Note 1
Sussan Shariati
Sussan Shariati spoke about her experience of Paris. Politics has always been present there; everyone had their own particular perspective. People like Meskoub and Sa’edi never liked it at all. It felt as if they had abandoned their homeland halfway. The encounter and conversations with Paris seemed a kind of betrayal. There was resistance to becoming “French.”
A poet once said: “Paris is a city where, looking down, you encounter dog excrement, and looking up, women’s lipstick.”
Are these differences the result of being thrown into a place, or the result of choosing where to live?
Shariati talks about her work at a photocopy shop, dealing with Iranian intellectuals such as Shayegan and Ashouri.
She describes the experience of marginalization, of being “afflicted by” (caught up in) something.
Arthur Miller says: “Living in Paris did not make me French, but I am no longer American either.”
Statements of Dr. Ghotbeddin Sadeghi
Dr. Ghotbeddin Sadeghi
He says that one should have taken a loving look at Paris sooner. Dr. Fakouhi’s outlook is nostalgic, a combination of various places in Paris. He also talks about events like ‘68, and mentions figures like Sartre and Foucault, as well as Iranian intellectuals such as Meskoub, Shayegan, Sattari, and Ashouri.
In the theater season, there are 600 plays nightly, 1,000 films, and the Cinematheque shows 24 of the greatest films in history each day.
Hegel speaks of two types of beauty: natural beauty and artistic beauty.
Artistic beauty is superior, for it carries the human spirit.
Paris is a living city, an embodiment of democracy, a city of protest and human solidarity.
Dr. Sadeghi asks: Why don’t we have such culture and tolerance?
Artistic and cultural giants come from France.
Kundera says: “He who is forced to leave his homeland will never be truly happy.”
Fakouhi’s book on encountering Iranian intellectual exiles is very readable and impactful.
Our cultural greats have fostered understanding and rapprochement between French and Iranian cultures.
Dr. Sadeghi speaks of himself: He came from Sanandaj, but it was only in Tehran that he realized he was Kurdish.
A fish does not see the water.
In France, too, he realized he was Iranian.
We all owe something to Paris.
Dr. Morteza Monadi
Professor of educational psychology and sociology.
He was drawn in by the writer’s sweet prose.
When he saw the majestic Paris Opera House, a question came to him: Did the people of France want such a building, or did such buildings nurture the people?
He shares an experience from a good neighborhood in Tehran, where the small basement was reserved for a pharmacy and the large, accessible space above became a place called the “Doodkadeh” (Smokehouse).
Did the demand for smoke create this situation, or the other way around?
He reflects on the state and number of our public libraries. In Paris, you always have access to the best libraries and shows.
Dr. Fakouhi
Author of the book Paris: An Amorous Culture.
Here, we are polluting and being polluted, Dr. Fakouhi talks about “rotting,” saying that rotting is also a kind of ripening. We, too, are changing.
The book opens with a sentence from Hemingway:
“Anyone who has lived their youth in Paris will never leave it behind.”
The real Paris is not the touristy one, not the postcard images.
“My book is intentionally without order—deliberately so.”
Dr. Fakouhi does not believe in the concept of “nation.”
People knew their own village; their enemy was the neighboring village.
Nation-building was artificial. Modern states had a destructive mission: they made humans enemies of one another, even though people have much more in common than believed.
True connection between people resides in art, as seen in dance or pantomime.
He says: “I have always compared people to animals—and, if anyone has a right to be upset, perhaps it is the animals.
No animal imprisons or tortures its own kind, nor insists that—for example—the other meow as I like it!”
Paris does not only belong to the French.
The Eiffel and Georges Pompidou buildings are the soul of Paris; more tourists seek them than the Louvre or Versailles, though those are worth seeing too.
The definition of a city: a collection of memories, recollections, and people.
Our crisis began when we became separated from a lasting culture of connection with our environment, and from love and respect for people, and entered technocratic development, individualism, and consumerism.
We have entered a Faustian story; we have sold our soul for luxury and comfort—
A bargain whose invoice is hell.
Now, all is suffering, hatred, anger, and a lack of affection.
Norbert Elias speaks of the “civilizing process,” which is not just about furniture and a stage, but about growth and acquiring cultural value.
The technocrats’ solution is construction and modernization—mechanical modernization—whereas the path to progress is cultural.
In the history of Iranian anthropology, in interviews with elders, Fakouhi saw that to preserve and uplift culture, they withdrew from material advancement and high positions.
Let us remember:
People are much more alike than we have been led to believe.
The differences between us are insignificant in comparison to what we have in common.
بدون دیدگاه