Reading Lolita in Tehran

Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi

Book review by Teresa Friedlander, copyright 2010 all rights reserved

Two city blocks north of “Ground Zero” – the site of the 9/11 terrorist attacks – an Islamic group wants to build a community center and mosque and, understandably, many Americans are outraged. Feisal Abdul Rauf, the imam leading the project, is hardly a radical figure: for years he has been an important envoy for the United States in Islamic countries, working for peace and tolerance between cultures. The problem seems to be one of perception: because the wounds from the 9/11 attacks are still raw, many feel the project is insensitive at best and passive aggressive at worst. There is so much fear and misunderstanding surrounding Muslims in this country that it is virtually impossible to have a rational discussion about any aspect of the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque”. Whether or not the Islamic cultural center and mosque get built, this situation offers us an opportunity to learn more about Islam, the religion and the culture, so that we may differentiate between suicidal militants and devout followers of the Prophet Muhammad.

There are many excellent books, both fiction and non-fiction, which can help us understand the Islamic world. One in particular, Reading Lolita in Tehran, provides insight into the deep cultural differences that exist between Americans and Muslims. In addition, this book provides an inside account of life during the Iranian revolution of the late 1970s and early 1980s, and how a relatively small group of Islamic fundamentalists seized power from an American-backed monarch with an army at his disposal. The author, Azar Nafisi, an Iranian professor of English literature who was educated in Great Britain and the United States, returned to Iran in the midst of the revolution. Like many of her countrymen, she resented the Shah and his corrupt and brutal regime, despite benefitting from the cultural changes he implemented on behalf of women. The Pahlavi monarchy did have many faults, just the same it opened Iranian society to western culture and actively encouraged students to travel abroad for their education. As a student in the United States, Dr. Nafisi participated in protest marches against the Shah and hoped that Iran could become a nation of laws as opposed to men with absolute power. When she began teaching in Tehran, Dr. Nafisi believed that she was free to teach the literary works which she had studied in the United States, by authors such as Vladimir Nabokov, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gustave Flaubert, Jane Austen, and Henry James. Other than perhaps Nabokov and Flaubert, these authors are not particularly controversial, but to the Islamic fundamentalists who were slowly taking control of the society they were instruments of western decadence.

Iran’s civil troubles date back to the late 1800s when Great Britain received exclusive rights to that nation’s tobacco markets, through a series of opportunistic deals with the monarchy. Islamic leaders organized boycotts against this policy and developed into a formidable political force, eventually ending the British tobacco monopoly. Unified and energized by success with this boycott, these Islamic leaders recognized their ability to influence the population. In reaction, Shah Reza, a former general in the army who was supported by Great Britain, outlawed traditional Islamic clothing and sexual segregation. He further infuriated the mullahs by replacing ancient Islamic laws with secular ones modeled on those of America and western European nations. His police enforced the new laws by ripping chadors and burquas off women and requiring men to shave. Rather than marginalizing the Islamic extremists, the Shah’s policies only strengthened their resolve to save Islam from ruin. In 1941, the Shah was forced into exile.

Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Reza’s son, became Iran’s ruler that same year, following an invasion by Great Britain and the Soviet Union. Like his father, the younger Shah continued to modernize the country, believing that once the nation tasted freedom from the stranglehold of Islam, the mullahs would finally lose their ability to call the populace to action. In an effort further to weaken the religious extremists in Iran, the Shah banned the headscarf and encouraged women to pursue education and careers. For the intellectual elite, especially those who had been educated in the west, this was a golden age. However for those who opposed the Shah’s effort to westernize Iran, it was a time of repression and tyranny. The tipping point came when the Shah’s policies resulted in economic hardship – inflation and shortages – which led to widespread protesting and demonstrations. Ironically, the Shah was undone by his own loosening of social restraints because liberal intellectuals joined the Islamic militants, finding unity in their anger. It wasn’t long before the revolutionaries became too numerous for the Iranian security forces to control. At the height of the uprising, a group of students seized the United States Embassy in Tehran, inadvertently creating a standoff that lasted 444 days. This action served to strengthen the radical wing of the revolution and to silence the voices of moderation. According to Ayatollah Khomeini, the hostage taking united the people of Iran and put the world on notice that they would no longer tolerate foreign intervention. The truth was that absolute power rested with the Islamic extremists and any Iranian voicing opposition faced torture and death.

