'A Separation' Buried Under the Dust of Politics

[Asghar Farhadi receiving Oscar for \"A Separation\". Image from NPR.] [Asghar Farhadi receiving Oscar for \"A Separation\". Image from NPR.]

"A Separation" Buried Under the Dust of Politics

By : Malihe Razazan

A Separation, Asghar Farhadi’s Oscar winning film, gave Iranians a reason to come together and celebrate this moment, which could have potentially taken the focus away from war and nuclear program. The media on both sides, however, missed the moment.

On Sunday, 26 February, Asghar Farhadi began his acceptance speech by greeting “the good people of my homeland” and saying:

“Many Iranians all over the world are watching us and I imagine them to be very happy. They are happy not just because of an important award or a film or filmmaker, but because at the time when talk of war, intimidation and aggression is exchanged between politicians, the name of their country Iran is spoken here through her glorious culture, a rich and ancient culture that has been hidden under the heavy dust of politics.”

The news went viral on Facebook and Twitter. YouTube clips captured the moment when Farhadi held the golden statue for Best Foreign Film. The Guardian’s Saeed Kamali Dehghan reported that millions of people in Iran had stayed up to watch the Oscars on their satellite televisions. A special Facebook page aggregated messages from well wishers. Iranian journalist Reza Asadi tweated, “Imagine: Iranians are now waking up to find the world is talking about its cinema, not its nuke, for a change." The jubilations even echoed through Iran’s prisons. More than fifty political prisoners congratulated him for winning the Oscars.

So, how did the media capture this moment and heed his call to go beyond politics du jour? Alas, habits being hard to break, even this marvelous opportunity was used instead as a platform for media on both sides to go ballistic.

No sooner had Farhadi held the golden statue in his hand than Haaretz led with the inflammatory AP/Reuters generated headline ”Iranian film beats Israel`s `Footnote` at Academy Awards.” This set the tone for all Western media that followed.

Yahoo’s Jonathan Crow wrote: “Farhadi inserted himself in an increasingly rancorous geo-political debate and followed by stating how his speech might be unpopular with certain segments of the American public.”

In a further bow to the current saber-rattling concert, the AP’s Jerusalem correspondent interviewed Israeli filmgoers to get their reaction to A Separation. In that piece, Moshe Amirav, a political science professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, said he “didn’t stop thinking about the bomb the whole time” he was watching “A Separation.” Several US national and local news outlets picked up this article, including National Public Radio (NPR), The Washington Post, and The Guardian, without any counter narrative to this distorted view of Iran.

Thomas Erdbrink of The Washington Post, based in Iran since 2001, even called the win "the best public diplomacy for the Islamic Republic in many years.”

If Western media clearly missed an opportunity to use the beauty of art and culture to bridge lingering political differences, what were, one might ask, the reactions of the Iranian media, which one might think could have seized the opportunity to show grace and magnanimity in response to such an olive branch coming from, of all places, Hollywood?

Unfortunately, the Iranian regime, as the saying goes, never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Its media outlets also used the Oscar win as a stage to promote their own political agenda. The state media called it a triumph over the “Zionist regime.” Finding Oscar-winner Farhadi’s acceptance speech much too mild and accommodating, Fars news—often derided as “False news”decided to fabricate part of the speech and put the following words in his mouth: “I proudly offer this award to the people of my country who, despite all the tensions and hostility between Iran and the West over Iran`s nuclear program, respect all cultures and civilizations.”

What Farhadi, in fact, said was: “I proudly offer this award to the people of my country, the people who respect all cultures and civilizations and despise hostility and resentment. Thank you so much."

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[Commentary on the Oscars. Image from Fars News]

Out of embarrassment, Fars News later removed the fabricated excerpt, but it was already too late. The original version had been captured by bloggers and went viral on the Internet.

As for Iranian regime mouthpiece Press TV, it simply republished the English version of the Fars News report of the film’s Oscars victory in English with minor modifications. Press TV also played Asghar Farhadi’s tape of his acceptance speech without letting viewers hear what he actually was saying.

