What I learned or didn't learn in Iran
Trip Start
Jul 09, 2008
1
9
Trip End
Aug 03, 2008
Tehran,
Iran
Thursday, August 7, 2008
So I went to Iran with a desire to see and know for myself; to encounter a piece of the world "the way it is, not the way I (or the media) imagine it to be." Isn't that always why we travel, after all? Several years ago I read Alison Wearing's book on travelling through Iran called "A Honeymoon in Purdah." I came across the quote "The purpose of travel is to be transported and return transformed." Ever since then, I have allowed this to govern my attitude to travel. I go as a guest and try never to treat someone else's home as a pleasure periphery for a privileged white Westerner, but rather as an open opportunity to learn - not just about the place, but about myself. So what did I learn? I thought I would conclude this year's e-tale edition with "Things I learned or didn't learn" (as a spin-off of my "what to pack or not to pack" e-tale that started off our adventure).
To start with, I never really learned to like "good hijab." I tried, it can be said. When we first arrived, I amicably referred to it as my "costume." I enjoyed doing as the Tehranis do, and shopping for my manteaus in the swish and fashionable shops of north Tehran. After a week or so, it had become a part of me. But when I began to really feel the torrents of sweat dripping down my scalp and see the salt stains on the back of my manteau, I hated it. When it got to the point that I felt naked and exposed were a breeze to blow my head scarf off, my Western feminist sensibilities kicked in again, and that's where I returned to looking at the whole thing as a show of respect for local culture and adherence to Islamic law. Only.
I did learn rather quickly to say "Insh'allah" (if God wills it) when asked: "Miss, why no babies?" Everyone you meet first wants to know your name, then where you come from, and then why you have no babies with you. It's hard to explain to someone who speaks English as a second language that dogs make better house pets than kids. Indeed, something (besides my dry sarcasm) gets lost in translation; Muslims do not really believe in dogs as pets as they are "apparently" dirty. I tried explaining the financial costs around having children, but it did not satisfy anyone in this place where family is so centrally a measure of one's success. I tried the line about being teachers and preferring to borrow other people's kids for the day, but that was also lost. So I settled upon "Insh'allah - God willing" and hoped with all my heart and mind that God wont get me back for that comment...or hold me to it at a later date. Our bus driver said at the end of one hot day on the road, "Okay, you two go now and make babies. Sweet sweet babies. Yes, it's good, yes? Good babies" and helpfully pointed us in the direction of the hotel.
I did not learn how to use a squat toilet without peeing on myself. Over several years of travel I have never been able to discover a position in which I am able to emerge without incident. I am unapologetically ethnocentric when it comes to toilets. In fact, I have come to establish a very clear correlation between a nation's toilets and its attitude towards women. In short, I feel that squat toilets are symptomatic of a male-dominated society, and it is not my shortcoming but rather that of a society that fails to recognize that the natural anatomical differences of one particular gender preclude an efficient...um (achem) "aim."
I did learn that things aren't only as they seem on the surface. On the surface, Iran seems fashionable, modern and even high tech - and it is. Designer name brands parade the streets beside Mercedes and billboard ads for cell phones. Hotels and restaurants appear opulent and Tehran lights up at night like any other major global metropolis. But scratch the surface and you find a society severely crippled by the trade embargo imposed by the West. You see a population of highly educated, sophisticated and worldly citizens paralyzed in a country wrought with power failures, archaic plumbing, antiquated banking systems, and lagging computer technology. Furthermore, on the surface Iran looks like a repressive theocracy, denying rights to women, homosexuals and political dissidents, and there is truth to this. It's a nation that doesn't care much for the state of Israel, hangs its homosexuals and rigs its elections, leaving behind a generation of young people disenfranchised and depoliticized. But scratch the surface and you also find a nation where Christian and Jewish minorities experience religious freedom, state-funded schools, a voice in the Majlis (government)and the right to drink wine! You find that 60% of university students are women, the government has a higher proportion of elected female members than Canada's does, and headscarves and manteaus flatter the female form. Scratch the surface and you find that Iran is a nation embodying vast contradictions. Often, they are shocking and upsetting. I felt great distress over our guide's apparent and forthright anti-Semitism (even though it did not reflect the opinions of the wider population). I never fully understood the merit of hiding a woman's body or imprisoning an unmarried woman caught in the presence of a man that is not her relative. I can never accept the censorship of ideas that is evident in the banning of copious amounts of literature. I could have dwelled on these things and wound up feeling disturbed or even guilty (for travelling to, and thus supposedly supporting a regime that enacts them). But when I think back to the quote in my first e-tale, a good traveller goes to see the world the way it is, not the way s/he imagines it to be. This is Iran, in all of it's beauty and its ugliness, and I have been able to catch a glimpse of both, only to confirm that beauty prevails. A good traveller scratches the surface (and then some) and feels privileged to have seen what she has been able to see, whether it meets her ideals or not.