While history was being made by protestors in front of the Iranian Embassy on Massachusetts Avenue in Washington, DC, and by the hostage takers in Tehran, Dr. Nafisi began teaching Iranian students how to read some of the great works of English literature. Because of her family’s stature and her impressive teaching credentials, Dr. Nafisi was more or less left alone for her first few months at the University of Tehran. Things began to change, however, as the balance of power shifted. Instead of teaching literature to students with a genuine interest in understanding works considered important by the developed world, Dr. Nafisi found herself defending Jane Austen, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Henry James to the polite but hostile Islamic fundamentalist male students who began populating the university. These young men were unwilling and unable to understand and appreciate the works for their literary or historical merit, and instead challenged the morality of any fictional character that questioned social norms or conducted her- or himself in ways that were at odds with their rigid beliefs.

Dr. Nafisi resigned her teaching position when she was ordered to wear a headscarf. Even though she had been part of the movement to overthrow the Shah, Dr. Nafisi began to understand that she and others had been naïve in thinking that a fair and democratic government would emerge. Bookstores closed overnight, free thinking went underground, and women once more became invisible. To an intelligent and educated professional woman, this was unacceptable, so Dr. Nafisi decided to start a revolution of her own by inviting a select group of her female students to study forbidden literature in her home.

Dr. Nafisi’s descriptions of her clandestine literature classes help the reader understand how things we Americans take for granted can be confusing and senseless to foreigners. Take The Great Gatsby, for example. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel describes a group of wealthy young wastrels and their decadent lifestyle during the “Roaring Twenties”. This era was uniquely American, a time of loosening morals and self-indulgence during a wild stock market boom and the gin-soaked prohibition years. With money flowing like water and sobriety on the wane, women could act like Daisy Buchanan and cheat on their husbands without fear of ruin. Additionally, the notion that a man would reinvent himself in order win the love of a married woman is absurd in a culture where marriages are arranged and women can be stoned to death for adultery. Even Dr. Nafisi’s most dedicated students had difficulty relating to this story.

Reading Lolita in Tehran sheds light on the fear and resentment that exist deep within many Muslims toward Americans while at the same time it reveals a silenced majority who are fascinated by all things American. The Islamic fundamentalist view of American culture is that our standards of modesty are quite low, we take our freedom to say what we will to extremes, and alcoholism and drug abuse are rampant. The biggest cultural division has to do with sex. American women are free to do whatever with whomever (as long as no one gets hurt), to dress provocatively, and to divorce and re-marry at will, whereas Islamic tradition values modesty, chastity, and obedience in women.

Dr. Nafisi, now an American citizen, wrote this book as a memoir, although the Iranian characters in the book have been completely changed so that no one could guess their identities. The young women took a risk to meet with Dr. Nafisi weekly, going so far as to lie to family members and friends. Initially, the meetings were all business, but as time went on bonds formed between the women which transcended personal biases and social stratifications. It was an enriching experience for teacher and students alike, except that in the end, when Dr. Nafisi and her family decided to leave Iran for the United States, she felt as if she done some of them a disservice.

Now that the United States is finally drawing down our forces in Iraq, many in Washington will start to focus on Iran. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad does not seem interested in joining the world community; in fact, he almost appears to be daring the United States to take military action. Meanwhile on the home front, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and his wife, Daisy, who had genuinely hoped that their Islamic cultural center would foster tolerance and understanding between Americans and Muslims are finding that their good intentions have stirred up a tidal wave of controversy. Whatever the outcome, whether the project goes ahead as planned, moves to another site, or gets canceled, everyone would be well-served to become better informed about Islam. Reading Lolita in Tehran is an important book for Americans to read: not only will it help us understand Muslims better but also how, if we’re not careful, the ideals upon which our nation was founded could easily become irrelevant.

