HAIRAN

Sepideh Jodeyri is an award-winning Iranian poet and translator living in Washington DC, USA. She is the author of 11 books. Sepideh Kouti is an Iranian poet, author, translator, and editor. She began her literary career in 2000, authoring entries for the Encyclopedia of Persian Literature. Previous works include On the Heights of Despair (translation) and The Creeping Shadow of Objects.Anna Krasnowolska is a Professor and esteemed specialist in Persian literature and Iranian culture. She was Director of the Institute of Oriental Studies (1999-2002), and Head of the Department of Iranian Studies (2000-17) at Jagiellonian University. Anahita Rezaei is an award-winning Iranian writer and literary critic living in Tehran, Iran. Previous works include Silent and Quiet of Being–Not Being Days and The Shooting Right to Domestic Dogs. Daoud Sarhandi-Williams is an award-winning, multidisciplinary filmmaker and writer of Anglo-Indian and Pakistani heritage. Previous titles include Bosnian War Posters and Ukraine at War: Street Art, Posters + Poetry.Abbas Shokri fled Iran in 1989 to save his life, and finally settled in Norway. He retrained as a journalist in 1995 and founded Aftab, a Persian language press which publishes censored Iranian authors. He is the author of 14 books.Ali Sobati is an Iranian poet, critic, essayist, journalist, and translator. For over two decades he has been one of the leading academic literary voices of his generation. Ali is currently based outside Iran.

HERE’S the question: Whenthe majority of thepopulation of a countryare of a certain opinion,and their preference forms the ruleof law, should you ever go against it?And if it is not your own country,what right do you have to offer anopinion anyway?Populism is its own reward: victorycomes with widespread ignorancebecause democracy requires education.Without sufficient education toknow what you’re choosing between,you don’t really know what you’rechoosing at all. In effect, you have nochoice, just blind faith.And that’s what increasingly rulesin the world: blind faith in a convictedcriminal, in a “Conservative” Partywhose mere existence endorses classhierarchy, inherited wealth, a senseof entitlement, racism, colonialism,institutionalised theft; or blind faithin a “Labour” Party whose practicesare not so far removed. Or in an SNPleadership posing for selfies besiderepresentatives of English regionsand cities. Is such self-abasementcompletely beyond recall?But there is a deeper question.Supposing for a moment there area few independent minds at workwho see such things happening andmaybe have a chance to point out thehypocrisies and duplicities, the lying.Is it arrogance to try to be reasonablein the face of genocide? Can I presenta calm front while talking abouthorrifying violence and the targeteddestruction of non-combatants, men,women, children, old folk, babies?Supposing I believe in certainuniversal principles. To quotethe Palestinian literary critic andhistorian Edward Said, supposingI believe that “all human beings areentitled to expect decent standardsof behaviour concerning freedomand justice from worldly powersor nations, and that deliberate orinadvertent violations of thesestandards needs to be testified andfought against courageously”.To however modest an extent, one isAbbas Shokri, and howthen, after gathering morethan 200 pages of poems,contact was made withAli Sobati, an IranianFarsi-English translatorand contemporary poetrycritic living in Canada, andthe book began to cometogether.The story of theinternational editorialteam, comrades incollaboration with different,complementary specialisms,and the beautiful productitself, published by ScotlandStreet Press, is one essentialcontext in which to readthe poems. See: www.scotlandstreetpress.com/product/hairan-poems-of-hair-andfreedomTHERE is a larger context.More from the Preface: “Asthis book goes to press, wellover 200 Iranian protestershave died, thousands have beenarrested, and unknown numbershave been tortured.“Several male demonstratorshave been executed, often afterbeing convicted on trumped-upcharges under a catch-all crime thattranslates into English as ‘corruptionon earth’. Furthermore, manyIranians have been forced to fleeinto exile, joining a diaspora thatnow numbers between four and eightmillion people.“Despite ongoing protests,however, the Iranian regime seemsto be doubling down on its efforts torestrict women’s rights. Shops willbe penalised if they serve a womanwho enters their premises with herhead uncovered, smart camerasthat can spot women who aren’tcovering their hair ‘correctly’ arebeing installed in urban spaces, andthe ‘crime’ of not wearing a hijaboutdoors is being considered for amandatory 10-year prison term – upfrom a maximum of two months. Inhopefully committed to “advance thecause of freedom and justice”.As Said puts it, an intellectual“is an individual endowed with afaculty for representing, embodying,articulating a message, a view, anattitude, philosophy or opinion to, aswell as for, a public”.Those statements come from Said’s1993 Reith Lectures, Representationsof the Intellectual, but that lastdescription I think might applyequally well to poets and artists ofall kinds, as well as professionalintellectuals employed in variouscapacities, either working for orpublicly criticising corporate bodies,governments, social states andconditions. And the poets representedin a new anthology I’ve just beenreading are all of this kind.It is one of the most extraordinarybooks I’ve seen in recent months.This is from the Preface, by DaoudSarhandi-Williams, co-editor alongwith Ali Sobati: “I was sitting at mydesk in September 2022 … when Iheard the shocking news about ayoung Kurdish-Iranian woman calledMahsa Amini. She had been arrestedin Tehran and killed in police custodyfor not covering her hair in thedecreed way.