E-mail a friendLila Azam Zanganeh
airdate April 14, 2006
Lila Azam Zanganeh's book is the first anthology of its kind. My Sister, Guard Your Veil; My Brother, Guard Your Eyes, which she edited, has been described as 'a literary antidote to misinformation on Iran.' Zanganeh was born in Paris to Iranian parents. A student of literature and philosophy, she earned a masters degree in international affairs from Columbia University and moved to the U.S. to teach at Harvard. Zanganeh is a contributor to Le Monde and has written for The New York Times and The Nation.
Lila Azam Zanganeh
Tavis: Lila Azam Zanganeh is a European-based journalist whose family fled Iran in the late 1970s prior to the Iranian Revolution. During her career, she's written extensively about Europe and the Middle East. Her latest book is called "My Sister, Guard Your Veil; My Brother, Guard Your Eyes: Uncensored Iranian Voices.' Lila, nice to have you on the program.
Lila Azam Zanganeh: Thank you. Nice to be here.
Tavis: Glad to have you. The title means?
Zanganeh: The title is one of the slogans of the 1979 Revolution. It was just repeated over and over again by the militia for the virtue, you know, to protect them against vice. So I thought it represents, in a way, what Iran is supposed to be today and, in fact, you know, what it's not. Our message was, you know, if your too Islamic, just don't even read this because these voices are free voices.
Tavis: I want to come back to that point, so we'll put a pin in that for just a second. Before I jump too far ahead, though, I want to go back to earlier in the week, the news that we all saw or heard and read everywhere about the fact that Iran's nuclear program is moving a little bit more speedily, given their advancement with uranium. What did you make of that story?
Zanganeh: Well, yes, we all knew that it was, you know, getting very, very close. They're probably still a few years away from actually acquiring weapons, although their claims as you know are that for now they want it for scientific purposes and for civil purposes. It was a surprise, of course, to the world that it came so early, but we knew it was in the works.
Tavis: How frightened should we be - I guess the "we" could be the United States or the world, to your point - how frightened should we be of Iran as we speak?
Zanganeh: Well, of course, you know, there's a certain measure of caution that's necessary especially because of the government's rhetoric of the nature of the regime. At the same time, I think one has to take into consideration the civil society in Iran which is vastly different from the regime, which is thriving, which is very, very young, which is far more moderate than the regime is.
You know, Iran is a very vast country. Seventy percent of the country is under thirty years old. So I think, in many ways, the situation is, you know, not as catastrophic as sometimes the news media wants us to believe. Because we have that civil society and, so far, the forces that play on the chessboard of Iranian politics, there's a poise because of the enormous force and power of the civil society just by its sheer number.
Tavis: In the United States, as you well know, we have a president who was elected where there was a huge divide in this country. As you know, red states as they were referred to or blue states. So there's a divide in America right now, one could argue, politically. To the point you're making now about Iran, to use your word, there's a vast difference between civil society and the leaders. I intimated earlier, given what you've written in the text, if that divide is that significant, why then are the folk who are running the country, running the country?
I mean, if the overwhelming majority of the people have a different view and would believe you and the writers of this book that the mainstream Iranian is not to be feared, they're wonderful people, they don't support this, they don't believe in that, then why are these fools running the country?
Zanganeh: Yes. Well, for two reasons. First of all, the 1979 Revolution in many, many ways. Actually, as Reza Aslan explains in his essay in my book, was not truly - in a sense the language of Islam for the Iranian people in 1979 was the common language of revolt. It was almost a mosaic of different factions that were against the regime that wanted to topple the regime and it just so happened that the Imam Khomeini came. Many people thought he was going to be like a Gandhi, to overthrow the government and enable the birth of a democratic Iran. Now, unfortunately, that wasn't the case.
You know, women, for instance, did not want the veil to be imposed on them. They had no idea that that's what was going to happen. Really, many of the people who coalesced around the Imam Khomeini did so hoping that he would have toppled the regime. They did not want, you know, an extremist form of fundamentalism. As for today, it was a bit of a different story.
The reason why Ahmadinejad was elected was because, first and foremost, he's a populist. He talked a lot about money. When he was a mayor of the city of Tehran, he gave out a lot of money as a mayor because he was on the protection of the supreme religious leaders. Then during the campaign, he talked enormously about poverty. He talked about giving out money to poor families. He was also, I think, not a mullah. That was very important.
