Relating to the previous post about Iran and its young people, ‘No-one Knows about Persian Cats’ was a film featured at this year’s Melbourne International Film Festival. It is a great insight into the lives of young people in Iran.
Ash Koosha and Negar Shaghagai are young Iranian rock singers. They star in a film called ‘No one know about Persian Cats’, which charts the story of Tehran’s underground rock scene. On Saturday the film debuts at the London film festival and next week it will screen at the Doha Tribeca Film Festival.
Although the film is a drama, their story is real. The movie is part fiction, part documentary. They are very much part of Tehran’s music scene and they have suffered at the hands of a political establishment unwilling to accept their form of art. Some members of their rock group have spent time in jail after being caught performing at illegal outdoor rock concerts.
The young rockers have been in Europe since earlier this year, helping to promote the film and play gigs. Shortly after the Cannes film festival it became obvious that returning home was no longer a real option. Going back to Tehran would mean an uncertain future and possibly even arrest. They sought asylum here in Britain (as Al Jazeera reported back in August), and it has now been granted.
Saturday is a big day for Ash and Negar. The film screening in London is an important part of their journey, but their story is most definitely not over yet.
When I was talking about my favourite sites, I forgot to mention this one. Pool is an ABC-based project/experiment in online collaborative work. It is a really exciting platform, built on open-source content management system Drupal which allows users to be part of the development process as well.
ABC is building an online ‘town square’ for all Australians. Pool is a collaborative space where audiences become ‘co-creators’. It’s a place to share and talk about creative work – music, photos, videos, documentaries, interviews, animations and more.
Pool brings together ABC professionals and audiences in an open-ended process of participation, co-creation and collaboration. In this way Pool is a predictive project. We’re conducting research in action at the intersection of broadcast and participatory media. The project is using open rights frameworks to explore this new territory with our research, community and education partners.
The Pool story began in early 2003. That seed has grown into the public beta site you see today, launched in August 2008.
It’s an exciting concept – anyone can share their creative work and have others see it and comment. One of my favourite things is the tagging functions – the Pool site is mostly based on folksonomy, so the arrangement of the site is organic and based on the way we think.
In my relatively short working career since my undergrad degree, I have worked in various roles broadly in the area of media and communications. The last three of these have involved a lot of work on websites; coordinating, improving, completely re-working them. This means I have had the questionable pleasure of working with website developers many times.
There is always a sense of promise and excitement when you are discussing changes to a website. Little things which have always annoyed you can be resolved – and because developers have specialist knowledge, it’s like someone doing your homework for you.
Except that like someone doing your homework, there are sacrifices to be made in return.
Worst Nachos EVER!
With apologies to anyone who knows/loves a website developer, they are on a completely different – and somewhat bizarre – planet. My usual analogy is the comic geek from the Simpsons. I know it’s really unoriginal to use an archetypal nerd to illustrate my feelings for a software developer, but I have met about 6 in my life, and everyone of them reminds me of that character. Very often, they barely manage to hide their disgust at having to talk to someone who does not speak a computer language (I’m not sure if you say ‘speak’ HTML, but that’s what I’m saying, and it only supports my point).
Anyway, this rant was inspired by a tweet I just saw from Jay Rosen at NYU, who wrote:
Geeks lack empathy for users and most users lack geek. Meanwhile, designers make it look good. Usability eludes them all.
This might be a little simplistic, but it does summarise the dilemma of dealing with developers, and how to do it well.
Generally, if you are working as an editor, or consultant, or coordinator on a website, you have to act as a translator between developer/customer or geek/user. And, because the geek, user, and designer all lack an awareness of usability, that has to be your primary concern.
Taking a cue from classmate Ernesto on his favourite websites, these are a few of my favourite places to visit on the web. There are a couple of blogs that I read regularly, but otherwise these places are little nooks in a greater website. The theme seems to be that I like reading about books, people’s stories and media. In other words, there is no theme – except that like most people, I read about people who like the same things as me.
Spike – The Meanjin Blog: The blog for the literary magazine Meanjin, Spike is mostly written by editorial assistant Jessica Au, and Editor Sophie Cunningham. As one would expect from a bookish publication, the posts are well-written, considered, concise and interesting. I first became interested in it when the Editor posted this photo from her trip to the Northern Territory. I have an ongoing interest in public memory, Australiana and history and I have been trying to write a story about those statues ever since (it’s almost there…). Apart from highly nuanced and intellectual literary debate, they also include a lot of pretty book stuff, like these shelves around which I will one day build a house.
