give thyself up to the storm
On metamorphosis from Dream to Resistance
Ilghar Dadgostari
A dream could be a vision that follows the desire of liberation. Liberty has various approaches depending on cultural strings. However, a vision shapes in capitalist grounds in most western societies today. In so-called developed countries, some basic needs could be met without a big fight but with the price of modern slavery. Many individuals might seem satisfied with their urgencies fulfilled by the governing powers but also unconsciously want to break free.
This predicament has its own set of discourses, but the question is, what would go down when thirst and hunger alter to fundamental human rights? Dealing with unjustified restraints draws the yawning gulf between one’s reality and aspiration; till one forgets what one once dreamt of. Does one have any capacity left when hunger invades the dream to even care about freedom?
A Dream you endure and desire can give its place to a burden that despairs you and can get worse in incremental steps. How would then your reality change? What befalls you through this experience of inferiority?
This metamorphosis of a dream reminds me somehow of a comparison that once the Persian Poet “Ahmad Shamlu” made between western and Iranian music systems on a sitting at Berkeley University in New York. He criticized the melancholic aspects of traditional Iranian music,1 which partly extends also to many oriental musical characteristics. His concern was the deficiency in inspiring hope and enthusiasm in Persian traditional music and how it is paralyzed in the past and fails to introduce new visions that are in synch with the needs of contemporary Iranian communities. He based his argument on different musical approaches of the west and east and how they impact the cultural perception of their societies. 2
To fathom this argument, one should follow the origins of seven degrees generally used by musicians in each region as scales. Scales of Persian Music are extracted from a pool containing seventeen to twenty-four notes compared to the Western scale extracted from only twelve notes. The Persian music system divides the whole tone into three or four parts, rather than two in the western music system. 3
These additional divisions are referred as “Gusheh,” which is a melody type like Indian Raga, the Arabic maqam, and the echoes of Byzantine music. - “A traditional repertory of melodies, melodic formulae, stereotyped figures, tonal progressions, ornamentations, rhythmic patterns,
1 Ahmad Shamlu, Q&A session with Berkeley University students (1990), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOSBjTre-_M (accessed 15 August 2021), 50`- 58`.
2 Ella Zonis, Classical persian Music: An introduction, Cambridge, Massachusetts (Harvard University Press, 1973), 46.
3 Ibid., 53.
etc., that serves as a model for the creation of new melodies.”4 Other genetic materials provided by “Gusheh” features mood, character, and indefinable ingredients such as extramusical associations.5 Associations related to old poems, some specific performers,6 and traditional motives and ornaments in the historic architecture of Iran. 7 Inevitably melodies that are created relying on these parameters are well-attached to the stories of resistance in Iran and the middle east. That is how this piece of Land that always faced challenging times in history reflects its story in musical forms.
I would like to interpret these sub-divisions of tones in middle eastern music as representatives of a world in between. As complexities of life in east reflected between the tones! These complications uphold anecdotes of resistance that carry sorrow through history in east. Considering the strong co-habitation of poetry and music in Iran, the melancholic quality of Persian music presents itself in different forms of suffering also in Poems. Additionaly, exerting oneself is demonstrated in literature as a unique way to show affection and love toward attainment of a desire. A clear example of this phenomenon in Persian poesy is an exceptional poem by prominent Persian Poet of the medieval period Saadi Shirazi (1210 -1292 AD) called “conversation between the candle and the moth”: 8
“One night, as I lay awake, I heard a moth say to a candle: “I am thy lover; if I burn, it is proper. Why dost thou weep?” The candle replied: “O my poor friend! Love is not thy business. Thou fliest from before a flame; I stand erect until I am entirely consumed. If the fire of love has burned thy wings, regard me, who from head to foot must be destroyed.” Before the night had passed, someone put the candle out, exclaiming: “Such is the end of love!” Grieve not over the grave of one who lost his life for his friend; be glad of heart, for he was the chosen of Him. If thou art a lover, wash not thy head of the sickness of love; like Saadi, wash thy hands of selfishness. A devoted lover holds not back his hand from the object of his affections though arrows and stones may rain upon his head. Be cautious; if thou goest down to the sea, give thyself up to the storm. “ 9
4 Willi Apel, Harvard Dictionary of Music, rev. ed. (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1969), s.v. “Melody type.” The concept of maqam is discussed by Ella Zonis in “Persian Music,” Improvisation in Music: East and West, ed. Ella Zonis and Leonard B. Meyer (Chicago, forthcoming), and by Johanna Spector in “Classical sUd Music in Egypt with Special Reference to Maqamat,” Ethnomusicology 14 (May 1970), 243-257.