The other man, Rafsanjani, had been president. He's extremely wealthy. I think he's possibly the eighth richest man in the world right now and he was a mullah. This man went around without bodyguards. He said he was a mystic. He said he was an honest man. He played, you know, the role of the simple man and people liked that. They said, oh, finally here's a simple man who will help us get richer. It was not just the working classes, but also the middle classes.
You had people, for instances, architects. I remember reading testimonies and articles about an architect in the city of Tehran saying, "Well, before Ahmadinejad was mayor, we never were paid for years and years and years, and after he was mayor, I was finally paid. This is why I voted for him. The city is going to work better, the country is going to work better."
Tavis: If you accept my argument that the people of Iran, then, have to find a way to send a different, more accurate, more honest signal to the world about how they want their country viewed, if you accept my notion that they have to do that, how would they go about doing that? How should they go about doing that as we speak?
Zanganeh: Absolutely. Well, there are two ways, basically. One is by trying to do these small things, you know, like writing text, being in books, being in newspapers, using the internet. But, of course, that reaches, you know, relatively a small amount of people outside. The other thing, I think, more than helping themselves or trying to get the word out about themselves, they need to be helped. The ways they need to be helped is that Iran needs to be, I think, a more open society.
I mean, we have - when I say 'we,' I mean the international community now - I think instead of antagonizing Iran, you know, perhaps a way to go about it is to try and open dialog with Iran. I know it's difficult and opening dialogs does not mean condoning the regime. But I think, in a way, antagonizing the regime, contrary to what the Bush administration thinks, is really a play into the hands of the regime.
You know, the more you threaten Iran, the more the people of Iran, no matter what, are going to rally around their government. It has happened over one century of our history. Every time a great power, whether the Soviet Union or Great Britain or America, threatened Iran, the people of Iran rallied. They're used to resistance in that way. It gives them a sense of national identity.
Tavis: I get that, but you just lost me again. But if the people who make up this wonderful country are opposed to the direction the country is moving in, they don't like being portrayed in the way they're being portrayed, there's a disconnect between them and their government as Bush and Rice - God knows you don't catch me on this show or any other show defending Bush and Rice - but if Bush and Rice are going about it the wrong way, then why would those people in the country who have a problem with their leadership anyway rally to defense of their leadership rather than get rid of that leadership and put forth a different view of the country?
Zanganeh: Right, right. Because at the moment, in order to get rid of leadership, as you know, it's extremely difficult whether one does it by the inside or from the outside. It's a remarkably difficult task and that would require a lot of violence and blood. I think Iran is not ready for that at the moment.
They had a very long and difficult war with Iraq, as you know, that lasted almost ten years. One million people died, you know, in both countries altogether and then the revolution itself was a very violent and bloody revolution with lots of executions and mass arrests and murders. They don't have right now that violent energy for a new revolution.
What needs to be done, I think, is to open the country economically. I think we need to lift sanctions on Iran. What will happen if we lift sanctions is not just the Rafsanjanis of this world or of Iran that are going to become richer, but the middle class slowly. You know, it will trickle down. If you open trade, the wealthier these people become. They're already very educated.
Tavis: Should there be a tradeoff for lifting those sanctions on the part of the Iranian government? If so, what should that tradeoff be?
Zanganeh: Well, lifting sanctions could be a good tradeoff for stopping the nuclear program. Why not? You know, that could be certainly.
Tavis: Tell me right quick - I only have about thirty seconds here - what life is like today for the average Iranian. What's life like inside the country?
Zanganeh: Life is very, you know, effervescent. They do all kinds of things. The artistic life is thriving. Education. It's a very different country from its neighbors in the Middle East in that women are extraordinarily educated. They're very free. Contraception is something that Iranian women use. There are essays in this book about the underground life and orgies. You know, that's one part of the reality. It's certainly not all of the reality, but the identity of Iran right now is very colorful, very nuance. They're between east and west. They want to practice moderate Islam and they certainly want to have their own sense of identity.
Tavis: Lila Azam Zanganeh is the editor of a new book, "My Sister, Guard Your Veil; My Brother, Guard Your Eyes.' A number of wonderful essays in here written by people, in fact, who've been guests on this program in the past, and we're delighted to have Lila on the program for the first time. Nice to have you here.
Zanganeh: Thank you so much.
Tavis: All the best to you.
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