The Kabul Beauty School

The Kabul Beauty School by Deborah Rodriguez

Book review by Teresa Friedlander, copyright 2009

After languishing on the back burner for the better part of eight years, Afghanistan is once again the focus of the global war on terrorism. Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the September 11th attacks on the United States, is still at large, Iran is building nuclear weapons, and the threat-level in the United States remains a steady Code Orange. Ten months into his first term, President Obama, under the advice of military leaders and global security experts, plans to send 30,000 troops to this war-torn, God-forsaken place in an attempt to create a governable nation. For the sake of our national security and that of the rest of the civilized world, we must hope he succeeds. Meanwhile, if Deborah Rodriguez has her way, Afghani women will be making the country a more beautiful and economically independent place by using American hairstyling techniques. On the surface, this may seem like a silly idea; it is, however, anything but.

Afghanistan has a long history of occupation by foreigners beginning with Alexander the Great in 330 BC, who wrested the territory from the existing ancient civilization. This nation is located at the intersection of the great trade routes which linked Europe, China, Russia, India, and Africa for thousands of years. Across millennia, each cultural influence left its mark on Afghanistan, but the Persian and other Arabic invasions had the defining impact. Archaeological evidence suggests that the nation we now call Afghanistan has been occupied by humans for 50,000 years. During that entire time, the area has been at the epicenter of local and global power struggles, and so it remains. In the decades spanning the early 19th and 20th centuries, the expanding empires of Great Britain and Russia threatened to collide but were confronted by Persian armies once more seeking control of Afghanistan. The British and the Russians defeated the Persian forces and, as the turn of the century approached, negotiated a settlement which defined the boundaries of modern Afghanistan. Great Britain retained a high degree of control over Afghanistan until 1919, when the British, worn out from fighting wars on many fronts, ceded control to the Afghan king, Amanullah Khan.

Amanullah Khan reigned for ten years and sought many reforms, including compulsory elementary education. He began establishing diplomatic relationships with other nations and abolished the Muslim veil. The latter angered religious fundamentalists and Amanullah was forced to abdicate. From 1929 until 1973, the royal family retained power, but corruption plagued the monarchy. Meanwhile, economic hardship created social turmoil which the dysfunctional government could not control. In 1973 the Prime Minister, Mohammad Sardar Daoud Khan, staged a military coup d’état and ousted the monarchy. He established a Republican form of government and installed himself as Prime Minister and President. Unfortunately, President Khan’s government retained many of the totalitarian practices of the monarchy, leading to yet another revolution in 1978.

The Democratic Republic of Afghanistan lasted one year. President Nur Mohammad Taraki and his government moved quickly to modernize and solicited help from the Soviet Union for the building of infrastructure, in the amount of roughly $1.3 billion. The secular nature of the government reforms, including the banning of womens’ burquas and mens’ long beards, led to the rise of Muslim holy warriors, the Mujahidin. Growing instability in the region created an opportunity for the Soviet Union to take a strategic position and as a pre-emptive measure, President Jimmy Carter arranged for the covert funding and training of the Mujahidin through the Pakistan secret service organization. By 1979, the Afghani government was unable to maintain order causing the Soviet Union to invade Kabul in order to protect its interests. For the next nine years, the United States under the cover of the Mujahidin did battle with the Soviet Union-backed government. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia assisted in funding the resistance as a means of stemming the flow of communism. Osama bin Laden, himself, was one of the Saudis involved in supporting the Mujahidin. He quickly severed ties with that effort and went on to found Al-Qaida, a global Islamic effort to fight the Soviets. In other words, at that time Osama bin Laden was on our team. In 1989, the Soviet troops withdrew from Afghanistan, however they continued to fund the government while the United States and Saudi Arabia funded the Mujahidin.

In the early 1990s, the Soviet Union fractured, leaving Afghanistan without the support of a super-power. The Soviet-backed president, Mohammed Najibullah, remained in power until 1992, when he was overthrown by Mujahidin-backed political leaders. With the Soviets out of the way, long-simmering tribal tensions heated up and the nation was thrown into a state of civil war. A group of fundamentalist Muslim scholars and former Mujahidin fighters amassed sufficient power to gain control of most of Afghanistan, and so the Taliban was born. Only a small portion of the country, in a remote northeastern pocket, retained diplomatic recognition as the government of Afghanistan. The de facto Taliban government, remains in power to this day. 

