Perspective, Spring 2023

PERSPECTIVE

A Letter from the Editors

Dear Reader,

We are honored to present this semester’s issue of Perspective Magazine, and are immensely proud of the articles therein and grateful to our writers. In this issue, you will find heavy reflections of what it means to be Iranian over the last few months, deep dives into Iranian history, and examinations of the lives of literary figures in Iranian history. There are also stories and poems, both in Persian and in English. We hope you find as much joy in reading these articles as we did through the process of writing, editing, and rewriting. Our front cover is simple, but the sunny skies above Golestan Palace and the bright colors remind us of new beginnings and the classic firouzeh turquoise of Iran.

As we transition out of this academic year and pass on the leadership of Perspective, we would like to express how special this publication is to us as editors-in-chief — the community it has built, the ideas it has fostered, and the outlet it has provided, especially in these times. Despite the severe consequences of the pandemic, both in monetary terms, and the loss of our main continuing core of writers (most graduating), we managed to keep Perspective alive, publishing this and the preceding issues without sacrificing content or style. We have been so lucky to guide such a wonderful group of writers in producing Fall and Spring issues that we are truly proud of, and are honored to showcase the talent of our Iranian writers and poets on campus. The topics in this issue are indicative of our conversations as a diaspora here at Berkeley, and there is much to be learned from the knowledge of our classmates who share a love for our country and want to see it and its people thrive. We wish the absolute best for our successors, and hope to see editions of Perspective Magazine at Berkeley for many years to come.

We are sorry to say goodbye but think, with this semester’s issue, that we leave on a beautiful note. We remain, as always,

Yours,

M. Rastgoo

Neda Nasseri Editors-in-Chief

Staff

Editors-In-Chief

M. Rastgoo

Neda Nasseri

Design Assistants

Mahdokht

Zainab S. N. N.B.

Copy Editors

M. Rastgoo

Neda Nasseri

Melissa Gheisari

Staff Writers

Reza Lakestani

Ava Azadi

Melissa Gheisari

Shirin Khanoom

Mahdokht

NZK N.B. N.

Acknowledgements

Persian Center

Associated Students of the University of California, Berkeley (ASUC)

Middle Eastern–North African Recruitment and Retention Center (MENARRC)

1 Poetry nights: community in exile by

M. Rastgoo

4 An ode to kaveh golestan and the art of photojournalism by NZK

5 The intellectual roots of the “first revolution” in iran by Reza Lakestani

7

by Mahdokht

9 Pashmam designs: navigating politics, representation, and aesthetics by Ava

Azadi

11 Melodies of resistance by N.

17 A personal reflection of spiritual and cultural identity by Melissa

Gheisari

19 Pirouz and the iranian people: a shared history of survival by Shirin Khanoom

21 To my sister: the life and words of forugh farrokhzad by N.B.

25 Bad diaspora poetry by Anonymous

by M. Rastgoo

Poetry Nights Community in Exile

by M. Rastgoo

Wednesdays were always the same. Every week, without fail, my father would come collect me from afterschool daycare, and, instead of driving me home, would drive me the other way, to Mountain View, to the shabe sher, the poetry night. We went to the same café, every week; went up to the counter, and ordered the same drinks (sugar-free vanilla latte for me, and an americano for him) along with whatever pastry seemed appetizing; climbed up the carpeted stairs to the bright and airy second floor, painted red, to find a table; and, once installed, once our fellow friends and participants had arrived, we would start. The event began, ostensibly, at 7 PM, though in reality the first 30 to 45 minutes were spent, as are the beginnings of most Iranian events, speaking about our lives, about our days, about the news, about Iran. Then, finally, once enough people had decided to get started, we would open our big books or our online copies, and we would begin to read the Shahnameh, the Persian Book of Kings.

I grew up around Persian poetry. As a child, this did not seem too unusual — granted, none of my friends at school went to poetry night every week, and other Persian adults seemed to be impressed whenever I recited a poem at an event, but broadly my familiarity with the art, specifically when it came to Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh, did not strike me as particularly unique. It was only as I grew older, and especially as I started college, that it fully sunk in for me that most Iranian-Americans born in the United States were not familiar with Persian poetry or Persian literature at all. Some did not speak any Persian whatsoever; most spoke a little bit with their parents and their families, but could not read or write well; and a select few, usually those who visited family in Iran frequently or those who had gone to Persian classes, could both read and write, and were at least faintly familiar with the major literary figures of Iran, if not necessarily their work.

My father’s father was a man of many skills, and it is partly because of him that poetry has been of such import

in my family. Having lost his own father at the age of 14 in Iran, and forced to work to support himself and his mother, he educated himself in night classes, developed skills as a scribe, worked in a newspaper office, became an English professor, and was eventually employed by the Ministry of Education. From his youth all the way to his death, he was fully immersed in the cultural and literary scene in his hometown of Mashhad, participating in innumerable poetry nights, hosting many himself, and forging friendships and acquaintances with such poetic powerhouses as Mehdi Akhavan Sales, Mahmoud Farrokh, Mohammad-Hossein Shahriar, and Ali Bagherzadeh, among others. He himself was a poet, reputed for his quick wit and fast improvisation, and he published a book of poetry and literary memoirs before he died.

Poetry night, for my grandfather, and for my father after him, were a central part of life in Iran. Because of poetry’s central importance in Persian culture, famed poets are almost more revered in the country than famous scientists. The backs of Iranian banknotes are adorned with the face of Ferdowsi, the tomb of Saadi, and the tomb of Hafez; students from elementary school onwards have poetry in some form as part of their standard curriculum; and the vast majority of people, both educated and illiterate, use poetry idiomatically in their everyday speech. Knowledge and wisdom is passed down, not in books or classes, but with poetic aphorisms. Persian as a language also lends itself well to poetry — one can express many thoughts with few words, and tight allusions to vast stories or metaphors give surprising depth to individual verses. As such, with poetry as both a social and linguistic cornerstone, poetry nights or their equivalents have existed in Iran for countless years, from the courts of kings and princes in the Middle Ages (when poetry was the court art), to my father’s childhood living room in the 1970s. Gatherings like those became excuses for friends to see each other, for news to be spread, for new acquaintances and connections to be made. Usually they happened weekly or monthly, and rotated between

various participants’ houses, giving everybody a chance to host; the younger aspiring poets would read their new works and get criticism and notes from the more experienced and well-known.

If I’m honest, a lot of times I really wanted to not go to poetry nights. I’d beg off, citing homework; I’d drag my feet and moan about how tired I was; I’d come to the café, only to sit at another table, watching funny videos instead of working, until my dad would wise up and drag me back to the main table to read my section. I was a child, at first, running around and reading and playing with the other kids my age who would sometimes come there (those days were the most fun). Later, as a teenager, I would sulk in the corner with my laptop, wanting to hang out with my friends. However, I would always (albeit sometimes reluctantly) capitulate, and take some time to sit with everyone else, talking about my life and theirs. I would read my section of the Shahnameh, 10 or 15 lines, when it was my turn, reciting the ancient words and giving my idea as to the meaning along the way. I often wondered why my father insisted on me being there, why people actually came to the event every week, why a select group liked poetry nights so much that they formed their own branch up in Berkeley, starting the Shahnameh from scratch. What brought them there, and what kept bringing them back?

I understood, I think, when my father took me to a poetry night in Iran. It was actually on a Friday morning, and I followed him along the streets from my grandmother’s house, on the uneven sidewalks and under the blistering heat of the sun, until we came to a certain door. We rang, and followed the woman who let us in down a set of stairs to a small room underground. The floor was covered in Persian rugs (of course), and all the chairs alongside the walls were filled with people listening attentively. The young woman at the desk in the front was reading a poem she’d written into the microphone, and an old man with a cane and suspenders suggested a different word than the one she’d used, to make the meter flow better. Another old man, stooping down, offered me tea. He was barefoot, and wearing what looked like pajamas. To my surprise, my father immediately got up and bowed his head, and introduced me to him — it was the host himself, a famous poet and a popular satirist, who was barefoot, serving me tea!

It felt weird, being among people I’d heard stories of, whose poems my father had read to me. It didn’t feel majestic or ceremonial; it felt like old friends coming together over tea to discuss what they loved to do, and to keep a vital part of the

culture alive. I myself, in that event, went up to the stage, to the old desk with its microphone bent out of shape. I recited a poem of my grandfather’s to these poets, old and young, many of whom had been friends of his, and they applauded, and reminisced about him, and thanked my father for keeping his legacy alive after his death. I understood, then, why my father still came to these events, even though he had been cut off from them for years in the United States; why he himself created a poetry night, on the second floor of a café in Mountain View, and wanted me to come; why doctors, lawyers, engineers at Google, grad students, and olympiadwinners all came, and came regularly — to feel connected again to the culture that they had grown up with, to find a community, even in diaspora, even in exile.

My coffee would have gone cold, and the homework that I would have half-heartedly half-done would sit beside my laptop. The poetry night was over, everyone having read their turn until the time ran out. Some would leave, because of early mornings or long commutes. Others, after talking and chatting for a while, would proceed down the street (or drive to a restaurant and meet there) for that oh-soimportant after-poetry-night ritual — the Shām-nameh, as I had dubbed it in my childhood, the Book of Dinner. We would eat, pizza or pasta or pho, and discuss our lives, and the situation in Iran, my father and his friends meeting up and enjoying a poem, enjoying a meal.

We finished the Shahnameh seven years ago, and that café in Mountain View is still there, but alive only in my memory. The core poetry night group disbanded, but my father is still in touch with most of them, and meets regularly (as do I) with a few. Though the weekly event no longer occurs, its effects are still present, in the friends of my family and in my own skills. I only went to poetry nights because my father asked me to, yes; I was a child, and then a teenager, and I wanted to do what I wanted to do. However, I don’t regret going at all, and I’m thankful to my father — he made that poetry night for himself, but also for me.

I now have this same connection to Iranian culture, even though I was born outside it; I have a passion for Persian poetry, even though I’ve never lived in Iran for longer than a month. Persian poetry and language gives us the ability to connect both with those who left their lives behind in Iran, as well as with their children, who have never lived there.

