Interrogating the notion of patriarchy takes us beyond the clinic, but not without the tools of Lacanian psychoanalysis. Lacan had announced The triumph of religion[1] because « religion is tireless »[2], and also because it gives « a meaning to human life»[3].
In Iran, when religion took over political power, it organised everybody’s life in a restrictive way. This theocracy, based on the surveillance of everyone by everyone, gives reality a double face. Ramita Navai begins her book City of Lies : Love, Sex, Death, and the Search for Truth in Tehran[4] with this statement : « Let’s get one thing straight : in order to live in Tehran you have to lie. Morals don’t come into it : lying in Tehran is about survival »[5]. She describes a city crushed by poverty and « conservative withdrawal » : « Black shrouds of women’s chadors weave silently among the dark suits and headscarves : the shades of mourning that all bear the Islamic stamp of approval, broken only by lurid murals of war heroes, religious martyrs and political propaganda »[6]. Lying is therefore the mode of survival for desire to resist an « order, an order that is of iron »[7].
Eight characters illustrate life in Tehran. The inventions of each character, in order to accommodate a prohibited desire in the loopholes of the system, show that if the master is ferocious, the subject has more than one trick up his sleeve ! Among these characters, there is Morteza. Born into a pious and poor family, he grows up clinging to his mother’s chador. The men of the family are « Hezbollahis from the first hour »[8]. During the war against Iraq, two of his brothers became martyrs. As a result, « the family’s position in the Islamic hierarchy took a leap »[9].
As a boy, Mortaza liked to dress up as a Persian prince and paint his nails red. Faced with his father’s contempt, even repulsion, he joins a militia, the bassijis, « the army of the future », where all fighters are « brothers ». The slogans repeated over and over again made no sense to him, because « no one knew what Zionism meant, or why the West was the enemy to shoot down »[10]. The education is essentially pious and preaches a virtue that few adults respect. The commander himself is an active and unpunished paedophile. « In the end, the movement attracted as many thugs and religious fanatics, as idle kids from poor families. With a baton in their hand and a motorbike between their thighs, their dedication to the Islamic Republic made these pre-teens perfect thugs. They were the ones who instilled fear in the hearts of the population »[11]. Morteza, faced with the rumour that he is a homosexual, escalates his ferocity towards other people’s deviances, such as music, cigarettes, etc.
R. Navai demonstrates, with her account of the all-out repression, how sexuality is in the foreground, like a real obsession. By constantly repressing it, it only overflows from all sides. There is youth that drinks, fucks and takes drugs, and there is youth that hunts down everything that lives and pulsates in the name of the religious master. Morteza is divided between the ferocity he hides behind and his attraction to men. Faced with the impossibility of his homosexuality, considered by the religious as a Western sin, he finds his solution, and thus his survival, in a change of sex. Because changing sex has been made easier since a Khomeini fatwa allows it. Thus, Morteza becomes Shireen. The transition gives Shireen a respectability of convenience under the appearance of a woman attracted to men, the biological sex thus respecting the religious law.
Translation : Polina Agapaki
Proofreading : Cédric Grolleau
Picture : © Valérie Locatelli – https://www.facebook.com/valerie.locatelli.545/
https://www.instagram.com/locatellivalerie/?hl=fr
[1] Lacan J., Le triomphe de la religion précédé de Discours aux catholiques, Paris, Seuil, 2005, p. 69-102. Translation : The Triumph of Religion, by Jacques Lacan (Author), Bruce Fink (Translator), Polity edition, 2015. Also available on-line from a different translator at https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5d52d51fc078720001362276/t/5e2ef78c9e79e43c691aef1a/1580136332537/19741029+Lacan+Press+conference+Rome.pdf
[2] « La religion est increvable. » Ibid., p. 79.
[3] Ibid., p. 80.
[4] Navai R., City of Lies: Love, Sex, Death, and the Search for Truth in Tehran, PublicAffairs publisher, 2015.
[5] Ibid., p. 1 of the preface also available at https://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/titles/ramita-navai/city-of-lies/9781610395205/
[6] Ibid., p. 2.
[7] Lacan J., Seminar, livre XXI, Les non-dupes errent, lesson of 19 March 1974, not published, not translated.
[8] Navai R., op. cit., translated for this article from the French version : Vivre et mentir à Téhéran, Paris, 10/18, 2015.
[9] Ibid., translated for this article from the French version.
[10] Ibid., translated for this article from the French version.
[11] Ibid., translated for this article from the French version.