5 Zonis, Classical persian Music: An introduction, 46.
6 Ibid., 48.
7 Ali Tokhmechian, Minou Gharehbaglou, Music, Architecture and Mathematics in Traditional Iranian Architecture (Nexus Network Journal 20(46), May 2018), DOI: 10.1007/s00004-018-0381-0.
8 Two important musical interpretations of this poem, reveals the cohabitation between Music and literature in Iran. The more traditional performance by Mohamadreza Shajarian (1940 - 2020): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SpeVkq_AS0. A more contemporary approach by Shahrram Nazeri (1950 - now): https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKHM3FZnDdY.
9 Saadi: collected works, Delphi Poets Series (Delphi Classics, 2019), 53.
Offering one’s life is a way to praise the beloved in literature as well as in everyday life in Iran. One could say that Iranian minds tend to reify their endeavors in the form of death and suffering. But there is more attached to the act of offering one’s life for love. But the question is how does this sacrificed body call its history and its path back to life?
A man’s body does not lose its value after death. There is always an urge to preserve his corpse from further violence,10 because this tormenting object establishes the destiny and the carnage of all men in the end.11 This diminishing object in grave can no longer answer their expectations, but rather nourishes their fear of discontinuity and becoming nothing; and that is why the survivors are convinced that this lifeless body should carry on living. 12
“Grieve not over the grave of one who lost his life for his friend; be glad of heart, for he was the chosen of Him. “
When the anecdote of a corpse reflects an act of resistance in a political manner, then fragility of life will be reinstated as “defiance in/as radical love.”13
“A devoted lover holds not back his hand from the object of his affections though arrows and stones may rain upon his head. “
On the subject sacrifice Georges Bataille indicates in his book Eroticism: “the victim dies, and the spectators share in what his death reveals. This sacramental element is the revelation of continuity through the death of discontinuous being to those who watch it as a solemn rite.”14 He goes on by emphasizing that “a sacrifice is a novel, a story, illustrated in a bloody fashion.”15 But how could this inversion transform the object of sacrifice and the surrounding world to create a life of its own? This sacramental element as an active form of care needs a force capable of lifting off the page and carrying us away to recreate this brutal act of resistance as a material to shape a collective tale and turning it into a cautionary energy. In this regard Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung suggests, “Art spaces could become spaces of radical thinking. Of radical love. Of protest. So, the issue at stake is how can we create spaces where people and society could show their wounds? ” 16
10 Zonis, Classical persian Music: An introduction, 46.
11 Ibid., 44.
12 Ibid., 57.
13 Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, The delusions of care (Berlin: Archive Books, 2021), 68.
14 Zonis, Classical persian Music: An introduction, 82.
15 Ibid., 87.
16 Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, “Defiance in/as Radical Love. Soliciting Friction Zones and Healing Space,” In a while or Two We Will find the Tone (Berlin: Archive Books, 2021).
This space has been practiced in Persian music and literature for centuries, but it still has a long way to be actively acknowledged by societies out of Iran. The complicated political state of this country makes this transition of information very challenging. Besides, the directed presuppositions in western countries about Iran and Iranians delude the perception of that space. The crucial step of an effective dialogue in an artistic manner has though the power to untangle the Memories of resistance and care in Iran for this confused world.
In general, though it might seem like a platitude, but I believe that we need a wide bridge between west and east. Referring to the beginning of this essay, the way one observes the world in middle east is not technically comprehensible for everyone in western societies. But music, literature and architecture have the potential to Rearticulate the stories with an artistic approach to make cultural exchanges between these communities more coherent and empowering for both.
Furthermore, it is crucial to narrate the stories of resistance for remembrance in a world that tends to be forgetful about them. It is in the nature of sharing our vulnerabilities and showing our wounds as an act of protest that make healing individually and collectively possible. A shared wound is a shared wisdom, that aids us in the future to bear its reality in mind and object to its brutality. This shared wisdom shall be witness to our compassion, prudence, and love, which will accompany us through the storms we navigate together toward our dreams. 17
„Be cautious; if thou goest down to the sea, give thyself up to the storm. “
17 Ndikung, The delusions of care (Berlin: Archive Books, 2021), 68.