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Reading Azar Nafisi in Tehran 181 comparative american studies, vol. 6, No. 2, June 2008, 179–189 Reading Azar Nafi si in Tehran Seyed Mohammed Marandi University of Tehran, Iran Over the past few years, partially as a result of the success of Azar Nafi si’s Reading Lolita in Tehran, a cluster of memoirs have been written by members of the Iranian diaspora. Almost all of them become deeply enmeshed in the politics of rendering Iran from a transnational perspective. Hence, in these memoirs, representation is regularly interwoven with other aims and pro- jections, which militate against accuracy. In this article, an attempt will be made to show that Reading Lolita in Tehran is a work of one who has ‘Westernized’ her outlook; Nafi si constantly confi rms what orientalist repre- sentations have regularly claimed: the backwardness and inferiority of Mus- lims and Islam. This article will attempt to show that Nafi si has produced gross misrepresentations of Iranian society and Islam and that she uses quotes and references which are inaccurate, misleading, or even wholly invented. keywords Azar Nafi si, Reading Lolita in Tehran, Iran, Memoirs, Diaspora, Orientalism, Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis One important aspect of Said’s Orientalism is that it explores the methods through which ‘the Other’ was constructed by the West as its barbaric, despotic, and inferior opposite or alter ego. This ‘orient’ is a type of surrogate and underground version of the West or the western ‘self’ (Macfi e, 2002: 8). What may be even more signifi cant is that through its position of domination, the West is even able to tell the ‘truth’ to members of non-western cultures about their past and present condition, as the westerners are capable of representing the Orient more ‘authentically’, ‘scientifi cally’, and ‘objectively’ than the Orient can itself. Such a ‘truthful’ representation not only aids the colonizer or imperialist in justifying their actions, but it also serves to weaken the resistance of ‘the Other’, as it changes the way in which ‘the Other’ views itself. Although this discourse is generated in the ‘West’, Said argues, its infl uence is so powerful that it often has signifi cant impact on discursive practices in the ‘Orient’ as well. The Other may come to see himself and his surroundings as inferior or even barbaric. At the very least it can create a major crisis in the consciousness of the Other as it clashes with powerful discursive practices and ‘knowledges’ about the world. Eurocentricism, as a result, infl uences, alters, and even helps produce ‘Other’ cultures. © W. S. Maney & Son Ltd 2008 DOI 10.1179/147757008x280768 180 SEYED MOHAMMED MARANDI One signifi cant trend in recent decades within orientalist discourse is the emergence of an indigenous orientalism that can be seen in the works of some scholars and thinkers. These writers are sometimes referred to as ‘captive minds’, ‘brown sahibs’, or ‘Orientalized Orientals’, a concept which is somewhat similar to what Malcolm X would call the ‘house Negro’ (1963; quoted in Rudnick, Smith, and Rubin, 2006: 123). These local orientalists are defi ned by their intellectual bondage to and dependence on the West. A captive mind is not uncritical; however, it is for the most part critical on behalf of the West. The ‘Orientalized Oriental’ is one who may reside in either the ‘East’ or ‘West’, but spiritually fi nds its sustenance in the West. Such a person is the non-westerner who makes himself principally in the image of the West. Its history, experiences, movements, and expectations, for such a person, are more understandable and satisfying than anything that exists in the East. An ideal example of such a colonial surrogate is Azar Nafi si, who confi rms what orientalist representations have regularly claimed, the backwardness and inferiority of Muslims and Islam. She could be taken as a prime example of the Iranian intellectual comprador, a member of the Gharb-zadeh (a term made current by Jalal Ali-Ahmad, the renowned Iranian critic and intellectual, which could be rendered in English as westernized or ‘westomaniac’) intelligentsia, rather than an intellectual. In her supposed memoir of life in Iran, Reading Lolita in Tehran, she displays an extraordinary amount of contempt towards anything that has to do with Islam. This is at least partially linked to the fact that her family was a part of the country’s elite during the brutal Pahlavy dynasty. Both her parents were installed as high-ranking offi cials in Iran at a time when the American-backed Shah oversaw the implemen- tation of brutal measures against any form of dissent in the country. She is from an extremely wealthy family that benefi ted immensely from its links with