The Ministry of Guidance Invites You to Not Stay: An American Family in Iran (36 page)

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Authors: Hooman Majd

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To me, the slide in the rial (which subsequently accelerated in January and February) merely capped the Iranian leadership’s annus horribilis (the Iranian annus ends in March), certainly for the Supreme Leader and President Ahmadinejad, but also for every politician in between. All had been at odds with one another in 2011 over seemingly every possible matter of state; no one had come out on top, and the Leader himself was still supreme but demoted in the eyes of many citizens. It had been an awful year for the Iranian people as well, and more anni horribiles were undoubtedly on the way. Toward the end of the year, the increased talk of war or military strikes on Iran raised anxiety in Tehran to levels I had never before witnessed: war over the nuclear program had always been the subject of chatter in Iran, but few people had taken the notion very seriously, and in fact in ordinary conversation with Iranians, war would often be referred to jokingly. In December, however, my optician, who has a wry sense of humor and who hosts a salon of sorts with locals—from wealthy to poor—every evening in his shop, captured the mood of the city when he said, after I asked him what he thought of all the talk of war, “
Boosh meeyad. Een daf-e boosh meeyad
.” “You can smell it.
This
time you can smell it.”

It didn’t matter if war came or didn’t—and some people even said to me that they hoped it would and then be over with, so they could get on with their lives. What mattered was the anxiety, which I couldn’t see abating anytime soon. It was weighing more and more
on Karri, too, convincing her that combined with all other factors, returning to Tehran after the New Year made little sense, even though she found it hard to believe that there might actually be a war. “The anxiety is enough,” she agreed. After I reconfirmed our flights back to New York, she was relieved when I told her that KLM, which flew direct to Tehran but had to make a stop in Athens to refuel on the way back to Amsterdam, had now started flying bigger planes that could make the round-trip without refueling. (Iran had stopped refueling European airlines in a tit for tat when European countries stopped refueling Iran Air flights, turning a five-hour flight into an eight-or nine-hour one, and with an infant, that was more of a nightmare than it had to be. It was incomprehensible to many Iranians how refusing to refuel a passenger jet that probably carried Iranians less enamored of their regime than most would do anything to pressure the government to change its ways.) At this stage in our Iran adventure, Karri said, she was simply thankful that in this case we would not be personally affected by the Iran-West conflict. Iran was in some ways great, yes, and perhaps even a second home of sorts where she had grown comfortable with the culture, but she was, I knew, really looking forward to going home.

On Ashura itself, the black-uniformed security forces were out in force in Tehran, swarming Vanak Square, Tajrish, and other major intersections. Mourning processions continued there as they did every year, predating the Islamic Revolution, with slowly marching self-flagellating men, their chains falling on their backs to the rhythm of drums and
noheh
, lamenting anthems. Scores of spectators participated by beating their own chests or simply watched, as we did near our apartment, Khash transfixed in his stroller. It was difficult to say exactly why the security forces had been called out, for this was what Ashura always was, and what it would always be, no matter the regime in Iran. Was it because this year the authorities feared, in light of the Arab Spring—or the “Islamic Awakening,” as the Iranian regime preferred to call it—another spontaneous outbreak of
protest against the regime? There had always been a security presence at Ashura, but never like this, so that must have been the reason, but they needn’t have worried.

Exile groups had once again called for protest via social media and various foreign-based Web sites, but on the days leading up to Ashura, no one I knew inside Iran, not even regime haters, seemed to pay any heed. “We’re sick of those exiles telling us what to do,” one person said to me. “Let them come here and do it themselves.” I sympathized with the sentiment, and having finally lived as an Iranian among Iranians inside Iran, I realized that no matter how sincere, how genuinely concerned about the future of the country Iranians abroad might be, they could have little say in how, when, or even why the Islamic Republic would reform, change, or collapse under its own oppressive weight.

