Bread, Pen, Power 1
Most of the books of the Koran start with a letter from the alphabet, followed by a short vow. The sixty seventh book starts with:
“Noon, va-alghalam va ma yastaroon”! نون والقلم و مایسطرون.
Which means: "Noon; swear to the pen and what they write".
"Noon" is a letter from the Arabic or Persian alphabet that corresponds to "N" in the Roman alphabets. But in everyday Persian, "Noon" also means "bread".
“Ghalam” means “pen”, “ma” means “what” and “yastaroon” means “they write”. However, there is also another “yastaroon” with another “T” ( تin Persian) which means “they cover” or “they hide”. The difference between these two "yastaroons" in written Arabic or Persian is very precise with two different emphases on the "T” .(ت و ط)There is also clear difference between these two ”T’s” in Arabic pronunciation, but when an Iranian pronounces these two "yastaroon's" with-two-different "T's", the difference is not audible; "what they write" or "what they hide/cover"!
The irony is when you read the whole sentence in Persian, it has two simultaneous meanings:
“Bread, swear to the pen and what they write / hide / cover”!
In the stranglehold of dictatorship, when a writer have no permission to express her/his ideas and feelings directly, we used to get help from allegory, symbolism and mysticism. In order to give expression to an autocratic environment, for example, we used to use symbols such as "night", "darkness" or "silence", and so forth. In another words we were actually only "writers" of part of the language and not the whole breadth of it.
During one of the times I was in prison under the Shah, one of my co-prisoners was unexpectedly given amnesty because of our New Year celebrations. Usually one needed to sign a special form saying among other things that "I regret about my past misdemeanours and I won't ever do it again". We all know that repenting is sort of confession.
However, our friend wrote "Happy New Year" instead of his signature! Our new year is the 21st. of March, the beginning of the Spring. There is a tradition that as the old year and the winter are ending, we should also sweep old enmities, hostilities and hatred out of our minds and hearts, in order to be rejuvenated -- become a new person. In another words "Happy New Year" is kind of celebrating the revolutionary change.
No need to mention here that our friend wasn't set free at all, but instead received 4-5 months added on to his sentence and was placed under even worse conditions in the jail. “Noon, va-alghalam va ma yastaroon”!
One day, there came an official order from the Ministry of Information to all libraries, book shops, publishers, newspapers and magazine offices saying that from now on it was forbidden to use such words "night", "cold", "darkness", "silence", "winter", "storm", "shadow", "chain", "autumn", "corral" etc. etc.
The corrals - the enclosures behind which we were hiding then collapsed and we were standing there naked in front of the nation. Our dear words were transformed into the Sword of Damocles hanging with a string of hair above our heads. From now on there was a policeman behind every word. It has been told that when Galileo Galilei was forced to say "yes" in front of holy church, he in some way said "no" by moving his big toe in a contrary motion. We also, without having any explicit consensus among us, soon found new concepts to express our opinions. From then on we used "day" instead of "night", "heat" instead of "cold", "lightness" instead of "darkness" and "spring" instead of "winter". We were of course again even more limited in our language use but more clever and interesting for our readers!
The whole problem of Salman Rushdie's "The Satanic Verses" was actually summarised by one character in the story who deviates for a while and speaking in a delirium says bad things to the prophet and his companions. You can see how even a mad man is not permitted to be a bit negative- even in his hallucinations!
Words are like the as yet undiscovered numbers on the balls inside lottery's bag; an unidentified collection. As soon as you pull a ball out of the bag and show it up in your hand, one number becomes identified. An identified ball makes one group of people happy and the other group unhappy. Sometimes a ball makes only one man extremely happy and the rest become really frustrated. And like the balls in lottery bag, the power of the words is also +/- unlimited!
In the world of dictators, words are covered by mysticism and holiness. The simple word "cloud" beside the simple word of "home" all of a sudden is translated as a serious challenge to the power of a dictator, and can transpose the poet who has composed a single sentence -"my home is cloudy"- to the edges of death during torture and captivity. But honestly, what the hell does "my home is cloudy" mean in democratic Scandinavia? Here allegory and symbolism have quite other discursive dynamics. “Noon, va-alghalam va ma yastaroon”!
When I came to the free world, I was happy that there were no forbidden words here. There was also democracy in the world of words. "Winter" was no more powerful than "spring" and "speech" had the same value as "silence".
New and kind friends encouraged me to speak and write, invited me here and there, listened to me enthusiastically and printed my essays in their newspapers and magazines. My hand and pen became free in a square of the width of free world.
Very soon I got a job, became member of the union, received the insurance card, joined a pension trust. After a couple of years I bought a flat of my own, found a girlfriend, bought a car and nice furniture for our flat when my girlfriend, Janette moved in. We were eating out a couple of times a month, in various exotic restaurants of the city, celebrating "our love". We were planning the whole year for our annual five weeks summer vocation. I was really very happy, laughing at dictators from the balcony of the free world.