the Shah. In the book she calls the Shah’s last prime minister, a very ‘democratic-minded and farsighted’ person (p. 102),1 even though during his brief premiership before the regime’s overthrow, thousands of people taking part in demonstrations throughout the country in support of Ayatollah Khomeini were killed on the streets. She was raised and educated in Europe and the United States and she shows a clear bias throughout the work in favor of anyone who is western educated. She speaks of her ‘sophisticated French-educated friend Leyly’ (p. 265) while her magician uses ‘his British training’ when reasoning with her (p. 281). Nafi si sees salvation for Iranians as possible through English literature, western thought and values, a western educa- tion, and even views a green card as ‘a status symbol’ (p. 285). She reminds one of the central character of V. S. Naipaul’s Mimic Men, who ‘pretend [. .] to be real, to be learning, to be preparing ourselves for life, we mimic men of the New World, one unknown corner of it, with all its reminders of the corruption that came so quickly to the new’ (Naipaul, 1967: 146); she is a true mimic woman. She thinks a great deal ‘about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ (p. 281), which is, signifi cantly, one of the most famous phrases in the United States Declaration of Independence. Her true love was Ted who ‘gave me Ada, in whose fl yleaf he had written: To Azar, my Ada, Ted’ (p. 84). Her hero is Henry James who, as she points out, wrote ‘war propaganda’ in 1914–15 and appealed for America ‘to join the war’ (p. 214). Accord- ing to Nafi si, James ‘had endless admiration for the simple courage he encountered, both in the many young men who went to war and in those they left behind’ (p. 214). READING AZAR NAFISI IN TEHRAN 181 Ironically, throughout the book she describes Iranians who did the same thing, during the war which Saddam Hussain and his western allies imposed on Iran, as fanatics and zealots. Nafi si even claims that Iranians are in essence different from Americans, thus repeating claims made by orientalists over the centuries. We in ancient countries have our past — we obsess over the past. They, the Americans, have a dream: they feel nostalgia about the promise of the future. (p. 109) When the favorite uncle of Yassi, a disciple of Nafi si’s, who lives in the United States, comes to Iran for a vacation, he puts new ideas into the girl’s head. He is unlike anyone else in the family and has a very positive infl uence on Yassi: ‘He was patient, attentive, encouraging and at the same time a bit critical, pointing out this little fl aw, that weakness’ (p. 270). His exceptional personality and moral infl uence is clearly linked to the fact that he lives in the United States. The superior westernized male benevolently puts ‘ideas into Yassi’s head’ (p. 270) in order to raise her mind to western standards. Now he advised her to continue her studies in America. Everything he told Yassi about life in America — events that seemed routine to him — gained a magical glow in her greedy eyes. (p. 270) In part, Nafi si’s pride in her own father, who went to prison for allegedly embezzling public funds as the mayor of Tehran, seems to be because of his links with the West. [. .] I had seen a large color photograph of him in Paris Match, standing by General de Gaulle. He was not with the Shah or any other dignitary — it was just Father and the General [. .] I learned later that the General had taken a special liking to him after my father’s welcoming speech, which was delivered in French and fi lled with allusions to Great French writers such as Chateaubriand and Victor Hugo. De Gaulle chose to reward him with the Legion of Honor. (p. 45) Of course, like her father, Nafi si has also been well rewarded for her work by the neo-conservatives among others, because of the way it sits comfortably with contem- porary anti-Iranian politics in the United States and the ‘West’ in general (see Rowe, 2007). The success of this book has had other benefi ts as well, as it has led to the emergence of a whole genre of mediocre memoirs, many of which are by Iranian women living in the United States or other western countries. Many of these memoirs, like Nafi si’s, bring up the whole orientalist trope of the veil, which is now being perpetuated by ‘native’ women. In her attempts to ‘liberate’ the minds of young Iranians, Nafi si uses the work of nineteenth-century English authors such as Jane Austen, despite the fact that it is widely acknowledged that nineteenth-century English literature is profoundly tied to colonialism. Signifi cantly, one of Jane Austen’s major works, Mansfi eld Park, is viewed by many critics as a text deeply implicated in colonialism.
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