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Varsity, Canada (The University of Toronto's Student Newspaper)
Oct 7 2005
The Persian pleasure principle
Incoming U of T human rights professor Michael Ignatieff needs to put
down his romance novels and focus on the injustices in modern-day
Iran, argues Samira Mohyeddin
"What the historian says will, however careful he may be to use
purely descriptive language, sooner or later convey his attitude.
Detachment is itself a moral position. The use of neutral language
('Himmler caused many persons to be asphyxiated') conveys its own
ethical tone." -Isaiah Berlin, "Introduction" to Four Essays on
Liberty (1969).
Michael Ignatieff-Canadian author, journalist, and director of the
Carr Centre for Human Rights Policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of
Government-was recently invited to Iran by an Iranian NGO known as
the Cultural Research Bureau to lecture on human rights and
democracy. On July 17, 2005, Ignatieff wrote a lengthy editorial
about his experiences in Iran, entitled "Iranian Lessons," for the
New York Times Magazine.
Ignatieff notes early on that, due to the recent victory of noted
hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the Iranian presidential elections,
the speaker had to alter his planned lecture. Instead of asking,
"What do democracy and human rights mean in an Islamic society?",
Ignatieff asked, "Can democracy and human rights make any headway at
all in a society deeply divided between the rich and the poor,
included and excluded, educated and uneducated?"
Initially, one thinks that Ignatieff is speaking to the necessity of
equating socio-economic rights with universal human rights, a project
that Canadian Louise Arbour-currently the United Nations' High
Commissioner for Human Rights-is advocating and developing.
Ignatieff, however, does not speak to the constituents whom he
attempts so poorly to champion. Instead, he chooses to give voice to
the enfranchised upper echelons of Tehran's society.
Although his article begins in southern Tehran, with a detailed
description of a walled cemetery dedicated to those who senselessly
perished in the first Gulf War, Ignatieff does not address the
concerns of the more than forty per cent of Tehran's population who
live below the poverty line in the city's south end.
Why would Ignatieff choose to not have a single conversation with
anyone in southern Tehran? After all, it was this exact constituency
that brought a divisive figure like Ahmadinejad to power in response
to promises of practical aid. The same constituency that made Michael
Ignatieff alter the topic of his lecture. Other than an overblown and
prosaic description of the walled cemetery, complete with Persian
poetry and tea-drinking mourners, Ignatieff does not offer much
insight about the population and its challenges, and leaves southern
Tehran to its impoverished mourning.
Referring to something that he coins as "Persian pleasure," Ignatieff
paints a charming picture of present-day Isfahan, a UNESCO heritage
city in central Iran: "I spent a night wandering along the
exquisitely lighted vaulted bridges, watching men, not necessarily
gay, strolling hand in hand, singing to each other, and dancing
beneath the arches....I came away from a night in Isfahan believing
that Persian pleasure, in the long run, would outlast Shiite
Puritanism." Never bothering to define what "Persian pleasure" is,
Ignatieff disregards Iran's multicultural, multilingual, and
multi-ethnic reality, and instead chooses to paint a little miniature
of boys and men frolicking with one another-but who are not
necessarily gay-and just leaves it there.
Ignatieff also trivializes women's issues by making repeated
references to women's dress, make-up, and hair. Yet, Ignatieff fails
to mention that the covering of women's hair, however miniscule an
issue it may seem these days, is mandatory for women in Iran, and
failure to do so carries the penalty of 102 lashes.
After lamenting the fact that "young Iranians are so hostile to
clerical rule," Ignatieff goes on to make an audacious suggestion to
the female students that he speaks to in the university, telling them
not to reject Sharia law outright but to "reform Sharia from within."
Irrespective of Ignatieff's deluded prescription, what was heartening
was the answer that those female students gave to Ignatieff's
suggestion: "You are too nice to Sharia law. It must be abolished. It
cannot be changed."
Early on in the article, Ignatieff describes how he came upon the
scene of a small student-led demonstration regarding the elections in
Iran and was witness to a secret police officer attempting to abduct
one of the students and push him into the back of an unmarked
vehicle. Ignatieff goes on to describe how some of the demonstrators
came to the aid of the student by punching and kicking the officer.
Ignatieff's next assertion regarding what he had just seen is quite
puzzling and disappointing.
Referring to the student-who had managed to wrangle himself
free-Ignatieff posits, "In a more genuinely fearful police state, he
would have gone quietly." Is he suggesting that Iran is not a police
state? Although Ignatieff does recognize that the Iranian government
does not give much credence to the concept of human rights, he fails
to offer any critical assessment of the situation of human rights in
Iran.
This convenient disregard for the facts is unfortunately not
restricted to Ignatieff alone. In 1985 the United States Congress
tried to pass a resolution officially recognizing the massacre of
more than a million Armenians, specifically referring to the
"genocide perpetrated in Turkey between 1915 and 1923." Sixty-nine
historians sent a letter to Congress disputing this resolution,
writing, "As for the charge of 'genocide,' no signatory of this
statement wishes to minimize the scope of Armenian suffering. We are
likewise cognizant that it cannot be viewed as separate from the
suffering experienced by the Muslim inhabitants of the region....But
much more remains to be discovered before historians will be able to
sort out precisely responsibility between warring and innocent, and
to identify the causes for the events which resulted in the death or
removal of large numbers of the eastern Anatolian population,
Christian and Muslim alike."