Every where they wanted me to write / talk about my past, the world of dictatorship and tyranny and my experiences now - the cultural and social problems of living in exile and so on. However, after a couple of years I felt my words and manuscripts were becoming repetitive. I should start to write about some thing else. The thought made me really excited and the following day I set to work to write about the new world around me, my new neighbours, the society, the people, their attitudes, culture, policy, etc. I felt suddenly so alive and joyful.
But it wasn't long before I strangely realised that nobody was inviting me to meetings anymore. No editor was asking me to contribute an essay or a short story for his publication.
One evening Janette, my sweet girlfriend told me; - Honey, don't you think your essays are getting a bit biter these days?
- Well, I said wondering, what I write originates from my experiences! What do you expect of me, otherwise?
- "Yes, but", one can write about bitterness in a sweet way. Try to be a little bit "positive"
- Positive!?
- Yes, she answered kindly. People in industrial societies are tired and frustrated enough when they get home. They need literature to refresh their souls, to restore their mood.
- I'm sorry darling, but literature is not "Tuborg" (beer) you know?
- Listen! Books and magazines have to be sold. They need to attract readers--customers, otherwise people will just prefer to watch TV.
- Well, they do the right thing. Literature is about the reality, not Tivoli gardens, my dear.
- But books and magazine are in competition with TV and movies. They need costumers to stay in the market. There is hardly any customer for literature that is not "positive" and "optimistic".
- Did you say "optimistic"? I was a bit confused.
- Yes darling! your "productions" are very "pessimistic"
- Jesus Christ! You call my stories and essays as "production"? Do you consider me as a factory?
Janette stared at me like I was just landed from a ship from the middle ages. She asked me calm but dubiously; - Don't you "produce" these things?
- But honey, "these things" are not washing powder. They are literature, I believe. On the other hand, isn't it supposed that everybody has the right to write, or as you call it "produce" what ever she/he wants? Janette began to get bored and impatient; - Listen! If you have more than two millions, you can write what ever you want, then print it with your own money and read it to yourself. But if you want be a writer, and get your thing printed, read by people, get famous and make money (god I hate this "making" money), then I think you should come down from your idealistic ivory tower, open your eyes to what is going on in this world and live on the real earth, capice?
"Productions", "positive", "optimistic". She is right. I knew these concepts before but it seemed that they had different meanings in Janette's terminology. Years will go before I ever learn this new terminology. “Noon, va-alghalam va ma yastaroon”!
to be continued
“Noon, va-alghalam va ma yastaroon”! نون والقلم و مایسطرون.
Which means: "Noon; swear to the pen and what they write".
"Noon" is a letter from the Arabic or Persian alphabet that corresponds to "N" in the Roman alphabets. But in everyday Persian, "Noon" also means "bread".
“Ghalam” means “pen”, “ma” means “what” and “yastaroon” means “they write”. However, there is also another “yastaroon” with another “T” ( تin Persian) which means “they cover” or “they hide”. The difference between these two "yastaroons" in written Arabic or Persian is very precise with two different emphases on the "T” .(ت و ط)There is also clear difference between these two ”T’s” in Arabic pronunciation, but when an Iranian pronounces these two "yastaroon's" with-two-different "T's", the difference is not audible; "what they write" or "what they hide/cover"!
The irony is when you read the whole sentence in Persian, it has two simultaneous meanings:
“Bread, swear to the pen and what they write / hide / cover”!
In the stranglehold of dictatorship, when a writer have no permission to express her/his ideas and feelings directly, we used to get help from allegory, symbolism and mysticism. In order to give expression to an autocratic environment, for example, we used to use symbols such as "night", "darkness" or "silence", and so forth. In another words we were actually only "writers" of part of the language and not the whole breadth of it.
During one of the times I was in prison under the Shah, one of my co-prisoners was unexpectedly given amnesty because of our New Year celebrations. Usually one needed to sign a special form saying among other things that "I regret about my past misdemeanours and I won't ever do it again". We all know that repenting is sort of confession.
However, our friend wrote "Happy New Year" instead of his signature! Our new year is the 21st. of March, the beginning of the Spring. There is a tradition that as the old year and the winter are ending, we should also sweep old enmities, hostilities and hatred out of our minds and hearts, in order to be rejuvenated -- become a new person. In another words "Happy New Year" is kind of celebrating the revolutionary change.
No need to mention here that our friend wasn't set free at all, but instead received 4-5 months added on to his sentence and was placed under even worse conditions in the jail. “Noon, va-alghalam va ma yastaroon”!
One day, there came an official order from the Ministry of Information to all libraries, book shops, publishers, newspapers and magazine offices saying that from now on it was forbidden to use such words "night", "cold", "darkness", "silence", "winter", "storm", "shadow", "chain", "autumn", "corral" etc. etc.
