Revolutionary Posters and Cultural Signs Author(S): Michael Fischer and Mehdi Abedi Source: Middle East Report, No

Home , Poster

Revolutionary Posters and Cultural Signs Author(s): Michael Fischer and Mehdi Abedi Source: Middle East Report, No. 159, Popular Culture (Jul. - Aug., 1989), pp. 29-32 Published by: Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP) Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3012520 . Accessed: 18/10/2014 17:20

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP) is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Middle East Report.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 18 Oct 2014 17:20:26 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Figure1 HitselbergerCollection

revolutions reQuire aesthetic means ReVOlutlOIItirVnWiilUUiillal POSterSrUOlCIO AU y ZXfor representing changes in con- -^- ^-sciousness. The French Revolution 3nd saw ^tse^ ^ new and ^^ I IO" something universal, wUltUrdl and a rich elaboration of OlCjIlS generated aesthetic categories of the sublime (storms of nature, volcanoes, earthquakes), the Michael Fischer and Mehdi Abedi beautiful (island of calm, meadow after a storm) and the grotesque (metamor? phoses) as vehicles for thinking about social change and the future. Most revolutions since then have seen themselves in relation

to predecessor revolutions, from which they borrow tactics, organizational forms, strategies, rhetoric, symbols and graphics. MichaelFischer teaches anthropology at Rice University. He is currentlya fellow at theWoodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington,DC. Mehdi Abedi is researchassociate in anthropologyat Rice University.This essay is adaptedfrom the final chapter of theirforthcoming book, Debating Muslims: CulturalDialogues Between Tradition and Postmodernity (University ofWisconsin Press,March 1990).

Middle East Report ? July-August1989 29

This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 18 Oct 2014 17:20:26 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions "small media" of the Iranian revolution?jokes, as the family of the Prophet, are represented by standardized, The songs, tapes, leaflets, graffiti, repartee, cartoons and traditional iconography; there are many and rich references to posters?reveal important changes of consciousness and so? Iranian tradition and to Islam; and the ideology is God- ciological positioning. Iran's revolutionary posters demon? centered rather than human-centered. A classic example of strate a confluence, as William Hanaway has suggested, of the Persian miniature style is a poster of Khomeini in the role world-historical and local Iranian traditions. There are those of Moses with a dragon/serpent at his feet, victorious over done in an international style that stems primarily from the Pharaoh, pointing towards the depiction of tortures in hell Russian Revolution with contributions from the Cuban Revo? that await the shah who cowers lower left with broken crown lution: simply done in red, white and black, expressing a single and sword and clings to the coattails of Uncle Sam with idea or event, depersonalized and symbolic in form, and British and Israeli insignia. In the version shown here (Figure humanistic in ideology (i.e. human beings are in control of 2), the Khomeini regime has added Ali Shariati and S. their destiny). An abstract "constructivist" style example Mahmud Taleqani to assert a claim to their legacies. (Figure 1) has a red arrow inscribed "revolution" moving from Graphic design is among the most long-standing contribu? right to left (like the Arabic script) breaking a black block (a tions of Iran and Islamic civilization; it remains vibrant in the crown falling off its upper surface), and beginning to destroy a arts of the Islamic Republic. Among such designs, calligraphy second block, inscribed "internal reactionaries"; a third block has played a central role, mediating the visual and the linguis? awaiting its turn is labeled "imperialism" and is capped with tic, subordinating the pictoral to the graphic, balancing the Uncle Sam's hat; on the far side is a red sun, for victory. abstract and the particular, meaning and form. Interlaced The other graphic tradition is that of traditional Iranian arabesque, geometric as well as curvolinear, is another such painting styles, in Persian miniatures and the murals used in design feature. Both are integrative, open to incorporation of coffeehouses to prompt epic reciters. These posters are done new elements, simple yet encompassing of intricacy and with a broader palate, including prominently Islamic green; multiple allusions, vehicles for harmonizing the old and the there is much more detail, and multiple events portrayed; new, modernity and tradition(s). individuals, rather than roles, are shown, although some, such Most interesting are those posters that fuse the two graphic