One of the 69 historians was well known Orientalist and Islamic
scholar, Bernard Lewis. Although the New York Times reported in 1915
that Armenian and Greek Christians were "being systemically uprooted
from their homes en masse...and given the choice between immediate
acceptance of Islam or death by the sword or starvation" ("Turks are
Evicting Native Christians," New York Times, July 11, 1915), Lewis
declared in a 1993 interview with Le Monde magazine in France that
what happened should not be considered genocide. In a second
interview a few months later, he referred to "an Armenian betrayal"
in the "context of a struggle, no doubt unequal, but for material
stakes....There is no serious proof of a plan of the Ottoman
government aimed at the extermination of the Armenian nation."
Although Lewis is not a human rights or genocide scholar, he is a
historian and, like Ignatieff, who purports to be a human rights
champion extraordinaire, he has a certain responsibility. I am not
suggesting that Ignatieff's self-induced myopia regarding the abysmal
human rights record of the Islamic Republic of Iran is on par with
genocide denial. I am arguing, however, that we all make choices.
Lewis made a choice during the Le Monde interview when he referred to
the genocide of the Armenians as "their version of history."
Ignatieff also makes a choice when he praises Iran on "the
achievements of the revolution," and continually fetishizes Persian
culture throughout his article.
On July 19, 2005, two days after Ignatieff's piece was published,
Amnesty International reported that two youths, both under the age of
18, were executed in the Iranian province of Mashad for reportedly
having sexual relations with one another and sexually assaulting a
13-year-old boy. Prior to their execution, both were given 228 lashes
for theft, consuming alcohol, and disturbing the peace. Unlike
Ignatieff's idyllic miniature of late-night Isfahan, these boys are
"necessarily gay," and were hung for being so, in true medieval
fashion.
This is where his dreamy and congenial romance with Persian pleasure
falls apart. Ignatieff's self-induced myopia regarding the
socio-political situation of Iranians, particularly the young, is the
specific reason why his article on Iran reads more like the account
of a political-economist-turned-harlequin-romance-writer than that of
a human rights scholar.
http://www.thevarsity.ca/media/paper2 85/news/2005/10/06/Feature/The-Persian.Pleasure.Pr inciple-1012725.shtml
Oct 7 2005
The Persian pleasure principle
Incoming U of T human rights professor Michael Ignatieff needs to put
down his romance novels and focus on the injustices in modern-day
Iran, argues Samira Mohyeddin
"What the historian says will, however careful he may be to use
purely descriptive language, sooner or later convey his attitude.
Detachment is itself a moral position. The use of neutral language
('Himmler caused many persons to be asphyxiated') conveys its own
ethical tone." -Isaiah Berlin, "Introduction" to Four Essays on
Liberty (1969).
Michael Ignatieff-Canadian author, journalist, and director of the
Carr Centre for Human Rights Policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of
Government-was recently invited to Iran by an Iranian NGO known as
the Cultural Research Bureau to lecture on human rights and
democracy. On July 17, 2005, Ignatieff wrote a lengthy editorial
about his experiences in Iran, entitled "Iranian Lessons," for the
New York Times Magazine.
Ignatieff notes early on that, due to the recent victory of noted
hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the Iranian presidential elections,
the speaker had to alter his planned lecture. Instead of asking,
"What do democracy and human rights mean in an Islamic society?",
Ignatieff asked, "Can democracy and human rights make any headway at
all in a society deeply divided between the rich and the poor,
included and excluded, educated and uneducated?"
Initially, one thinks that Ignatieff is speaking to the necessity of
equating socio-economic rights with universal human rights, a project
that Canadian Louise Arbour-currently the United Nations' High
Commissioner for Human Rights-is advocating and developing.
Ignatieff, however, does not speak to the constituents whom he
attempts so poorly to champion. Instead, he chooses to give voice to
the enfranchised upper echelons of Tehran's society.
Although his article begins in southern Tehran, with a detailed
description of a walled cemetery dedicated to those who senselessly
perished in the first Gulf War, Ignatieff does not address the
concerns of the more than forty per cent of Tehran's population who
live below the poverty line in the city's south end.
Why would Ignatieff choose to not have a single conversation with
anyone in southern Tehran? After all, it was this exact constituency
that brought a divisive figure like Ahmadinejad to power in response
to promises of practical aid. The same constituency that made Michael
Ignatieff alter the topic of his lecture. Other than an overblown and
prosaic description of the walled cemetery, complete with Persian
poetry and tea-drinking mourners, Ignatieff does not offer much
insight about the population and its challenges, and leaves southern
Tehran to its impoverished mourning.