The corrals - the enclosures behind which we were hiding then collapsed and we were standing there naked in front of the nation. Our dear words were transformed into the Sword of Damocles hanging with a string of hair above our heads. From now on there was a policeman behind every word. It has been told that when Galileo Galilei was forced to say "yes" in front of holy church, he in some way said "no" by moving his big toe in a contrary motion. We also, without having any explicit consensus among us, soon found new concepts to express our opinions. From then on we used "day" instead of "night", "heat" instead of "cold", "lightness" instead of "darkness" and "spring" instead of "winter". We were of course again even more limited in our language use but more clever and interesting for our readers!
The whole problem of Salman Rushdie's "The Satanic Verses" was actually summarised by one character in the story who deviates for a while and speaking in a delirium says bad things to the prophet and his companions. You can see how even a mad man is not permitted to be a bit negative- even in his hallucinations!
Words are like the as yet undiscovered numbers on the balls inside lottery's bag; an unidentified collection. As soon as you pull a ball out of the bag and show it up in your hand, one number becomes identified. An identified ball makes one group of people happy and the other group unhappy. Sometimes a ball makes only one man extremely happy and the rest become really frustrated. And like the balls in lottery bag, the power of the words is also +/- unlimited!
In the world of dictators, words are covered by mysticism and holiness. The simple word "cloud" beside the simple word of "home" all of a sudden is translated as a serious challenge to the power of a dictator, and can transpose the poet who has composed a single sentence -"my home is cloudy"- to the edges of death during torture and captivity. But honestly, what the hell does "my home is cloudy" mean in democratic Scandinavia? Here allegory and symbolism have quite other discursive dynamics. “Noon, va-alghalam va ma yastaroon”!
When I came to the free world, I was happy that there were no forbidden words here. There was also democracy in the world of words. "Winter" was no more powerful than "spring" and "speech" had the same value as "silence".
New and kind friends encouraged me to speak and write, invited me here and there, listened to me enthusiastically and printed my essays in their newspapers and magazines. My hand and pen became free in a square of the width of free world.
Very soon I got a job, became member of the union, received the insurance card, joined a pension trust. After a couple of years I bought a flat of my own, found a girlfriend, bought a car and nice furniture for our flat when my girlfriend, Janette moved in. We were eating out a couple of times a month, in various exotic restaurants of the city, celebrating "our love". We were planning the whole year for our annual five weeks summer vocation. I was really very happy, laughing at dictators from the balcony of the free world.
Every where they wanted me to write / talk about my past, the world of dictatorship and tyranny and my experiences now - the cultural and social problems of living in exile and so on. However, after a couple of years I felt my words and manuscripts were becoming repetitive. I should start to write about some thing else. The thought made me really excited and the following day I set to work to write about the new world around me, my new neighbours, the society, the people, their attitudes, culture, policy, etc. I felt suddenly so alive and joyful.
But it wasn't long before I strangely realised that nobody was inviting me to meetings anymore. No editor was asking me to contribute an essay or a short story for his publication.
One evening Janette, my sweet girlfriend told me; - Honey, don't you think your essays are getting a bit biter these days?
- Well, I said wondering, what I write originates from my experiences! What do you expect of me, otherwise?
- "Yes, but", one can write about bitterness in a sweet way. Try to be a little bit "positive"
- Positive!?
- Yes, she answered kindly. People in industrial societies are tired and frustrated enough when they get home. They need literature to refresh their souls, to restore their mood.
- I'm sorry darling, but literature is not "Tuborg" (beer) you know?
- Listen! Books and magazines have to be sold. They need to attract readers--customers, otherwise people will just prefer to watch TV.
- Well, they do the right thing. Literature is about the reality, not Tivoli gardens, my dear.
- But books and magazine are in competition with TV and movies. They need costumers to stay in the market. There is hardly any customer for literature that is not "positive" and "optimistic".
- Did you say "optimistic"? I was a bit confused.
- Yes darling! your "productions" are very "pessimistic"
- Jesus Christ! You call my stories and essays as "production"? Do you consider me as a factory?
Janette stared at me like I was just landed from a ship from the middle ages. She asked me calm but dubiously; - Don't you "produce" these things?
- But honey, "these things" are not washing powder. They are literature, I believe. On the other hand, isn't it supposed that everybody has the right to write, or as you call it "produce" what ever she/he wants? Janette began to get bored and impatient; - Listen! If you have more than two millions, you can write what ever you want, then print it with your own money and read it to yourself. But if you want be a writer, and get your thing printed, read by people, get famous and make money (god I hate this "making" money), then I think you should come down from your idealistic ivory tower, open your eyes to what is going on in this world and live on the real earth, capice?
"Productions", "positive", "optimistic". She is right. I knew these concepts before but it seemed that they had different meanings in Janette's terminology. Years will go before I ever learn this new terminology. “Noon, va-alghalam va ma yastaroon”!
to be continued
No comments have been added yet.