Galvanized by my experiences, and taking a page out of my father’s book, I myself created a Persian poetry night at UC Berkeley last year, which has proved surprisingly popular — only a few friends come most weeks, but at least thirty different people have visited at some point, many of whom I

had never met before. Poetry nights, be they in a poet’s house in Mashhad or a café in Mountain View or in a classroom in Berkeley, can knit our community together even as the rest of the world tries to tear it apart. Read Hafez, or Ferdowsi, or Rumi, even Nima or Akhavan Sales or Shamloo — and, if you do it with friends, even if you barely understand what the hell is going on, you will be connected, for a moment, to a vast and ancient culture, and you will help it live on even longer. □

An Ode to Kaveh Golestan and the Art of Photojournalism

by NZK

In the pre-revolutionary period, Iranian photojournalism catalyzed itself into both an art form of the people and a tool of the state, one intended to self-express and one intending to manipulate the masses. Few Iranian photojournalists were quite as impactful on the art scene as Kaveh Golestan, son of director Ebrahim Golestan. Influenced by his father and his peers’ approach to art and societal criticism, Kaveh Golestan created multiple series focusing on various marginalized groups in Iran, his most prolific being his series on prostitutes. The natural composition and raw reality found within each and every one of Golestan’s images is a major reason why his photographs and his approach to photojournalism will never be forgotten, and why he has become immortalized through his influence on the Iranian artists after him. Choosing to photograph the lives of those Iranian society aims to hide was a key motivation behind the various series of photos Golestan composed. Kaveh Golestan is to thank for many achievements and innovations in the Iranian art scene, though his most important contribution must be his exposure of marginalized Iranians that the Islamic Regime attempted to hide.

Art and politics have been intertwined for nearly as long as civilization has existed. Once religion is added in between, as it so often is in Iran, the lines between art and propaganda become almost translucent. Art loses its value when it loses its true purpose, which is why it is vital for Iranian artists to be hyper-aware of the political time they and their art exist in. Only when the boundaries and restrictions of both their government and society are understood, can an artist truly protect their art from the manipulation of external forces. Though the value and beauty of art is not completely lost, even in the highly political landscape of Iran, it is subject to exploitation. The same way that art can move a crowd to tears, art can simultaneously move a crowd to violence. The versatility and overall power of art is what makes it so susceptible to corrupt politics and greed.

Iranian art is unique for the rich history it rests on, and it is vital for its ability to withstand the evil and corruption of politics that has plagued the state of Iran for nearly as long as it has existed. In a time where propaganda threatens the integrity of art and the artists that rely on their art for self-expression and survival, it is vital for Iranian arts to protect their art from exploitation by politics and religion. Art can be political, religious, or both, but it should not be used solely to further a political or religious agenda, especially one that devalues the true meaning of the art intended by the original artist. In the end, art holds the power to immortalize the Iranian landscape in a manner that will allow for the celebration of Iranian culture as a whole. We must protect Iranian art forms, not only for ourselves, but for our future generations who can revolutionize Iranian culture in the same way Kaveh Golestan so beautifully did. □

The Intellectual Roots of the “First Revolution” in Iran

by Reza Lakestani

Thebrutal killing of Mahsa Amini in September of last year became the catalyst for a massive protest in Iran that was unprecedented on that scale in the last four decades. For the first time in history, these protests were led by women with high aims, such as establishing democracy and personal freedom, and the rule of law. However, having a political and social revolutionary movement is not new for Iranians. Most people are familiar with the Islamic revolution of 1979 that ousted the monarchy and established the current regime, but even that was not the first revolution in Iran. The first major revolution in Iran was known as the Constitutional Revolution or Mashruteh, which happened over a century ago, in 1906. It aimed to limit the monarchy’s powers by establishing a constitution and a national Parliament, Majlise Shuraye Melli. Rather than retelling the historical events that led to the constitutional revolution, I’d like to focus on the ideas and intellectuals who inspired the movement to more closely examine the origins of Iran’s “First Revolution.”

At the time, Iran struggled with colonial domination by the British and Russians, domestic corruption, and a lack of the rule of law. These factors, coupled with the people’s dissatisfaction with the absolute rule of the monarchy, created a fertile ground for intellectual developments that inspired the revolutionary movement. The rule of law, however, was seen by many of the revolution’s leaders as the central political issue that needed to be addressed.

For most of Iran’s long history, the country had been a formidable force in the region and beyond. The 19th century, however, was very different. The Europeans achieved total political and military supremacy globally, defeating and colonizing most of the world. Iranians, like many others, realized they were falling behind the Europeans and had some catching up to do. After taking heavy losses in the Russo-Persian Wars in the early 19th century, Abbas Mirza, the crown prince, saw how advanced the Russian army was compared to his own and thought that he should send a batch of students to Europe to learn the new science and engineering technologies. This practice of the government funding students to study abroad in Europe to employ their newly learned knowledge in Iran became quite popular throughout this period. While this policy did not make Iran’s army a formidable force that could defeat an

invading Russian army, it had an effect unforeseen by those funding this program. Many of these students learned about the intellectual movements and philosophical ideas that had taken Europe by storm at the time. They also realized how different the governmental structure in Western European countries was. They saw the separation of powers and the independence of the judiciary, and the supremacy of the laws over people. On the other hand, Iran had no constitution and no legal framework outside of the Islamic Sharia and cultural precedents and customs that were loosely enforced. There were no robust government agencies, no coherent tax code, and no limits on what the monarch could do. Stated simply, there were no tangible laws.

The intellectuals of this period, such as Mirza Malkum Khan, noticed this contrast and highlighted it in their writing. He started to publish a newspaper and intentionally called it “Qanun,” which is the Persian word for laws. In its first issue, published in 1890, he wrote: “God has blessed Iran. Unfortunately, his blessing has been negated by the lack of laws. No one in Iran feels secure because no one in Iran is safeguarded by laws…. The servants of foreign diplomats have more security than the noble princes of Iran.” It may be tempting to think that he is exaggerating, but a quick study of Iranian history in this period will have various examples of princes, tribe chiefs, and even prime ministers being killed with no evidence of wrongdoing and no trials. A fellow of Mirza Malkum Khan published a book titled “Yek Kalameh” (One Word), and in it, he discussed how only one word, “Law,” needs to be implemented and tried to convince the more traditional and religious elite that implementation of laws or better yet a constitution has no contradiction with Islamic teachings.

While the educated and Westernized elite started this trend, much of the society, including the most traditional and religious segments of society, such as many well-known Shia clerics, agreed with this point and advocated for establishing laws in the form of a Constitution. These clerics were in fact some of the most well-known leaders of the movement, not only leading politically but also intellectually as well. A case in point was Seyyed Jamal-Al-Din Vaez Esfahani, a wellknown cleric who became one of the most celebrated leaders of the Mashruteh movement. In a sermon, he shouted, “People! Nothing would develop your country other than

subjection to law, observation of law, preservation of law, respect for law, implementation of the law, and again law and once again law… The ruler is law and law alone, and no one’s rule is valid but that of the law. The parliament makes the law and is the protector of the law.” Vaez Esfahani seems to be in complete agreement with the intellectuals that we discussed earlier. An odd alliance of Westernized intellectuals and the religious establishment was forming in this period. While they did not agree on everything, they all wanted to limit the monarch’s power and make him subject to a constitution. Some clerics even attempted to argue for a constitution and limited government on religious grounds. The most notable example was a treatise by Grand Ayatollah Sheikh Mohammad-Hossein Naini. He argued that the ideal government is that of Imam Mahdi once he returns, and all governments are illegitimate. Still, a democratic government was far superior to a tyrannical monarchy. A smaller fraction of the clerics stayed with the monarchy and fought against the movement; the most well-known example of this is Sheikh Fazlullah Nouri. He was later executed when the revolutionaries captured Tehran. These exceptions aside, the consensus of most of the classes and rank and file of the society was with the constitutional revolution. Unfortunately, the initial success of the movement did not last for too long. Only days after signing the royal proclamation to establish the parliament, Mozaffar ad-Din Shah passed away. His son was determined to put an end to the parliament and the democratic aspirations of the people, so he and the army shelled the Parliament with some Russian help. Despite violent responses from the monarchy, the revolutionaries succeeded. They conquered the capital and reestablished the parliament, but the following few years were chaotic and coincided with WWI and the invasion of Iran by the British and the Russians. With Reza Shah’s ascension to power in the infamous coup of 1921, and later

his acension to the throne in 1926, the power of parliament was dead, and its existence remained in name only. In fact, Reza Shah was more powerful than any of the Qajar Shahs had ever dreamt of being. And so, no one dared oppose him as long as he was in power.

The parliament and democracy got another chance after the fall of Reza Shah during the Allied invasion of Iran in WWII, and a short period of democracy and the rule of law was established under the reign of the new young and powerless Shah. However, those dreams were squashed by a CIA-led coup in 1953 that overthrew the democratically elected prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh. Decades later, the Islamic Revolution did nothing in the way of restoring parliamentary democracy and the rule of law and arguably made it significantly worse. Thus, the democratic aspirations of the people of Iran continue to this day. The increasingly more frequent popular-led movements that form in the streets of Iran are a testament that people are still looking for the things that the Constitutional revolution of 1906 was supposed to establish: a legislative body that passes laws in accordance with the wishes of the people, an independent judiciary that serves the best interest of the people in its decisions, and a binding constitution that encompasses such a structure. □

References

Abrahamian, E. Iran between two revolutions. Princeton University Press, 1982.

Amanat, Abbas. Iran: A Modern History. Yale University Press, 2017.

Katouzian, Homa. The Persians: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern Iran. Yale University Press, 2010.

Zibakalam, Sadegh. Sunnat Wa Mudirnīta: Ašbābī-Va-ʻilal-I nākāmī-i iṣlāḥāt wa nowsāzī-i siyāsī Dar īrān-i ʻaṣr-I Qāǧār. Rowzaneh, 2000.

...راگزور دروآ درد هب یوضع وچ

by Mahdokht

23! I blow out the sparkly candles in front of me with hesitance, reluctant to make a birthday wish. My mind drifts off, remembering the kids and teenagers that have been killed over the past year; I feel guilty to have made it longer than them. Zhina (Mahsa) will never be 23. She’ll forever be the 22-year-old girl that took her last breath a mere few days before her birthday.

A lot of them were much younger than me. Born in 2006, just like my little cousin. I remember holding him when he was a little baby, playing with him, and trying to make him laugh. Sarina was a baby then too? Now, she’s gone, leaving her seat in class next to her friend empty.

I try to think back to when I was 16. I try to put myself in her shoes, imagining what I would’ve done. Why did I have the experience of an average 16 year old and she didn’t? My teenage years were filled with the anxiety of what my future held for me. I think Nika was having the same thoughts. Every teenager does, right? Wondering what she would be doing, where she would be going to school, or who she would be living with; except that her worry was significantly exacerbated due to what was going on around her, urging her to take action for the sake of the future of herself and those around her. Now, none of those concerns are relevant anymore; there will be no college, no major, no dorm, and no roommate.

I didn’t know Nika or Sarina and yet they seemed so familiar. I feel like I’ve seen them in the people I went to school with, in my friends, and even at times, in myself. Sarina was a great student. She liked posting vlogs of herself on YouTube dancing, making pizza at home, and doing her make up despite saying that she doesn’t know how to. Nika was artsy. She had good style and worked at a cafe as a barista. She sang to her friends and asked them not to make fun of her singing. I hear her voice in my head, in between the sound of her laughs: “ye del mige beram beram…”. The image of her singing morphs into another image in my head; this time of her hiding behind a car from the police, scared, asking the driver not to move the car.

I saw a video of a schoolyard getting tear-gassed. The place looked very familiar, very much like my high school. The caption of the video turned my doubt into certainty. I remember sitting right in that location studying before the final exams with my friends, playing volleyball during PE, and taking pictures together at the end of the school year. All those memories replay in my head, this time differently. All of the happy memories get tainted by the current state of our school, this time it’s us getting tear-gassed and screaming in pain. I start to repaint all the memories that have happened there, all of them ending with tear gas, screams, and terror.

It’s strange to think about what places have been through; the streets that we walk on, the coffee shops that we visit regularly, or the school that we go to. What’s happened in those locations in the past, what is going to happen there in the future? Between the forgotten past and the undetermined future, we’re here in this negligible interval of time, filled with oblivion. The streets that I spent so much time on growing up had witnessed the student protests of 1999 before I was born and the Mahsa Amini protests after I had left.

We’ve had many political upheavals throughout the past decades, the Mahsa Amini protests being the most recent one. I was too young to fully grasp what was going on during the 2009 protests and I didn’t get to know too much about Bloody Aban due to the internet blackout. The one that changed everything for me and left me devastated was flight 752 being shot down, killing 176 people.

When I heard the news about flight 752, my first instinct was to go on Twitter to see what people were talking about; a rather unhealthy habit I have developed ever since I moved to the US to gauge the gravity of anything that happens in Iran. One of the first things I saw was a tweet going viral, this guy saying goodbye as he was leaving for his flight to Canada. Pause. I went to the comment section to see if he was… I go through the list of the passengers’ names. I don’t see his first name, Soroush, anywhere. I feel relieved. I go through all the comments that were begging God that he wasn’t on that

plane, I’m doing the same in my head. Then, I stop at a comment, stating how he had a different legal name and how that name is indeed on the list. But…this can’t be. Oh God. His comment section floods with a new wave of comments: may he Rest In Peace!

There were 176 people on that plane. If it wasn’t Soroush, it would’ve been someone else. That number would never change and yet, everyone who just happened to see that tweet didn’t want it to be him. They didn’t know him, many saw him for the first time through that last tweet but everyone wanted it to be someone else. The thought of it being someone we encounter is just terrifying. Death feels so close that way. He sounded like so many of us and because of that, it terrified everyone that he was on that plane. We don’t want to feel close to tragedies. We like to think that we are far far away from things of this sort happening to us and we don’t even want to entertain the possibility.

I kept scrolling and scrolling. A wedding picture made me stop. At first, I didn’t make any connection between the flight and the smiling faces in the picture, but... They both went to the university that my cousin goes to and the girl, Pouneh, went to my high school. I picture her sitting on the same chairs, taking notes from the same blackboards, and walking down the same stairs with her friends when the bell rings. I go on Instagram and see one of my former teachers mourning her passing. She used to teach her too. I look at her husband, Arash’s Instagram bio: “choose your last words / this is the last time / cause you and I, we were born to die.” and they did, probably holding hands only three days after celebrating their wedding with their families and friends—even before getting to see their wedding pictures. One day after saying their goodbyes

before leaving for Canada and going back to school for the new semester. Their Instagram stories are still up, pictures of them hanging out with their friends less than 24 hours ago.

Pouneh’s death was something that left me shaken for weeks. I felt it in my bones. I felt like my classmate had died. I felt like my friend had died. I felt like I had died. We have weak ties with more people than we think. When something terrible happens to the people that we have any kind of connection with, even if it is miniscule, it feels all the more unjustified. We think to ourselves that that could’ve been us, we wonder why that wasn’t us, and we feel guilty that it wasn’t us. Social media is often criticized for setting up unrealistic expectations and creating a fantasy world, but what’s never talked about is how it pulls us out of the fantasy worlds that we have created for ourselves. Every day on social media, we see all these numbers, hundreds of thousands, millions, liking a post, tagging a friend, and they just look like numbers to us. We never think of them as being the same people that have terrible things happening to them on the news. In our minds, there’s two completely separate and distinguishable worlds for things that we don’t like to be a part of our lives and everything else. One of these worlds is for us, social media with its glamorous lifestyles are a part of this world; the one that we like to be a part of, that our families and friends are a part of. Conversely, there’s the world of war, crime, and death. That is not us, that will never be us.

And then things like this happen, clashing the two worlds together, showing us the intersection between the two, the middle part in the Venn diagram is much bigger than we’d like to think. □

Arash Pourzarabi (26) and Pouneh Gorji (25), newlyweds who were victims of the crash of flight 752.

Pashmam Designs Navigating Politics, Representation, and Aesthetics

by Ava Azadi

The word pashmam will land differently depending on which Persian demographic you say it to. Your grandparents will probably go pale at the sound of it, but it’ll resonate instantly with your cousin in Iran. Pashmam, which translates to “my body hair”, and, in some contexts, “pubic hair”, has taken on a life of its own with the help of Sophia Parizadeh and Melica Baboldashtian, students at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of California, Santa Cruz respectively.

Inspired by the streetwear aesthetic, moved by traditional Iranian culture, and displaying the slang of the Iranian youth, Parizadeh and Baboldashtian’s clothing brand Pashmam takes traditional elements of Iranian culture and incorporates them into a modern and youthful design. The origin of the idea came about in the second home of any college student: the library. While searching the internet for hoodies related to Iranian culture, they mainly found products that displayed only surface-level symbols representing it.

I found myself reflecting on that point and thinking about the Persian representation I myself had seen in the media growing up. Raised in Southern California, where the Persian population is far from small, the Persian media my friends and I mainly consumed were memes about different stereotypes relating to Persian family dynamics, Persian romance, and Persian food. From one post about the toxic Persian boy with a BMW, to another about the Persian girl with a nose job, I came to see the concept of “Persian youth” as something to ridicule. The “Persian girl” I came to know through the media had highlights, a dad who spoiled her, gold jewelry, and only wore black. While I did like to identify with some parts of that, I also felt like my Persian identity meant more to me than the one-dimensional caricatures found online.

While looking into this topic, I tried to re-examine the Persian representation I saw, especially in relation to fashion. I found brands more focused on the traditional aspects of Iranian culture like the Persis Collection; more hip brands like LaTEE; and clothing produced more recently with Woman, Life, Freedom as its centerpiece. While some brands still felt shallow, I did find more pieces that I felt resonated with me aesthetically while still capturing the more complex elements of Iranian culture. It seems that the

gap in quality Persian representation in clothing and fashion is starting to be felt and countered on a wider scale.

For Parizadeh and Baboldashtian, the gap between the youth of Iran and the Persian diaspora is where the most promise lies. “We felt like we needed to hold the diaspora to a higher standard, the Persian youth culture that’s booming right now is so khafan and cool and it’s just a shame that the diaspora isn’t really connected to that,” Parizadeh said.

The Persian youth culture she is referring to is a generation searching for individual freedom, expression, and recreation, despite the restrictions placed on them by the Islamic Republic, all while still staying committed to the culture, community, and people with which they have grown up. In using the slang of this demographic, Pashmam aims to add depth to the concept of Persian youth, and connect Iranian-American youth to an aspect of modern Iranian culture that they cannot access through their parents or through the media.

There has also been a recent spotlight on the Iranian population in American media, especially on the youth, due to the nationwide protests sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini and the ensuing violations of civil rights by the Islamic Republic. With this as their only representation in the media, it is far too easy for the younger Iranian generation to be reduced to politics and statistics. The Pashmam creators, aware of the problem, are interested in working against it.

“In a way it’s showing that we’re more than the trauma, we’re more than the violence,” Parizadeh said. “By

giving [the Iranian youth] representation, we’re making sure that people are thinking about them, [reminding them that] those kids back in Iran are saying this stuff with their friends.” With these aspirations in mind, Parizadeh and Baboldashtian launched their first line of Pashmam hoodies on February 22nd, 2023, with the slang word “pashmam” printed on the front in Persian, and “gangashoon balas” (“their gang is up high”, i.e. strong, on the up-and-up, cool, etc.) on the back, with a painting of a group of women dressed in traditional Iranian attire.

While Parizadeh and Baboldashtian had faced setbacks in the development process, their biggest challenge came on launch day. As soon as the website went up, customers contacted them, complaining that they couldn’t purchase the merchandise.

“We got an email from Shopify with questions about our relation to Iran […] they were about whether we are working with anyone based in Iran or if we get our products from there,” Baboldashtian said. “Their policy doesn’t let us ship any of the products to Iran or send any of the funds there.”

After posting about the delay on their social media accounts, they got messages from many other Iranian creators who said they faced similar limitations. As a result of the protests in Iran and the sanctions against it, any association with the country, even in the United States, comes with complications, which have ironically confined the abilities of Iranian youth and creators trying to uplift and to represent their community.

“They froze our account and they still have not given us any updates about it, but thankfully we’ve found a loophole through PayPal,” Baboldashtian said. She talked about how Shopify’s guidelines spoiled their plans for upcoming lines, as they had planned to take the brand to Iran and show the Persian youth wearing it there.

Despite these limitations and complications, Pashmam has seen its fair share of success. The first launch has now sold out, and several of the brand’s TikTok videos have obtained more than 10 thousand views, with one even reaching 90 thousand. Comments on their TikTok account have users from all over California and the world supporting the brand and asking if the company shipped to their region.

One of the more surprising moments of their success was how responsive Tik Tok users were to Baboldashtian’s father modeling the Pashmam hoodie. “He’s just wearing the hoodie, going about his day, but the way he carries himself, his confidence, just gives off major like — like — gangashoon balas,” Parizadeh said.

Pashmam has also been very meaningful for both Parizadeh and Baboldashtian themselves in various ways.

For Baboldashtian, starting a business has always been a goal and incorporating her Iranian identity into that aspiration has changed the game for her.

“I started with hot chocolate, then scrunchies, then even shower heads, but I wasn’t excited about any of that,” she said. “With Pashmam, I love our culture, I love learning about our culture, and I just love the creativity behind it, so it’s been very exciting putting work into it.”

For Parizadeh, Pashmam has infiltrated all aspects of her life. The support for the brand has built her confidence in her creative ambitions and opened up many opportunities to socialize with the Iranian community. “This is like an escape from reality… it’s my therapy, it’s my creative outlet, it’s my social life,” she said.

The brand seems to occupy a larger space than imagined by the creators. Its story speaks of Iran’s politics, and how the oppressive regime is not only suppressing the Iranian population but the diaspora in America as well, bringing to light the collective pain they endure as a population regardless of location. The brand opens up conversations about representation, what more complex representation means, and what it does for Iranian and Iranian-American youth. It also touches on the future and the attempt by Iranian-Americans to embrace their culture in a way that is both interesting and empowering. The effort to add a modern twist to traditional components of Iranian culture ensures its propagation and extends its reach to new media and contexts, which hopefully will represent it well.

“We really loved the Iranian Student Union community [at UC Santa Cruz] and it was really hard to leave, it was really depressing,” Baboldashtian said. “But with Pashmam,” Parizadeh added, “we’ve fostered our own space that can go further than Berkeley or further than Santa Cruz.” □

Melodies of Resistance: A Journey Through Iran’s Modern Musical History

by N.

Music can be utilized as a vessel to convey stories or historical events that define the generation it came from - Iranian music is no exception. The mere existence of Iranian music and its diverse genres (whether intentionally or unintentionally) is political in nature, and further examination of Iran’s musical evolution informs audiences of Iran’s rich history. As Iranian music has evolved over time, so has the country’s social and political changes. Despite facing censorship and restrictions, Iranian musicians have continued to push the boundaries and create music that challenges the status quo.

The idea of music being used as a vessel for resistance is not an idea unique under the Islamic Republic, although it certainly grew at an exponential rate under its establishment. After Mohammad Mossadegh, the former Prime Minister of Iran, was ousted in a British and USbacked coup, Mohammad Reza Shah began to heavily censor and control media, including music. He enforced this through the Ministry of Information and Ministry of Culture, and used SAVAK (the Shah’s secret police) to inflict punishment upon dissidents.

One song believed to be coyly referring to a Shah-ordered execution, which occurred under this era of Shah censorship, is the song “Jomeh” (“Friday”) by Farhad Mehrad. Many believe that “Jomeh’’ is referring to Friday, February 8, 1971, the day in which Marxist guerillas attempted to capture a small village named Siahkal to trigger a leftist uprising. In an unpredicted response, the guerillas were surrounded by thousands of troops sent by the Shah, imprisoned, and most later executed by SAVAK. Many believe the dark and somber tone of the song, as well as the lyrics like:

“Blood is dripping from the black clouds”

“On Fridays, instead of the rain, blood drips”

to seemingly reference the brutality of the massacre, including references to torture, such as

“cries with sealed lips.”

The songwriter, Shahyar Ghanbari, denied these rumors on the Iranian-American TV station Tapesh; however, revolutionaries from the 70’s rebutted, “Oh, we all knew what those songs meant, it was the time, you know”. Another example is “Pariya”, a poem from 1957 written by Ahmad Shamlu, a once self-identified communist poet who maintained his leftist beliefs even when he formally left the party. Shamlu had been arrested and imprisoned pre and post the 1953 coup, and several of his poems had been banned. In 1972, Dariush, an iconic Iranian singer, converted the poem into a song. The poem has political interpretations due to allegorical references to tyranny and revolution, which Dariush edited to avoid censorship by the National Committee on Lyrics and Melody. However, he was caught by surprise when SAVAK flagged the song and prohibited its circulation. He was ordered to re-record the song and further heavily edit the lyrics, resulting in a new song called “Zendegi Ye Baazi-ye” (Life is a Game). These weren’t the only songs SAVAK took issue with – others, such as “Booye Gandom”, “Jangal”, and “Bonbast”, were also flagged. He was reportedly imprisoned on and off for a total of 26 months under Mohammad Reza Shah, spending 6 of them in solitary confinement. He reflected in 2007 saying, “Many people wrote on social and political issues at that time, but essentially, most regimes know that the majority of the people don’t read books. But when a song comes out on these issues, the song will give that majority a message. And that scares the regime.”

The quote is especially true in today’s context, especially with Shervin Hajipour’s 2022 song, “Baraye”. After the song went viral, Hajipour was forced to delete the song from his social media account, arrested, and then released on bail. In 2023, Hajipour won the first Grammy for a new category called “Best Song for Social Change”. Songs like “Baraye” are not the first time that songs have been taken to define a movement or protest within Iran. The song, “Sar Oomad Zemestoon” / “Winter Has Come to an End” is another protest anthem that, like “Baraye”, exploded within the personal and public spheres. It was used in 1979 protests, as well as the 2009 and 2015

protests. The song was originally an Armenian love song called “Sari Siroun Yar”. In the early 1970s, a revolutionary artist by the name of Saeed Soltanpour used the melody to create a new song called “Aftabkaran Jangal” / “Those who plant sun in the forest”. Why it was later renamed by others to “Sar Oomad Zemestoon” is currently unknown, but likely related to the fact that it is the opening lyrics of the song. Soltanpour was a member of the Marxist radical group called the Cherikha-ye-Fadaee Khalq (the People’s Devoted Guerilla), a group that denounced dictatorship, monarchy, and imperialism. Saeed Soltanpour was arrested, imprisoned, and brutally tortured numerous times under the Shah as a result of hispublished works, all of which were political in nature.

After five years of imprisonment and torture under Mohammad Reza Shah, Soltanpour was finally freed in 1977, but the newly established Islamic Republic viewed his release as unfinished business. Thus, they ordered his arrest in 1981 in the middle of his wedding, tortured him for 66 continuous days, and then executed him at the age of 40 for refusing to denounce his beliefs both privately and on public television. His work, including poetry, music, and plays, was subsequently banned afterwards. Although he is no longer credited with the song “Sar Oomad Zemestoon” (including on the Internet, where there are few mentions of him), knowing the history behind such widely circulated Iranian media is vital to honoring martyrs like Soltanpour, who paid the ultimate price for their revolutionary activity in hopes of creating a democratic Iran. Interestingly, former Prime Ministe Mir-Hossein Mousavi used the song in his Iranian Presidential campaign in 2009. Though Mousavi was not involved in Soltanpour’s execution, there is irony in the fact that the same government that tortured and murdered Soltanpour for his work now authorizes it for state purposes.

Other notable pre-revolution artists include Koroush Yaghmaei, who released a psychedelic rock album in Iran in 1976, with songs such as “Gole Yakh” (which was sampled by Kanye West to produce the song “Adam and Eve” for Nas), “Hajme Khali”, and “Niayesh”. Yaghmaei’s influences pulled from the Western genre of psychedelic rock that began in the San Francisco Bay Area. The controversy of Iran artists undergoing “gharb-zadegi”, or westernization, is one that has existed as far back as the Qajar era. However, artists such as Yaghmaei that experimented with genres like psychedelic rock arranged and combined Western compositions into Persian melodies and rhythms. This was among the many grievances Ayatollah Khomeini spoke about in 1964, who highlighted a need for cultural reform, including in the arts, to rid itself of “colonized” influences and create a “cultural reconstruction”. (There is some humor in knowing that today, despite heavy efforts to “purify” Iranian art, popular songs like “Vay Cheghad Mastam Man” / “Oh how drunk I am” by Sasy Mankan exist). The era of pop music in Iran from the late 60’s until the 1979 revolution is often referred to as the “Golden Age of Iranian Pop Music”. This Western-Iranian fusion music

style was extremely popular and included famous artists such as Googoosh and Fereydoon Farrokhzad. Googoosh, born as Faegheh Atashin in 1950, is among one of the most beloved Iranian artists. Her father worked as an acrobat in a nightclub, who upon noticing his daughter’s talent at the age of three, immediately enrolled her into acting work and singing classes. Some of her most famous songs include “Hejrat” (“Departure”) and “Talagh” (“Divorce”), a song which, ironically enough, was added to Beyonce’s Tidal playlist dedicated to her marriage to Jay-Z. After the revolution, Googoosh was jailed for one month and had her passport seized, preventing her from leaving the country. After being granted government permission to travel to Los Angeles in 2000 to visit family, she decided to permanently leave Iran in hopes of re-activating her career abroad.

Fereydoon Farrokhzad is best known for songs such as “Shab Bood Biaban Bood” and “Yade Iran Bekheyr”. Besides music, he was also an activist with a a PhD in political science from Munich University. As a result, Farrokhzad was arrested by the government multiple times post-revolution and forced to leave Iran. He was tragically and brutally murdered in Bonn, Germany in 1992 while in exile, and though his case still remains unresolved, it is widely believed that the Islamic Republic arranged his murder abroad. He was found in his home with one knife lodged into his mouth and another in his shoulder, with his body partially melted from the stove burners still left on in his kitchen. While in exile in Germany, Farrokhzad was an ardent critic of the Islamic Republic, including Ayatollah Khomeini himself. Additionally, exactly one year before Farrokhzad’s murder, Shapour Bakhtiar (the last prime minister of Iran under the Shah and Iranian monarchy system) was found violently stabbed to death in his home in Paris with a kitchen knife. Unlike Farrokhzad’s case, an arrest was made for Bakhtiar, and the assailant confessed that he had been instructed by the government to kill the former prime minister. As a result, many connect Farrokhzad’s case to Bakhtiar’s as circumstantial evidence that it was another government orchestrated murder.

1973 album cover for Kouroush Yaghmaei, distributed by Ahang Rooz

Following the 1979 revolution, pop music was prohibited. Many artists began to leave Iran shortly before and after the revolution out of fear of continued and worsening persecution under the formation of a new government and complete inability to practice their career, including artists such as Hayedeh, Mahasti, Elaheh, Moein, Ramesh, and more. Farrokhzad’s murder only compounded and validated fears that many artists had, and many like Googoosh that still remained in Iran were silent for years out of obedience. Following the revolution and for many years after, there was a heavy reliance on illicit cassette tapes to continue listening to music -- this included not just Iranian music, but foreign and Western music as well.

In response, many Iranian record labels formed in Los Angeles between 1980-1992 such as Avang Music, Taraneh Records, and Caltex Records, which is commonly referred to as the “Irangeles industry”. Among them includes artists such as 25Band, Ebi, Kamran and Hooman, and Andy, who is the first and only Iranian artist with a star on the Hollywood walk of fame. Today, much of modern diaspora Iranian music is about longing to go back to the homeland - such as hits like “Esfehan” by Moein, or “Deyar” by Shahram Shapareh. Songs such as these highlight the fact that many artists were forced to choose their music careers over their ability to stay in Iran. Other songs such as “Koodakaneh” by Farhad Mehrad highlight the nostalgia of being in Iran in the summer, surrounded by homeland, culture, and family. Many diaspora singers also have mixed the Persian language with other languages of countries they now reside in. For example, “Bikhial” by Afshin contains a mixture of both German and Persian. “Suddenly” and “Temptation” by Arash combine both English and Persian. These examples highlight the large Iranian diaspora in non-Persian speaking countries, such as in English or other Germanic speaking countries. Some Iranian diaspora artists, like Sevdaliza and Snoh Aalegra, almost exclusively sing in En-

glish due to their demographic being mostly Western audiences.

Persian is also not the only Iranian language that Iranian artists sing in - hit songs in Armenian like “Sareri Aghpyour” by Viguen, Azeri like “Bari Bakh” by Mansour, or Kurdish in “Bombe” by Navid Zardi and Arash, are all examples of Iranian artists singing in non-Persian languages. Furthermore, Bandari style music, which is used in popular songs such as “Dokhtar Ahvazi” by Sandy, is influenced by the Afro-Iranian population in Iran who descend from countries such as Zanzibar, Tanzania, and Ethiopia. Bandari uses a blend of traditional Iranian instruments such as the daf and tombak, in addition to African instruments such as djembe drums, ney djofti (flute), boogh (goat horn), and ney anban (bagpipe). Saeed Shanbehzadeh is an Afro-Iranian artist from Bushehr who seamlessly and beautifully blends many of these instruments together in his music, such as in songs like “Jazz Bandari” and “Makran”. Other beloved Iranian songs, such as “Morgh-e Sahar”, which is regarded as “the unofficial anthem for Iranian freedom” since the time of Reza Shah until today, had its music composed by an Iranian-Jewish artist named Morteza Neydavoud. Iran, like most countries in the word, is a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, and multi-faith country, and these cultural impacts permeate itself in Iranian society, including music.

And although much of Iranian diaspora music is largely pop, not all of it is. Shadmehr Aghili is one famous artist with hit fusion edm-dance tracks like “Zhina”, Babak Rahnama, who uses trance in songs like “Baa Man Bash”, Jazz hits like “No Jazz” by 127, or Indie like “Khooneye Ma” by Marjan Farsad. However, despite the popularity of pop music and other new genres, traditional genres still reign popular. Famed singer Mohammad Reza-Shajarian is highly credited with re-popularizing and reviving classical Persian music. This traditional vocal technique is referred to as “avaz”. Shajarian was originally vocally trained by his father from the age of five with the purpose of learning Quranic recitations, but he soon

Googoosh album covers from the 70’s

translated them into classical music performance.

Shajarian was globally recognized via Grammy nominations in the category for Best Traditional World Music in both 2004 and 2006. Shajarian is so highly revered in Iran, that after his death in 2020 at the age of 80, he was buried next to Ferdowsi (born in 940), who is regarded as not only one of the greatest poets in Persian literature, but in the world. However, even a highly respected artist such as Shajarian was met with resistance by the government during his lifetime. Until 2009, Shajarian was seen as an “untouchable” artist. After frustrations with state-sanctioned violence in the 2009 protests, he demanded that the government stop using his music for state purposes. He soon released the song “Zabane Atash” (Language of Fire) which urged the government to end the violence and listen to demands of citizens, resulting in him being banned from ever performing or releasing new music again. His recitation of an iftar prayer called the “Rabbana”, which was used in state-run television and radio stations for Ramadan iftars since 1979, also ceased. However, that didn’t stop people from continuing to stream the “Rabbana”, or really, anything from his discography, on their personal devices. Homayoun Shajarian, his son, now carries on his father’s legacy and has made a name for himself as a revered classical artist. Other artists such as Alireza Ghorbani (“Sayeh”), Ali Zandevakili (“Sanam”), and Hamed Nikpay (“Ashofteh Del”) are among the younger generation of Iranian artists that contribute to this historically rich genre - however, Shajarian will always be referred to as the “Ostaad”, or maestro, of classical Persian music.

Zedbazi, a controversial Iranian hip hop group, is a particularly notable group for lyrics referencing sex, substance use, and general profanities, and are credited for being the first Iranian group to do so (at least, publicly). In addition to mainstream rap with groups like Zedbazi, “underground” rap also rose in popularity in the early 2000’s and 2010’s. Although genres such as hip-hop and rap are exports of Black-American culture, rap is one way that young Iranians honor their country’s rich poetic culture and heritage. Poetry has always been central to Iranian culture, and rap is seen as a modern version of that for the young population, especially the under-30 group who make up 60-70% of the country. However, the main reason experts believe Iranian hiphop has become so popular is due to Iranian youth viewing music produced by the Iranian diaspora as either outdated in terms of music style, or simply put, unrelatable. For example, Iranians in Iran do not relate to the diaspora experience of missing their homeland or longing to go back to Iran - some, for example, desperately wish to leave.

“Iroonie LA” by Zedbazi is a song which perfectly encapsulates the way many Iranians in Iran view both the music of the diaspora and the diaspora itself (more specifically in this song, the ones in Los Angeles). It humorously explores how some wealthy LA Persian’s assimilation into America has become a new subculture synonymous with living out-of-touch luxury lifestyles, forgetting their roots, and ultimately becoming pretentious. The song ends with them in laughter saying, “Tehrangeles, are you really jealous that you can’t come to Iran?”

Though these lyrics poke fun at the newly established “Tehrangeles” in LA, it also does reference the fact that many diaspora are unable to safely visit Iran due to politics or personal activities deemed unacceptable by the government. It also highlights the divide that some believe exist between current inhabitants of Iran and those who live outside of Iran;

many people in Iran believe that people in the diaspora should not have a position to speak on what the future of Iran should look like, especially as the two communities live completely different lives and face different issues.

Hichkas is the Iranian rapper credited with bringing rap into the mainstream platform in Iran. Unlike Zedbazi, Hichkas generally avoids the use of profanity, drugs, and intimacy to instead focus on societal issues. Today, in order for musicians to operate legally under the Islamic Republic, they must obtain a license of approval from the Ministry of Culture and Guidance. However, to bypass government scrutiny, many artists instead upload their music online, creating what many refer to as the underground music scene in Iran. Hichkas is an example of an artist that attempted to do just that, but was eventually caught and arrested with his rise in fame. After his release, he continued to face barriers within Iran, and fled the country in 2009. Toomaj Salehi, another rapper, released a song in 2022 called “Fal” (“Omen”), featuring lyrics such as “44 years of your government is the year of failure”

tically produced” pop music. As a result, experts argue the cultural thaw under Khatami was an era in which the Islamic Republic formally recognized that despite their efforts, they could not control or prevent people from listening to foreign imported work - as a result, they focused now instead on reviving the local art scene, as it would be easier to control and regulate.

Though musicians continue to struggle with releasing their music post-revolution, the Internet serves as an open platform for musicians to release unrestricted content or popularize their work. Now, instead of relying on illegal tapes produced by diaspora musicians, many of the artists are now based in Iran and are exporting to the diaspora. Mohsen Chavoshi’s “Beraghsa” is one example of a famous song exported to the diaspora, which is based on a medley of poetry by Mowlana (known in the western world as Rumi). This also speaks to the relevancy and strength of classical Persian literature, which spans 2,500+ years, even today in 2023. Other examples of artists who export to the larger diaspora are Behnam Bani (“Baroon”) who is permitted to tour both inside and outside of Iran, and Masoud Sadeghloo, whose song “Zade Baroon” went viral on TikTok.

Despite restrictions and censorship in Iran, music is still a vital part of Iranian culture today. Musicians can still be found performing and singing in the streets or Bazaars, and music classes, including private instrument classes, are in high demand regardless of social class. One teacher proclaimed, “You know how the Iranians are: the moment they are prohibited from doing something, they immediately want to do it. It’s like alcohol; never has so much vodka been drunk than on the day after it was banned. It’s the same with music. I can hardly keep up with the demand.” Abroad in Sweden, there is even a spinoff of “The Voice” called “The Voice Persia”, featuring artists such as Leila Forouhar (“Jooni Joonom”), Bijan Mortazavi (“Ey Maah Bebin”), Sogand (“Tehran”, “Baroon”), and Kamyar (the lead singer in “Joone Khodet” by the Black Cats) as judges.

and “someone’s crime was dancing her hair in the wind”. The music video features Salehi providing a fortune (through a rap) to a member of the Islamic Republic by reading the coffee grounds of their Turkish coffee. He was arrested shortly after for not just his music, but in addition to his personal activism, and charged with “corruption on earth” - a charge that carries the possibility of the death penalty.

Despite issues post-revolution and ongoing issues today, the era of Iran under reformist President Mohammed Khatami’s rule (1997-2005) is seen as one that led to a liberalization of culture through music, television, and fashion. Though pop music still remained formally illegal, many restrictions on the publication of music, music education, and concert performances were lifted. During this time, imported cassette tapes from Los Angeles studios dropped 30% in terms of sales, and 55% of people in Iran began to listen to “domes-

After the relaxation and permission of Iranian pop music during Khatami’s rule, experts believe that this is when the underground scene in Iran began - music in these venues are both “metaphorically” and “literally” underground. Apartment basements in Tehran today are seen as multi-use facilities: at once, they were shelter for people during the Iran-Iraq war, and today are used as underground venues for unpermitted musicians and bands to practice and perform. Rock, rap, electronic dance music, and alternative genres permeate this underground concert scene, some of which includes secret parties, raves, and sometimes, substances. These are places where people regardless of gender, sexuality, or income intermingle, and affords people the same freedoms that they lack above ground. Here, women can be seen loosening or completely removing their hijabs, revealing outfits that are forbidden by the country’s dress codes underneath their manteaus (loose gowns that act as modest clothing). Artists

that choose to be a part of the flourishing underground scene, rather than the mainstream platform, are afforded the opportunity to freely express themselves and have direct control over music production. Of course, this is at the cost of public legitimacy as an artist, and the constant fear of being caught. Artists like Faravaz were once part of the Iranian underground music scene, until she learned during a trip abroad in Germany that the government had convicted her to a year in prison for it. As a result, Farvaz decided to stay in Germany permanently. Justina, another underground artist, was arrested and detained for three days in Iran, and decided to claim asylum in Georgia after her release. Both artists continued to release music outside of Iran, now publicly, and collaborated to create a song called “Fatva”, a song about women’s positionality in Iranian society. Music also highlights the hypocrisy of the lifestyle that Iranians are afforded based on their political or personal connections. If caught, artists and attenders are subject to heavy fines and imprisonment. However, venues and locations for underground events are often strategically chosenwith the right connections, it is possible to bypass penalties. One Iranian underground artist said, “We’d [throw parties] in either a rich person’s villa or at a place owned by someone connected to the system who was sympathetic to our cause. When someone would call the police, they’d realize that they can’t mess with the people in that particular villa, so they’d just politely ask us to turn down the volume. If we used a normal place, the same officers would have arrested every single person inside.” When asked if that meant they had connections to “powerful people”, they answered: ”100 percent”. The “powerful people” they are referring to are more than likely the “aghazadehs” (“noble borns”), a status awarded from birth to the most privileged in Iran. Aghazadehs are best described as the children of wealthy Iranian elites, who benefit through their familial connections by way of nepotism and corruption - some are children of government officials, including high-ranking clerics. Therefore, venues where people are permitted to party or partake in concerts, raves, or even mini

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festivals without stress or worry tend to take place at the mansion or villa of an aghazadeh. Or, even when others face repercussions for their “crimes” at non-secure venues, aghazadehs are still always left alone. They are permitted to travel into and out of Iran without any issues, whereas people arrested for the same activities they partake in may be barred from leaving or re-entering Iran again. Though contradictions in how the law is applied to citizens based on class, wealth, and political connections is not an issue unique to Iran, it strongly manifests in the underground music scene.

Ultimately, the music scene in Iran serves as a poignant reminder of the challenges faced by those who seek to express themselves freely in a society where artistic expression is often met with strict government censorship and surveillance. Regardless, the sustained resiliency of Iranians has contributed to the flourishing of both the mainstream and underground music scene, continuing a legacy of thousands of years of rich Iranian history, culture, and music. □

Cuningham, Erin. “Crazy-Rich Iranians Face Blowback at a Time of Sanctions and Economic Stress.” The Washing ton Post, WP Company, 18 Jan. 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/crazyrich-iranians-face-blowback-at-a-time-of-sanctions-and-economic-stress/2019/01/13/f45bc594-ffb611e8-a17e-162b712e8fc2_story.html.

Life, Kayhan. “Iranians Remember Master Vocalist Shajarian with His Freedom Song ‘Morgh e Sahar’.” KAYHAN LIFE, 14 Oct. 2020, https://kayhanlife.com/authors/iranians-remember-master-vocalist-shajari an-with-his-freedom-song-morgh-e-sahar/.

Sultanpour, Saeed. The Poet of Revolution In Memoriam of Saeed Sultanpour.

Partovi, Pouya. “Dariush Biography, Songs, & Albums.” AllMusic, https://www.allmusic.com/artist/dari ush-mn0000957726/biography.

Hemmasi, Farzaneh. “Intimating Dissent: Popular Song, Poetry, and Politics in Pre-Revolutionary Iran.” Ethnomusi cology, vol. 57, no. 1, 2013, pp. 57–87., https://doi.org/10.5406/ethnomusicology.57.1.0057.

Shobeiry, Nickie. “What Persian Underground Music Tells Us about Iran.” Shondaland, Shondaland, 2 Nov. 2021, https://www.shondaland.com/inspire/a34946112/what-persian-underground-music-tells-us-aboutiran/.

Nooshin, Laudan. “Underground, Overground: Rock Music and Youth Discourses in Iran.” Iranian Studies, vol. 38, no. 3, 2005, pp. 463–494., https://doi.org/10.1080/00210860500300820.

Youssefzadeh, Ameneh. “The Situation of Music in Iran since the Revolution: The Role of Official Organizations.” British Journal of Ethnomusicology, vol. 9, no. 2, 2000, pp. 35–61., https://doi. org/10.1080/09681220008567300.

Ghadiri, Momene, and Ahmad Moinzadeh. “The Comparative Analysis of Two Songs by Farhad Mehrad: The View of New Historicism.” Theory and Practice in Language Studies, vol. 1, no. 4, 2011, https://doi. org/10.4304/tpls.1.4.384-389.

“Politics and the Press in Iran ~ under the Pahlavis.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, 14 Oct. 2008, https://www. pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/uncategorized/politics-and-the-press-in-iran-under-the-pahlavis/2536/. Neil, Erin. “Inside Iran’s ‘Revolutionary’ Rap.” Arts and Culture | Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera, 9 Sept. 2014, https://www. aljazeera.com/features/2014/9/9/inside-irans-revolutionary-rap.

Arcos, Betto. “Iranian Singer Googoosh Raises Her Voice to Keep Her Nation’s Culture Alive.” NPR, NPR, 29 Sept. 2021, https://www.npr.org/2021/09/29/1041553988/googoosh-iranian-singer-american-tour.

A Personal Reflection of Spiritual and Cultural Identity

by Melissa Gheisari

Upuntil about nine months ago, I considered myself irreligious. As a student of philosophy, I came to believe that the existence of God is too good to be true. I studied proofs against the existence of God made by white men who lived hundreds of years ago. Hume’s philosophical atheism and Sartre’s existentialism were among my favorites. Although atheism felt most logical to me at the time, I felt that there was something missing from my life. I remember a distinct feeling that I would come to terms with my spirituality eventually and that I still had more to learn.

Ironically, my heart opened up to spirituality through philosophy. In my classes, I learned of metaphysical proofs for the existence of God made by philosophers like Ibn-Sina, Al-Ghazali, and Spinoza. I realized that both sides of the debate are logical. Either argument could be true. Still, I was hesitant to choose to believe in God. It felt like it wasn’t a choice for me to make. How could I just suddenly become a believer? It didn’t resonate in my soul or my heart.

Over the summer, I stayed at my family’s vacation home in Istanbul. Every afternoon, my Kurdish neighbor would sit in front of her home and read the Qur’an. Every morning at dawn, the azan played by the local mosque would echo through my neighborhood. It would drift into the windows of my neighbors’ home, and it would drift into mine. Istanbul is not too Western, but not too Eastern; not too Muslim, but not too secular either. It felt right, it felt like I belonged there. I was comfortable being in a city that is somewhere in-between.

From Istanbul I flew to Barcelona, where I completed a semester abroad. During this time, Jina Mahsa Amini was killed by the Islamic Republic’s “morality police”. I walked from Plaça Catalunya through La Rambla with hundreds of KurdishIranians chanting Jin, Jiyan, Azadi. People wanted to know where I was from – “I live in America but my family is Iranian.” I explained the situation in Iran to at least one person every day. I flew to Granada to see the Alhambra – twice. It was the most beautiful

monument I have ever seen. A kind Moroccan hijabi woman pulled me into an alleyway to do henna on my hand while my Palestinian friend kept watch. We drank tea and ate date cookies in an underground parlor run by Egyptians.

I went back to Istanbul during my semester abroad. I took my friends to the Hagia Sofia. For the first time in my life, I had a deeply profound spiritual experience. It was during evening prayer. I sat down with the older women and while they performed their Salah I remained seated with my eyes closed. I have seen my father pray enough times to where I know the postures of Salah, but there is so much I don’t know, like the recitations of the Qur’an in Arabic, the timing of the movements, or if women are to

use different postures than men. I sat there and the recitation took over my body to the point where I no longer felt like I was in my body. I felt the devotion – the pure love – of the older women praying next to me. Images of my devoted grandmother and aunts living in Iran passed through me. As did visions of the fearless women of Iran who are fighting for freedom

from an oppressive regime.

Before the Iranian revolutions of 1911 and 1979, Islam flourished in Iran for hundreds of years. Likewise, Islam flourished because of Iranians. The anti-religious policies of the Pahlavi dynasty and the ill-constructed religious policies of the Islamic regime gave way to the tainted relationship that exists between Iranians and Islam today. The regime has pushed an entire generation of Iranians away from Islam. The religion has tragically been weaponized against us; their destructive, controlling ideologies were forced upon the Iranian people as a nonnegotiable, definitive way of life. Those in the diaspora feel as though they were left with no choice but to flee their homeland in hopes of a better life for their kin – a life with the freedoms that the Islamic Republic refuses to allow in Iran.

Islam is not defined by the Islamic Republic’s ideologies or practices. Islam manifests in a plethora of different ways – reducing the religion to the doings of the Islamic Republic would be illogical. Every Muslim has their own subjective experience with Islam and a unique relationship with God. Islamophobic tropes tend to generalize followers of Islam: they are fanatics, they are Arab, their women are oppressed. These tropes are plainly false and rooted in racism. For example, the country with the biggest Muslim population is Indonesia – a nonArab country.

It would be easier to exist by denying my affinity for Islam, but I would be lying to myself in doing so. Islam has reaffirmed my longing for knowledge and critical thinking. In the same way that I am a student of philosophy, I am a student of Islam. I am fortunate enough to take courses on topics like Islamophobia and Interpretations of the Qur’an. My Muslim friends, educators and family members have taught me lessons beyond how to pray or make wuzu. They emulate unwavering love and devotion through their existence. Through observing them, I have gained a deeper understanding of what kind of person I want to be.

This Islamic introspection has been parallel with an exploration of Iranianness; an ambition to cultivate Iranian knowledge, music, poetry and other art forms. This past semester, the Iranian Students Cultural Organization at Berkeley (ISCO) has been

my life. For our Nowruz show, I practiced an Irooni dance and a performance of Soltan-e Ghalba alongside my closest Iranian friends. I don’t think we realized it in the moment, but it’s obvious to me now that we were healing through cultural and artistic expression. Being in ISCO has heightened my realization of how Iranianness plays a significant role in the shaping of my values. Proximity to Iranian diasporic art has shown me that the struggle can be beautiful and painful at the same time.