“Throughout Iran, women and girlsof all ages rose in fury against theregime. The mandatory hijab headcovering, and hair itself, became apowerful symbol in a struggle forwomen’s liberation, personal freedomand choice. In the autumn of 2022,I didn’t know much about Iranianpoetry. However, I decided to find outhow contemporary female Iranianpoets were responding to theiroppression.”The resulting book is both acompendium of poems in protestagainst the killing of Mahsa Amini,to whom it is dedicated, and also anintroduction to Iranian poetry fromthe perspective of writing by women.The Preface describes how Daoudcontacted the Polish Iranologist AnnaKrasnowolska, who suggested gettingin touch with an Iranian publisher,Some of the13 anonymousportraitsin Hairanwhich werecommissionedfor the book.All weresent to theeditors inlow-resolutionby messengerapp andacknowledgementsgo tothe unknownphotographerswhoseportraits oftheir friends,familymembersor partnersappear thereThe book’scover and(mainpicture)Mahsa Amini,to whom it isdedicatedall these ways, public spaces thatare safe for dissenting women inIran are shrinking and becomingmore dangerous. The objectivesof this book are twofold: toshare with the general readeran extraordinary collection ofcontemporary Iranian women’spoetry that has rarely, if ever,been translated on this scale.“The verse is passionate,inspiring, and hallucinatoryin its mix of beauty and horror,courage and fear, despair and hope.Collectively, it powerfully expressesthe sentiment words – and poeticwords – can still play a vital role inbringing about social and politicalchange. It shows us poetry matters.“The second objective … is topromote women’s civil and humanrights in Iran, as well as in othercountries that adhere to similaror even more extreme doctrinesregarding the role and place ofwomen and girls.“As this book goes to press, aresurgent Taliban in Afghanistan… has not only banned secondaryand higher education for girls, butis also bringing back the publicstoning of women judged ‘guilty’ ofsome reported moral failing or pettymisconduct. Meanwhile, arrestingand then sexually abusing Afghanwomen for ‘bad hijab’ is routine.”Shouldn’t we in Scotland also behoping “that Muslim women willhave the freedom to cover or notcover their hair, and that both choiceswill be treated equally. And thatsuch basic liberties will extend to allaspects of their lives”?That’s the immediate context.And it should take us back tothe first principles I began with,Edward Said’s belief that “all humanbeings are entitled to expect decentstandards of behaviour concerningfreedom and justice from worldlypowers or nations, and that deliberateor inadvertent violations of thesestandards needs to be testified andfought against courageously.”And that, in however modest a way,and to whatever extent we can, we arehopefully committed to “advance thecause of freedom and justice”.Let me add another voice from adifferent continent, at a time whenit’s worth reminding ourselves of thetruly great values and aspirationsAmerica has at times embodied, thefiercest political poet of that country,Edward Dorn. He puts it very simply:“Either we define our allegiances tocertain honorific aspects of humannature or we don’t.“Most of us know all the time thatpolitics in poetry really amountsto enunciation. Politics in politicsamounts to subterfuge, obscurantismand hiding all you can.”So there you are: “certain honorificaspects” of being human. Nobody,whatever their cultural history, shouldstone women to death or kill them forshowing their hair. Nowhere on Earthshould these things be legitimate.And that’s the clear enunciation ofevery poem in this book, and anotherreason why it’s such a remarkablecollection.And there’s more. The Introduction,by Ali Sobati with Anahita Rezaei,Sepideh Jodeyri and Sepideh Kouti,traces out the whole story of “thesilenced trajectory” in the storyof a feminine voice in “the extramillennialpast of Iranian poetry”.In the 1990s, Reza Barahani(1935-2022), a life-long radical (male)literary critic and theorist, called foran “alternative womanly narrative”and suggested that the 1937 novelThe Blind Owl, by the (male)writer Sadegh Hedayat (1903–51),as a founding modernist work inFarsi literature, has been “doublyproblematic” because “in this novelfemale characters are denied the rightto bear a name or the right to name –they are simply not allowed to speakfor themselves”.The novel presents a surrealist/expressionist account (drawing onthe early silent movies of Luis Buñueland FW Murnau) of characters“decalcomaniacally copy