Stair(book)case by Levitate Architects
Audrey and the Bad Apples: A friend put me on to this blog, around the same time as she introduced me to Marieke Hardy’s now defunct blog, Reasons You Will Hate Me. We were both quite bored with our jobs at the time. I think the reason I keep going back to Audrey’s is because she is so unafraid to be personal, to an extent I would never be brave enough to be online. She is entertaining, witty, interesting and recently went traveling to the US and Spain.
The Content Makers: Margaret Simons’ blog on the Crikey blog network is all about media. There are many like it (I also really like Mumbrella) but I really like Simons’ writing style – it is so accessible and readable and doesn’t assume you are part of some media-journo club like so many media commentators.
Since You Asked: Salon’s Agony Aunt for smart people. The questions can vary but Cary Tennis’ responses are nuanced and genuine. My favourite post addressed the common malaise of twenty to thirty-year-olds; indecision and anxiety about the future (relating to Camilla’s post about the Quarter Life Crisis, which we are now calling the QLC). Tennis gives this revolutionary advice:
The truth is that you’ve been hurt and you’re going through a tough time. This is a good thing. This is your chance to admit some new knowledge into your core being — knowledge of setbacks, lostness, the difficulty of making your way, the many false starts and illusions that are placed in your path.This is the classic course of youth into adulthood.
If I were you, I might be a little angry that my culture neglected to tell me the truth about these things, that my education did not prepare me for adversity. I might be upset that I had not gained an understanding of economic forces, of class forces, of the way power is wielded in hidden ways in the workplace, how we are led to believe that things will be easy when they are actually hard.
That is all I can think of for now – I do quite regularly check out some other literary blogs, but none that I consistently love. I’ve found Twitter amazing for finding stuff on the web – by following people you are interested in, its like a human search engine.
The stories below are written with the website New Matilda in mind. It is described as:
An Australian website of news, analysis and satire. Believing that robust media is fundamental to a healthy democracy, newmatilda.com is fiercely independent — it has no formal affiliation with any political party, lobby group or other media organisation.
newmatilda.com provides intelligent coverage of Australian politics, business, consumerism, civil society, international affairs, media and culture. It makes an important contribution to balancing public debate by actively seeking out new information and perspectives that are not otherwise heard. Our articles provide an understanding of current events against a broad historical and political backdrop that goes beyond that provided by the mainstream media.
In this two-part series, Gabriella Haynes talks to some of the young people who joined the ‘Green movement’ following the June elections in Iran in which the incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad returned to power. Read Part 1 here.
On a plane between Shiraz and Tehran, a young teacher talked about her struggle between fight and flight. For her, the experience of joining the ‘Greens’ had been overwhelmingly positive, describing the Qods day marches as ‘beautiful’. “It was such a nice feeling,” she said, with an air of relief. It had brought together two sides of many Iranian lives. ‘Real’ life is lived primarily in the home, or other private spaces. Here, away from the pan-opticon effects of living a surveyed society, people are able to live as they would like.
In the movie Persepolis, Marji listened to Iron Maiden and debated politics with her parents. For many young Tehranis, privacy might provide the opportunity to remove the headscarf, gather with friends, and listen to music. For this teacher, the private world had been brought out into the open during the protests, where friends were able to openly declare their hopes and appear in public with like-minded people.
“If all of the people who think differently leave, there’ll never be any change.”
She ventured that it was fateful we had met – she and her husband had been applying for citizenship in Australia. When I asked if she had been there, she said no, but that she loved it anyway. “I have heard it is so beautiful,” she said.
Despite attempts to move out of Iran to various other countries without success, her involvement with the protests had nutured conflicting feelings about leaving the country, because, as she put it, “if all of the people who think differently leave, there’ll never be any change.”
Iran’s political situation is never static. Ahmedinejad is now meeting with officials from the U.S, Russia and France to discuss Iran’s nuclear program, in the most extensive thawing of relations between Iran and the West in years. Within the country, stories of rape and torture of detainees following the protests continue to circulate and opposition leaders continue to deny the government’s election victory. The leadership is also faced with dissatisfaction over rising unemployment and oil prices. Change will not necessarily only be the responsibility of the country’s young people; it will be pushed along by many other factors.
