Young and Defiant in Tehran 9218-Young & Defiant in Tehran 9/18/07 2:44 PM Page Ii
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9218-Young & Defiant in Tehran 9/18/07 2:44 PM Page i Young and Defiant in Tehran 9218-Young & Defiant in Tehran 9/18/07 2:44 PM Page ii CONTEMPORARY ETHNOGRAPHY Kirin Narayan and Paul Stoller, Series Editors A complete list of books in the series is available from the publisher. 9218-Young & Defiant in Tehran 9/18/07 2:44 PM Page iii Young and Defiant inTehran SHAHRAM KHOSRAVI University of Pennsylvania Press Philadelphia 9218-Young & Defiant in Tehran 9/18/07 2:44 PM Page iv Copyright © 2008 University of Pennsylvania Press All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher. Published by University of Pennsylvania Press Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 10987654321 A Cataloging-in-Publication record is available from the Library of Congress ISBN-13: 978-0-8122-4039-9 ISBN-10: 0-8122-4039-1 9218-Young & Defiant in Tehran 9/18/07 2:44 PM Page v To two friends: To Mansoor. A basiji whose young body is devastated by chemical weapons in the Iran-Iran war. While I write these words—January 2007—he is suffering from irre- mediable and unbearable pain. To lovely Behrooz. A fellow traveler ( hamsafar). A dis- sident young man who disappeared without a trace when he tried to cross the border between Pakistan and India ile- gally in November 1987. 9218-Young & Defiant in Tehran 9/18/07 2:44 PM Page vi 9218-Young & Defiant in Tehran 9/18/07 2:44 PM Page vii Contents Note on Transliteration and Dates ix Preface xi Introduction 1 1: Cultural Crimes 15 2: The Aesthetics of Authority 32 3: A Dissident Neighborhood 57 4: A Passage to Modernity: Golestan 91 5: The Third Generation 122 6: Culture of Defiance 138 Conclusion 169 Coda 175 Notes 177 Glossary 191 Bibliography 193 Index 205 Acknowledgments 223 9218-Young & Defiant in Tehran 9/18/07 2:44 PM Page viii 9218-Young & Defiant in Tehran 9/18/07 2:44 PM Page ix Note on Transliteration and Dates The system of transliteration used in this book follows the style of the International Journal of Middle East Studies. Transliteration of Arabic words and words in Persian of Arabic origin follows the system used for Persian. All translations are by the author unless otherwise stated. In the text, dates are all Common Era unless they refer to Persian texts. In the text and bibliography, dates are given in the Iranian shamsi (solar) calendar and are followed by the corresponding Common Era date separated by a slash. Thus the year 2003 is 1382 shamsi. 9218-Young & Defiant in Tehran 9/18/07 2:44 PM Page x 9218-Young & Defiant in Tehran 9/18/07 2:44 PM Page xi Preface It happened in Tajrish Square early one afternoon in September 1993. Tehran was burning under the summer sun. At this time of year, the daytime temperature can reach 45° C in the shade. Years later, in Sep- tember 1998, I visited this place in north Tehran in the early afternoon on several September days in order to build up an image of the inci- dent. Tajrish Square, a central business zone, is usually crammed with people and cars. On this day the hot sun had driven people away to look for the comfort of their air-conditioned homes. The lively square, like the rest of Tehran, was having its long, tedious daily siesta. Even the peddlers, who usually occupy the southern part of the square, had taken refuge in the calm neighboring gardens. A few taxis were parked in the shadow of large old planes and their drivers were taking a nap. The teenage girl inserted a small coin into the telephone and dialed. Her friend was waiting outside the telephone booth. Both were dressed in robes, their hair was covered with chic scarves in bright colors. The girl in the telephone booth broke into laughter, causing her friend to laugh too. After a while, the girl waiting on the pavement saw a young armed man jump out of a car. She panicked when he approached the telephone booth. In the mechanical reaction Iranian women have de- veloped since the Revolution whenever they face the moral police, she calmly but with shaking fingers pulled her scarf forward, hid some strands of hair under it, and knotted it more tightly under her chin. She tapped on the glass to warn her friend, who did not react but laughed even louder when she saw the man coming toward them. He passed the young girl on the pavement, pulled open the door of the booth, and asked to whom the girl was talking. She turned her back on him and said that was none of his