Two of the world’s best known Iranian artists, Marjane Satrapi, author of the graphic novel Persepolis and director of the Oscar-winning animated feature based on it, and leading filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf, have been presenting apparent “proof” at the European Parliament that Mousavi actually won the elections. This comes in the form of an internal memo allegedly written by Iran’s Interior Minister documenting the actual results.
The Independent’s Robert Fisk raises some questions about the letter’s authenticity, but acknowledges that “it divides the final vote between Mr Mousavi and Mr Karroubi in such a way that it would have forced a second run-off vote – scarcely something Mousavi’s camp would have wanted,” which helps lend it veracity. Unfortunately, he continues, “The letter may well join the thousands of documents, real and forged, that have shaped Iran’s recent history, the most memorable of which were the Irish passports upon which Messers Robert McFarlane and Oliver North travelled to Iran on behalf of the US government in 1986 to offer missiles for hostages.”
This is one of those situations where it’s not clear whom to believe, because the economy of trustworthiness is nebulous and a little impenetrable. It reminds me of Jodi Dean‘s account of conspiracy cultures in the US, Aliens in America, in which the public-sphere ideal has been so eroded that we are left with an ineradicable “undecidability” about fundamental definitions of reality. My operating hunch, or leap of faith, here is that intellectuals and especially artists who have demonstrated accountability to a complex view of the world (that’s the key) can help weave our way through political confusion. This is a kind of ‘cultural ecology’ argument where communicative/cultural complexity — in the form of pluralism, dialogism, openness to the many-sidedness of perception, and recognition of the ultimate unknowability/undecidability/uncontainability/inassimilability of things (that’s the Lacanian/Derridean/Buddhist piece) counts for something. My leap of faith, then, without knowing much about internal Iranian politics or culture, would be to follow artists like Makhmalbaf, Kiarostami, and others, and of course to mistrust systems that rely on police rule to crush resistance. Which makes me wonder: If an analogous situation erupted in the US or Canada, who would be the artists, writers, filmmakers, I would trust?
More interesting Iran stuff can be found at iran101.blogspot.com and in Columbia University’s Hamid Dabashi‘s perceptive analyses, such as this one and this (once you get through the latter’s somewhat over-the-top Israelophobia; aren’t Netanyahu/Lieberman and Khamenei/Ahmadinejad mirror images of a sort?).
The link to “proof” does not work. Just to let you know. Page not found.
I understand your leap of faith, but I cannot see why an embrace of the complexity of dialogue by artists could not, or would not include the manifacture of a “false” document that would theatricize just what election results should have looked like? I mean, this performative art indeed would fit right into such a complexity of dialogue. One of the more mysterious things is why the fraud was so unintelligently done (perhaps only sign of a rush-job). A “proper forgery” in a sense demonstrates not only the incompetence of more totalitarian thinking (…THIS is how you should have done it!), but also fills in the gap, the chasm, created by the first erasure of results. In a certain sense election results (a numerical/geographic figure)always operate as a kind of fantasmic object which anchors the reality upon which political determinations rest. Think how long election night coverages in the US linger upon the map of red and blue states, with numbers creeping along their percentages. It is a spectacle of geographic certainty, as if cartographic earth itself, the boundary of the nation, is speaking the results, in the way that crops grow right out of the soil.
Is this not very domain of artists? A plastic reality ground for our political decisions? I’m not saying that they certain did forge it, or know it to be forged, but rather that the forces you invoke to establish your faith cut really both ways. There is the authenticity of presenting the truth, and then there is the authenticity of knowing that the truth needs to be presented.
I have one small other question as well, just to make sense of things. Why was Mousavi writing a victory speech after hearing from the commitee of elections, when the supporting document referred to gives numbers which would require a second run-off vote? In all innocence I ask, do Iranian political candidates make victory speeches before they have won the final vote?
Kevin,
I love your description of election results (maps & numbers) as “cartographic earth” “speaking … in the way that crops grow right out of the soil.” Yes, they can function as that kind of fantasmic object, and in the US they do. I’m not sure how they function in Iran (since they probably aren’t trusted or valued the way they are here) or how they translate between the two contexts. So Makhmalbaf’s/Satrapi’s decision to publicize that letter is of interest in part because it tells us what they think we would like to see.
I certainly agree that performative theatrics and complexity of dialogue aren’t mutually exclusive. I think perhaps the deeper point I would make is that trusting Makhmalbaf and Satrapi (or whoever – and just because I’ve seen and liked a few of their films doesn’t mean I know them) means that I’m willing to see this as part of a broader repertoire of actions undertaken in a particular moment of urgency, using whatever tools are at hand. I wouldn’t judge this particular action according to any rigorous criteria of dialogism, etc. (what I’ve called ‘cultural ecology’), but I would judge their actions over time that way. (Which sounds a bit more humanist & liberal individualist than I would like… but that’s probably another conversation).
As for Mousavi, my hunch is that he was writing his victory speech because he had been polling ahead of the other candidates even before any actual results were in.
Thanks for letting me know about the broken link – I’ve fixed it now.
AI: “As for Mousavi, my hunch is that he was writing his victory speech because he had been polling ahead of the other candidates even before any actual results were in.”
Kvond: I believe I have found at least a big part of the descrepency. Required is 50% of votes to prevent a runoff…I transcribe roughly from the audio
[From the initial Iranian press conference]:
“the commitee of elections called Mr. Mousavi that [sic] he was elected with a majority of the votes and that he should write his speech. A little later when Mr. Mousavi was writing his speech, in writing [sic] Iranian people to celebrate his victory, military chiefs entered into his office and declared that this green democratic revolution is not going to happen and made a coup.”
[Then from the french speaking man]
“There are proofs, there is proof that the vote was described as a Mousavi victory until the afternoon, and then there was a turn around…”
{Then from the French speaking woman]
“Here I have a paper which says 19, 075, 623 votes for Mr. Musavi, 3, 387, 140 [sic]votes Mr. Ahmandi…[slight break in recording] 5, 690,000, so that is not 62%…”
This is what I heard, but I don’t know if the translation is correct. The second link you post from Robert Fisk of the Independent reports a very different middle figure at 13,387, 104 for Mr Karroubi, which by only 9,898 votes would require a run-off.
This pretty much would insure a victory as nearly ever vote for A would have to go for Karroubi.
One can see with these figures passed around how stolen the election feels.
Thank you for updating the proof link
🙂
Again a gentle post. Thanks your also pen-friend