Censorship, Iranian Style: All Beards Are Sacred

The ability to draw a little and be sensitive to social issues are professional necessities for any cartoonist anywhere in the world.

For an Iranian cartoonist, however, watching the nature documentary series Survival can be instructive. Fans of the show have watched more than once the episode where an alligator fools a zebra who has come to a pond to quench its thirst. The alligator pretends to be a log floating on the calm water. The thirsty zebra eyes the floating log suspiciously for a few minutes, and when its thirst becomes unbearable and it dips its head down, the alligator pounces.

In the shallow pond of Iranian journalism, a cartoonist is like the zebra, constantly trying to distinguish between a log and an alligator before drinking.

As an ass in striped pajamas my first encounter with the alligator was quite unexpected but it taught me a good lesson.

The gentleman who was interrogating me was adamant that the bearded man in a cartoon I’d drawn was the “Supreme Leader” and no one else. I denied this repeatedly, explaining that only a fool would draw a caricature of His Leadership, sign his name in big letters and not even bother to flee the country, until two days later when he is arrested while biting into a sandwich.

I told him I might be many things, but a fool was not among them. I wanted to imply that the alligator had not observed the rules of the game. Instead of waiting for the zebra to come to the pond, the alligator had hailed a taxi and gone after the zebra.

The interrogator gentleman who was perhaps a couple of years younger than me did not believe that any zebra who spends his time drawing cartoons could have a brain. Instead, he ordered me to write down in detail my motives for insulting the sacred. Before picking up the pen, I looked up.

“But sir, I’ve only drawn a bearded man and no beard is sacred on its own. The goat has a goatee, but are goatees sacred?”

“If the goat belongs to the Supreme Leader then it’s sacred.”

I wrote that they were going to pay me a thousand tomans for drawing the cartoon but I was confident that I was never going to get it now. He smirked to let me know that I was the stupid ass and not him.

I saw myself as the ass in striped pajamas who was thrashing in the jaws of the alligator. I pointed at a copy of the magazine and said that the man in the cartoon looked nothing like the Supreme Leader.

“If it did look like him I would have strangled you right here and now with my own bare hands! And there’d have been no need for you go through interrogation, trial and prison!”

The logic of the interrogator was the logic of a hungry alligator who tears apart and swallows the zebra out of instinct. The shiny face of an interrogator who could strangle me for drawing a picture of the Supreme Leader and then go home to have dinner made my stomach churn. I felt that dying was a hundred times sweeter than looking at the face of such a "brother.”

“Just tell me what you want me to confess to. I’ll sign.”

By the third day the interrogations were over. On the fourth day I sat before the on-duty judge at the Revolutionary Court. I was tired, dirty and scared. The corner of my eye was fluttering. The judge pushed his face close to mine and asked if the interrogator had beaten me. Thank God his breath smelled better than the others.

“No,” I said. “Unfortunately the need did not arise.”

The judge pushed his face a few centimeters closer and gazed into my eyes. “Look here young man,” he said. (At that time I was still young.) “We know what to do with traitors. They take up arms against us and we execute them. But we don’t know what to do with you. No matter how long I look at this drawing, I can’t decide whether you wanted to insult His Leadership or not.” He then gave me some kindly advice. “From now on either don’t draw a beard or if you do, draw it in a way that we’ll recognize exactly whose it is.”

I promised His Honor that I would not get caught so easily the next time and he promised to have me executed the first chance that he got. The moment the alligator relaxed his jaws I pulled out my feet and escaped.

Over the next 19 years that I worked in Iran, I learned a lot. For example, I learned that bullies prefer to spend their limited intelligence and time issuing meaningless but flowery statements because they enjoy receiving praise for them. As a result, they do not have much time left for thinking. They point to very simple, crude symbols to find fault with a cartoon. I concluded I’d have a better chance of staying free and going on with my grumblings if I stayed away from familiar symbols.

The most important symbol was the beard, which is the exclusive domain of the clergy. Then we have walking canes and keffiyeh, which are symbols of the Supreme Leader. Drawing handkerchiefs over the eyes or the mouth was dangerous because it offends the paramilitary Basij. Drawing a few old men who are dozing off is a direct insult to the members of the Assembly of Experts. Drawing monkeys angers members of the parliament. Drawing a shark was dangerous for a few years (under Hashemi Rafsanjani) but it is one of those rare banned symbols that are now permitted.

But it is still unwise to draw an alligator. Anyone who jokes with the Angel of Justice is undoubtedly trying to insult the Judiciary Chief who is appointed by the Supreme Leader. Anyone who is watching TV is definitely casting doubt on the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting because he is also an appointee of His Leadership. And I never, never, forgot to refrain from drawing a goat like a goat unless and until I knew the owner.

These days I live in a place safer than Tehran but I have stayed true to my promise to His Honor. I draw His Leadership so carefully as to leave no doubt to whom I am referring and I have no doubt that His Honor has also stayed true to the promise he made me.