Amir Hassan Cheheltan is one of a group
of internationally known Iranian artists who have no intention of
turning their backs on their country, and who will not allow themselves
to be sidelined or frozen out by the regime.
by Stefan Buchen, Qantara.de
"Change is in the air," says Amir Hassan Cheheltan. "Now, in spring,
it's easy to imagine. A cloud appears and at any moment, the rain could
come pelting down or there could be a storm." The writer is pointing to
the spring sky over Berlin, but he's talking about the political climate
in his homeland Iran. The tensions are tangible, the discord between
enemy factions within the regime more profound and acrimonious than ever
before.
56-year-old Cheheltan is on a short visit to Berlin to
promote his novel "Amerikaner töten in Teheran" (Killing Americans in
Tehran) just published in German. His words make you sit up and take
notice.
This writer cannot be compared with those notorious members of the
Iranian exiled opposition, who have been proclaiming the "internal
disintegration" and "the imminent collapse of the Islamic Republic" for
33 years.
Cheheltan is a quiet observer without political
affiliation, whose stories and psychograms unfold against a backdrop of
Iranian 20th century history through to the present. Because historic
authenticity is important to him, he has carried out meticulous study of
the social and political history of his nation, referring to documents
and as a contemporary witness.
Return to uncertainty
Cheheltan
cannot and will not say exactly what form the expected changes will
take. But he wants to suggest that the political wrangling between
President Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and their
followers has reached an intensity not yet seen to date, even in view of
the conflict-ridden history of Iran's governmental system. And that
consequently some of this pressure must be vented at some point.
He
went back to Tehran last winter, after two-and-a-half years in Germany
and the US. He delayed his return because of fears that the authorities
would mistreat him. "There were no problems," he says now, with calm
restraint. "A culture ministry official called me at home and said that
the printing licence for my earlier novels was no longer valid. Then I
knew that it would be pointless to apply for a permit to publish my new
books. There's no way I would get one."
When he says "new books",
he is referring to a trilogy – " Tehran, Revolution Street", "Killing
Americans in Tehran" and "Teheran, City without a Sky").
Owing to
censorship in the Iranian republic, for years these novels have existed
in their original Persian form only on Cheheltan's hard drive, and in
printed form in the drawer of his desk. The first two were revealed to
the world for the first time in German translation and have since been
hailed by critics as "world literature", the third is due to be
published in German this year.
Exile is not an option
For
sure, Cheheltan would not have to search hard for a Persian publishing
house in exile in Los Angeles, Stockholm or Berlin that would publish
the originals. But that would contradict his life goals. If he did this,
he would be openly challenging the regime by sidestepping the
decision-making authority of the censors. And, even more importantly, he
would make it easy for the regime to brand him a traitor.
Like the exceptional performer of Persian classical music
Mohammad-Reza Shajarian and the filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof, the writer
Amir Hassan Cheheltan is one of a group of internationally known Iranian
artists who have no intention of turning their backs on their country,
and who will not allow themselves to be sidelined or frozen out by the
regime. They are not petulant children who are only staying in Iran
because the regime would rather they disappeared forever.
They
have internalised the belief that they need the inspiration of the
homeland to be able to create art, and that they have a message for the
society of which they want to be a part. "Man prefers to live in his own
country," says Cheheltan – and it doesn't sound banal.
The souls of scoundrels and criminals
In
his trilogy Cheheltan shows how deeply the Iranian nation has become
entangled in its history for five generations, how the individual has
been affected by the succession of dictatorial regimes and the
intermittent flaring-up against those rulers, and by the self-assertion
against the grip of the super powers, primarily that of the US. He also
shows how moral standards and the ability to make rational judgements
have been lost.
The rulers of the Islamic Republic do not appear
in the trilogy, but instead the novels feature prison guards, police
officers and low-level employees. "Society" is at the mercy of this
apparatus. But on the other hand, the apparatus recruits from this
society. This interplay repeatedly appears in Cheheltan's work.
In
his trilogy, the author engages intensively, almost obsessively with
figures of the demimonde and the underworld. He climbs down into the
souls of these scoundrels and criminals – he calls them "lat" in Persian
– and turns them inside out, exposing all their facets.
It is
the source of some amusement to consider that the psychogram of the
prison warder, who puts his unattainable lover behind bars because he
would otherwise have no access to her, is the product of the fantasy of
this reticent member of the Tehran middle class.
Crime and politics
It
is Cheheltan's aim to draw attention to what he believes is a
significant, fatal pattern in Iranian contemporary history: Rulers
repeatedly make use of the murderers and thugs from the underworld and
harness them in order to ruthlessly push through their political goals.
The warden at Evin Prison has such a criminal background, just like the
organised mob that pushed Prime Minister Mosaddegh out of office on
behalf of several generals loyal to the Shah and the CIA in the year
1953. This all appears in the trilogy.
When Cheheltan then continues to talk about hired killers who, during
the "constitutional revolution" (enghelab-e mashruteh) in the early
20th century, killed men with knives on the streets of Tehran because
they were wearing suits and ties, and therefore apparently identifiable
as supporters of political change moving away from the absolute
monarchy, one senses that he will write more novels.
The stories
in the trilogy are fiction. But for anyone wanting to know what is
really happening in the Islamic Republic, a highly accurate picture can
be gained from reading this work. In this respect, when it comes to
unmasking the regime, Cheheltan serves a similarly significant function
to that of Alaa al-Aswani for the Egypt of Mubarak and Yasmina Khadra
for the Algeria of the 1990s, devastated by military dictatorship and
civil war.
Only one path remains
It is
evident that Cheheltan is so troubled by the history of his country
quite simply because it has been marked by too much violence. He
wrestles with the intractable paradox not unfamiliar to this country,
that this violence is unleashed by what is essentially a civilised
nation. This is probably why he is against a new revolution, which would
in his view only provoke a new orgy of violence.
Cheheltan also
thinks it unlikely that such a violent uprising against the regime will
come to pass, because the majority fear the consequences. "People also
reject a military attack from outside," he adds. "In this respect, only
one path remains: that of reform ("eslahat").
Cheheltan is also
very aware just how bad the prospects for peaceful change are, in view
of what happened three years ago when the Iranian reform movement with
its efforts to promote gradual social opening failed as peaceful mass
protests against the re-election of Ahmadinejad were brutally crushed.
This is why for many opponents of the regime, the concept of "eslahat"
has fallen into disrepute.
"People have been disappointed by the leaders of the reform movement," Cheheltan reflects. "But the idea of reform still has many supporters."
The
writer ends his reading tour of Germany at the end of May, when he is
due to return to Iran. We can only watch and wait to see what kind of
change might possibly unfold in Iran in the near future.
Translated from the German by Nina Coon
Editor: Lewis Gropp
Via Qantara.de
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