The cultural struggles in Iran have analogies in the United States – but are far more sharply delineated, due to the overtly religious nature of the country. Take this report by Rohollah Faghihi in AL Monitor:
Hard-liners say [President Rouhani’s Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Ali] Jannati is crossing the red lines of the 1979 Islamic Revolution’s values, while Reformists charge that he is retreating in the face of criticism and attacks by conservatives.
During the past decade, concerts have rarely made waves, but ever since Rouhani took office, concert organizers have repeatedly faced obstruction and consequent cancellation.
To avoid concert cancellations, which damage Rouhani’s approval ratings, the administration has issued a circular to prevent other state bodies such as the judiciary and the police from calling them off. The circular states that the police isn’t allowed to stop concerts. Jannati has said that based on the new law, singers shall request permission to hold a concert from the Ministry of Culture, while the police is only to deal with traffic around the venue. In response, the deputy head of Iran’s armed forces, Gen. Masoud Jazayeri, ordered the police to continue “dealing with ethical and misbehavior anomalies in places, including concert venues.” …
The judiciary and police in the province have recently stopped planned concerts by acclaimed traditional singers such as Shahram Nazeri and Salar Aghili. Explaining the cancellation of Aghili’s concert, Khorasan Razavi’s General Prosecutor Gholam-Ali Sadeghi said, “There were some problems regarding the content and performance of concerts, as well as the outfits of the audience. … This led to different classes of people [such as] seminarians and senior clerics complaining to the prosecutor’s office about concert performances in the religious capital of Iran.”
The hardliners may even be upsetting the notoriously conservative Supreme Leader Khamenei:
” … Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei is an artist, poet, musicologist and scholar.”
The supreme leader has in the past expressed his views on music and concerts. In a notable speech two decades ago, he said, “The music in our region hasn’t been used for higher goals, which is in contrast to the path of music in Europe. You know that I am naturally anti-Western. Nothing in the West fascinates me. At the same time, I approve of the positive characteristics of the West. One of those attributes is music. … Informative and meaningful music has long existed there. … In the West, sometimes a nation has been saved by music.”
Properly abstracted, it’s battles over power cloaked in religion.
Reminds me of the history of the Vatican.
