Recalling All Music

The Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran's supreme leader, has declared that music is not to be practiced nor taught in the country. Better, he said, a young person "spend their valuable time in learning science and essential and useful skills, and fill their time with sport and healthy recreations."

I find it hard to understand how someone who claims to be a spiritual leader can be hostile to the most complex and transcendental of artistic expressions. Surely, I thought, this ban is not to be taken seriously. Apparently, I was wrong. Ali Bagherzadeh, head of the private- schools office in the Iranian Education Ministry wholeheartedly agrees: “The use of musical instruments is against the principles of our value system,”

Ironically, these principles of the Ayatollah's "value system" are neither particularly "non-Western" nor uniquely Muslim. I sometimes ponder what sublime creations the world may have been denied thanks to a certain 18th century Archbishop.

Archbishop Hieronymus, aka Count Colloredo, was determined to modernize Salzburg. Strapped for money he closed the local theater and reserved the performance of orchestral works for rare occasions. Singing in church was restricted to German hymns and a young composer then in his employ saw his salary and status reduced to little more than a footman or a scullery maid. That composer was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. But before you judge the Archbishop too harshly, what the world may have lost of Mozart's genius during those underused and under-appreciated ten years was Salzburg's gain thanks to the Archbishop's commitment to science and progress.

Similarly, the Ayatollah's vision, like the Archbishop's priorities, are no doubt admired in China where it recently banned the Mozart Requiem, Handel's Messiah and a proposed performance of Carmina Burana (the last ban, I concede, may be a point in favor of good taste.) In China's defense they do cotton to most secular Western music, just not Bob Dylan.

It troubles the heart and depresses the soul, this fear of music. A random survey finds: Israel now bans music cd's from entering Gaza, Afghan music was previously banned under the Russians. Now Saudi clerics want music and women both banned from television. Fortunately bans seldom last long or even work. Hitler failed to banish jazz from Germany, as did Stalin in the Soviet Union.

In a world in which most of us are powerless to set the terms of "progress" the power of music is our last redoubt, a fortress for restoring a place for dreams and finer ambitions. As someone wrote: "By correlating musical developments with historical events or conditions, we can see not only why certain styles of music were written when they were, but also how the times dictated the styles as much as the styles dictated the times." Poets may be dreamers steering a way to the future but as Auden so aptly wrote: "Poetry is reflective; it stops to think. Music is immediate, it goes on to become."

And what it becomes, archbishops and ayatollahs be damned, moves far beyond the reach of edicts or official interpretation.

Stirring Fury

It has become more and more apparent that the crisis in Iran has less to do with the contested election between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi than a showdown that had been long time coming. It pits a "conservative" zealot against a "moderate" billionaire, they being Khamenei, and Rafsanjani, two of the Islamic Revolution's most powerful clerics.

Which of the two set the pot to a boil is an open question. But as the saying goes-- be careful what you ask for. The Iranian people have awakened to the fact that while the ruling mullahs may have been chosen by God they are neither supreme nor infallible.

Mousavi, after a timid beginning, has seized the moment to ride the tiger ... or tame it?: "The people expect from their officials honesty and decency as many of our problems are because of lies ... The Islamic revolution should be the way it was and the way it should be. If the people's trust is not matched by protecting their votes, or if they are not able to defend their rights in a civil peaceful reaction, there will be dangerous ways ahead."

Dangerous indeed, but for whom? Robert Fisk offers some intriguing insights: In Tehran, there must have been five or six thousand Iranians wearing black, many of them carrying this toxic document in their hands, although they were far fewer than Monday's million-strong march and scarcely a fifth of their number reached Azadi Square from the centre of Tehran. Their enthusiasm to maintain their protest – led yesterday by a cavalry of a hundred or more motorbike riders – was cruelly treated by the organisers, who clearly had little idea whether they were supposed to direct them to a central venue or all the way out to Azadi. At times, they stood in the heat for more than a quarter of an hour while organisers argued about the route. This was no way to overthrow a government. What was significant, however, was that once more the security authorities chose not to confront the Mousavi demonstrators.

With any luck the poor will rally with the students and Mousavi's tentative gambit will clear the path for an authentic reformer. I suspect one candidate is the billionaire's "radical" daughter.

From Times of India: Faezeh Hashemi, renowned women's rights activist, former parliament deputy, head of women sports and daughter of Iran's former president Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani has been arrested.

Make no mistake, this struggle is a fight, long overdue, for the rights of Iranian women. Amandla!