September 11, 2001. The United States experienced the first attack on the mainland since the Japanese submarine attacks of World War II. The person responsible for the 2001 plot, Osama bin Laden, easily identified by intelligence, went into hiding somewhere in Afghanistan. The ruling Taliban refused to hand him over to the United States for prosecution, and our nation rallied behind the second President Bush’s decision to go to war in retaliation.

Meanwhile, on the banks of the river of history, life went on in embattled Afghanistan. Aid agencies and charitable organizations, hoping to provide relief to innocent and long-suffering Afghani citizens recruited hundreds of volunteers, one of whom was a hairdresser from Michigan, Deborah Rodriguez, who all but abandoned her children in her search for meaning in her own life. After a few months of wondering what she was doing there, given that she had no relevant skills or training, Ms. Rodriguez started cutting hair for other volunteers, and an idea took hold. What Afghani women needed, imagined Ms. Rodriguez, was a beauty school, giving them marketable skills and a measure of independence. The Kabul Beauty School is the first-person account of how Ms. Rodriguez defied the odds and the Taliban’s strangle-hold on social life in Afghanistan and created a school of, by, and for women.

While qualitatively different, this book reminded me of Three Cups of Tea, Greg Mortenson’s memoir of his efforts to build schools for girls in Taliban-controlled areas of Pakistan. Both Ms. Rodriguez and Mr. Mortenson understood that teaching valuable skills was much more helpful than providing handouts. They also understood that overt opposition to the Taliban would only hurt those they wished to help, and that was their critical key to success.

Afghani women currently must be covered from head to toe when in public or in the presence of men, or risk a violent attack. The beauty school became a refuge for these women; a place where they could shed their veils and have some fun. In the course of setting up the school and teaching the basics of hair cutting and coloring, Ms. Rodriguez learned some very sad facts about her new friends. Many were in abusive marriages and were subject to the will of their cruel husbands and capricious mothers-in-law. If not for rampant unemployment on the part of their men, the students in the Kabul Beauty School would never have graced its doors. Just the same, the women resorted to slipping money into their husbands pockets in order to maintain the pretence that the men were the breadwinners.

The Kabul Beauty School is an imperfect book, written by a tremendously flawed and complicated person. In spite of this, it is an important book for Americans to read. Many of us assume that under every burqua is several thousand dollars worth of designer clothing and accessories. In the oil-rich nations on the Arabian peninsula, that may be true for women of privileged circumstances. Afghanistan, however, is a wasteland, economic and otherwise. Food is scarce and luxuries are scarcer. Even the Taliban rulers live more like nomads than princes. Tribal and ethnic loyalties are far more important than any notion of democracy, the rule of law, or amassing wealth; and religious fundamentalism is a way of life. Just the same, like most women, Afghani women cherish their femininity and express it to the greatest extent possible, even if hidden behind impenetrable veils. Another assumption I have heard about Muslim women is that they choose the veil and submit to the wearing of it freely. I wonder. If wearing a veil is a mark of decency in your culture, and failure to wear one brands you as a “woman of a certain profession” who wouldn’t wear a veil? On the other hand, I do not doubt that there are women who, if given the choice free of consequence, would continue to cover up, in the same way that some American women decline to wear revealing clothes even though many around them do.

Of all the problems plaguing Afghanistan, the burqua seems more symbolic than substantive. It would be nice if that country could come out of this current military incursion with a government which met the needs of the people and afforded women the choice of whether or not to cover up. Given its history, however, Afghanistan will have a hard time balancing the competing interests of the various cultures and religious factions which endlessly fight to defend the honor of their ancestors and belief systems. Deborah Rodriguez and Greg Mortenson understood, intuitively, that economic independence on an individual level was far more likely to spread peace than any large-scale program, military or otherwise.

