Self-Censorship Is a Self-Inflicted Disability

In this series on self-censorship, we asked writers, artists, journalists and human rights activists to define self-censorship. Where possible, they were invited to give examples of their experiences, and to describe what they have witnessed.

We presented each interviewee with the same set of questions, adapting them or asking further questions where relevant.

Our intention was for the interviewees to express their own perspective of self-censorship.

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Kourosh Ghorbani is an Iranian writer, lyricist and stage actor who now lives in Germany. His novel The Banned Book visits a mythologized history: A Greek historian finds a book in his garden overlooking Acropolis that claims to have been written by Zeus, telling the “real” history of the world, in which Zeus has been present at all important junctures. The novel was published in 2015 after the author waited a couple of years for a permit from the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. A second volume of the novel is underway. 

How do you define self-censorship?

Self-censorship is a self-inflicted mental disability. I do not believe anybody can believe that disability is an advantage. But even people with a physical disability succeed in overcoming their physical defects, they work hard to realize their dreams and they happen to succeed.

When you are able to see but close your eyes, then you are a self-inflicted blind. When you can hear but cover your ears, then you are a self-inflicted deaf. In the same manner, when you can write but do not write — for whatever reason — you have made yourself into a mentally disabled person.

A writer either does not write or if he writes he must put on paper whatever is required by a work of art. There is no third alternative. Any other alternative is unacceptable. To say that I was afraid that my book would not be published, that my album would not be released, that I would not get a permit, and so on, are not good enough excuses.

Self-censorship damages the core of the art and pushes the artist toward becoming a tradesman. When we censor something within ourselves to win approval then we are in the world of trade, not art. In my view a writer who self-censors is not an artist.

It is their audiences — the society and the authorities who issue permits — who must change their attitude, not the writers, not the artists and not the thinkers. If we are saying something, writing something or performing something, then it must be done in its entirety to be effective. How can we expect it to be effective when there is self-censorship? Half-effective?

Is self-censorship an example of social misconduct or prudence?

Perhaps both. In my view prudence does not belong to art but to politics. An artist can say whatever he wants to say one way or another — by innuendo, hints and other tools in his vocabulary. This is not the same as prudence.

When Ferdowsi [the author of the Persian national epic Shahnameh, or the Book of Kings, c. 935 to c. 1020–26] writes about Zahhak [the mythical evil king who fed the brains of his young subjects to two serpents planted on his shoulders by Ahriman, the Zoroastrian Satan], he was not writing horror stories for the court or the people of his time. He was hinting at the existing repressive and suffocating situation. He did not self-censor. He said what he had to say. Today his Book of Kings is still the Book of Kings and is as effective as it was then. I believe that our people should read the Book of Kings and commentaries on it again. Shahnameh is an uncensored work and full of ingenious solutions.

Some say that censorship encourages creativity. Do you agree?

It might seem so in the short term but in the long term it will arrive at a dead-end. In the beginning it might even seem lovely because we encounter familiar or abstract symbols and metaphors that convey their own concealed meanings. But little by little these symbols are repeated so many times that they become empty of meaning and ridiculous. Then everything turns into symbols and metaphors and the original meaning is lost.

And when the symbols are new the audience must turn into a professional interpreter of symbols. As such, Iranian audiences must buy books on symbols and signs and must memorize them to understand a work of art. And the artist himself loses his way, is damaged, becomes frustrated and, mentally, turns into another person. This is exactly what censorship aims for. If censorship brought forth creativity then despotic regimes would not impose it on artists and writers because the goal of a tyranny is to silence its opponents, not to make them more creative.

Our assumption is that Iran is a self-censoring society. Is this self-censorship rooted in Iranian culture or in its history and political events?

Our current culture is a fusion of tradition and modernity and traditional societies are often beset by self-censorship.

We cannot reduce the whole of Iran to only Tehran, although even in Tehran tradition trumps modernity. Traditions are not dead but have changed shape. When a series of unwritten rules based on long-standing traditions dominate a family, how can a child or an adolescent who has become familiar with modern culture and modern ways through the internet dare to express it? The family will not accept it or will even consider it a taboo subject. The child must either break the tradition and accept the consequences or he must self-censor. And if he does not self-censor then he confronts the family with serious challenges.

And traditional families need not be dressed in tribal outfits. Today our people hide their traditional ways under impeccable modern clothes. They light a pipe and become intellectuals but when they put out the pipe they are back to their rigid mentality. And political events have had a decided impact on the mores of the society.

Can you give us an example of when you have practiced self-censorship?

No, I cannot tell you!

Well, what I just said was an example of self-censorship. I have always tried to avoid self-censorship. In many gatherings and societies I have said what I wanted to say candidly. After reading The Banned Book, which was yet to be published, the art historian Iraj Nobakht said that one of its positive aspects was that it had no self-censorship. The novel was published the same way, but without promotion and in limited copies.

In my personal life I have always tried to be candid but polite. And, if you think about it, politeness can be a kind of self-censorship. But there is no way that we can say whatever we want and behave whichever way we like. The way we are raised sometimes makes us change what we say and the way we behave but, fortunately, we are free in our imagination and there is no self-censorship there. In fact, our real character is our imagination. Small self-censorships are allowed provided they do not damage the final outcome. I might not say a small thing, but I would not lie.