Reading Lolita in Tehran_ A Memoir in Books - Azar Nafisi [64]
Dr. A’s student regrets in her account that she participated in his trial without voicing a protest. She goes on to conclude that Dr. A’s action was a manifestation of the principles he had taught in his literature classes. “Such an act,” she explains, “can only be accomplished by someone who is engrossed in literature, has learned that every individual has different dimensions to his personality. . . . Those who judge must take all aspects of an individual’s personality into account. It is only through literature that one can put oneself in someone else’s shoes and understand the other’s different and contradictory sides and refrain from becoming too ruthless. Outside the sphere of literature only one aspect of individuals is revealed. But if you understand their different dimensions you cannot easily murder them. . . . If we had learned this one lesson from Dr. A our society would have been in a much better shape today.”
The threats of expulsion were an extension of the purges that continued throughout that year, and have never really ceased, up to this day. After a meeting with Dr. A and two other colleagues about this matter, I stormed down the hall and came across Mr. Bahri. He was standing at the corner of the long corridor talking to the president of the Islamic Association of University Staff. The two were leaning towards each other in the attitude of men who are involved in deeply serious matters, matters of life and death. I called Mr. Bahri, who walked towards me with respect, gracefully dissimulating any irritation he might have felt at this disruption. I questioned him about trying the faculty members and dismissing them illegally.
His expression changed into one of alarm mixed with determination. He explained that I had to understand that things had changed. What does this mean, I said, that things have changed? It means that morality is important to our students; it means that the faculty is answerable to the students. Did this make it all right, then, to put a responsible and dedicated teacher like Dr. A on trial?
Mr. Bahri said that he himself had not participated in that trial. Of course Dr. A is too Western in his attitudes, he added. He is flirtatious and loose.
So is this our new definition of the word Western, I shot back—are we now officially living in the Soviet Union or China? And should Dr. A now be tried for his flirtations? No, but he should understand certain things. You cannot go and support a spy, a lackey, someone who is responsible for the deaths of so many. He went on to tell me that he thought there were far more important people than Dr. A to be tried. There were CIA spies, such as our own Professor Z, who were free to come and go as they pleased.
I told him they had no proof that the gentleman in question was a CIA agent, and in any case I doubted the CIA would be foolish enough to employ someone like him. But even those whom he called the functionaries of the old regime, regardless of their guilt, shouldn’t be treated this way. I could not understand why the Islamic government had to gloat over these people’s deaths, brandishing their photographs after they had been tortured and executed. Why did they show us these pictures? Why did our students every day shout slogans demanding new death sentences?
Mr. Bahri did not respond at first. He stood still, his head bent, his hands linked in front of him. Then he started to speak, slowly and with tense precision. Well, they have to pay, he said. They are on trial for their past deeds. The Iranian nation will not tolerate their crimes. And these new crimes? I asked as soon as he had uttered his last word. Should they be tolerated in silence? Everyone nowadays is an enemy of God—former ministers and educators, prostitutes, leftist revolutionaries: they are murdered daily. What had these people done to deserve such treatment?
His face had become hard, and the shadow of obstinacy had colored his eyes. He repeated that