In his speech at West Point, President Obama appeared to struggle as he maintained his characteristic equilibrium: not revisiting the past even though it created the chaotic present; asking Americans to sacrifice more lives and treasure with no guarantee of success; maintaining America’s stature as a world power while battling crippling debt levels at home. I hope that Mrs. Obama reads The Kabul Beauty School and talks to her husband about it over dinner. As critical as military action is in that region, promoting economic independence on an individual level is what will usher in Afghanistan’s long-awaited and desperately needed golden age. All it will take is one person to give up Osama bin Laden.

"Three Cups of Tea"

Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin

Book Review by Teresa Friedlander (copyright 2008)

Long before the war in Iraq began, one American was quietly waging peace and fighting against ignorance in remote Muslim villages. Three Cups of Tea is the story of Greg Mortenson, an emergency room nurse who often worked shifts no one else wanted so he could pursue mountain climbing. Scaling high peaks was his passion in life until he failed to reach the summit of one of earth’s most challenging mountains in 1993. What felt like failure was the birth of an accidental philanthropist.

After months of conditioning and planning, Mortenson joined a team in 1993 and attempted to climb K2 in the Karakoram Mountain Range, which straddles the border between China and Pakistan. Despite the skill and competence of the other climbers and the knowledge of their Pakistani porters, the team failed. K2 at 28,267 feet above sea level, is among the highest peaks on Earth. Ice, wind, snow, and sun can quickly change climbing conditions, and there is barely enough oxygen to support human life. As a result many, if not most, attempts to reach K2’s summit are futile. When Mortenson’s team aborted their climb, due to the illness and injury of a team member, Mortenson became separated from the team and wandered across the Baltoro Glacier where he nearly died from exhaustion, hunger, thirst, and exposure. Mortenson had the great good fortune to wander into the village of Korphe where he met Haji Ali, whose family took him in and nursed him back to health. This was the turning point in Greg Mortenson’s life.

Mortenson was profoundly grateful to Haji Ali and his wife, Sakina, and their extended family for the kindness and hospitality they had shown him. He ended up spending a considerable amount of time in Korphe and learned much about their way of life, their faith, and the hardships they endured just to eke out an existence. What touched him most of all was the sight of Korphe’s children sitting on the mountain ledge which served as a school room, scratching out their lessons with sticks in the dirt. “I will return to Korphe and build you a school,” he promised his hosts. Three Cups of Tea explains how Greg Mortenson fulfilled that promise not just once, but many times over.

Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq have long simmered with hostilities. Tribal villages still form the main social structure of much of the Islamic world, and are much more important than national boundaries. Within the Muslim faith, there are two main divisions: the Shiites and the Sunnis. The division happened when the Prophet Mohammed died in 632 AD and left instructions that his cousin (and son-in-law) Ali be his successor, or Caliph. Community leaders, however, did not respect Ali and chose Abu Bakr to be Caliph instead. Across the next few years, a bitter schism festered between the followers of Ali (the Shiites) and the followers of Abu (the Sunnis). The essence of the dispute was whether the Caliph should follow a line of succession, similar to royalty, or be chosen by consensus. Resentment between the two sects boiled over and led to murders and assassinations. In the long run, the Sunnis prevailed and currently represent 85-90% of Muslims world-wide. In spite of their minority status, however, Shiites remain a powerful force in Middle Eastern politics. This is largely due to divisions among various Sunni and Shiite sects, including the Ibadis, Sufis, Wahhabis, Twelvers, Ismailis, and Zaydis. While these splinter groups disagree about many aspects of their faith, they do agree on their distrust of outsiders and fear of the corrupting influence of Americans and Europeans.

Greg Mortenson didn’t know what he was getting himself into when he made his promise to build a school in Korphe. Upon returning to the US, following his fateful trip to Pakistan, Mortenson realized the enormity of his commitment. Not only was he poor himself, he didn’t know the first thing about raising money for a charitable purpose, especially for people in a part of the world that most Americans didn’t really care about. Armed with nothing other than determination to keep his promise to Haji Ali, Mortenson found a donor to fund his first school.