30 Middle East Report ? July-August1989

This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 18 Oct 2014 17:20:26 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions traditions into a kind of condensation (in which two cultural and "England," against an abstract background of oil derrick, traditions remain in creative tension). Thus, for instance, refinery cracking tower and pipes, and a flare chimney that there is a Mojahedin May Day poster done essentially in the ends in a fist. A powerful poster put out by the Ministry of international style: a worker in overalls holds a rifle aloft, a Islamic Guidance shows the UN as a foot with five toes (the broken chain flying from his wrist, a mallet in his other hand; five powers with a veto in the Security Council) stomping on he is set against a red background and a white anvil. Diago? justice; the big toe is shaped like an ear with a hole in it, a nally across the top left of the poster is written the verse of visual allusion to the idiom "gush-esh bad gir-e" ("in one ear, Iron: "We sent our messengers with revelations, the book, and out the other"). scales, that the people may rise for justice"(57:25). Fists and victory signs merge with Islamic symbols and also The Islamic Republican Party issued a poster with similar with photos of demonstrating crowds. A poster commemorat? imagery, inscribed in Arabic, "He who earns his bread is like a ing the death of Zeinab, and honoring revolutionary women man fighting in the way of God," and in Persian, "The (Figure 4), shows Zeinab in white silhouette with raised fist committed laborers (kargaran-e mota'ahhed) are holy war? cracking apart an orange crown and green entrance pillars riors" (Figure 3). In a kind of socialist realist style it shows (the "green palace" of the tyrant Yezid in Damascus); the working class men kneeling in prayer, the man in front with a bottom of her chador is a picture of veiled women with their wrench in his pocket and a mor (clay from Karbala) before fists raised; to the right is a line of camels each with mother him, against a background of industrial scales (justice). and child moving towards an arched and pillared building There are many images of fighting imperialism. A series of with palms (the tomb of Zeinab?). posters about the oil industry inscribed with the slogan "Con? Images of martyrdom abound: the hatchet of the US cutting tinuation of the Revolution until Termination of Looting" down one red flower growing from a mosque, with three red includes one of a hand flicking away an American flag beach spots spurting forth; a white silhouette of a man holding out ball; another has a hand choking an American flag serpent his hands has, where the face would be (and where a veil above an oil derrick on the beach by the Gulf; another shows a appears on the icons of Muhammad and 'Ali), a red tulip set of gasoline pump nozzles marked "US," "USSR," "Israel," inscribed with the emblem of the Islamic Republic; its stem

Middle East Report ? July-August1989 31

This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 18 Oct 2014 17:20:26 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions pours blood into the hands, which frame pictures of a crowd to show the Islamic revolution as it really is. holding Khomeini's portrait and a skyline of the seminary Apart from the counterpoint between graphic and symbolic town of Qom with a red flag with the Islamic credo. On traditions, allusions and allegories, the posters also dramatize another poster, a white dove against a red background rips a the competition over legitimacy and the use of symbols by the hole through the army green and black bars framed by the different factions within the revolution. A handsome black, letters "USA," and the legend reads: "We value the blood of red and white Mojahedin poster well illustrates the compe? martyrs of the way of truth, and we hurry toward the Islamic tition for meaning: four Mojahedin martyrs are portrayed in Republic." Another image of time or process through revolu? black T-shirts, a prison bar behind each, and a red splotch on tionary sacrifice is one of red footprints over a broken crown. each chest pouring blood down into a red flood below. Calligraphic posters themselves can be very dramatic, convey? The Mojahedin in particular, but also other marginalized ing a sense of movement: among the best are a line of factions, invoke photographs of martyrs to remind people of revolutionary fists that spell out the Islamic credo in reds and sacrifices and effortsignored by the government: photography black, and an olympic-style torch, the flame of which is the is a localizing, personalizing device. Among the most artistic Islamic credo. of these are a series of posters the Mojahedin issued to Among our favorite posters are Khomeini's icy stare melt? commemorate the legacy of "Ayatollah" Sayyid Mahmud ing US guns; a wounded woman with child on an asphalt Taleqani, who defended the Islamic left and whose last Friday imperial highway (built with petroleum literally and with its sermon warned of tyranny by the mullahs: one poster shows profits) through desert desolation at the end of which great Taleqani characteristically seated, head in hand, on the floor tulips rise, leading to the image of Khomeini looming over the away from the seats of honor claimed by other clerics; another horizon; and a stamp portraying the merged images of Bilal has Taleqani in the sky looking down on portraits of (the first Muslim muezzin, or caller to prayer, a Black Ethio? Mojahedin in the jails of the Islamic Republic; the most pian) and Malcolm X calling people to the Islamic revolution. potent is a poster of Taleqani's head superimposed on the A poster in Persian and English shows a cameraman with the cover of Samad Behrangi's famous children's book, "The camera pointed toward the viewer, the lens reflecting a dem? Little Black Fish," a protest parable about the oppressiveness onstration (Figure 5); the inscription pleads with journalists of conformity to government rules. ?

? * 417 Days 441 Dead Themilitary occupation of Palestine is as brutal as ever.Human rights are suspended. Tens of thousandsare arrested and imprisoned without charge.Dozens of homes are dynamited without cause.Virtually every day there is a funeralfor anotherchild killed by the guns and teargas thatU.S. taxdollars supply. Yetthe people stand firm, calling for self- determination,forliberty ? andfor peace with Israeland in their own land. Supportthe Palestinians' strength toresist. JoinGrassroots International insupporting local actionprojects including: ? backyardvictory gardens, livestock raising andfood-processing ? mobilemedical clinics for remote villages andurban ghettos ? firstaid trainingto save the lives of victims ofviolence ? a cooperativedaycare center for children ofworking women Everydollar we send to these projects carries a messageof solidarity from the people of the U.S. tothousands of women, men and children ofthe Intifadah. And it is a humanitarian investmentinthe most basic need for peace in theMiddle East ? an independentPalestine. 'January28,1989 death tollfigures fromDataBase onPalestinian HumanRights. Chicago, IL Project PhotoCredit: SarahPutnam

YESS ? ? $100 ? $50 ? $35 ? $20 Youcan count on my support for Ma, thePalestinians Sighting against oppressionand hunger. Address_ Enclosedis my tax-deductible contribution.City_ _Zip_ Phone( ). Returnwith your check to: GrassrootsInternational ^ P.O.Box 312 Cambridge, MA02139 HF (617)497-9180

32 Middle East Report ? July-August1989

This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 18 Oct 2014 17:20:26 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions