Exclusive Tavaana Interview. with. Shokooh Mirzadegi

Transcription

1 Exclusive Tavaana Interview with Shokooh Mirzadegi

2 E-Learning Institute for Iranian Civil Society A Project of Tavaana Exclusive Interview with Shokooh Mirzadegi E-Collaborative for Civic Education Compile by Tavaana: E-Learning Institute for Iranian Civil Society E-Collaborative for Civic Education 2013

3 Exclusive Tavaana Interview with Shokooh Mirzadegi Shokooh Mirzadegi is an Iranian writer and cultural activist. She has been one of the most active figures in the Iranian literary community for the last four decades. During her time in Iran, she published two collections of short stories, two plays, and numerous articles on literary, social and feminist topics. She was also the editor-in-chief of Talash Magazine, and was actively involved in education and women s issues. She, along with a group of Iranian writers, was sentenced to death for activity to free political prisoners in the early 1970s, but was freed before being arrested again after the 1979 revolution. Since going into exile, she has continued to write and has founded the Iranian Women Organization of Great Britain and participated in the foundation of Society for Iranian Writers and Artists in Britain. She also has founded the Center for Iranian Women's Documents and Studies in the USA. * Hello, and thank you for this opportunity. My first question is: at what time and for what reason did you begin your activities in the field of cultural preservation? I have been in love with the culture of Iran since childhood. When I was a kid, Pourdavood used to come to our house because he was related to my mother, and I was very curious about cultural issues. I later became involved in political issues, women s

4 4 issues, and various other issues, and as you know, I even ended up going to prison. When I was released - there is an expression, I m not the man for this, - I realized, I am not the woman for political work. I m more sensitive about cultural issues, and I m able to work better in that field. When I was released from prison in 1975, 1976, I focused more on human rights and women s issues and worked on cultural projects. I wrote stories and poetry. But after the revolution, in the course of the construction of the Sivand Dam, I found out that if it became operational, many of our historical sites would be destroyed. I became involved in the issues relating to this dam through a suggestion of a very famous archeologist, who is now deceased. I am prohibited by his family from mentioning his name, as it could cause problems for him. I m having discussions with them about this, because it is not appropriate for those who are alive to block someone s name for personal issues. At any rate, upon his suggestion I pursued the issue and prepared a petition that was signed by 150,000 people in Iran and abroad within a week. After two years, with the help of those who did engineering work, we were able to prove to UNESCO that if the dam became fully operational, Pasargad would be destroyed. With this reason, they were able to convince the government of Iran to water the dam twenty-five meters less than intended, and those areas were saved. But as we predicted, all the agricultural lands were ruined. Bakhtegan Lake was burned, and there were many problems. In the course of the two or three years that I was active in this project, many young people wrote to me especially from Iran saying, Iran is not just Pasargad. There are sites throughout Iran that are on the verge of destruction. I constantly mentioned issues relating to the cultural heritage of Iran on the website savepasargad.com of which I am the editor-in-chief. It will be nine years old this August, and it is still in operation. But as of October I ve started another cultural preservation project, which I can explain to you later if you want. * As an activist in the field of cultural preservation, what qualities do you think an activist should have? When I started this work, I was just in love with Iran. I had studied history quite thoroughly since I was a child, be it the history of Iran or the history of other countries. But you must also be familiar with issues relating to cultural preservation. For instance after a while, i.e. seven years, I realized cultural preservation is not exclusively an Iranian issue, but a world issue. Recognizing these concepts is very important. It was like an academic course for me. For instance, the bylaw of the new organization we ve launched, called World Cultural Heritage Voices, states that we are protectors of the cultural heritage of countries where poverty, war, and inattentive governments threaten it.

5 5 For this reason, you see countries such as Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and African countries thrown into the mix. Cultural heritage is just like the issue of human rights. A couple of days ago, I was talking to our attorney for World Cultural Heritage Voices, and we went over all the details about what we could do through the UN and UNESCO to convince UNESCO of certain issues. I realized what we re doing is very similar to the work of human rights organizations. Just the same way you must know the concept of human rights in order to be able to work as a human rights activist, you must know the concept of cultural heritage. Cultural heritage encompasses human experiences. Some people say, There are people dying, and you re concerned with a building? But a historic site reflects biology, psychology, sociology, etc. All of this collectively encompasses human experiences. It releases us from repeating the experience. Without this experience, all future generations must start from point zero again, but if we have this experience, we can start where we left off. * What short-term and long-term objectives did you have for yourself in the course of your activities? There was always an objective, and it had to do with the issue of the Foundation of Pasargad Heritage, whose website, as I mentioned earlier, only reflects the news on Iran, because as you know in Iran, especially after the administration of Ahmadinejad and Rahim Mashai, they would not allow archeologists to provide information to journalists, and this law is in place to this day. The journalists too are not allowed to publish any news on cultural heritage without checking with the Cultural Heritage Organization. We receive the news directly from Iran and put it on the website. Providing news is our overall objective, whether in the past or the present. We must provide information to the people. This leads us to have a website and a medium for our objective. It is true that today we have Facebook and Twitter, but Facebook and Twitter are transient. You quickly post things on them and leave. This is why we need a website to archive and maintain our news and facilitate its access, i.e. make it more accessible for everyone. There is so much taking place on Facebook that if people delay checking it one or two minutes, they miss the posts of the previous hour. Thousands of people put up posts. The other issue is to constantly make the young people interested, because the generations are changing and becoming shorter. Our long-term goal, however, is to persuade international organizations about the importance of these issues. This is the same thing the human rights organizations are doing: convincing international organizations about what we have in mind.

6 6 For instance, one issue they must know is that according to the UNESCO law of 1972, only governments are allowed to provide information to, seek help from, and report to UNESCO,. UNESCO does not officially receive reports from NGOs and unofficial sources. But we want to persuade them to listen to the NGOs. This is one of our objectives, which is quite time-consuming and requires financial and intellectual resources and footwork in order to convince them. Of course, at the moment we are a non-profit organization, and our attorneys are working pro bono. We have some great attorneys who are working on this issue. And by doing this, we are expanding our operations. In other words, we are going beyond Iran to also address the issues of Middle Eastern and African countries that are facing similar problems, and naturally our long-term goal is to make close contacts with the NGOs in these countries. * Could you please explain the political, cultural, and social atmosphere you encountered before and after the Revolution? In sum, there were very few shortcomings with regard to the Iranian cultural atmosphere. As long as we did not bother with political issues, we were able to go about our activities relating to culture. In fact I remember that if we talked about Islam they would warn us saying, You re going too far, the Ayatollahs will get upset. With regard to political issues, there was no such thing as freedom. But again, if you didn t bother with political affairs and went about your business, kept your head down and went to work and came back, no one interfered with your private life. Some youth say, You are responsible for our misery. I say to them, We had everything. We had an advanced country. We didn t have economic problems. We wanted to have freedom, so that we could vote and elect, just like Western countries. That s what we were after. You have none of these, how is it that you re silent? Our case is over, but how about you? Why are you not taking action? At the present time, there is nothing in my opinion, because even individual freedom does not exist. This is very important, because a human being is a free creature. At the very least you want to be able to dress, you want to wear the clothes of your choosing. At the very least you want to hold your lover s hand, live with the person you love, eat what you want. Take for instance, alcoholic beverages, which have become taboo. Just the same way a Muslim drinks Doogh, a Christian could just as easily have wine. If someone says you are not allowed to have wine, this would be inhumane. Or saying you re not allowed to belong to a certain religion. Just look at how awfully the Bahais are being treated. This is inhumane. Before the revolution, we had a political problem. Today we have a cultural problem, a political problem, and a human problem. In other words, we don t have anything. Not us per se, but those who are in Iran. We are only deprived of visiting

7 7 our homeland. * Which groups, individuals, or organizations were your strongest opposition inside and outside the country during your activism? When I first started my activism, especially because I consider myself a social democrat, my leftist friends raised objections by saying, Why are you talking about Cyrus? I was quite astounded. I was particularly amazed when I heard this from people living abroad. If Pasargad was to be destroyed, it is a site that belongs to the cultural heritage, and it makes no difference. It could have belonged to Marx or Prophet Mohammad. When I prevent the destruction of a historical site, no one should object. Everyone should support me. And they gradually came to acknowledge it, and there aren t any more opponents in that sense. But they caused a lot of trouble in Iran. For instance, today at the first congress of Secular Democrats, I did not sign their bylaw and statute. I don t endorse anything involving politics. Not because I regard politics as something bad. Every social human is a political being, and I also have certain beliefs of my own. But in Iran, there is a stigma attached to it. People say, Did you hear that person talking politics? Political talk is not bad. It s good. But cultural heritage belongs to all the people of Iran and the world. In order to move forward, I usually try to have no political contacts and simply observe as a mere spectator to avoid problems or hurdles to my work. However, those in government oppose me, because they mostly believe their path is correct, especially now that I m putting forth an issue called Discrimination in Cultural Heritage which I ve been working on for a year or two. * Which individuals and groups supported you inside the country and abroad? The young people. When I started this work, I was under the impression that most of my supporters are the older men and women who are enthusiastic about what they ve lost. But I later found out that was not the case. The young people supported us the most, and they continue to do so. My phone is always with me, be it night or day. That s because I need to be accessible even in the middle of the night if they call me with news. It is the young people who are providing news. It s interesting that the young people who are pursuing the protection of cultural heritage are even more educated than those who re involved in political activities. That s because someone might suddenly turn to politics because he can t afford a single loaf of bread, whereas a person supporting cultural heritage must be a cultured person. That is to say he must be knowledgeable to pursue these issues. For this reason, it is mostly young people. Outside the country too, it s the youth, the elderly, and various other social groups, since it was mostly the educated people who escaped Iran and ended up staying here. For this reason, they re supportive. Political

8 8 people did not join in the initial years, but after frequent correspondence I compelled various groups such as the Association of Republicans, National Front, Monarchists, and others by saying to them, as opposition groups, you must add the protection of cultural heritage to your bylaw and statute. At present, the Seculars statute regards the protection of cultural heritage as one of the duties of the future government, whatever government it may be. * In the course of your activities, from your beginnings to the present, what tools, equipment, and media did you use to communicate with your audience? Perhaps because I was a journalist, I was lucky that when I started this work, all the publications and radio and televisions helped out by covering our declarations and projects. Back then, Voice of America was not saying a word about cultural heritage. Today many websites have a section on cultural heritage aside from their main content. The radio, television, and websites sometimes we had to send a piece of writing inside Iran to be distributed by our colleagues in Iran. We would hold exhibitions in Iran through UNESCO or human rights organizations. For instance, we would say, Mr. X is there, support his paintings. They would give him a budget to exhibit his paintings and work, and they helped. In fact, there has been professional support from every place to which I made a request. * Finally, for those who may want to become active in this field, please share with us some of your experiences that you regard as important but we did not include in our questions. I think the greatest contribution anyone anywhere in the world could make is to ask questions and become involved with this issue. For instance, if they re in Iran, there are dozens of people helping us in cities like Shiraz, Esfahan, and Tehran. But there are certain cities in which we re desperately looking for a single individual. Today for instance I was telling some democratic Kurdish friends, Since you love your homeland so much, ask those who want to help out with preserving cultural heritage to write articles for us. A while back a young Dervish told me, You write so much about cultural heritage, why don t you write anything when they burn our books? I said, Did you ever write to me? He said, No. I said, Write it right now. He wrote it, and I conducted a television program for them. Thus, people should help out at whatever capacity they can. Just today, a young female filmmaker said, I want to make films for you. I said, I will get you a budget from organizations which provide budgets for cultural projects. I should also add that neither in the past nor the present did I ever receive any salary as the founder of our great non-profit organization. In fact, it s stated in the bylaw.

9 9 I receive no gifts, but I do everything I can for the organization to be functional. It has a website manager and accountant, and it is supposed to have a cinematographer. I ve given myself three to five years to bring in the young people and get them involved in this issue and then step away and simply provide intellectual assistance if I can. Otherwise, I ll just let this process continue. If the current government of Iran remains in place, this organization will continue its activity and prevent further destruction. If this government is overthrown and replaced by a sympathetic government, these institutions will still be necessary in the same way that Italy and Greece have cultural affiliates, and we don t. It will operate as an international organization that serves as Iran s cultural heritage affiliate abroad. * Thank you for this opportunity.