That he obtained funding is a testament to his communication and interpersonal skills, that he succeeded in building the school borders on miraculous. There were hundreds of insurmountable obstacles to overcome in order to build the school. Mortenson literally had to build a bridge over a deep and wide ravine before he could deliver the building materials for the school in Korphe. When a local Imam heard of plans to educate girls, he held the project hostage until Mortenson found a way to call his bluff. When funds ran out, Mortenson discovered just how generous Americans can be when they see injustice. It was through a combination of serenity, determination, and love of mankind, that Mortenson found a way around almost every problem which arose.

Mortenson learned early on that Taliban extremeists were filling the heads of villagers with hatred for the United States. With no education or understanding of the larger world, many rural residents of Islamic countries believed the Imams’ propaganda that they and their religion were under siege by “Infidels”. Mortenson understood that the only way to counter this was with education in math, science, language, and vocations, to promote self-sufficiency. Haji Ali and his neighbors very kindly taught Mortenson to let them drive the process; they knew what would work better than their benefactor did. By respecting his friends in Korphe, Greg Mortenson gained their trust and built a reputation as a force of good in Pakistan.

Like most biographers, Mortenson’s co-author David Oliver Relin clearly loves his subject. His introduction, “In Greg Mortenson’s Orbit” is almost reverential. Relin, however, paints a rich portrait of a complicated, intense, and highly unusual person who accomplished Herculean tasks. Interspersed throughout is information about who Osama Bin Laden is and how he became a terrorist mastermind for the Taliban. Various individuals and organizations of the United States government, including the CIA, played significant roles in this story. It is a deeply complicated history of competing agendas which created a nearly ungovernable region.

In his recent book about his years as a White House press secretary, Scott McClellan claims that President Bush’s goal from the start was to spread democracy. Not everyone believes this to be true, and certainly many Muslims did not. Reading Three Cups of Tea helped me understand how unrealistic a goal this was. Democracy is an ancient idea and existed in several societies throughout history. It requires a “social contract” in which everyone agrees to share power and decision-making for the good of society. The Bush Administration’s fundamental mistake was believing that Iraqi citizens, freed of Saddam Hussein’s tyranny, would rally together and have their own version of the Constitutional Convention, such as that of 1787 in the United States of America. Instead, invading Iraq destabilized the nation and gave religious fanatics hard evidence that the “Infidels” were out to destroy Islam. By the time Saddam Hussein was captured, life in most of Iraq had descended into chaos.

While it seems that there is no end in sight for the war in Iraq, Three Cups of Tea offers inspiration for a way out: educating boys and girls, men and women, without a political agenda, so they can prosper in their own way and at their own speed. Greg Mortenson with no training or experience in foreign relations and diplomacy created pockets of good feeling towards Americans by helping Pakistanis in remote areas help themselves. The Taliban thrives on ignorance and hardship; education and self determination give people hope and an alternative to religious fanaticism. When Greg Mortenson learned to stop talking and to listen with an open heart and mind to the people he wanted to help, obstacles to building schools disappeared, doors opened, and new resources appeared. . If we want to see our troops come home we would be wise to find ways to emulate Greg Mortenson’s approach to waging peace.

This book reminded me of the aphorism “Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach him to fish and he eats for a lifetime.” The schools built by Greg Mortenson are teaching Pakistanis that the world is bigger and kinder than local religious fanatics would have them believe. Three Cups of Tea also reveals Muslims to be a gentle and hospitable people. The title comes from the understanding that doing business with Muslims takes a little time and ceremony. The first cup of tea is between strangers, the second between friends, and the third cup of tea makes one part of the family. Once that level of intimacy is achieved, the host family will do anything for their guest, even die.

Three Cups of Tea teaches many lessons. First, one person can indeed make a difference. Second, behind the Islamic terrorists and religious fanatics there are people in families and villages who would love to live in a more democratic society, but first they must be educated and given tools for self-sufficiency. Finally, national unity is far less important than tribal and religious identity. By failing to learn these lessons before going into Afghanistan and Iraq, our leaders set us up for a long, bloody, and exhausting war which may never result in a better life for Iraqi citizens. I believe that if the next administration required all staff to read Three Cups of Tea, the “cradle of civilization” might begin to look less like a grave.