The Mirror and the Myth

In Iran, a bird owner will often put a mirror in a nightingale’s cage.  Eager to impress its reflected self, the nightingale will begin to sing and when its reflection follows suit, the nightingale sings its heart out, convinced it is part of a chorus.

That’s what sprang to mind as I watched a small crowd of 100 or so Iranian men at a traffic flyover in East Tehran. Wearing black shirts, they had gathered in sizzling heat to mark the anniversary of the "martyrdom" of Ali, the first Shiite Imam. 

(The place is an historic one for those who remember the first stirrings of Iran’s Revolution. Thirty-six years ago, it is where members of the pro-Revolution air force clashed with military personnel loyal to the Shah in the opening act of an uprising that eventually led to the collapse of the Palahvi regime.) 

The gathering was both a religious anniversary, and a staged political event to “honor the Iranian and Afghan martyrs" killed in Syria and Iraq; to demonstrate an ongoing “readiness to fight and defend the holy shrines” in those countries. 

It lasted for almost three hours, from six in the evening until Iftar (the moment in Ramadan when the sun goes down and Muslims break their fast). Professional chanters (“maddah” in Persian) whipped the crowd into a hypnotic frenzy with rhyming parables about infallible Shia imams, while the men lamented and beat their chests in an oddly hip-hop rhythm.

All around them stood an audience of Afghan workers, led by a maddah in another chant: “Everyone has come here to show their love for the [Supreme] Leader.”

Overhead, cameras dipped and circled — one on the arm of a crane; another mounted on a drone, and the pictures were broadcast live on an enormous video screen, fully 12 meters square.

The participants could gaze at the screen and believe they were no longer just 100 sweating men, but photogenic members of an ecstatic chorus. And like caged nightingales, they sang even louder. 

The official Iranian media work on the same principle, projecting and amplifying the pieties of a minority. Take the ritual of Friday prayers and the accompanying public sermon. These get wide media coverage, out of all proportion to the number of Iranians who are truly interested. The congregation is about 5000 strong in Tehran, and fewer than that in roughly 700 cities and towns across Iran. A very generous estimate puts the total at around two million in all.

Back in 2004, in an essay in the New York Times, I described them as a "lonely crowd". I asked how such a tiny minority, with their autocratic leaders and choreographed rituals, could set the agenda for a nation of 70 million.

Ten years later, we’re a nation of 80 million and I’m asking again.

That brings me to the nuclear agreement signed by Iran and the West last week – and another ecstatic but deluded chorus. Pro-government propagandists and reformists alike are trumpeting its virtues as a kind of Iranian glasnost, and predict that a deal will flood Iran with money. No one is asking how – or if – it will act as a catalyst for social and political freedoms.

Of course it will not.  The Guardian Council of Iran’s Constitution will make sure that – deal or no deal – Iran’s dictatorial theocracy is not seriously challenged.

In a recent address to university students, Supreme leader Ali Khamenei said, “Our combat with the Arrogant Powers will not end with this deal. We will continue to fight them, according to the precepts of the holy Koran. America is the epitome of Arrogant Power. Be ready for the struggle." 

At the same meeting, the Supreme Leader advised the students to nip any liberalizing initiatives in the bud, especially those that support reformist parliamentary candidates. Instead he urged the Islamic associations to "deepen their religious knowledge and political analysis, and avoid any co-educational excursions, especially recreational programs like camping where men and women might mix."

Now various television networks have taken up the theme: Press TV, Al Alam Arabic television, and Al Manar from Lebanon, to name a few, are pumping out anti-American material. It’s asking a lot of the Iranian people to reject the false images they see in this distorting mirror.

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