Ironically, as London-based journalist and writer Kamin Mohammadi reminds us in her piece, A Separation almost did not happen:

“Back in 2010, Mr. Farhadi had criticized Iranian cultural policy for isolating a number of prominent cineastes. The production license for `A Separation`which was then shootingwas immediately revoked. The Ministry of Culture accused Farhadi of advocating on behalf of "counter-revolutionary" moviemaker Makhmalbaf and the ban was not lifted until Farhadi publicly distanced himself from other controversial Iranian filmmakers.”

Think ProgressAli Gharib’s wrote: “Iranian State Media Apparently Did Not Listen To Asghar Farhadi’s Oscar Acceptance Speech.” Unfortunately, neither did the media in the United States. Or perhaps they did listen but did not hear anything that quite fit the saber-rattling narratives the world has been fed by the US, Iranian, and Israeli propaganda machines.


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American Elections Watch 1: Rick Santorum and The Dangers of Theocracy

One day after returning to the United States after a trip to Lebanon, I watched the latest Republican Presidential Primary Debate. Unsurprisingly, Iran loomed large in questions related to foreign policy. One by one (with the exception of Ron Paul) the candidates repeated President Obama`s demand that Iran not block access to the Strait of Hormuz and allow the shipping of oil across this strategic waterway. Watching them, I was reminded of Israel`s demand that Lebanon not exploit its own water resources in 2001-2002. Israel`s position was basically that Lebanon`s sovereign decisions over the management of Lebanese water resources was a cause for war. In an area where water is increasingly the most valuable resource, Israel could not risk the possibility that its water rich neighbor might disrupt Israel`s ability to access Lebanese water resources through acts of occupation, underground piping, or unmitigated (because the Lebanese government has been negligent in exploiting its own water resources) river flow. In 2012, the United States has adopted a similar attitude towards Iran, even though the legal question of sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz is much more complicated and involves international maritime law in addition to Omani and Iranian claims of sovereignty. But still, US posturing towards Iran is reminiscent of Israeli posturing towards Lebanon. It goes something like this: while the US retains the right to impose sanctions on Iran and continuously threaten war over its alleged pursuit of a nuclear weapon, Iran should not dare to assume that it can demand the removal of US warships from its shores and, more importantly, should not dream of retaliating in any way to punitive sanctions imposed on it. One can almost hear Team America`s animated crew breaking into song . . . “America . . . Fuck Yeah!”

During the debate in New Hampshire, Rick Santorum offered a concise answer as to why a nuclear Iran would not be tolerated and why the United States-the only state in the world that has actually used nuclear weapons, as it did when it dropped them on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki- should go to war over this issue. Comparing Iran to other nuclear countries that the United States has learned to “tolerate” and “live with” such as Pakistan and North Korea, Santorum offered this succinct nugget of wisdom: Iran is a theocracy. Coming from a man who has stated that Intelligent Design should be taught in schools, that President Obama is a secular fanatic, that the United States is witnessing a war on religion, and that God designed men and women in order to reproduce and thus marriage should be only procreative (and thus heterosexual and “fertile”), Santorum`s conflation of “theocracy” with “irrationality” seemed odd. But of course, that is not what he was saying. When Santorum said that Iran was a theocracy what he meant is that Iran is an Islamic theocracy, and thus its leaders are irrational, violent, and apparently (In Santorum`s eyes) martyrdom junkies. Because Iran is an Islamic theocracy, it cannot be “trusted” by the United States to have nuclear weapons. Apparently, settler colonial states such as Israel (whose claim to “liberal “secularism” is tenuous at best), totalitarian states such as North Korea, or unstable states such as Pakistan (which the United States regularly bombs via drones and that is currently falling apart because, as Santorum stated, it does not know how to behave without a “strong” America) do not cause the same radioactive anxiety. In Santorum`s opinion, a nuclear Iran would not view the cold war logic of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) as a deterrent. Instead, the nation of Iran would rush to die under American or Israeli nuclear bombs because martyrdom is a religious (not national, Santorum was quick to state, perhaps realizing that martyrdom for nation is an ideal woven into the tapestry of American ideology) imperative. Santorum`s views on Iran can be seen one hour and two minutes into the debate.

