The Ayatollah Begs to Differ (16 page)

A traditional expression of ta’arouf,
“pishkesh
,
”
meaning “it’s yours” and uttered when one is complimented on items of clothing, household goods, or any material object for that matter, is also equally utilized by men and women. When my parents were diplomats in London in the 1950s, a time when few Iranians traveled abroad or understood Western culture, a story would be told to every new Iranian arrival as preparation for (and a warning of) the uncouth ways of foreigners. A senior Iranian diplomat and his wife, it seems, once threw a party for their British contemporaries, and at dinner the wife was complimented by an Englishwoman on her Persian silver flatware. She immediately (as would have been correct in Iran) made the offer of pishkesh, but perhaps a little too sincerely in her English translation. The next morning the wife was astonished to find the Englishwoman’s butler at her front door, ready to collect the flatware, which the Iranian, out of proper ta’arouf, had to have packaged up and handed to the fellow. The story is probably fictitious (although I remember my mother insisting that it was true), but pishkesh, like other forms of ta’arouf, is not merely about the appearance of generosity and graciousness: had the item being offered been less valuable, the gesture would have been as much about advantage as good manners, and depending on how good one was at ta’arouf, one might gain (in defeat) or lose (in victory) a bauble whose significance, and value, would only later come to light.

While ta’arouf defines Persian social interaction outside the home (and is engaged in only with guests inside), by definition it cannot be employed in anonymity, which perhaps explains some contradictory Iranian behavior. Foreign observers of Iran have often remarked on how demonstrators in the streets, yelling at the top of their lungs about the evil nature of America or Britain, will, when confronted individually, rather sheepishly explain that they’re not really anti-American or anti-Western. But this is the essence of ta’arouf: as long as they were anonymous, they could say whatever they wished, insulting though it may have been, but when they are face-to-face with a person who might take offense, politeness takes over.
“I have fond memories of America.”

Any visitor to Iran will also describe Tehran traffic as perhaps the worst in the world with, paradoxically for people known for their extreme hospitality and good manners, the rudest drivers of any country. True, for someone behind the wheel of an automobile, man or woman, is anonymous. There is good reason why Iranian drivers avoid eye contact with other drivers and pedestrians, for if they make eye contact, their veil of anonymity has been lifted, the gates to the walls of their homes have been unlocked, and they must become social Iranians, which means that they must practice ta’arouf. Many a time as a pedestrian I have made every effort to make eye contact with a driver bearing down on me at full speed as I step off a curb, and when I manage to, the car inevitably stops and the driver, usually with a smile, gestures “you first” with his hands. Women drivers, I’ve found, and perhaps reasonably in a still-sexist society, are the hardest to make eye contact with, and they can be as ruthless as the men in denying a pedestrian the right-of-way or another driver even an inch to maneuver in, but on the occasion a woman’s eyes have locked onto mine, even if only for an instant, she has begrudgingly become a polite driver, all the while with her eyes then averted in case further ta’arouf becomes an unwelcome and exhausting necessity.

Although Ahmadinejad, like all Iranians, is a keen practitioner of traditional ta’arouf, he almost invariably balances his more streetlike ta’arouf with assertions of haq. His deceptively blunt language has always been laced with ta’arouf, just as much as it has been an unequivocal defense of haq. Even though it may seem that in his provocative speeches at the UN he has always singled out the United States as an evil enemy, he in fact has not mentioned the United States (or any individual American) by name even once, classical ta’arouf that not only deems it impolite to insult directly (and he might have given a lesson on ta’arouf to his friend Hugo Chávez, at least in 2006, when Chávez labeled George Bush as Satan at the UN) but also can include an obvious, but easily retractable, accusation. When in 2007 Ahmadinejad, contrary to diplomatic norms for nations that do not recognize each other, sat and intently listened to George Bush’s speech at the UN (while the entire American delegation walked out on
his
), he was engaging in silent ta’arouf, a ta’arouf that sought to show the world that he was clearly the more reasonable man, and a lesson not lost on his audience back home. But while other Iranian leaders, silver-tongued and not, may have chosen to extend polite ta’arouf to even discussions of their nation’s rights, Ahmadinejad generally employed the darker and more subtle form on the international stage.