My time at Berkeley has been transformative to say the least. I am leaving Berkeley with a sense of self that I never had before. This wouldn’t have been possible if it weren’t for spaces intended for SSWANA1 students like ISCO2, Perspective, and MENARRC3 These student organizations have allowed me to find both comfort and power in my identity. There is a lot more work to be done, and it can only be done through community. The struggle of Iranians is intertwined with that of the Palestinians, the Syrians, the Afghans, the Yemenis, the Kurds, and so on. We must abolish fear and foster solidarity at all levels: in our student groups, in our workplaces, in our homes. This is the path toward liberation, and this is the path I take as I graduate Berkeley and navigate the world. □

Pirouz and the Iranian People

A Shared History of Survival

by Shirin Khanoom

TheAsiatic cheetah, once a majestic predator roaming the vast deserts of Iran, is now on the brink of extinction. On February 28th, 2023, the last known surviving Asiatic cheetah cub born in captivity in Iran, Pirouz, died at the age of 15 months. Pirouz’s death served as a devastating blow to the individual and collective efforts made by Iranian activists to save this critically endangered species. Pirouz’s death fueled public frustration towards the Islamic Republic– Iran’s governmental body. This regime has inflicted environmental challenges that harm the health and well-being of residents and the indigenous fauna of Iran, including the Asiatic cheetah.

The Asiatic cheetah, also known as the Iranian cheetah, is endemic to Iran. Over the past century, the population of Asiatic cheetahs has declined dramatically, from an estimated 100,000 in the early 1900s to less than 50 today. Habitat loss, poaching, and fragmentation of their range are the primary causes of their decline. Additionally, the Islamic Republic has contributed little care or resources towards conservation efforts that protect, care for, and continue the survival of this population. Despite a lack of funding, conservationists in Iran have initiated programs in attempts to save the species from extinction, including captive breeding programs. However, these programs have not been very successful as they lack government funding and support, with only a handful of cubs born in captivity, most of which do not survive. Without government support, volunteers in the program have limited resources to take care of this population.

Pirouz was one of the few Asiatic cheetah cubs born in captivity in Iran. Pirouz was born on December 23, 2017, at the Asian Cheetah Breeding Center in Khar Turan National Park in Tehran. His birth was a moment of hope and joy for the conservationists working to save the species. Pirouz was one of three cubs born from two Asiatic cheetahs named Iran and Firouz– both of whom passed due to poor food quality. Pirouz remained the only surviving cub out of his three siblings. One of his brothers died on May 4th, 2022, due to malformations in the left lung, while his second brother died two weeks after from “poor milk quality.” In addition, Pirouz’s health was consistently a

concern throughout his life, and he continued to struggle with several health issues since his birth. Doctors at Tehran’s Central Veterinary Hospital began dialysis procedures as a result of Pirouz’s onset kidney failure, which started on Tuesday, February 20th, 2023. Despite the best efforts of the caretakers and veterinarians, Pirouz’s condition worsened, and he died on February 28th, 2023, due to kidney failure. Pirouz’s death was a significant blow to Iranian animal rights and conservationist efforts. He was the last surviving Asiatic cheetah cub born in captivity in Iran.

The deaths of these cheetahs drew widespread criticism prompting Iran’s Department of Environment to set up a fact-finding task force to assess negligence in the care of these cheetahs– though their findings were ignored and pushed aside by the Islamic Republic, which held little regard for the matter. Pirouz’s life and death have a broader symbolic significance in the context of Iran’s political and social climate. Iran has been facing increased widespread protests starting with the death of Zhina Mahsa Amini. The country’s strict government has subjected the people of Iran to a number of environmental challenges, including water scarcity and air pollution, along with human rights violations. The government’s inaction in addressing these issues has had a negative impact on the country’s ecosystems and, by extension, its people. Out of sheer frustration with the lack of basic necessities, resources, and rights, the Iranian people took to the streets to protest, demanding political and economic reforms. The government’s response to these protests has been harsh, with the arrest, imprisonment, and execution of activists and everyday Iranian citizens. The people of Iran and Pirouz the cheetah are all victims of the Islamic Republic’s ignorance and mistreatment–death often serving as capital punishment for solely existing under this political rule.

In this environment of repression, Pirouz’s life and death served as a symbol of hope and resilience. He became a symbol and icon of the current wave of protests against the Islamic regime after Grammy award-winning singer-songwriter Shervin Hajipour mentioned the possible extinction of the Asiatic cheetah in his revolutionary song ‘Baraye.’ Before its Grammy award, Shervin’s song became

a viral sensation among millions of Iranians who have been protesting against the Islamic Republic’s dictatorship for nearly six months to the present day. The title of the song ‘Baraye,’ which means “for the sake of,” is consistently repeated at the start of every line of the song, which is composed of a collection of tweets by Iranians bemoaning the political situation in their country: “For dancing in the streets; for the fear of kissing; for Pirouz and its possible extinction,” and “for women, life, freedom.”

In the aftermath of his death, social media has exploded with photos and artworks created for Pirouz to pay tribute to his passing and mourn the extinction of the Asiatic cheetah. Pictures and videos of Pirouz’s last moments in the hospital were scattered across the internet, fueling anger toward the Islamic Republic’s’ lack of care and negligence towards the endangered species. As Pirouz’s name began trending on social media, activists used this opportunity to speak about the environmental conservationists who have been jailed for criticizing the Islamic Republic for its lack of environmental awareness and policy. Even though Pirouz’s life was short-lived, his birth and existence gave hope to the people who believed in the cause of conservation and the protection of Iran’s natural heritage. The Islamic Republic’s neglect of the cheetah reflects its neglect of its own people.

While the Asiatic cheetah has served as a symbol of cultural significance for centuries, the gradual extinction of the species and the government’s lack of action against this eradication reflects the neglect that the Islamic Republic has shown toward the requests and values of the country’s fauna as well as its people. This ignorance is practiced through Iran’s political system, which is dominated by a small group of elites who have been accused of putting their own interests above those of the general population. Iranians are dying every day, crying out for the necessary resources such as food, water, and basic human rights. Similar to

the Iranian people, Pirouz was denied the health and food resources that could have lengthened his life expectancy and increased his quality of life. As a minority population close to extinction, the Asiatic cheetah was disregarded by the Islamic Republic as a flagrant financial burden. This reflects the government’s treatment of minority populations in Iran and its disregard for the needs and requests of these people. Minority groups, including the Baha’i people, Kurdish people, and Ahwazi Arab people, have faced discrimination, persecution, and violence at the hands of the government. Despite calls for greater equality and rights for these groups, the government has been accused of ignoring their requests and failing to take action to address their grievances. The Islamic Republic’s disregard for the needs and requests of the Iranian people has been seen as a significant cause for concern. This has led to widespread calls for reform and change.

Pirouz’s life and death remain a symbol of hope and resilience in the face of adversity. Pirouz’s story is a reminder that even in the darkest of times, there is hope, and it is up to us to keep that hope alive. As Iran continues to face political, economic, and environmental challenges, Pirouz’s legacy will endure as a symbol of perseverance and nature to inspire and bring needed changes to Iran. □

References

“Iran Mourns Loss of Pirouz, Critically Endangered Cheetah Cub.” Al Monitor, https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2023/02/ iran-mourns-loss-pirouz-critically-endangered-cheetah-cub.

“Last of Iran’s Endangered Asiatic Cheetah Cubs in Captivity Dies.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 28 Feb. 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/28/iranendangered-asiatic-cheetah-cub-pirouz-dies.

“Pirouz, Iran’s Only Asiatic Cheetah Cub, Dies of Kidney Failure.” The National, 28 Feb. 2023, https://www.thenationalnews. com/mena/iran/2023/02/28/pirouz-irans-only-asiaticcheetah-cub-dies-of-kidney-failure/.

Newsroom, Iran International. “Cheetah Cub’s Death Saddens and Angers Iranians.” Iran International, Iran International, 28 Feb. 2023, https://www.iranintl.com/en/202302289283.

“Pirouz - the Last Male Asiatic Cheetah Cub, Has Died.” Medium, The Yak, 28 Feb. 2023, https://medium.com/doctoryak/pirouzthe-last-male-asiatic-cheetah-cub-has-died-962ef9ac06e5.

To My Sister: The Life and Words of Forugh

by N.B.

The rallying cry of Iranian women heard across the world this past year was the long term fear of the Islamic Republic. As the political landscape transformed into a feminist battle ground, the feminine voice and perspective became the call to battle. Rallying cries of despair and frustration brought people to the streets where ordinary women and teenage girls became freedom fighters, refusing to settle for compromise and cruelty. But this poetic rallying cry is not a rallying cry of the ongoing intersectional feminist revolution in Iran. It is a poem titled Call To Arms written by Iranian poet Forugh Farrokhzad (1937-1967).

Farrokhzad is Iran’s most well-known, and controversial, female poet. It is often said Iran is the land of poetry and the easiest way to understand Iran is through the famous Persian poets and their work. As an American-born Iranian woman, I often felt removed from the cultural sphere of Iran and my mom rarely made a concerted effort to introduce me to the world of Iranian art. The first piece of Iranian cultural significance she bought me, at age 18, was Sin: The Selected Poems of Forugh Farrokhzad (translated to English). When I told my grandfather I bought Sin in hopes of learning more about Persian poetry, he was confused - well that’s not real Iranian poetry, he said. Later that year, he gifted me two books -Rumi and Hafez- to give me a formal introduction to the world of Iranian poets. All three of these poets were born and raised in Iran — so what makes one a real Iranian?

