WOULD YOU KINDLY ADJUST YOUR HEADSCARF

I was sitting with American children’s writers, Donna Jo Napoli and Meghan Nuttal Sayres, in front of a television interviewer in the city of Kerman where we had come to attend the very first Children’s Book Festival, at the invitation of the Department of Cultural and Islamic Guidance, Iran. We had all been struggling with the dress code – Meghan in particular, with her unruly long dark blonde hair, which insisted on straggling out of her constantly slipping headscarf. There was too much of my hair showing too, so the interviewer asked if we would kindly adjust our headscarves. We duly did – and not resentfully – for both of us had come expecting far more rigorous restrictions on ourselves, only to find openness and humour which was completely beguiling.

But it was the questions we were asked which reminded us, that we were indeed inside an Islamic Republic which had, notoriously, only a decade or so back, invoked a strict Sharia Law which could have had you sentenced to death for denying anything of the Islamic faith, and did. Today, the two cardinal sins are to deny the existence of God, and to disbelieve in the coming of the Twelfth Imam. Imam Zaman – the Imam to Come!

“What do you think of a child’s soul?” I was asked intently.
“It is something to be valued and treasured, “ I answered, and was immediately reminded of an account I read when researching seventeenth century India. A Venetian physician, Angelo Legrenzi, was being interviewed by the Grand Vizier of the Mogul court of Shah Jehan for a post as royal physician. After the Venetian, had listed all of his qualifications and experience, claiming great expertise in the diagnosis and treatment of many fevers and illnesses, the Grand Vizier leaned forward and asked, “Yes, but what about God?”

And that is the clue. To enter the mind of Islam, one needs to relate everything to God. Every session of the day began with moving and marvellous sung verses from the Koran. We were mesmerised by the solo voice rising and falling, and rising ever higher, breaking and ululating before receding to silence. “Allah Akbar” moaned the audience, pressing their hands to their hearts as it ended. Each Iranian speaker began their talk with “In the name of the Beneficent God, the All Merciful.”

But though all of us foreign visitors were aesthetically moved by the prayers and people’s devotion, not one of us was able to claim to be a devotee of any religion, and could only say that we had been brought up Christians when asked our religion, which we were at every interview.

“But why haven’t you converted to Islam?” asked an earnest and perplexed young schoolgirl in a school we visited.

“Because I haven’t seen any reason to,” I answered, as honestly as I could. While never wishing to offend, I did hope that these young women could see that it was possible to have moral codes and genuine aspirations for others without being of their religion. Most had only heard of Christianity – in a very vague way. None had heard of Hinduism, Sikhism or Buddhism. I didn’t dare mention Judaism, although in my presentation speech, I told my adult audience that I had been brought up to respect all faiths, and that this was evident in my name: Jamila (Arabic) Elizabeth(Judaeo/Christian) Khushal-Singh (Hindu/Sikh.) Even though most of the girls must have thought I, and my co-writers were all doomed, and pitied us, nonetheless they were intensely curious and asked many questions, which could have come from any child in Britain: why did we write? Did we always want to write from childhood? How did we sustain our plots and develop our characters? What was the hardest thing about writing? What advice could we give to aspiring writers? None had read any of our books, and I wondered if they were ever likely to.

Most of the dissertations at the Book Festival were rather academic and narrow pieces of research concerning Children’s Books – overlaid with religious dogma. One speaker contended that children’s books must have six components such as love of God, enhancing of self-confidence, containing some kind of therapeutic element – and I can’t remember the others. She said all books should be examined for these points and awarded marks. I did offer a question to the chair which asked this particular speaker how she defined “children.” Did her edicts apply to children of six as well as sixteen? However, no time was given for questions. Only one speaker was considered to be controversial by the chair, and that was one of our translators, a young woman who pleaded for far wider diversity in children’s books, and especially for Science Fiction to be given the status it deserved. She poured scorn on presenting young children with “worthy” books such as Quietly Flows the Don, or War and Peace, which went straight over their heads, and only served to leave them excruciatingly bored, and determined never to open another book once they had left school. She criticised Iranian society and children’s religious books for celebrating Islamic violence – I thought that really brave. It’s true that there were many books about the Heroes and Martyrs of the Iran/Iraq war on the book shelves with, to my mind, horrifyingly explicit pictures of soldiers with guns striding out to martyrdom – and she pleaded for the breakdown of categories which demanded that children’s books should be free from emotion (love interest) unlike adult books.

For all the pleas for Islamicly correct books, I noticed, as we later toured the huge book tent looking at all the many children’s publication, that the image which most illustrators used on their book jackets were non Iranian, and were if anything, almost overtly European if not American. Why weren’t we seeing typical Iranian children in Iranian backgrounds? I asked. My companion – a book seller and translator had never thought to notice this detail – but once he had, agreed and questioned the publishers. At first, the publisher blamed the illustrators, and said it was up to them to portray the characters accurately. He denied that publishers had any responsibility. He even blamed the West, saying that as we had far more access to the world, we should do more, even though I was commenting on Iranian publications. We found that the West got blamed for an awful lot of strange things. But when I described the procedure which manuscripts and books go through here in Britain: the meetings and agreements which have to be reached about the look of a book, the content and the illustrators, it was obviously something way beyond anything they had had the luxury of experiencing.