In Persepolis, though Marji’s time abroad brings isolation, her return does not provide resolution. She realises the country has become more restrictive in her absence. In a perfect metaphor for the confusing intersection of the personal and the political, her feelings of depression over the state of politics are misdiagnosed as a nervous breakdown. Unfortunately a simple prescription can’t resolve this very complex and ever-present dilemma, for Marji or for the many young Iranians still facing it.
For more background on the 1979 revolution and the context for recent events, see The Iranian Revolution: 30 Years On – The Guardian reflects on the legacy of the Iranian revolution using some stunning news photography.
In this two-part series, Gabriella Haynes talks to some of the young people who joined the ‘Green movement’ following the June elections in Iran that saw Mahmoud Ahmedinejad returned to power. She learns that these young adults make many decisions typical for their age about family, travel and friends – but also carry a political burden.
Part 1
The 2007 film Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi remembers her life as a teenager living under the newly established Islamic republic of Iran. Despite the hope brought by the revolution, Marji and her family are disappointed by the increasing restrictions imposed by the regime, and the young woman shows her rebellion in small but significant ways. Fearing for her safety, her parents encourage her to study in Vienna, Austria, but her migration brings loneliness, isolation and ultimately, depression. Unable to relate to the superficiality of her adopted society and made to feel ashamed of being Iranian, she returns to Iran.
When news of large protests in Iran broke following the announcement of election results in June of this year, Western viewers anticipated a revolution to echo the deposition of the Shah in 1979. This was perhaps a logical scenario to expect from outside of the country; Iranians had rebelled against oppression once, so they surely would again. Yet within Iran’s borders, a belief in neat solutions and simple divisions are impossible to adhere to. Those who oppose Ahmedinejad continue to live their day-to-day life in a country about which they feel compelling passion and unending frustration. There is, particularly for young people, constant conflict between politics and everyday life, public and private, personal and collective.
“Maybe change will come if we engage with the next generation.”
Though briefly rekindled by the Qods day march in September, the movement contesting the Iranian election results has slowly lost momentum, at least in the public sphere. Not far below the surface, however, restlessness persists. During our travels through the country in October, we had been approached by English speaking teachers, students and tourism operators who were eager to express their differences with the current government. A student in Tehran told me it was because people wanted to let us know, as representatives of the West, that not all Iranians thought the same way as Ahmedinejad.
A committed participant in the ‘Greens’, the student had protested alongside his peers in the post-election protests. He spoke about the movement with nostalgia, despite the continuing fervour of his peers. He confessed that recently he often couldn’t bring himself to check his email because the political debate was so intense and overwhelming; a result of the combination of extreme passion and fading hope as sentences were handed down to protesters and reports of violent retaliation circulated.
Like Marji in the film, he had lived overseas and been lucky enough to gain citizenship in a safe, ordered Western country, yet escape had not been a simple matter of visas. He too had felt isolated, misunderstood, and far away from his family. Despite having an easy option to withdraw from the political confusion, he now prioritised family and sought a sense of freedom through his activism. As he understood it, this decision to engage with Iran and all its problems would not necessarily bring benefits in his lifetime. “A lot of my friends are starting to study education,” he said. “Maybe change will come if we engage with the next generation.”
Well, it has been a while, but I have a good excuse. I have spent my semester break in Iran, where there is internet (cafes are inexplicably called ‘coffeenets’ though have no coffee…) but it is fairly slow and all manner of sites are blocked. More on that later.
In the meantime, here are some links from the last couple of days:
ABC’s Mark Scott has predicted the future of media, and unlike Murdoch, has his head well and truly out of the sand. It takes a bit of time to read, but is worth it.
A lovely New Yorker humour piece about the brave new world of publishing in the digital age.
Somewhat related to the Mark Scott speech in terms of the attitude of media organisations towards the new media world, is an interesting discussion about the social media policies of NPR vs. The Washington Post by Michelle McLellan and also by Steve Buttry. As McLellan put it, the old guard sees social media as a ‘hazard’, where as NPR sees it as valuable. Reading through the two excerpts, I thought the difference between the two policies was a little overstated by these bloggers; except that NPR does explicity encourage its journalists to exploit the potential of social media.
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