propaganda, which focused on encouraging youth to go to war and consent to martyrdom, became a model for the peacetime propaganda, which recycled the same themes, but this time only for remembering the war. While most murals during the war and its immediate aftermath served the propaganda aims of the regime, Feeroozeh Golmohammadi’s wall paintings took a new direction. 11 Quoted in Grigor, Ibid. 11435-08_PersicaXXII_content.indd435-08_PersicaXXII_content.indd 4499 118-02-20098-02-2009 115:33:125:33:12 50 P. KARIMI Shortly after the Iran-Iraq war, Golmohammadi, a close relative of former Prime Minister Mousavi, was approached by representatives from several district municipalities in Tehran and asked to introduce ideas for new murals to be displayed in main urban areas. Not only did her work get the green light, but she also received many positive reviews.12 Unlike propaganda murals that embraced realistic subjects with dull colors, Golmohammadi’s murals featured abstract themes that bordered on the mystical, rendered in dazzling pastel colors. Her work also added a feminine dimension to a city watched over by the towering images of male fi gures. A look at Golmohammadi’s paintings show the extent to which she refused to follow the path set by early revolutionary artists. KaÂim Chalipa (among the most prominent of these earlier artists) placed art into two categories, “liberating and enslaving.” According to Chalipa, while the former aimed at “liberating humanity in all material and spiritual dimensions,” the latter “had its roots in imperialism and Zionism.”13 In contrast, although motivated by her religious beliefs and supported by the regime, Golmohammadi distanced herself from this simplistic dichotomy. In an autobiographical introduction to her book, Zan, ab, ayinah (woman, water, mirror), she asserts: Years ago, as I was reading voluminously in search of new themes to inspire me …, I found myself attracted, on the one hand, by such subjects as water, rosary beads, simurgh [a mythical thunderbird], mirror and alchemy, and, on the other hand, by such persons as …[the] Virgin Mary and Fatimah-e Zahra.