The Crossroads of Secrets and Politics in Iran

Secrets are one thing if they exist on a personal or interpersonal basis. They can still cause plenty of harm, and sometimes revealing them can do some good, but the impact secrets have increases exponentially when those secrets come into play nationally and—even more so—internationally. There have been plenty of secrets in the United States that have been revealed, especially lately. Some, like Snowden detailing some of the inner workings of the NSA in early 2014 and the CIA releasing its controversial report on torture have shaken many people’s faith in our government. In this post, however, I would like to focus on a Middle Eastern nation–with which the United States has rather tenuous relations–that has a history of political secrets and has historically forced many of its citizens to suppress parts of their identity. To make significant parts of themselves a secret.

In the mid-20th century, between his election in 1951 and his fall from power in 1979, democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mosadegh made an attempt to nationalize the nations oil industry, playing into the fears of westerners of tumult in the region and of a dwindling energy supply. Naturally, the US overthrew Mosadegh because his rule was not in our interests. What we failed to calculate was that the strongest movement in the country was not one that would be any more favorable toward our policies or culture than the previous regime. In fact, it would be just the opposite. The Islamic Revolution was a movement to de-secularize Iran and purge it of Western influences. Many of the effects of these imposed ideological principles show up in different ways in the lives of the multitude of character is Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran. 

One thing that is hard for us to appreciate about the characters that popped up in Nafisi's novel, the people that really were stifled by the Revolution or anybody else who has experienced an oppressive regime is that the silence that people are forced into acts as a sort of seal/cap on their purpose in life. It keeps them helpless, and that is a tunnel where there isn't visible light at the end. After the fall of these kinds of regimes, we sometimes hear stories of the heroes of the revolution/counterrevolution. Figures like Miep Gies emerge as beacons for heroism. Rightly so. What often gets lost in the fold of the events and the centralized focus on individuals after such tumultuous times is the inherent sadness of a stuation where the governing body, in a position of overwhelming strength, exercises its power over individuals who are to blame for nothing. Entire parts of people's identities are forced under wraps...or under a chador. Unless one claimed to adopt the philosophy of the regime if they were known to previously abide or follow a different set of ideological principles, which would mean a certain kind of concession of integrity, then they would lose all the same. Thousands up on thousands of these cases existed. Thousands upon thousands of secrets were kept, even with regard to who one's family was, the god(s) to whom they prayed at night, etc.

We are reminded in our nation's own relatively recent past (and present) of the kind of pain that forcing people to keep secrets can lead to incredible division and loss. Therefore, this is not just a post about Iran, but also any country's history of persecution. It is also about the tragedy of being forced into a mold that one isn't going to fit. It is not about the chracters in a book I, a well-off student in the United States of America, am reading, but rather about the members of our global community who have to live in fear. It is a post about violation.