Nowroz 1393 a Conversation with Mana Neyestani Child Grows up and Gives up the Pen Ala Mohseni and Paper

Mana Neyestani's Yearbook Nowroz 1393 A Conversation With Mana Neyestani child grows up and gives up the pen Ala Mohseni and paper. Your father was Fortunately for me, there were people a poet and your in my family who did not let this older brother an happen. It seems I never grew up artist. So it was and so I just continued. Of course, not surprising that it is easier when you have an older you too became an brother who is a draughtsman and a artist. How did you cartoonist. discover caricature and when did Where and when did you start your you decide to become a cartoonist? professional career? I still remember what we learned If by professional you mean when did from our art teachers when we were my work first appear in print, I started high school classmates. in 1989, when I was in my second year My drawings then were not really of high school. My first works were professional. Even now I am not a illustrations for articles published in professional “face” cartoonist. I can Transportation Industry, a respected draw enough of a face to get a subject- publication that at the time was home oriented cartoon going. I envy artists to some of Iran’s most professional such as Hossein Safi, Alireza Pakdel, journalists. Touka Neyestani, who Shahab Jafar Nejad, Afshin Sabouki, worked there, introduced me. Bozorgmehr Hossein Pour and I then started studying architecture Touka Neyestani, who are so good at at the Tehran University of Fine Arts. exaggerating a face and depicting its I worked for various publications on essence. the side, both to make some pocket I started painting when I was three or money and because I was interested in four. Paintings by children, by their doing that. After a few years, I became very nature and on a subconscious aware that cartoons had become my level, resemble caricatures. They are job and my main source of income. exaggerated, satirical and not subject Tell us something about Iranian to absolute reality. Later, however, media in those years. It was a children are pressured to paint a strange time, a hive of activity, but vase or a fruit basket exactly as they there were also crackdowns on the appear in real life, so little by little, media, with publications being the child’s creativity, sense of humor closed down on a regular basis. and imagination withers away, or the Somebody like the cartoonist Nowroz 1393 Mana's Yearbook 3 Nikahang Kowsar can answer this doors. It was a good period, but it was My record in journalism, and decades, artists have been resorting question better than I can. He short. my participation in opposition to metaphors and allegories as a result frequented the offices of periodicals, Can you talk about your work and reformist media, was totally of censorship and tyranny. People big and small, and socialized with for children’s magazines and the overlooked. Some refused to accept have learned to speak in more general people in media and politics. He even famous cartoon that led to your another alternative or, at the very terms to get their message out, to find published a few cartoon columns by imprisonment and forced exile? least, put it into context, taking into code words. himself. During most of the reform era I have explained what happened consideration its intended audience A cursory review of the situation back Mana's Yearbook [when Khatami was president], I was repeatedly over the past seven years. and how it was presented. then, however, would have shown 4 based in the offices of the newspaper I think those who want to believe my I said at the time that it was like turning that this was simply a humorous Aftab-e Emrouz, where I had a desk explanations have done so by now a popular Persian insert for kids aged in the corner. I did not wander and I cannot do anything about those nursery rhyme that 10 to 16. There around the office much or mingle who refuse to believe me. include the words were no metaphors. with the editorial board. But even so, For two years, I ran the children’s “marry a Kurdish There are still many I witnessed many changes around me, section for the weekly magazine Iran wife” into an ethnic people who ask me and my views changed too. Suddenly, Friday without a contract, writing fight with the why I used a Turkic spaces opened up, a greater number articles and publishing illustrations. Kurds. Later, I heard word. In everyday of topics were no longer taboo, and The section had its own particular that Dr Hassan conversations, I the suffocating pressure of censorship style and audience. Abbasi [a political often use the word that had for many years characterized Nobody bothered to go through back scientist employed “namanah” – and life under Mir Salim, the minister of issues of the magazine to see whether by the office of the the newspaper’s Islamic Culture and Guidance at the the so-called offensive illustration Supreme Leader and an advisor to style regularly used the language of time, began to ease. was something exceptional or not. former president Ahmadinejad] gave the street. I had many first-experiences during Had there been any previous trace exactly such an interpretation as A friend later sent me a cartoon that period – a steady column, of racism or ethnic discrimination in part of a speech. When I heard that, I’d done much earlier for another submitting a regular comic strip for the children’s section of the magazine, I calmed down a little. I realized that publication. He underlined the word the magazine Tavana, and publishing or in my 18 -year career? the problem goes much deeper and “namanah”, which I’d included in a a book. It was the first time that Some people convinced themselves is more complex than I originally speech bubble floating above the head one could object to government that there was a government thought. of a character. Had I forgotten about policies, clearly and without hedging. conspiracy to suppress ethnic When social and political pressures, it? Yes, because I didn’t think it was People were in high spirits, too. minorities. Because the magazine oppression and injustice are on important. Maybe if the cartoon had The monopoly of newspapers that featured the name of a government the increase, so too are suspicious been published in other magazines, included Keyhan, Ettela’at and others agency and the cartoon depicted attitudes. People see a hidden agenda those judging its appearance in had been broken; you could follow a cockroach with a speech bubble and conspiracy in everything. So it Iran Friday would have been less the story of “the Chain Murders” in over its head that read: “Namanah?” should come as no surprise that all suspicious. newspapers instead of hearing about (“What?” in Azerbaijani), I suddenly material will be interpreted in such Some people ask me why the it in whispers and behind closed became an “offensive cartoonist”. a way, especially in Iran, where, for cockroach used the word. The answer Nowroz 1393 Mana's Yearbook 5 is simple: the cockroach does not it will be somebody else’s. As long paper and my pens. I was never a All I know is that, in Iran, there is understand what the other character the current environment continues, sociable man and I was not addicted not a single authority that holds all is saying. On the same page, I misunderstandings and suspicions to Iranian snacks, or it would have the power. While one group smiles at featured cockroaches and frogs using will be rife. been much harder. you, another equally powerful group Persian words. Previous issues of the Your emigration has also been an At the same time, yes, limitations and bludgeons you. And when you are magazine featured talking animals, adventure. Leaving Iran seems censorship have been removed and being bludgeoned, the smiling group often speaking in Persian. It was to have given you more freedom. I can use my imagination more. In does nothing. I hope the level of Mana's Yearbook for children. In their fantasy world, You’ve become famous and enjoyed 6 Iran, I was at times forced to kill and tolerance improves – and that those animals talk. If these children knew a wider audience among Iranians suppress my own ideas, and I know in power begin to understand that they would be so harshly judged and on the international stage. Are that my colleagues there are still in the harshest critics, even the most by grown-ups, many of whom are you happy to have left Iran? What bondage. abusive ones, are necessary to keep entangled in their own social and projects have you been working on Outside Iran, I started contributing to society balanced and healthy. As political issues, they would choose since you left? the websites Rooz Online and Radio long as finding enemies and fighting silence. Emigration and exile, like love, are Zamaneh and later, Mardomak. enemies is the primary policy of the There were even more bizarre individual experiences and one I currently work for the websites political system, nothing will happen, criticisms, which claimed to show cannot issue blanket judgments IranWire and Tavana, as well as the apart from intensified suspicions and a connection between the made- about them. Once, at a gathering, a Italian bimonthly East. a deepening of social and political up language the child uses and the friend asked me how I coped with I have published two books in France, divides.

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