A couple of weeks earlier, in a driving rainstorm, I met my friend Jalal for afternoon coffee at the House of Cinema coffee shop, a place where intellectuals, pseudo-intellectuals, students, and ladies (and gentlemen) who lunch often gather. The billboard outside advertised Julian Schnabel’s by-now-four-year-old
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
, with Farsi subtitles; another, larger billboard across the alley advertised Masoud Dehnamaki’s
The Outcasts 3
, a pro-regime comedy that skewered the opposition, the Green Movement and its supporters, and was a surprisingly huge hit in Iran. Asghar Farhadi’s
Jodaeiye Nader az Simin
(
A Separation
) had also been a huge hit in the summer (and later won an Oscar), though presumably not with the same audience. That was Iran, or at least Tehran, I thought; two societies with conflicting social mores and political leanings living together, sometimes in the same families, the tension almost imperceptible but bubbling nonetheless—just as Farhadi showed in his film. (A Facebook campaign against
The Outcasts
, urging moviegoers to boycott it and see Farhadi’s film instead, had no effect, except on those who were already Green.)

Another friend, a man who left Iran after the revolution, raised
two sons in the United States, but returns often to Tehran alone, sometimes for months at a time, joined us. Jalal, the son of an exdiplomat like myself but, unlike me, from an aristocratic family, had lived his childhood abroad and had been educated in England—he still has a perfect British accent—and at Georgetown Law, but he had returned to Iran years earlier and set up a law practice, married, and had two sons who went to Iranian public schools, learning their perfect English at home. We spoke about the political situation, about war, about sanctions that affected everything, including Jalal’s practice, and about the United States and its presidential election coming up in 2012.

As we switched between Farsi and English, almost without realizing that we did, I wondered why Jalal, despite all the difficulties, despite his obvious secular outlook, and despite the fact that he could live anywhere he wanted, chose to remain in Iran, when so many people less fortunate than he yearned to emigrate. I asked him.

“Well,” he said, pausing for a moment and then leaning slightly forward, “it’s our country after all, isn’t it?” Indeed, it is, a heartbreaking one, and one that I was about to abandon again, at that.

*
TAMAM SHOD
*

POSTSCRIPT

On October 25, 2012, my father, Nasser Majd, né Nasser Majd-Ardekani, passed away in London. In the last two weeks of his life, in hospital, he wasn’t interested in much, other than tying up loose ends before his permanent departure from the world. He did, however, still show a keen interest in news of Iran, asking my opinion on a number of issues, including the ongoing internal political battles and what the intensified sanctions were doing to his country and to his people. It was a little ironic, but fitting and gratifying, I thought, that the man who had been my bridge to another world, the half that was a part of me but that I didn’t know growing up, was now looking to me to be
his
bridge to that world that was always his.

Before his cremation, I received a handwritten letter of condolence from former president Khatami, who represents a regime my father sulked at, from exile, for thirty-three years, and who arranged a memorial service in Tehran that was attended by former ambassadors, reform politicians, and family and friends. I also received a condolence phone call from former ambassador and foreign minister of the shah Ardeshir Zahedi; the person who was the cause of my
father’s first sulk told me he had never known a more honorable or patriotic Iranian, that Nasser Majd was like a brother to him, and that I should think of him as my uncle. Perhaps his big sulks worked, after all, but my father probably knew that before he took his last breath.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Special thanks to my entire family, naturally, but with thanks also to the following people: my agent Andrew Wylie and his associates at the Wylie Agency, Rebecca Nagel in New York and Luke Ingram in London; my editor Kristine Puopolo and her colleagues at Doubleday/Random House, Sonny Mehta, Bill Thomas, Daniel Meyer, Janet Biehl, and Michael Windsor; and my UK editor, Helen Conford, and her colleagues at Penguin. And to the Iranians and Americans without whom this book would not be possible (in no particular order): Ali Khatami, Seyed Mohammad Khatami, Amir Khosro Etemadi, Iman Mirabzadeh Ardakani, Sadegh Kharrazi, Mohammad Sadoughi, Mehrdad Khajenouri, Karan Vafadari, M.M., Afarin Neyssari, Ali Ziaie, Ali Attaran, Ken Browar, K.J., Majid Ravanchi, Davitt Sigerson, Ali Akrami, E.A.H., Glenn O’Brien, Kaveh Bazargan, Jalal Tavallali, and Michael Zilkha.

A Note About the Author

Hooman Majd, born in Iran and educated in Britain and the United States, is the author of the
New York Times
bestseller
The Ayatollah Begs to Differ
and of
The Ayatollahs’ Democracy
. He lives in Brooklyn.