I learned (or better, confirmed) that Iran is no axis of evil - save for its maniacal traffic. As profoundly breathtaking as it is, Iran could be the most barren and flat expanse of earth, and it would still be sublimely beautiful because of its people. Remember when Bono said "The world needs more Canada"? Well, I sort of think the world could use a little more Iran, too. And I don't mean more Ayatollahs, propaganda murals and executions. I'm talking about Iran as defined through its people, not its leadership. The world could learn a lot from Iranians, like, how to greet every stranger with warmth, kindness and a cup of tea; How to feed a guest's stomach, mind and spirit simultaneously; How to fiercely love and guard one's heritage and history and instil in the young a love for the stories of the past; How to make anything - from a simple plate of rice to a dry desert -beautiful; and, how to make saffron ice cream. Yum.
But perhaps my most important lessons is this. I learned that in Iran, all roads (not just my own) lead to Toronto...or Tehranto, as I've since heard it referred to. Everyone we met in Iran - every Iranian - had a brother, cousin, uncle or niece in Toronto. Those who didn't have a Canadian relative, wished they did. In fact, Toronto has over 100 000 Iranians living in it, which is a rather sizeable chunk of our population. Statistically, they are the most widely educated and professionally trained of all "ethnic groups" in Canada. "Oh, Canada, it's such a good-good country" we would hear again, and again. One young girl named Maryam, who introduced herself to me in Kermanshah, swooned and exclaimed "Oh my god" again and again after hearing my response to "where are you from?" I asked her why she was saying "oh my god" and she replied "Because Canada is such a very good country, I can't believe it. Now I am too nervous to talk to you!" Not all encounters were so extreme, but everyone talked so highly of my homeland, I almost felt embarrassed...I'd always try to be gracious and reply with the words "yes, but Iran is wonderful, too." Now they say that when you travel, you learn more about yourself than anything else, and this is what happened through one encounter I won't forget (and it's strange how you have to go to the other side of the world to get this). A woman with her elderly mother and her three children asked us where we were from. After we told her, she informed us, in broken English that she was going to Toronto on May 21, 2009, and smiled broadly. We thought she meant for a vacation, but she corrected us; "No, forever. I am moving to Canada. I have my papers and my visa." She explained that she knows no one in Toronto, but is bringing her entire family to start a new life. Again, I don't know why I had to go to the other side of the world to feel this way, but I looked at that woman with awe. I was suddenly hit with the power of the Canadian story: that people would leave behind everything they have ever known and give away all certainty and stability they may have worked to establish, to follow their dreams of living in a country that I was - by chance - born in. This is made all the more salient in Iran, where family, friendship and community forge such strong bonds to culture and place - imagine leaving this behind!? I have not stopped thinking about her, and wish I had made an effort to give her my address or something, but I was so in shock at having suddenly been hit with the sheer enormity of what it means to have carried a Canadian passport my entire life. For all of our whining and bickering about Canada's backward electoral system, gridlocked highways, exorbitant cost of living and apathetic electorate, I am reinvigorated by the image of this woman and her hopeful smile. In Iran - for me at least - all roads lead back to Canada, and as I reconcile two unspeakably beautiful nations, I can only hope it works for her. I hope her children feel accepted and enabled in school; I hope they find coats warm enough to carry them through a Canadian winter. I hope she is received in my country with the same hospitality and kindness with which I was received in hers. And most of all, I hope in this case, that Canada is what she imagines it to be...and what I, too, imagine Canada to be. Insh'allah.
That's all for this year's edition of e-tales. I hope I was able to share a bit of what I learned with you, and convey to you the beauty of this incredibly misrepresented and misunderstood place. Thank you for taking the time to read. We are, by the way, not finished with Iran. Insh'allah, life will lead us back there soon again.
Comments
Very thoughtful. Thank you.
It was a privilege to read your blog, especially this entry. Thank you for taking the time to share it with others.