Book Review: Children of Paradise. The Struggle for the Soul of Iran, by Laura Secor

What man can do to man for the sake of ideologies, religion or just because he have been given the power to do so it's inimaginable. I've read about the Gulag experiences, about what happened during the Shoah, about the Chinese Revolution or the Latin American dictatorships. Also, extensively about the fate of individuals sent to Evin prison in Iran, especially during the so-called 'Green Revolution' (I would avoid to use the word 'revolution' without brackets as, actually, nothing really changed after those events). Hobbes' 'Homo homini lupus' sounds like a very elegant description of what fellow man can inflict to another creature.

Children of Paradise. The Struggle for the Soul of Iran by Laura Secor is a dramatic bloody account of the post-revolutionary intellectual history of Iran. Very often, the stories about intellectual influences - both local and foreign - are interrupted by accounts of terrible beatings and torture. 

The author gathered the information during around ten years of visits in Iran, extensive study of various local sources and contacts with local intellectuals both in the country and abroad. It is not sure if she speaks Farsi as well. Secor is familiar with post-Yugoslavia which was a complex political and ethnic structure, but I don't think it applies to the complexities and intricacies of the Iranian political and religious system.

A great merit of this book is that it traced admirably the sources of knowledge that made the intellectual history of Iran, as well as the genesis of the ideas and the translations of various Western/European contexts into the local ideological web. This is one of the most facinating part of the history of mentalities, because during the 'longue durée' of the adaptation the original ideas can be completely redefined and acquire a completely new sense. In the cases approached in the book, for instance, Heidegger - a chore atheist - was adapted to some local versions of Islam - particulary the concepts of 'truth' and being', while Popper was very popular among those looking to adapt the 'open society concepts' to a mix of Islam and Marxist (Popper was originally a marxist but his major works were a permanent dispute with this ideology). Hannah Arendt considerations about the French Revolution and the role of terror in the revolutionary practice was used as a compedium of understanding the post-revolutionary Iran. The fact that theological seminaries curricula include extensive study of Plato and Aristotle might offer an interesting topic of research for a further mapping of various interpretations in different centers of religious knowledge, in Qom and in other places. 

Intellectual histories and changes of mind among people that played political roles at certain moments are as well interesting. The perceptions are part of specific contexts. For instance Mir Hossein Mousavi considered a 'reformist' used to be a couple of decades ago a strong supporter of exporting the Islamic revolution abroad.

But the intellectual reception and interpretations are taking place in a landscape bordered by extensive violence and secrecy. 

Proeminent intellectuals continue to be the direct victims of various changes and conflicts of power among the layers of the establishment. Critical voices are made redundant after forced to sign and pronounce public denunciations of their works and of their colleagues. The idea of dissent and intellectual uniqueness, so vital to creating ideas are compromised. I witnessed myself such processes and extensively encountered such terrible stories during my communist childhood and post-communist coming of age. It's terrible for the credibility of intellectuals as such, and it only serves long term the pervert aims of the ideologues. They win on the long term because the intellectuals lost their credibility, by the simple fact that they were put to prison and forced to confess. It's part of the horrible destiny of the dictatorships and especially in a country with such a huge intellectual potential as Iran it definitely diminishes the chances of in-depth, long-term democratic change.

Although the author doesn't discuss extensively the repercursions of the mixture between religious interpretations and political pressure as such, there are a lot of ideas to think about such aspects too, especially from the point of view of the dangers of theocracies. What happened in Iran - and can easily happen everywhere where religious leaders were given the right to decide in political and social matters - is that the everyday relationships and interactions are defined and punished based on a religious code. 'Under the Islamic Republic draconian moral code, nearly every Iranian was guilty of something that could carry a prison  sentence: extramarital sex, drinking, even shaking hands with members of the opposite sex. What had begun as a religious imperative had become little more than a system of universal blackmail. The right information could afford an interrogator a good deal of leverage over a political prisoner'. Therefore, not only the trust in the intellectuals is eroded, but also the normal trust between humans is for ever compromised. 

Change is hard to endeavour and cannot be long-term without the contributions of those people who loved so much the country but were forced to go out. But once those people will be in, most probably they will live the drama of being rejected or the facts that were associated with various episodes of their lives will compromise an eventual political destiny in a new context. 

Children of Paradise. The Struggle for the Soul of Iran is a good start for understanding intellectual journeys as well as some terrible personal histories of both intellectuals and everyday Iranians (after many years when I've read about it from accounts of some of the people mentioned in the book, the stories about stoning continue to haunt me deeply). It has the merit of creating a different level of discussion that doesn't focus on political and international frictions but goes into the deep roots of the post-revolutionary Iran. It is a welcomed spin that requires though more and more discussion and reflection. 

Rating: 4 stars  

University life in Halle an der Saale

As in the case of good restaurant, there are many good universities in Germany with a long intellectual tradition situated in relatively small towns. This geographic reality of the intellectual local map is probably due to the fact of the former autonomous structure of the relatively new German state. What is now considered 'small' at the scale of the Federal Republic used to play an important administrative role at the overall scale of the state administration. This is the case with Halle (an der Saale) with a 4-century long academic tradition. 

Halle can market itself not only as an important academic and intellectual standpoint in the Eastern part of the German lands, but also as the place where the first student of African origin attended a high-education institution in Europe. The presence of Anton Wilhelm Amo, a teacher and philosopher of African origin, that grew up in Germany, is outlined by an interesting statuary group. Amo was originally from Ghana and was brought to Europe at an early age and adopted by Anthony Ulrich, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbuetel. He started his education in 1727 at the Law School Salle, and continued further with studies in the field of logic, metaphysics, physiology, medicine, astronomy and history. Fluent in six languages - French, English, Dutch, German, Greek and Latin - he also studied at Jena or Wittenberg University, at the latter for his PhD in philosophy that he received in 1734. 

The main university area of is situated close to the Operahaus and includes several buildings designed according to the principles of classical architecture, many of them freshly restored in the last years. Additional modern construction were successfully integrated into the older complex. 

The current university is made up of two traditional centers of high-education: the university of Halle and the one from Wittenberg. Mostly focused on sciences, law and humanist knowledge, it contributed to the development of various technologies and studies, but also to the creation of interesting places that are integrated into the tourist local recommendations, such as the Botanical Gardens. 

 

I visited Martin Luther University premises during the day of rest of 1st of May, and everything was quiet around. The vicinity to the old historical city center inspires to meditation and introspection, a feeling created by the big green spaces with statues of various intellectual representations. 

The University from Halle is considered among the first to introduce the 'modern university model' in Europe, where the students are encouraged to critically address their sources rather than to reproduce sheepishly the words and insights of their teachers. Nowadays, the main faculties are: Theology, Law and Economics, Medicine, Philosophy and Natural Sciences.

Another intellectual reference for Halle an der Saale is Academia Leopoldina, labelled as the oldest and most respected German Academy of Sciences nowadays. Viewed from the outside, it looks as a serious castle where eventually important decisions are taken, and this impression was not necessarily influenced by the vicinity with the Moritzburg Castle who's situated just on the opposite side of the street. It was initially created in 1652, in Schweinfurt and counted more than 7,000 members since its foundation. Among the most prestigious representatives, we can mention: Goethe, Marie Curie, Max Planck, Albert Einstein or Charles Darwin.