They tell us a story and want us to believe it as they have said it. Speech is the one that prevails, and its assumption is that no one questions the victor. They make their own narrative, define their own history, and with the reinterpretation of everything, they also appropriate concepts for their own benefit. They try to produce their own literature. But historical experience has shown that literature and art have often been pioneers and guides of the path of history and political and social movements. Literature has its roots in freedom and has never been at rest throughout history, and has made efforts not to be prescribed by the dominant against the oppressed. This is why its narrators are silenced and censored. But the narrators of freedom are borderless and their pens are not silenced or banned, and they do not turn a blind eye to violations of freedom and injustice. Like Emile Zola (French novelist, playwright, and journalist) who stood up alone and spoke the truth and nothing could

In the history of Iran, literature has always been a tool for narrating the power of the powerless. The despotic history of Iran, which is intertwined with the narratives of its kings, has led to the expression of its intellectuals mostly in various literary forms such as poetry, in order to use literary devices to the fullest extent possible to resist the direct confrontation with the despots of the time. As Adonis, the renowned Arab poet who searches for the characteristics of Persian poetry, says, the essence of a work and its narrative is not its form, but the values it creates, the portrayal of good and bad characters, and in a time when humans look at their certain beliefs with doubt, it raises questions of mystery to challenge the existence and entire being of the individual. On the other hand, this literature sometimes turns into a tool for the dominant regime to suppress other non-conforming narratives and establish its own narrative at the forefront. A recent example of this in Iran is the narrative of the

“Memory and collective memory are among the most important components of cultural capital, as they reflect the identity, lifestyle, worldview, and cultural roots of a nation, like a tablet and a birth certificate. Therefore, protecting them is essential, as they are the foundation for the formation of social and national identity. This is why for years, the rulers in Iran have been sensitive to issues of narratives and collective memory. For years, the rulers in Iran have tried to shape the historical narrative of the lives of the Iranian people through control of mass media. In response to this government pressure, Iranian intellectuals, writers, and literary figures have risen up to defend freedom of thought and expression and protest against censorship. In the past three decades, after the eight-year war, in 1994, 134 Iranian writers, poets, playwrights, screenwriters, researchers, critics, and translators wrote an open letter titled “We Are Writers” to demand freedom of thought and expression and protest against censorship. But after

However, for this suppression, the pattern is very similar in different cases. First, they make the person they want to suppress appear foreign to their society. They turn them into a dangerous other who has no connection to their society. Then, with their propaganda machinery and various accusations, they turn them into a monster and a devil who is harmful to society. The continuation of this process is the responsibility of the ignorant and passive masses, who, by believing in these false narratives, replace the true and documented narrative with the food they are given. In this process, all narratives are in line with the rulers’ desires. Reports, testimonies, memories, letters, and speeches are all censored to fully explain their situation and approach, and denial is used to make them forgotten. The rest of the work is done through repetition and repetition. This repetition continues until there is no other narrative left and whatever exists is the rulers’ own narrative. Based on this, they make judgments, create works of art

Our literature, from the Constitutional Revolution until now, has always been in sync with the ups and downs of society, and so far, a space for the liberation of literature from politics and history has not been provided; we have experienced literature of hope, defeat, escape, resistance, and ultimately identity formation through social and political transformations. Unfortunately, all of these situations have been imposed on us. In Iran, before and after the revolution, depending on the era and situation, all artistic fields in Iran, which have been a reflection of a part of Iranian life, have been censored. From literature in the realm of women to literature of religious and ethnic minorities, and even to the realm that has been forbidden in all regimes; namely prison literature. Literature that in the post-revolution era of February 1979, despite the efforts of the ruling powers to prevent it, has flourished and shown that Iranians are sensitive to their past and want to revisit and re-examine it. (7)

The whole issue is this: “What is the truth of the matter?” The entire issue is a denial and another narrative of the truth of the thoughts and intellectuals and thinkers in a society that is caught between the traditional veil and the power holders who are riding on a part of this tradition, seeking to rule over the people. But the world is a different world. The era of domination over what people read, see, and hear has come to an end. Today, in the hands of millions of Iranians, there are tools with which they can read, see, and hear the unofficial narrative that has been denied and censored by the rulers for years. In this new world, erased histories reappear and buried narratives resurface. Let’s look around us. Why does the government invest so much in what it calls soft war? Why in recent decades have cultural institutions and audiovisual productions of the government been constantly trying to create a historical narrative of events and figures of the past? Why do they

Notes:

1- Alfred Dreyfus was a staff officer in the French army who was convicted of treason against his country. He, who was of Jewish descent, was accused of “betraying the French Republic” through “spying for Germany” and was brought to trial. Dreyfus was sentenced to imprisonment on charges of treason in this event, but after about five years, his innocence was revealed. Emile Zola, in support of him and in protest against the court’s actions, was sentenced to one year in prison. After that, three hundred writers and intellectuals rose up in protest against this verdict through a letter, which became known as the famous intellectuals’ statement.

2- Daqiqian, Shirindokht, “Enlightened Thinker” according to the words and actions of Emile Zola, the website of Freedom and Social Justice, the Social Democratic Society for Iran, March 30, 2019.

3- Adonis said yesterday in Tehran: What I have taken from Iranian poetry is the freedom of experience and expression, Mehr News Agency, 13 December 2005.

4- Sadeghi Jogh, Saeideh, Siyasat-e Hafze, Khaterat-e Jami va Amniyat-e Melli, Faslname-ye Motaleate Rahbordi, Shomare-ye 97, Aban 1401.

Sadeghi Jogh, Saeideh, Memory Policy, Collective Memory and National Security, Strategic Studies Quarterly, Issue 97, November 1401.

5- The enemy’s strategy; misrepresentation of realities, “battle of narratives” in the “war of wills”, Office of Preservation and Publication of Ayatollah Khamenei’s Works.

6- Suppression of the 1990s, September 2013, Parastoo Forouhar’s Narratives Website.

7- Interview with Samad Taheri about the responsibility of the writer in the contemporary world; literature is inherently a disclosure of power, Etemad newspaper, 13 Azar 1401.

8- The blossoming of prison literature under the shadow of oppression, Asad Seif, Deutsche Welle Persian, 22 August 2021.