Returning To The Future
** I first published this on the now de-funct blog space, Roon, on March 5 2014. I am planning to return to explore more of Iran in 2017/18.
I have just returned from a trip to Iran.
As the only non-student in a university trip led by the coolest sociologist-professor I know, this was one of the best study trips I’ve ever been on in my life. The eight intense and wonderful days with extremely hospitable Iranian student-hosts made me fall deeply in love with the country, its people, culture and mountains.
Whatever you think Iran is (obsessed with nuclear power; determined to wipe out Israel; backward; consistently conservative and anti-Western)–it is not. The time I spent there completely tarnished the negativity associated with Iran and revealed a nation that yearns to be seen as a very human one. Iranians have the same concerns about growing inequality and rising costs of living; they are not homogenous and the country is in fact, very multicultural (63–70% speak Farsi; 13% speak Azeri Turkique; 7% speak Kurdish; the remaining percentage speak other ethnic languages), and Iranians too have lots of plans and dreams for themselves and the rest of the world.
Genuine warmth towards visitors is what makes Iran such a beautiful country to be in. I got my first glimpse of it on the flight en route to Tehran from Dubai, when a fatherly Iranian man who sat next to me started chatting, and before leaving the plane, gave me his name card and told me to give him a call if I needed anything at all. In Tehran, the stares we got from both men and women when we took public transport, and whispers in farsi to our guides about whether we were from Japan or China, quickly withered to smiles and nods of acknowledgement. Throughout my eight day stay, whenever I was greeted with ‘Salam’ and a smile, I just couldn’t help but think about whether people in other countries (never mind if they’re more, or less, developed) would do the same for visitors.
Beyond everyday encounters, analysing Iran’s geopolitics in the country itself helped me understand its predicament of being ‘the centre of the world’(if you look at an atlas, it quite literally is at the centre of a world map). It doesn’t want to fall prey to Great Power politics; it wants to assert its presence in the region as it once did at the height of the Cold War under the Shah; it wants to assert its position as a predominant Shi’a Islamic power within the Muslim world; it wants to show that it can straddle both Western and Eastern countries’ interests. But it has been unable to break away from being a portrayed as a ‘dangerous country’ by the global mainstream media’s constant reports of Iran’s nuclear reactors and Islamist imagery.
Iranians however, aren’t too bogged down by international portrayals of the country — they’ve got their own local newspapers to keep them busy and on their toes. I had the privilege to visit [Hamshahri Online](http://www.hamshahrionline.ir), a centre-right paper that is one of the most read newspapers in the country.
We got to speak to the editor-in-chief, Younes Shokrkhah (who also teaches British Journalism and British Cinema in the University of Tehran)and learnt that journalists fight a constant battle to stay relevant; if the government wants you out, your newspaper or agency can be shut down within days. But the folding of newspaper only leads to another being set up–such is the resilience of Iranian journalism.
What greatly intrigued me was the fact that many students that we met and eventually became friends with, are pursing postgraduate degrees in North American/ British Studies. The idea that students are interested in the history, foreign policy, arts and culture of two countries that are at the forefront of sanctions against the country since the 1980s shows that the youth of the country aren’t really all that anti-Western as mainstream media portrays them to be. They love British cinema! 18th century literature! Indie music! (Although Western music is banned [Iran’s underground alternative music scene is very much alive](http://www.fairobserver.com/article/notes-underground-iran-alternative-misic-scene).)
But despite their modern outlook toward life, the students I met are also committed to staying true to their ethnic roots. My Kurdish-Iranian friends speak Kurdish, Farsi and English;are Sunni Muslim (in a country that is 89% Shi’a Muslim); are fiercely loyal to their ethnic culture and traditions; and are determined to fight for their rights in a country that has made the learning of ethnic languages illegal.
This is the kind of drive and fierce loyalty that I witnessed and heard for myself–and it was violently inspiring. I say violent because it showed me how one’s mind and pens are stronger than a sword. Young Iranians have taken to social media to pen their thoughts and opinions about state laws; about (high) inflation in the country; about education and ethnic policies. But they too pass their time away like any young people would– — idly and without a care– by gathering in coffee shops to hubble-bubble (i.e. smoke shisha) and eat, drink and be merry.
So in a country where the median age is 27.5, can modern and religious youth co-exist? Yes indeed. I saw a bunch of hipster Iranians in North Tehran (the more privileged bit of the city). Beyond the privileged parts of town in Al-Zahra University (an all female university), girls wore either a chador, or mixed their hijab with Western-styled clothes. Modernity is not something that is hidden in plain sight–— rather, wearing a hijab is done so out of law and respect for Islam. As my Iranian friends told me, whether or not you believe it in, it’s just polite to respect others’ beliefs.
My culture shock however, came on the last day of my stay and it was my first brush of conservatism in a relatively liberal city (compared to others cities such as Mashhad): I was kindly told by the university guesthouse receptionist to eat my breakfast upstairs in the lobby whilst a group of men ate their breakfasts in the basement cafeteria. On previous mornings at the guesthouse, I had not been told in a forward manner that I couldn’t dine with people of the opposite sex; the freedom I have to do so in Singapore and many other countries I’ve visited was something that I’ve taken for granted. (Side-note: My Iranian friend wrote to me a month later to clarify that the hostel manager might have told me to do so because he did not want me to feel uncomfortable about being the only female in the canteen).
Alas this trip was not just focused on simulating one’s intellectual senses. I thoroughly enjoyed Iranian cuisine (lots of naan, salads, nabat (sugar), tea, kebabs, and ash (Persian soup))and we got to do some sight-seeing: having studied 20th Century Iranian history in my final year university, visiting the Pahlavi residence was a definite dream come true. Stepping into a Shi’a shrine after visiting the Shah’s opulent residence was also powerful — I have never witnessed such strong religious devotion to a higher power as I did when I saw women crying and praying in the female part of the Immazadeh Saleh Shrine. The most breathtakingly beautiful part of the trip however, was beyond Tehran in a mountainous area called Meygoon. I sat on a chairlift for the first time in my life and when I reached the top of the mountain, I got views like this:
(Yes, Iranians have mountains to ski and snowboard! Thinking that Iran is a hot country is the fault of Orientalists. And mainstream media.)
I believe Iran is going to be in quite a different place at its own time in the future. As one of Iran’s leading intellectuals who laid the foundation for the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Dr Ali Shariati, said: it is important for Iran build a strong democracy based on Islamic values (but he warned against the clergy taking over governance in the 1970s). If they did this, Iran should not return to the past but and return to the future — a future where individuals would be sure of themselves, their needs and their own religious identities without having them dictated by clergymen.
35 years after the Iranian Revolution, the future is bright. I have seen and heard it in my friends and I look forward to returning to the future.