When Ahmadinejad arrived in New York in 2006 to attend the UN General Assembly, because of his standing up for the haq of Muslims everywhere and because of the recent war in Lebanon, where Hezbollah, openly backed by Iran, had been able to claim a victory of sorts over the Israelis, his stature in the Muslim world, at least on the streets of the Muslim world, was at an all-time high. And he knew it: Ahmadinejad had a hubristic air about him every time I saw him, even while he enthusiastically engaged in ta’arouf that might come across merely as polite behavior to Americans but held greater meaning for Iranians. He had given an interview to Mike Wallace for
60 Minutes
earlier in the summer, an interview where even in America opinion seemed to be that he had (again, thanks to his ta’arouf skills) outmaneuvered the at times frustrated-sounding master of the combative television interview, and according to people close to him he felt supremely confident that he could handle any question posed to him by the media during his brief stay in the United States. Ahmadinejad was, as he always is in public, quite charming. A very small man in stature, though, he is acutely aware of and uncomfortable about his height disadvantage, and he displayed a sense of image control during his television interview with
NBC Nightly News
(where I was present as a consultant to NBC, and not to the Iranians, as I had been on other occasions). Brian Williams and Ahmadinejad were to face each other in armchairs set up in a suite at the InterContinental hotel on Forty-eighth Street, and when I saw the chairs, I knew that the Iranian president would be displeased. Williams, a tall man, would overshadow Ahmadinejad, and indeed, when the president entered the room and sat down, he looked absurd in an
Alice in Wonderland
sort of way, reminding me very much of the music video for Tom Petty’s “Don’t Come Around Here No More”—all Ahmadinejad needed, I thought, was an oversized glass of water and a floppy top hat, and the image would be complete. Williams immediately saw the comical aspect and sensed the discomfort; he looked at me and, speaking slowly so the president could follow, as Americans are wont to do when confronted with a non–English speaker, suggested that perhaps different chairs should be brought in. Ahmadinejad confirmed to me in Farsi that the chair was a little too big, a ta’arouf-appropriate understatement, to be sure, for he had sunk in and could barely reach the arms or touch the floor with his feet, and the producers scurried about, finally settling on a pair of dining chairs that Ahmadinejad seemed to find agreeable. (He smiled throughout the whole process, almost apologetically, which only made the producers more intent on pleasing him.)

The interview proceeded, and Ahmadinejad was his usual confident and ebullient self, his speech exoteric in contrast with his predecessors’ sometimes esoteric wanderings in their public comments. By far the most interesting revelation, though, was not any new explanation of his statements on the Holocaust or his opinion on Israel’s fate, but in the clue to his personality, which revealed itself when Williams, in a lighthearted moment, asked the president if he’d like to see more of America, and the president’s response was a simple and nonchalant “Sure.” Pressed for details about what or where in particular he’d like to visit in America, and perhaps Williams was hoping to elicit an unexpected response such as “Disneyland,” Ahmadinejad stuck firmly to generalities, and finally said,
“Albateh,
esrary
nadareem,”
which was correctly translated as “Of course, we’re not insistent.” But the actual meaning, and nuance is difficult to translate from Persian, was much closer to “Of course, we don’t really
care
.” While Mahmoud Ahmadinejad thought that America might be interesting, it was apparently not
that
interesting, at least to him, but he found a way to say it that was politely insulting. And that remark spoke volumes about Ahmadinejad, a man who had never shown much interest in travel and who believed passionately that Iran had as much to recommend it as any other country, but also volumes about a generation of nationalistic Iranians who often winced at the onetime fawning, beyond-ta’arouf attitude of Iranian leaders, and many of their subjects, toward the West. It was also a classic illustration of the superiority/inferiority complexes that many Iranians suffer from, and it was a signal to his audience back home that he was not about to be seduced, as many of them have been or might be, by the glitter of the West, even though he was, naturally, civilized enough to respond graciously to a question.

Ahmadinejad’s personality and image consciousness revealed themselves again when, in another attempt at lighthearted banter, Brian Williams asked him about his attire—a suit (and open-neck shirt) rather than his trademark Windbreaker—and the Iranian president replied,
“Sheneedeem shoma kot-shalvaree hasteen; manam kot-shalvar poosheedam,”
which was translated as “We knew you wear a suit, so I wore a suit.” But the phrase is actually much closer in meaning to “We’d heard you
are
a suit, so I wore a suit,” a sentiment much in keeping with his ordinary, “man of the people” image, as well as his, and many of his supporters’, disdain for symbols of class and wealth, but it was also another example of his employing the darker language of ta’arouf.

Ahmadinejad’s darker ta’arouf goes hand in hand with the issue of haq, which is for him a critical political concern (as it is for Iranians of all stripes), whether it is expressed through complex and flowery ta’arouf or the more straightforward language, albeit still infused with ta’arouf, of the common man. Iranians, who’ve had no history and, until the age of communication, barely a knowledge of Western liberal democracy, do not necessarily equate their rights with democracy as we know it. In almost every noisy public demonstration in recent years, whether it be trade unionists demanding better pay as their
right
(as teachers and bus drivers have done) or the general public protesting gas prices or rationing (objecting to the infringement on their right to cheap fuel, for Iranians believe that the oil under their country’s ground belongs to the people), issues such as free speech, social freedoms, and even democratic elections have taken a backseat.