I read a book called Reading Lolita in Tehran. Some of you in AP will have an opportunity to read it as well. It is a very interesting book that is a memoir about a teacher in Iran who gathered seven of her students in her home for a book club group to study forbidden Western classics. It is fascinating. However, I can't help but notice a few similarities between the situation in the book (limited freedoms imposed by the government) and situations in Nazi Germany in the late 1930's. There is one passage in particular that I would like to see if you have a comment on. The passage is copied below, with credit to the author, Azar Nafisi:
"I had asked my students if they remember the dance scene in Invitation to a Beheading: the jailor invites Cincinnatus to a dance. They begin a waltz and move out into the hall. In a corner they run into a guard: 'They described a circle near him and glided back into the cell, and now Cincinnatus regretted that the swoon's friendly embrace had been so brief.' This movement in circles is the main movement of the novel. As long as he accept the sham world the jailers impose upon him, Cincinnatus will remain their prisoner and will move within the circles of their creation. The worst crime committed by totalitarian mindsets is that they force their citizens, including their victims, to become complicit in their crimes. Dancing with your jailor, participating in your own execution, that is an act of utmost brutality. My students witnessed it in show trials in television and enacted it every time they went out into the streets dressed as they were told to dress. They had not become part of the crowd who watched the executions, but they did not have the power to protest them, either.
The only way to leave the circle, to stop dancing with the jailor, is to find a way to preserve one's individuality, that unique quality which evades description but differentiates one human being from the other. That is why, in their world, rituals-- empty rituals-- become so central. There was not much difference between our jailers and Cincinnatus's executioners. They invaded all private spaces and tried to shape ever gesture, to force us to become one of them, and in that itself was another form of execution."
It is long, I know, and detailed. But really read it and think about it deeply. It has a lot to say.
"Every dance is a protest against our oppressors." Part of me feels like this is a really foolish thing to do, but the other part, the stick-it-to-the-man part, says right on. When you have reached a point of hopelessness, you should go out with a bang. In a totalitarian society that means being an individual and perhaps dancing a little.
ReplyDeleteThis really does make me think of Nazi Germany. Especially this part, "The worst crime committed by totalitarian mindsets is that they force their citizens, including their victims, to become complicit in their crimes. Dancing with your jailor, participating in your own execution, that is an act of utmost brutality. My students witnessed it in show trials in television and enacted it every time they went out into the streets dressed as they were told to dress." That was probably my favorite part of the excerpt. The German people didn't really do much to try and stop what was happening in their country and to their neighbors. They were desperate for someone to come into their country and change things for the better. The same goes for some of the Jews too. When they saw the signs that something bad was about to occur, they didn't really take action. They went along with the new rules. I'm sure I'm just rambling now, but that's what I got out of it.
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