Over 50 years after her death, Farrokhzad remains more culturally significant than ever. And as I’ve learned, every Iranian older than myself has a strong opinion on her one way or another. This is her power- her ability to elicit strong emotional reactions in everyone that has read her work or simply knows her story. She is often described as a feminist author and iconoclast (def: a person who attacks cherished beliefs or institutions) by writing emotionally raw and vulnerable pieces on the experience of womanhood. Her work is often described as progressive for the time period and country she was based in, but even today her work stands the test of time and pushes the boundaries of what is a socially acceptable topic. Her work can be described as a powerful force, but her words speak for themselves.

to Arms” / ناهاپس یناوخارف

Farrokhzad

Farrokhzad’s work was banned for 10 years in 1979 following the Islamic Revolution. The regime ordered her publisher to stop printing her work, and when he refused, he was jailed and his factory burned down. The regime saw a possibility- a generation inspired by Farrokhzad’s work is a dangerous generation. It is a generation ready to undo the very fabric of patriarchy. Today, her work remains heavily censored. Because of this censorship, she is viewed as a rebel against the Islamic Regime. And while her work illuminates the feminist spirit the regime attempts to dispel, Farrokhzad should be understood as a rebel against more than the regime. She died before the revolution and lived in a time where the Shah’s power claimed to bring a progressive wave to Iran. But as Farrokhzad makes clear, the monarchy did not change the foundations of misogyny embeddedin the world around her. The Shah’s position in progression did very little to improve the conditions of women. Surface-level policies were passed (for example, freedom concerning women’s right to revealing clothing) but long-held patriarchal beliefs remained unchallenged. In the era of the Shah, female literacy remained below 35%.

Although Farrokhzad proudly wore red lipstick, heavy eyeliner, and revealing clothing, she felt suffocated in the mere existence of womanhood. And even as a woman, the honesty and sharpness with which she describes womanhood is illuminating. She brings words to feelings we often can’t describe and says what we often don’t dare to put to words.

There are few artists, of any gender, who bare their soul in their work similar to Farrokhzad. Even at her funeral, Iran’s leading literary journal Sokhan wrote “Forugh is perhaps the first female writer in Persian literature to express the emotions and romantic feelings of the feminine gender in her verse with distinctive frankness and elegance, for which reason she has inaugurated a new chapter in Persian poetry.” But, in her lifetime, she was referred to as “poetess” (shā’ereh), undermining her work as a poet and placing her in a category separate from her male peers despite her consistent contributions to the literary world. Farsi is a gender neutral language, meaning words were quite literally invented in order to alienate her work from her peers. She was a leading figure in the Nima Poetry (Sher-eh Nimaa’i) movement in Iran which challenged traditional Persian poetry and inspired an insurgence of new-wave Iranian poetry.

Farrokhzad’s poetry featured in Shirin Neshat’s Offered Eyes in 1993

“The Ring” / هقلح

I poured in his eyes lyrics of love: O my life, my lover it’s you I want. Life giving arms, it’s you I crave. Crazed lover, for you I thirst.

Lust enflamed his eyes, red wine trembled in the cup, my body, naked and drunk, quivered softly on his breast

I have sinned a rapturous sin beside a body quivering and spent. I do not know what I did O God, in that quiet vacant dark.

English translation: Sholeh Wolpé

At just 19 years old, Farrokhzad published Sin in Iran’s most well-known art magazine Roshanfekr (The Intellectual). It is said she walked into the magazine’s headquarters, unannounced, and handed over her written poems. Sin, an emotional and provocative piece detailing her affair with the magazine’s own editor in chief was published along with her biography and image. In a time where women were publishing under pen-names, Farrokhzad let the world know of her affair (by mentioning her husband and son in her biography), and was not ashamed. This was not without consequence. Farrokhzad eventually lost custody of her son under the presumption she was too filled with desire and immoral thoughts to raise a child and largely denied visitation rights until her death. While legal conditions for women in Iran have gotten worse since 1979, the legal system has never adequately supported Iranian women. But this did not stop her. While she remained committed to fighting for her son, she had unleashed a new passion and was determined to continue writing poetry on the topic of female desire.

Sin marked the beginning of a life of public torment by the media. Tabloids continually ridiculed her and called her a whore. Her work was not taken seriously by the art world, and famous male artists publically claimed to have had sex with her. Despite insisting that these claims were false, the media tore her apart while the men who lied and preyed on her vulnerability remained unscathed.

Despite her strong conviction, the public torment and loss of custody over her son affected her mental health. After two unsuccessful suicide attempts, she was institutionalized. But Farrokhzad continued her poetry and even made a very successful film upon her release, titled The House is Black, focused on a leper colony. The short film was her only directorial project and produced by Ebrahim Golestan - a renowned Iranian filmmaker and Farrokhzad’s lover at the time. After filming concluded, she adopted a young boy from the colony named Hossein Mansouri. Although the short film received little critical acclaim during its debut, it is now considered a landmark of Iranian cinema.

My introduction to her life story was through an article calling her “Iran’s Sylvia Plath.” And while the parallels of mental illness, feminism, and poetry exist, this comparison undermines her work. This continual trend of comparing non-Western trailblazers to their closest Western counterparts defines women of color as a copy or runner-up. Farrokhzad is Iran’s revolutionary poet and should be defined in terms of what she did for Iran.

But like Sylvia Plath, she is a woman who revealed her entire soul only to have her pain glamorized. While their art lives beyond their time on this earth and changes the way we understand the power of poetry, conversations of Farrokhzad (like Plath) often revolve around the tragedies in her life rather than her groundbreaking work. Conversations on Farrokhzad should center her words, not the way she was treated or her death.

There are people that society realizes have been wronged only after they have gone and only after they no longer pose a threat to the carefully created fabric of society, as they are no longer releasing their work. In her lifetime, Farrokhzad was deemed too unstable and too unpredictable- only because she wrote from her own point of view. In her afterlife, she remains controversial, but she has been elevated to a feminist status held from her during her lifetime. During her life she was asked why she wrote poetry from a ‘feminine perspective.’ Farrokhzad mentioned this is not an issue of gender. She believed we ought to think of experience beyond the gender binary, which informed her answer that her works are not an issue of gender, but rather an issue of lived experience and human rights.

“Sin”/ هانگ

Farrokhzad died an early death at age 32. Without equating her life with her death, the metaphorical significance of her death is haunting. Farrokhzad died in a car crash as she drove home from her mother’s house during a winter storm. Her death comes after her final poetry collection “Rebirth” where she prepared herself for a new phase of life and felt full of hope and prepared to fight for custody of her son. Her funeral was widely attended and she was buried in Northern Tehran amidst a snowstorm. The vast collection of poems we have from here were all from her short life. While the tragedy of her life is well known and docmented, in this current moment we should also turn to her honesty and inspiring calls to action to guide us. Farrokhzad believed in the experience of Iranian women to be the architects of their own freedom. We must challenge the distortion of her character and honor her life through her words rather than her image. She sacrificed herself symbolically and ruined her image in order to open a door that has not been fully broken down today. Women today in Iran continue the legacy Farrokhzad was a part of—an unapologetic demand for recognition. While her personal poems remind us of the complexity of womanhood, her poems directed to her fellow Iranian woman serve as a rallying cry. □

“To My Sister” / منارهاوخ هب

Sister, rise up after your freedom, why are you quiet? rise up because henceforth you have to imbibe the blood of tyrannical men.

Seek your rights, Sister, from those who keep you weak, from those whose myriad tricks and schemes keep you seated in a corner of the house.

…

This angry moan of yours must surly become a clamorous scream. you must tear apart this heavy bond so that your life might be free.

Rise up and uproot the roots of oppression. give comfort to your bleeding heart. for the sake of your freedom, strive to change the law, rise up.

Farrokhzad featured in San Francisco’s Clarion Alley Mural Project in 2015 titled In Memory Of

Bad Diaspora Poetry

by Anonymous

I wrote this after seeing a tik tok making fun of diaspora poetry and asking the diaspora to stop writing bad poetry about their experiences because it’s annoying. It got a lot of views and comments agreeing with the creator. This poem is in response to that.

Bad diaspora poetry is my favorite thing to write

It’s when children in the diaspora fervently write about the smell of rice and the mango tree and the souls of their ancestors

Poems on poems going on about how we long for a place we do not fully know or belong in

How blessed we are to have tragedies so simple they can fit on the tips of our tongues

While others have trauma that renders them speechless

We have trauma we can orient into poems folded deep within the depths of our Notes app

Just to be posted on our Instagram stories

We search for belonging in between the lines of poetry

There is a metaphysical feeling that those within the bad diaspora poetry club yearn to possess

For example, I catch glimpses of Iran in the little things

But they slip through my grasp quickly, their loud absence lingering

A scent, a melody, a smile

The sunlight cast on a persian rug

Under the palm trees in Abadan where my father was still whole

In the pages of family albums

Photos rooted in a sacred space I may never enter Visions of a place blurred by the cataracts of time and distance

Beyond nostalgia there is sorrow in diaspora poetry

It means writing about people I wish I hugged tighter

Writing about memories I’ll never get to make

Hands I won’t get to hold again

Its romanticizing the smell of exhaust in the streets

Basking in the heartbreak of a ruptured connection

Mourning the loss of culture

Bad diaspora poetry means writing about how my mother tongue feels like a foreigner in my own mouth

Something I have to practice to possess

How we must remember to not forget our roots

What a dichotomy

When the world is silent and doubt whispers into my ear

I fear I will not leave a legacy behind

Will I have a great story to tell my grandchildren?

Will I tell them that I too let pomegranates swim in the rivers that flow through me

Noor also lights up my brown eyes

As generations old gold lays around my neck

At least I can document my thoughts in a bad diaspora poem

Something by the culture for the culture

Bad diaspora poetry is all we can create when your body is so far away from where your heart yearns to be

In a place were we are used to measuring ourselves in relation to whiteness

While misery sweeps our homeland

Opening up your phone to citizens living like prisoners

The tears of mothers and the blood of our people lie within the brushstrokes lining our stories

With our poetry, we paint a reality different from what the news wants us to see

A picture that captures our joy our pain and our resilience

Despite the distance and time apart, we strive to carry the culture close to the chest

Where we can’t see home but we feel it in community

We feel it in our prayers for peace and in music

We feel it in a glance from a pair of eyes peering at you like moons

When our eyes meet, our souls both recognize a sense of familiarity and home

To the bad diaspora poets,

Don’t feel ashamed for not belonging here nor there

For you are the wind that blows in the space between two stars

Your existence is filling in the gap between two worlds

Your existence is resilience

Your ancestors were fighters

Your spirit carries power

Your existence is a testament to the beauty of what once thrived

An empire in and of itself

Let the bad diaspora poetry manifest happiness and light onto our homeland and for the future of our people

Let it be therapeutic

Let the severed ties be re-knotted

Broken hearts sewn back together

Community in rejoice

A reunion, perhaps now or in the next lifetime