>On Jun 27, 2009, at 10:19 PM, Michael Smith wrote:
>
>>On Sat, 27 Jun 2009 21:07:23 -0400
>>Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>>
>>>I care what
>>>Iranians are thinking and doing, and whether the nature of the
>>>Iranian
>>>regime squares at all with my ideas of justice.
>>
>>Doug, these two interests may not be entirely harmonious. Suppose
>>most Iranians don't share your ideas of justice -- where in that
>>case do you land?
>
>My ideas of justice affect what I think and say about events in Iran
>(cue Carrol Cox and his sandbox), but it's up to Iranians, not me, of
>course. But I think there are a lot of Iranians who do share my ideas
>of justice, all the tendencies of the Western left to exoticize them
>aside.
>
>Doug
heh. I remember that you often asked yoshie about the fact that homosexuality is illegal. it works both ways, what if it turns out that the conception of justice that wins out in these stuggles is one that supports u.s. conceptions of justice.
I mentioned a popular state produced television program, Shabhaye Barareh -- Barareh Nights. It was supposedly watched by 90% of Iranians with access to TV (which the government claims is most of the population, rural or urban; 96% watch tv daily. Access to satellite t.v. is even said to have been partly responsible for a surge in conversions to Xtianty in iran. http://www.pulitzercenter.org/openitem.cfm?id=999).
Bararah Nights is a sit-com -- political, social, and pyschological critique -- which aired 8-9pm, Tehran time, and rebroadcast a couple of times the rest of the week. 67% of the population is said to approve of the issues the show takes on, which it does in a humorous way. There are criticisms (see below).
Here's an episode with subtitles, http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2131481062491398279
It takes place in a village, Barareh, supposedly in the 1930s when Reza Shah rules. Like M.A.S.H. in the u.s., however, it is a way of addressing contemporary issues by placing them in an earlier time period. It was so popular that street traffic slowed during airing, and shopkeepers would get irritated that they were taken from their television sets.
The village is meant to illustrate contemporary life in Iran: rigged elections, corrupt government, bribery, get rich quick scheming, a flamboyant openly gay queen as the village's local poet (nb, the common joke is that Qom is a hotbed of homosexuality), an American trying to rob them by enriching their peas abroad, a gendarme who orders around the villagers and censors the newspaper, an assertive women's rights group (because feminist issues are the idiosyncratic concern of a teensy minority!). Barareh is divided into "upper" and "lower" areas understood to reflect that status distinctions that constitute Tehran.
"In Barereh, reporters jailed for criticizing the government, the local poet was openly gay, and everyone supported the village's right to enrich nuclear peas, a thinly veiled subplot that took on the country's fracas with the West over nuclear power. Not only did the show offer clever writing and quality production; it also reflected Iranians' cynicism over the state of their country and its place in the world." (n.b., shag: their local food staple is peas, which they "enrich". ha.)
An advisor to a senior ayatollah, however, thought the show was an unfortunate relief valve that stanched political resistance: "this show, it's one of the savviest things this regime has ever done," he said. "It teaches people to think the worst, but not do anything about it. Daily life should be full of resistance, where people defend their rights. But people sit home at night laughing, and release all their frustration. The next day they're laughing in the street, not angry."
From Reuters: "An Anglo-American, the epitome of Western duplicity to many in Iran, persuades the villagers to let him 'enrich' their peas abroad. He fattens the peas by soaking them in water, then sells them back to the villagers at twice the price.The villagers twig the foreigner is conning them. Beyond the big questions of bribery, censorship, and uranium enrichment, Barareh also tackles social issues. The village is divided into 'Upper' and 'Lower' Barareh, a divide that mirrors class boundaries in Tehran.
State television's survey centre said the show was drawing a huge audience, being watched by 90 per cent of people with access to a television, now most of Iran's 69 million people. It cited surveys that said 67 per cent of viewers appreciated the show for tackling contemporary social issues through humour. There were, however, plenty of complaints. Some viewers had complained the show was an insult to rural morals and degraded 'distinguished' figures such as poets. Barareh's poet is manifestly gay, breaking a taboo in a country where homosexuality is illegal."
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