Despite this, there were some gorgeous Iranians books – and fantastic illustrators – and how desperate they were for a wider market. They were desperate too, to be regularised within the copyright laws, so that all those foreign books we were seeing, were not pirate editions. I was told discreetly, that some ethical publishers contacted the foreign writer and asked permission to translate and publish them – with perhaps even a fee of some sort. But obviously, many others didn’t - Harry Potter included perhaps? One of my books had already been translated and published without my knowledge, others were in the process of being made ready for publication in Iran. Am I betraying the interests of my fellow authors by not objecting – or at least kicking up a fuss on behalf of all authors who are continually being done out of their dues? I was quietly told that I would receive a fee. But that not withstanding, I could only feel that my books, because of their multi-cultural content, were surely part of an opening door, and that has to be a good thing.

I found Iran full of inconsistencies. Not far from the giant bill boards with portraits of the Ayatollahs, were billboards advertising not just Rolex watches or Benetton Colours, but even KFC - including Colonel Sanders’ smiling bearded face – perhaps passing for an ayatollah for the uninitiated. While the dress code dictated that all women and girls over the age of nine must be covered from head to toe with only their hands and faces permitted to be visible, it was amusing to see how all ages stretched the code. Among the all-black covered women, looking like medieval nuns fluttering along the streets, were others wearing fitted jackets, jeans, high heels, colourful headscarves - often showing a considerable amount of hair, and a good deal of makeup. As I hadn’t taken enough cool clothes and was dying of heat, I had been forced to be creative, while keeping to the code. The most difficult part was the need to wear a tunic or trench coat which went at least down to the knees over my trousers. I had a thin-ish Indian shawl which I wore as a toga instead of my hot coat. It seemed to create a sensation, and I was congratulated by several women for having found a novel way of keeping to the dress code.

Then there were strange, colourfully draped objects clinging to the outside of high-rise apartment blocks. Disguised satellite dishes I was told – something that is banned - but somehow the crime over-looked if they weren’t blatantly visible. (Like women!)

As one of my new Iranian friends said, “Don’t mistake Iran for Saudi Arabia.” Despite the dress code, women play a full and powerful part in Iranian society. We found them at every level; as curators of museums, as head teachers, as business women, as shop keepers. In the schools, the girls had aspirations to be engineers, scientists and lawyers. They drive cars and walk the streets alone. They make movies, playing positive roles.

We saw feverish development in the cities; huge hotels going up, and historical sites being rescued and renovated – surely, we surmised, a sign that Iran was slowly rejoining the International community.

But there are widespread problems besetting even this controlling and highly religious society, such as child and female abuse, draconian divorce laws, a growing HIV/AIDs problem which could soon be at the same level as China, and rampant drug abuse. Reformist groups fight to bring these issues out into the open – facing charges of being un-Islamic to even admit they exist.

I did wonder if we would ever be allowed back into Iran again. I suspected that among the many translators and minders, there were people there to listen in on conversations, and we had so many powerful and animated conversations. But it all seemed a game, and there was a surprising amount of laughter and jokes, which certainly meant that we at least, never felt ill at ease or under constraint. Never did Iran feel like Moscow before Perestroika – full of paranoia, suspicion and restrictions. Many openly described Iran as a country in historical transition from tradition to modernity; it seemed impossible that this country should be so demonised – and to talk of bombing it, seemed unbearable. If we found it hard to believe, they did too. When we were out and about in the streets, so many approached the Americans especially, saying, “Welcome, welcome!” But it was also clear that the power of the Ayatollahs was unassailable, and that what was, or was not permitted could change overnight.

I have never met so many people in so short a time with whom I felt the strength of life-long friendship. These were the descendants of the great Persian civilisations; of the earliest forms of writing and books, of the powerful myths and legends that have come down to us. This was the country of poets; of Rumi, Hadjoo, Omar Khayaam and Nasseem Shamal. This was the country of paradise gardens from which our own notions of heaven come ; minarets and mosques of heart-stopping beauty, and that wide desert landscape, flanked by high, snow-capped mountain ranges. This was where the trade routes had traversed over generations, going from Kerman, Shiraz, Isfahan and Hamadan, pausing in the caravanserai on their way to and from Venice, Egypt, Turkey, India and China. I could imagine Alexander the Great and his armies crossing these plains – and understood why he fell in love with Persia and Persian culture.

And what about the carpets? I defy you to go and not return with a carpet – as rich, colourful, varied and intricate as the people themselves.

This was the first Children’s Book Festival – and called “International” – something we four writers of children’s books legitimised; two Americans, one Palestinian and one British – me. But why? Why had the Iranian government paid a not inconsiderable amount of money to fly us over, and host us royally for ten days? Did they think children’s writers unthreatening enough to use us as guinea pigs? Were they testing the waters, opening a small window into the outside world to see how it would go down, or if they could assimilate our alien views with their Islamic republic? Were they shocked to find how irreligious we were – if not, in their eyes - subversive? My speech, especially, talked about multi-culturalism, and learning to live in a diverse society of many different faiths, and how books opened doors; empowered people – empowered children. But even that speech was no surprise to them. I had had to send it on ahead for translation before I left England. So why were they allowing our ideas in? There is an election impending in Iran. Perhaps this was a small encouragement to prepare for a more liberal Ayatollah – or not!

The enthusiasm for the festival was palpable. Authors, illustrators, publishers and teachers milled about enjoying their encounters and conversation, with the same intensity as at any conference I have ever been to. The city of Kerman hopes this will not be the last book festival, and that its name will become synonymous with children’s books. I hope so too and that, if I haven’t blotted my copy book, they’ll ask me back. In any case, I’ll go back one day. I’ve still got to see Persepolis!

On the plane returning to London – full of mainly Iranians – I noticed the headscarves slipping off, and hair being shaken out. Somehow it seemed to be an indicator of the desire for life to ease up, allow choice, and become more tolerant. I hope so.