When it comes to Islam, religion is scary, violent and irrational, says the American Presidential candidate who is largely running on his “faith based” convictions. This contradiction is not surprising, given that in the United States fundamentalist Christians regularly and without irony cite the danger that American muslims pose-fifth column style- to American secularism. After all, recently Christian fundamentalist groups succeeded in pressuring advertisers to abandon a reality show that (tediously) chronicled the lives of “American Muslims” living in Detroit. The great sin committed by these American Muslims was that they were too damn normal. Instead of plotting to inject sharia law into the United States Constitution, they were busy shopping at mid-western malls. Instead of marrying four women at a time and vacationing at Al-Qaeda training camps in (nuclear, but not troublingly so) Pakistan, these “American Muslims” were eating (halal) hotdogs and worrying about the mortgages on their homes and the rising costs of college tuition. Fundamentalist Christians watched this boring consumer driven normalcy with horror and deduced that it must be a plot to make Islam appear compatible with American secularism. The real aim of the show, these Christian fundamentalists (who Rick Santorum banks on for political and financial support) reasoned, was to make Islam appear “normal” and a viable religious option for American citizens. Thus the reality show “All American Muslim” was revealed to be a sinister attempt at Islamic proselytizing. This in a country where Christian proselytizing is almost unavoidable. From television to subways to doorbell rings to presidential debates to busses to street corners and dinner tables-there is always someone in America who wants to share the “good news” with a stranger. Faced with such a blatant, and common, double standard, we should continue to ask “If Muslim proselytizers threaten our secular paradise, why do Christian proselytizers not threaten our secular paradise?”

As the United States Presidential Elections kick into gear, we can expect the Middle East to take pride of place in questions pertaining to foreign policy. Already, Newt Gingrich who, if you forgot, has a PhD in history, has decided for all of us, once and for all, that the Palestinians alone in this world of nations are an invented people. Palestinians are not only a fraudulent people, Gingrich has taught us, they are terrorists as well. Candidates stumble over each other in a race to come up with more creative ways to pledge America`s undying support for Israel. Iran is the big baddie with much too much facial hair and weird hats. America is held hostage to Muslim and Arab oil, and must become “energy efficient” in order to free itself from the unsavory political relationships that come with such dependancy. Candidates will continue to argue over whether or not President Obama should have or should not have withdrawn US troops from Iraq, but no one will bring up the reality that the US occupation of Iraq is anything but over. But despite the interest that the Middle East will invite in the coming election cycle, there are a few questions that we can confidently assume will not be asked or addressed. Here are a few predictions. We welcome additional questions from readers.

Question: What is the difference between Christian Fundamentalism and Muslim Fundamentalism? Which is the greater “threat” to American secularism, and why?

Question: The United States` strongest Arab ally is Saudi Arabia, an Islamic theocracy and authoritarian monarchy which (falsely) cites Islamic law to prohibit women from driving cars, voting, but has recently (yay!) allowed women to sell underwear to other women. In addition, Saudi Arabia has been fanning the flames of sectarianism across the region, is the main center of financial and moral support for Al-Qaeda and is studying ways to “obtain” (the Saudi way, just buy it) a nuclear weapon-all as part and parcel of a not so cold war with Iran. Given these facts, how do you respond to critics that doubt the United States` stated goals of promoting democracy, human rights, women`s rights, and “moderate” (whatever that is) Islam?

Question: Israel has nuclear weapons and has threatened to use them in the past. True or false?

Question: How are Rick Santorum`s views on homosexuality (or the Christian right`s views more generally) different than President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad`s or King Abdullah`s? Can you help us tease out the differences when all three have said that as long as homosexuals do not engage in homosexual sex, it`s all good?

Question: Is the special relationship between the United States and Israel more special because they are both settler colonies, or is something else going on?