The policy of censorship and pre-publication review, as the primary deterrent to the advancement of culture, has continued to persist for years by relying on a wide range of available tools, aiding opponents of freedom of expression.

Today, the issue of censorship is no longer confined to book publishing and the press; instead, all cultural, political, and social spheres are entangled with censorship. The collection of institutions promoting censorship now suppress critical thinking with more force and intensity than ever before.

Censorship, in its broadest definition, is the application of repressive and obstructive methods to counter ideas and opinions that critique the existing order. Throughout history—since the Middle Ages, including during the Inquisition—this method has consistently been imposed on societies by authoritarian systems and religious institutions such as the Church. Violent methods, including the killing of dissidents, inquisitions, and show trials, are among the clearest examples of this.

With the emergence of the Enlightenment, the rise of modern thought, and the occurrence of political and economic revolutions, the old feudal systems were dismantled, and the authoritarian power of the Church was severely curtailed. The practice of censorship, in all its forms, was rejected, and Enlightenment philosophers, relying on critical thinking, opposed censorship in every form.

For example, Marx wrote in his essays that freedom of the press has a fundamentally different justification than censorship; the press embodies the idea of freedom and is a positive phenomenon, while censorship represents the absence of freedom and is inherently negative (1). Indeed, Enlightenment thinkers regarded freedom of expression as the manifestation of societal growth and dynamism—a natural right that society must not be deprived of.

In Iran as well, with the Constitutional Revolution and the emergence of the first sparks of social awakening, the demand for freedom was among the most fundamental goals of the revolution. Despite all efforts made in this area, censorship has remained a persistent and unresolved phenomenon. Contemporary Iranian society, more than a century after various movements for liberty, is still deprived of even its most basic rights. Censorship policy, as a regressive legacy, continues to be imposed by ruling agents and their subsidiary institutions—whether through the Qajar-era Bureau of Publications, the Pahlavi-era Bureau of Writing, or today’s Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, whose role has been reduced to the butchering of thought and the suppression of freedom of expression. All these developments show that the institution of censorship has, it seems, become inseparable from our cultural framework. Over the past century, all censorship-enforcing institutions have deemed the restriction of thought and speech—as a matter of political expediency—both proper and even necessary.

In a society that has experienced numerous social movements but still survives under the shadow of dictatorship, censorship is the embodiment of autocratic domination—a domination manifested in forms of political opportunism, submission, and a culture that is both vulgar and commercialized. It is therefore no surprise that the ruling regime focuses its efforts on eliminating all freedom- and equality-seeking discourses, in order to impose its political orientation on society through anti-democratic structural adjustment policies.

The presence of censorship institutions takes shape through a variety of factors, but the primary cause of their survival lies in the lack of political awareness among the public and the absence of independent and democratic institutions.

Throughout this, the fight against censorship—from the earliest sparks of social awakening to today—has remained a concern of intellectuals and writers, despite numerous shortcomings (2). Many writers have tried, by forming and organizing independent institutions committed to collective reasoning, to expose and resist censorship (3). The restrictions and failures resulting from censorship have played a fundamental role in cultural decline.

The most significant consequence of censorship, which drags society into decay and crisis, is cultural poverty (4). Cultural poverty deprives society of political awareness and prevents the transmission of historical experiences.

Censorship severs the relationship between the intellectual and the masses; it leads the intellectual to frustration and the people to ignorance. Ultimately, this policy drains all intellectual tendencies of content, reducing art to a consumable product and confining discourse to superficial slogans like “art for art’s sake.”

As a result of the unchecked dominance of censorship, book publishing is devastated, and only the most trivial works are made available to the public. The cultural arena becomes populated by pseudo-artists, leaving no space for genuine creativity.

The lack of independent institutions further amplifies cultural deprivation and limitations. The field of cultural work is emptied and cleansed, leaving behind only intellectual stagnation and cultural poverty. Censorship, with all its monopolized power and its reliance on the long-standing traditions of authoritarian rule, continues to thrive (5).