andpasted one into another.” But itsattractiveness as surrealist modernismis undermined by its exclusivepatriarchal priorities. “This situation,however, is by no means confinedto The Blind Owl … it is ascribableto almost the entire Iranian literarytradition and history.”SO, here’s the drive: “Now it istime for the woman to becomethe narrator of her world andto do the naming herself,”wrote Barahani. “In literature, awoman’s freedom means that shecan define both herself and hersurroundings.”The Introduction builds fromthere. This book comes as a work ofredress, and effectively of defiance,and celebration. “Most of these poemswere composed (in Farsi) in responseto unique social and political events incontemporary Iran: often, they are atacit or direct response to the WomanLife Freedom (or WLF) movement,which grew out of Mahsa Amini’sdeath ...“The poems either elegiacallymourn Iran’s fallen heroes – lostduring an ultra-violent crackdownby the regime – or they celebrate thephenomenal bravery of womenand girls, as well as the courageof many fearlessly supportivemen. And even if notconnected to WLF events,the poems still speakto other contemporarysociopolitical events andtragedies in Iran, andalmost always from afeminist standpoint.”The Introduction takesus through three periods (theclassical, transitional, andmodern-contemporary), to give “anoverarching historical context forthe poems in the anthology”.These three periods areworth noting before I quotea couple of the poems. Tobegin with, there is –THE AGE OF ORIGINS:THE POST-ISLAMIC,CLASSICAL PERIOD“The originary points ofIranian women’s poetryare rather blurred. This isdue to the imposed ‘silencedtrajectory’, that leaves us withlittle to no evidence and often withcenturies-long holes in whatevidence is available.”Then follows THETRANSITIONALAGE: QAJAR ANDCONSTITUTIONALREVOLUTION but it’staken an awfully longtime before we begin toget anywhere near those“honorific aspects” of beinghuman that Ed Dorn speaksof, or the principle that EdwardSaid makes explicit, that “humanbeings are entitled to expect decentstandards of behavior concerningfreedom and justice fromworldly powers or nations,and that deliberate orinadvertent violations ofthese standards needs to betestified and fought againstcourageously.”And yet, progress ispossible, change doeshappen. We come toTHE AGE OF FEMINISTWRITING: PRE- ANDPOST-1979 REVOLUTION andwe’re informed: “It is not far-fetchedto consider this period to be thatin which the ‘silenced trajectory’ isfinally broken – giving way to thebirth of womanly poetry with aninherent femininity.”And this brings us to THE AGEOF WOMAN LIFE FREEDOM:THIS ANTHOLOGY’SCONTEMPORARIES, and here,we read: “The concrete plurality ofsuch distinguished literary voicesprofoundly resonates with themomentum of the Woman LifeFreedom feminist uprising – not onlyin Iran but in the entire region. Thishighly consequential, but largelyunanticipated, uprising occurredmost forcefully between 2022-23.“The crackdown against it, even bythe standards of the brutal theocraticregime that rules Iran, has beenextreme: more than 22,000 arrested;more than 500 reported deaths,including of 71 children; varioustypes of child abuse – with all thisaccompanied by a glut of torture,execution and injury.”And yet, to come to the poemsthemselves, we should understandas a governing principle forthe whole anthology the factthat “Woman Life Freedom’sability to surpass all nationalboundaries lies in its highdegree of translatability intoa basic condition ofde-subjugation.”Translation has a universalapplication, here in Scotland asmuch as anywhere in the world.Consider that as you let the poemssink in. No more commentary now,just two poems to sample. First,“YOU’D SAID …” by FanuousBahadorvand:You’d saidDon’t write poemsBe a womanThen life itself becomespoeticBecomes springBecomes plain yet vividOn the flow of wine inMahsa’s hairOr the nightly hair of LeilyFree of whatever metaphorYet, I was the last resortTo words in ashesIn the hearty texts in flamesOr marble dead soulsGrowing ever colderIce-ageing the worldAnd the landscape of myimaginationAs if a gloomy sunset,Expired on sevenIn the morgues of paradiseThe words in ashesWere about to showDeath for lifeAnd life for a persistent conspiracyWith ups and downs in a foe’ssynecdocheOr certain self-decided deathsBut I was forcedTo become a choiceFor the heartPoetry“WomanLifeFreedom…”The references there areworth noting: “Mahsa Amini,the young woman whose deathinspired the Woman Life Freedommovement. She was killed in Tehranby the so-called morality police, onSeptember 16, 2022, for showing toomuch hair.”And Leily, we’re told, is “Acommon female name in Iran, butalso a possible allusion to Leili inNezami Ganjavi’s epic romance, Leiliand Majnoon (Leyla and Majnun inEnglish). This book is often referredto as the Middle Eastern Romeo andJuliet, but Nezami’s masterpiece waswritten in 1192, around 400 yearsbefore Shakespeare wrote his playwith a similar plot.”And here’s “TO LEARN” byRouhangiz Karachi (Composed inTehran in 2021):I have learnedTo cry my dreams, slowlyAnd imprison loveIn the white of papersAs stormy gusts advanceAnd be a womanIn a room with no windowOther than imagination.