business. The man snatched the receiver and loudly demanded to be told who was on the other end of the line. Si- lence. Upset, he accused the girl of talking to a man. He shouted at her to correct her veil and threatened her with arrest. She did not touch 9218-Young & Defiant in Tehran 9/18/07 2:44 PM Page xii xii Preface her scarf, which had slid backward so that a lot of her hair was unveiled. She told him to “get lost.” He drew his pistol and pointed at her head. If she would not put her scarf straight he would shoot her, he said. She said that “he could do nothing.” She was wrong. He fired. She fell. The bullet had shattered her skull. The man was never held responsible and the case was dropped. Her defiance, her laugh at the young man who saw himself as the envoy of God on earth, evoke the political as well as the existential standpoint the Iranian younger generation is taking up. The image of the smoke of gunpowder rising like smog and the color of the fresh blood spat- tered on the glass inside the telephone booth have been with me throughout the writing of this book. This tragic homicide scene, based on a short report in Iran Times (September 11, 1993), reveals the relationship between banality and brutality at work in Iran. The scene reflects many dimensions of my field of study. Like this book, the scene is about power relations, con- trol over space, bodies, desires, and sexuality. The scene yields a glimpse of life in contemporary Iran, a glance at power and defiance. This is the story of a faceless generation whose voice is silenced. That is how I look at Tehran at the turn of the millennium. 9218-Young & Defiant in Tehran 9/18/07 2:44 PM Page xiii I have nothing to say, only to show. —Walter Benjamin 9218-Young & Defiant in Tehran 9/18/07 2:44 PM Page xiv 9218-Young & Defiant in Tehran 9/18/07 2:44 PM Page 1 Introduction This is a book about the situation of young people in Iran at the begin- ning of the third millennium. The book concerns the battle over the right to identity. On one side, there is the state’s effort to construct a hegemonic identity for young people. On the other, there is the perva- sive struggle by the young people to resist a subject position imposed on them from above. The book examines how young Tehranis struggle for subjectivity—in the sense of individual autonomy. It also deals with the generational divide in Iran between those who made the Revolution and those who reject it. I intend to examine how transnational connections have been the catalysts for generation-based structured changes of lifestyle. How has the power built its social order? How do Iranian young people struggle to make sense of their lives? Concerned with such issues, the core of the book is the continuous struggle over power between the Iranian author- ities and young people, and especially how this struggle manifests itself in spatial relations. Spaces of Defiance Domination is realized through arrangements of space. Space is funda- mental in any exercise of power. Michel Foucault (1977) borrowed the model of the “Panopticon” as a metaphor for the spatial arrangements of surveillance that he saw as central to the way deviant individuals were disciplined.1 Faced with the possibility that they are under constant sur- veillance and the threat of immediate punishment for wrongdoings, the observed discipline themselves. But while spatial relations contribute to the creation of “docile sub- jects,” space can also provide opportunities to contest power. Michel de Certeau (1984) describes two opposed forms of power in relation to spatial practices: “strategies” and “tactics.” Strategies create and control specifically marked “places” by putting them under the control of the powerful state. Opposed to these are tactics that appear in situations which are not completely under control. Tactics produce spaces. Tactics 9218-Young & Defiant in Tehran 9/18/07 2:44 PM Page 2 2 Introduction rely on the use of time. Those who employ tactics are “always on the watch for opportunities that must be seized ‘on the wing’” (de Certeau 1984: xix). Resistance builds on catching the elusive moment when it is possible to realize individual preferences, when individuals can chal- lenge the rigid organization of place and turn it into a space for defi- ance. De Certeau argues that the oppressed cannot escape the system that has dominated them, but can continually manipulate events within the system in order to precipitate “fragmentary and fragile victories of the weak” (1984).