Despite many historical struggles and conflicts between the forces of progressive culture and reactionary culture, the latter still holds absolute power. Progressive culture is a persistent advocate for freedom of thought and expression, while reactionary culture has consistently opposed any form of freedom, from the past to the present. In a society with deeply rooted authoritarian structures and no democratic tradition, efforts to establish free expression and independent institutions have repeatedly failed. Accordingly, if progressive culture defines absolute and unconditional freedom of expression as a universal right, reactionary culture is one that denies all individual and social rights. In a context where reactionary culture remains dominant, the right to think and to criticize remains a red line not to be crossed. Marx accurately describes censorship as “official criticism” (6)—in other words, criticism monopolized by the state, which alone is permitted to exercise it in order to subjugate society. In the nature of such a system, there is neither freedom of choice nor freedom of thought. The “official criticism” of censorship seeks to stand against all forms of critical thinking and to limit them.

Censorship shapes the collective consciousness as it pleases. Essentially, censorship, by institutionalizing itself, deprives society of the ability to perceive awareness and reduces it to a superficial and shallow entity. In shaping collective consciousness, “sex” is merely one among thousands of elements censored—serving as a shared feature of both authoritarian regimes and Western democracies. Both political systems, using mainstream media and affiliated publications, engineer public opinion according to their interests.

This approach in Western democracies is based on organizing persuasion and implementing censorship in indirect ways. In contrast, authoritarian systems employ both direct and indirect forms of censorship simultaneously, with all mechanisms working in tandem to silence dissent.

Today, the media in Western democracies not only have the power to manipulate public opinion and mislead society, but they do so openly and without shame. They deprive people of free expression, reduce their platforms to arenas for blame games and factional power struggles, and distort narratives of devastating wars and mass killings through media censorship (7).

This is the defining feature of censorship in our current lives: a tool to dismantle collective reason and suppress committed thought. It becomes clear that the suppression of free expression by political regimes is an attempt to homogenize and conform society to rigid ideological visions. The sterile political forces that should be defending freedoms and social institutions have today become tools of power. In this landscape, censorship has clearly paved the way for the depoliticization of society.

In the wake of cultural crises, our society—since the Constitutional Revolution—has remained deprived of developing critical thought, due to despotic rule and semi-colonial conditions (8). This trend, despite changes in the forms and mechanisms of political and economic governance, continues to persist to this day.

The history of Iran—from the Constitutional Revolution to the present—shows that the conflict between two opposing cultural currents—one progressive and the other reactionary—and the dominance of the latter, has been the most fundamental obstacle to cultural development and has entrenched censorship in our cultural sphere.

The shared pain of many writers—the unconditional abolition of censorship and the realization of unrestrained freedom of expression—remains unresolved.

The views of rulers and some political factions—who operate in the service of structural adjustment policies and economic interests—have never grasped that censorship is one of the root causes of social dysfunction. Without a doubt, this failure of understanding stems from the self-serving interests of the very groups and structures that promote and defend censorship.

It must be emphasized that all legal provisions that condition freedom of expression on “religious law,” “morality,” or “government authority” are not only unjustified, but have laid the groundwork for the expansion of censorship.

Our understanding today must be based on the recognition that the only final solution to censorship is its complete abolition (9), because cultural development and the dynamism of thought are only possible through the elimination of censorship.

References:
1– Marx, Karl. Censorship and Freedom of the Press, trans. Hassan Mortazavi, Tehran: Akhtaran Publications, 2nd edition, 2019.
2– Censorship and Its Causes, speech by Bagher Momeni during the Goethe Institute’s Ten Nights of Poetry (Night Five).
3– Ibid. (2)
4– Ibid. (2)
5– Mokhtari, Mohammad. Practice of Tolerance, Tehran: Butimar Publishing, 2nd edition, Winter 2016.
6– Ibid. (1)
7– Ibid. (5)
8– Ashraf, Ahmad. Historical Barriers to the Growth of Capitalism in Iran: Qajar Period, Tehran: Zamineh Publishing, 1st edition, Khordad 1359 (May 1980).
9– Ibid. (1)