Referring to something that he coins as "Persian pleasure," Ignatieff
paints a charming picture of present-day Isfahan, a UNESCO heritage
city in central Iran: "I spent a night wandering along the
exquisitely lighted vaulted bridges, watching men, not necessarily
gay, strolling hand in hand, singing to each other, and dancing
beneath the arches....I came away from a night in Isfahan believing
that Persian pleasure, in the long run, would outlast Shiite
Puritanism." Never bothering to define what "Persian pleasure" is,
Ignatieff disregards Iran's multicultural, multilingual, and
multi-ethnic reality, and instead chooses to paint a little miniature
of boys and men frolicking with one another-but who are not
necessarily gay-and just leaves it there.
Ignatieff also trivializes women's issues by making repeated
references to women's dress, make-up, and hair. Yet, Ignatieff fails
to mention that the covering of women's hair, however miniscule an
issue it may seem these days, is mandatory for women in Iran, and
failure to do so carries the penalty of 102 lashes.
After lamenting the fact that "young Iranians are so hostile to
clerical rule," Ignatieff goes on to make an audacious suggestion to
the female students that he speaks to in the university, telling them
not to reject Sharia law outright but to "reform Sharia from within."
Irrespective of Ignatieff's deluded prescription, what was heartening
was the answer that those female students gave to Ignatieff's
suggestion: "You are too nice to Sharia law. It must be abolished. It
cannot be changed."
Early on in the article, Ignatieff describes how he came upon the
scene of a small student-led demonstration regarding the elections in
Iran and was witness to a secret police officer attempting to abduct
one of the students and push him into the back of an unmarked
vehicle. Ignatieff goes on to describe how some of the demonstrators
came to the aid of the student by punching and kicking the officer.
Ignatieff's next assertion regarding what he had just seen is quite
puzzling and disappointing.
Referring to the student-who had managed to wrangle himself
free-Ignatieff posits, "In a more genuinely fearful police state, he
would have gone quietly." Is he suggesting that Iran is not a police
state? Although Ignatieff does recognize that the Iranian government
does not give much credence to the concept of human rights, he fails
to offer any critical assessment of the situation of human rights in
Iran.
This convenient disregard for the facts is unfortunately not
restricted to Ignatieff alone. In 1985 the United States Congress
tried to pass a resolution officially recognizing the massacre of
more than a million Armenians, specifically referring to the
"genocide perpetrated in Turkey between 1915 and 1923." Sixty-nine
historians sent a letter to Congress disputing this resolution,
writing, "As for the charge of 'genocide,' no signatory of this
statement wishes to minimize the scope of Armenian suffering. We are
likewise cognizant that it cannot be viewed as separate from the
suffering experienced by the Muslim inhabitants of the region....But
much more remains to be discovered before historians will be able to
sort out precisely responsibility between warring and innocent, and
to identify the causes for the events which resulted in the death or
removal of large numbers of the eastern Anatolian population,
Christian and Muslim alike."
One of the 69 historians was well known Orientalist and Islamic
scholar, Bernard Lewis. Although the New York Times reported in 1915
that Armenian and Greek Christians were "being systemically uprooted
from their homes en masse...and given the choice between immediate
acceptance of Islam or death by the sword or starvation" ("Turks are
Evicting Native Christians," New York Times, July 11, 1915), Lewis
declared in a 1993 interview with Le Monde magazine in France that
what happened should not be considered genocide. In a second
interview a few months later, he referred to "an Armenian betrayal"
in the "context of a struggle, no doubt unequal, but for material
stakes....There is no serious proof of a plan of the Ottoman
government aimed at the extermination of the Armenian nation."
Although Lewis is not a human rights or genocide scholar, he is a
historian and, like Ignatieff, who purports to be a human rights
champion extraordinaire, he has a certain responsibility. I am not
suggesting that Ignatieff's self-induced myopia regarding the abysmal
human rights record of the Islamic Republic of Iran is on par with
genocide denial. I am arguing, however, that we all make choices.
Lewis made a choice during the Le Monde interview when he referred to
the genocide of the Armenians as "their version of history."
Ignatieff also makes a choice when he praises Iran on "the
achievements of the revolution," and continually fetishizes Persian
culture throughout his article.
On July 19, 2005, two days after Ignatieff's piece was published,
Amnesty International reported that two youths, both under the age of
18, were executed in the Iranian province of Mashad for reportedly
having sexual relations with one another and sexually assaulting a
13-year-old boy. Prior to their execution, both were given 228 lashes
for theft, consuming alcohol, and disturbing the peace. Unlike
Ignatieff's idyllic miniature of late-night Isfahan, these boys are
"necessarily gay," and were hung for being so, in true medieval
fashion.
This is where his dreamy and congenial romance with Persian pleasure
falls apart. Ignatieff's self-induced myopia regarding the
socio-political situation of Iranians, particularly the young, is the
specific reason why his article on Iran reads more like the account
of a political-economist-turned-harlequin-romance-writer than that of
a human rights scholar.
http://www.thevarsity.ca/media/paper2 85/news/2005/10/06/Feature/The-Persian.Pleasure.Pr inciple-1012725.shtml