That Iranian society, both in the passage of history and at its current juncture, has by turns revealed and concealed a dual character seems to be the opinion of most sociologists and pundits. If traditional Iranian architecture incorporated Inner and Outer spaces within the house, this division somehow found its way into society at large and affected social relations in various ways. The division between appearance and inner truth is another manifestation of this duality, amply demonstrated through examples in Iranian literature.
"We may be Muslim in appearance / in truth we are infidels"
Iranian and foreign theorists have looked at this society from outside in and postulated an epic battle between MODERNITY and TRADITION – the crown jewel of intellectual and theological discussions today. To these luminaries, Iran and Iranians are in the grip of two forces that, on the one hand, strive to keep tradition and history alive and, on the other, embrace modern ideas of progress, competition, and individual distinction.
"No one saw us outside the curtain / for we were within."
The city of Tehran, in less than half a millennium since its establishment, has donned many dresses. When it was first designated CAPITAL of the country in 1821, it was surrounded by a wall and harbored a citadel in the middle. Its area was less than 4 square kilometers in the early 1800s. It was left to the Qajar king, {Naser-od-din}, to remove the citadel and increase the perimeter to 18 kilometers (1868-1880). The new Tehran Master Plan, drawn by a French instructor of Iran's first modern educational institution, affected a geographical division between the city's north and the south side. This division proved lasting and transformed relations on all social registers. The more affluent north welcomed the MODERN and the impoverished south insisted on TRADITION.
The second major transformation visited the city between 1931 and 1941. It was then that the Pahlavi king, {Reza Shah}, removed the city walls altogether (as he forcefully did the traditional garb of women). The city changed face. Wide avenues, streets, and boulevards replaced the honeycombed network of dead-end alleys, forming connected vectors.
"Within, it shelters thousands of knots / if on the outside the cypress tree reaches for the skies."
With the IRANIAN REVOLUTION of 1979 and over the course of two decades, the city saw other transformations. In the early 80s, it dressed in virtuous clothing, spoke of Islamic values, and fought battles with diabolical forces. Late in that decade, it reluctantly opened its doors, let the outside in, and spoke of prosperity as a value. In the mid 1990s, it donned a third dress, welcomed appearances that it earlier condemned, and re-evaluated values. To the pundit those epic forces entered a new phase in their age-old battle.
"Never did we rest in peace from the showdown of outside and inside / what rest in a country that has ten different rulers."
This feature of TehranAvenue started with an article by {Sheila Karbassian}, who lives outside the country but comes to Tehran on occasions for a visit. Sheila uses the example of Shrek 2 to speak of a paradigm shift in the way Hollywood is treating beauty and ugliness in this day and age. To her, various medical ploys in the world today have given us the illusion that a beautiful face is within reach. Hollywood is using this illusion to show that "true self" (in contrast to a beautiful face/body) is desirable. But Sheila sees in the modern-day Iran (at least among those in her circle of acquaintances) a tendency toward appearances, emblematically manifested in the body of Iranian women – in reconstructive surgery, in anorexia, in bulimia, and in the show of wealth.
"The Vanity Capital" was written some time ago and provoked a reaction among writers of this web magazine. Despite its sympathetic outlook, many thought that it was looking at things "from the above." {Hana Mirjanian} chose to criticize "The Vanity Capital" by recounting a personal experience and by coming to the defense of values embraced by her peers. "My Red Mantle" is the proclamations of a young woman from a particular social class about issues she has to grapple with. From this point of view, after being manipulated for two decades by the politician, the female body must now be given the freedom to choose how it wants to be seen.
"My inner self won't seep out / it is both inside and outside."
{Simin Dehghan}'s "The Anorexic Capital" looks at the phenomenon of SLIMNESS in Tehran. To the writer, anorexia and bulimia are signs that the world has taken a homogeneous semblance through satellites and the Internet. Desires are being played out along familiar lines and the writer is critical of those who follow destructive patterns of appearances to comply with these patterns, for we live in a society where all roads lead to marriage and the only true measure of suitability is appearance. The Iranian woman today is making herself appealing because social mores and customs ask her to seduce her future husband, and she will use every means available to reach that end. Anorexia is one of the ways this is achieved.
"The Gym Capital" of {Setareh Moftakhar} is a satirical piece, a playful narrative with a double-edged criticism directed at both the western-educated and the post-revolutionary middle-upper class. It could also demonstrate how well to do are prisoners of their social conditions.
"The outer has nothing to do with the inner / and in between a labyrinth extends."
Finally, the photographs of {Newsha Tavakolian} accompany these articles. The photographer has a well-known snapshot in which a chador-clad woman is passing underneath a billboard adorned with the picture of a western woman in free-flowing hair. A western magazine immediately picked up the photograph and from then on Newsha realized that for a photograph to sell it must capture this duality at every corner of this retro-modern city. Thus, the plethora of images of Iran with a traditional woman biting into a burger, of a luxurious car passing by a mosque, and of a turban behind the screen of a computer. For images of Iran to sell this dual character must come through every time.
At the end, TehranAvenue readers must keep in mind that the geographical division of the north and south, alive since it first came about in the mid 19th century, has affected a virtual schism between the desires of various social classes within the cityscape. Writers of this magazine can only represent a small faction of this multifaceted reality, and as such they are bound by the same boundaries that separate them from other citizens of this town.
