Iran Weekly Wire Podcast

 

The Islamic Republic of Iran does rhetoric like no other country.

Under Khomeini, Iran lined up its enemies in a pantheon of greater and lesser Satans.

Over the past 36 years, its leaders have mashed up Koranic verse with a sense of historical grievance, and a bolshie, sarcastic take on the international order.

Now, every nation has a special style of rhetoric, a language politicians use when they want to get something done.

But it works the other way, too.

Wherever a disagreement exists between citizens and the state, citizens can use the same language to talk back.

This week, I’ll look at how rhetoric illuminates Iran’s political life.

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Earlier this week, Reza Shirozhan, a deputy police chief in the western province of Lorestan, told teacher trainees that “Decadence, Satellite TV and Cell Phones” threaten Iran’s youth.

This isn’t the first time officials in the province have used the rhetorical rule of three.

Last month, a member of the Revolutionary Guards said cyberspace, Hollywood and Harvard University formed an “infamous triangle” promoting western interests in Iran.

These three-part threats may seem a little random in their assembly, but they reveal officials’ anxieties about foreign influence through culture and technology.

Their fears come partly from Iran’s isolation. So many ideas and technologies enter Iran from outside that officials can grow a little paranoid about them.

They’ve also faced nasty technological surprises like the Stuxnet virus that set back Iran’s nuclear program in 2010, which prove to them that they are not paranoid at all.

For the government, technological invasion and cultural invasion are inseparable threats.

They sometimes struggle to convey that message to the public, since many Iranians complain that the government invades their own lives technologically and culturally.

According to Shirozhan Turkish soap operas that erode family values, and that mobile phones cause children “significant damage.” By saying this, Shirozhan brings his fears of technology into every Iranian home.

Unsympathetic listeners may be quick to notice that satellites have broken the government’s hold on information, and that Green Movement protestors relied on their cell phones to mobilize.

But there will always be parents—and teachers—who worry that youth culture and technology are getting ahead of them. These are Shirozhan’s audience, or at least he hopes so.

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Perhaps less subtle than the Lorestan lawman was Revolutionary Guards commander Gholam Ali Abuhamzeh, who launched a more old fashioned Islamic panic—or hyperbole—in the western province of Hamedan.

Speaking to officials on Sunday, he said 65 to 70 per cent of the mosques in the province had closed, and only 30 to 35 per cent of them open once or twice a day for prayers.

“Observing religious moral codes should be central to our culture,” he said.

His remarks would be everyday fare for the Islamic Republic, except for one surprising rhetorical reversal. In an apparent effort not to sound square, he indirectly name-checked the web phenomenon of

The Pharrel Williams song “Happy.”

This was an extraordinary reference to last year’s arrest of a group of young Iranians for improvising their own video to song.

“In contrast to what is claimed,” he said, “we are not against happiness. But it is necessary to have a comprehensive assessment of musical programs to prevent the rise of any possible problems.”

Here was a curious combination of official boilerplate and denial. In fact, Iran sentenced the “happy” kids to prison and torture by flogging.

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Speaking of happiness, Western media have long used pictures of Iranians skiing to present a surprising portrait of Iran. They don’t expect their readers to imagine snow in the Middle East, let alone Iranians having fun in it.

While there are no Islamic strictures against skiing, the sport does tend to bring men and women together on the slopes, and to bring back memories of the Shah and Queen Farah, who skied in Swiss resort of Saint Moritz, as well as in Shemshak, just north of Tehran.

This week, authorities closed down a Shemshak resort after social media revealed images of a party held to launch a night skiing resort.

Details of what actually happened at the party are hard to come by, but authorities called the event “immoral” and “ostentatious.”

Nasser Talebi, the director of Iran’s Ski federation, went quickly on the defensive. He told the Iranian Student News Agency that he shared officials’ disapproved of the event, and promised that his organization would deal with those responsible.

The event’s organizer, Keyvan Mohebbi, insisted nothing unusual had happened at all, and he protested by playing the Islamic Republic’s values back to it.

He said the resort had given free skiing lessons to women who were properly veiled, and that people at the party had been celebrating the 36^th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution. He also said that members of Iranian revolutionary guards took part in the celebrations.

Mohebbi’s rhetorical efforts will likely not be enough to save the resort. There seems to be an earthly, economic, reason for the closure beyond abstractions like morality and Islamic values.

There are suggestions that the closure could have resulted from an ongoing rivalry between local resorts – each with their own connections to the police and the revolutionary guards.

Iranians on social media have suggested that a rival resort got to the government first with its own rhetoric of Islamic indignation.

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Last week, IranWire reported on severe dust storms that blew through Iran’s Western provinces, crippling traffic and causing public buildings to close.

Climate change and natural drought have caused the crisis, but the government’s mismanagement of water also plays—or is perceived to play—a role.

Last Thursday, 200 protesters gathered outside the Khomeini hospital in the city of Abadan to assert their “inalienable right to clean air.”

Protestors used the word “inalienable” because it’s a clever appropriation of the word the government uses to defend Iran’s nuclear rights under the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Protesters also asked to replace politicians with trees, which produce cleaner air—which sounds like a rhetorical demand.

But that demand might have hit a note with the representatives of southern province of Khuzestan in the Iranian parliament.

In a show of solidarity with their constituents they went to the parliament wearing masks.

In an interview with IranWire, parliamentarian Shokrekhoda Mousavi said that the masks were symbolic gesture to help raise awareness.

He also criticized Iran’s environmental agency for its inefficiency.

While the government has long used rhetoric to suppress citizens’ voices, events in Abadan show how adept Iranians have got at appropriating the official line. In this case, citizen’s rhetoric worked.