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Revolutionary Posters and Cultural Signs

Posters of the Iranian revolution bring together two graphic styles -- international revolutionary posters in red, white and black; traditional Islamic painting styles of miniatures, coffee houses, and story cloths to prompt oral narrators with a broader palate including prominently green. Apart from the counterpoint between graphic and symbolic traditions, allusions and allegories, the posters also dramatize the competition over legitimacy and the use of symbols by different factions within the revolution. Among the strongest: Khomeini's icy stare melting US guns; a wounded woman with child on an asphalt imperial highway (built with petroleum, literally and with its revenues), and a stamp of Bilal (first muezzin and black Ethiopian) and Malcolm X calling people to the Islamic revolution, and Khomeini as Moses pointing to tortures in hell awaiting the shah with broken crown.

Revolutionary Posters and Cultural Signs Author(s): Michael Fischer and Mehdi Abedi Source: Middle East Report, No. 159, Popular Culture (Jul. - Aug., 1989), pp. 29-32 Published by: Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP) Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3012520 . Accessed: 18/10/2014 17:20 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP) is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Middle East Report. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 18 Oct 2014 17:20:26 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Collection Hitselberger Figure1 ReVOlutlOIItirV nWiilUUiillal y POSterS rUOlCIO 3nd ^^ I wUltUrdl revolutions AU ZXfor IO" OlCjIlS representing -^- ^-sciousness. saw ^tse^ and ^ Michael Fischer and Mehdi Abedi volcanoes, beautiful and phoses) change and then have to predecessor borrow strategies, seen rhetoric, universal, sublime of (storms the meadow after grotesque (metamor? about Most social in relation from organizational symbols a revolutions themselves revolutions, tactics, and for thinking future. the Revolution earthquakes), the as vehicles con- elaboration of calm, (island storm) since rich of the categories nature, French new something a means in changes The generated aesthetic of aesthetic reQuire which they forms, and graphics. MichaelFischerteachesanthropology atRiceUniversity. He is currently a fellow at theWoodrow WilsonCenter Scholarsin Washington, DC. Mehdi forInternational Abediis researchassociatein anthropology at Rice University. This essayis adaptedfromthefinalchapterof theirforthcoming book,DebatingMuslims: Cultural Between Tradition andPostmodernity Dialogues (University ofWisconsin Press,March1990). Middle East Report ? July-August1989 This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 18 Oct 2014 17:20:26 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 29 "small media" of the Iranian revolution?jokes, The songs, tapes, leaflets, graffiti, repartee, cartoons and posters?reveal important changes of consciousness and so? ciological positioning. Iran's revolutionary posters demon? strate a confluence, as William Hanaway has suggested, of world-historical and local Iranian traditions. There are those done in an international style that stems primarily from the Russian Revolution with contributions from the Cuban Revo? lution: simply done in red, white and black, expressing a single idea or event, depersonalized and symbolic in form, and humanistic in ideology (i.e. human beings are in control of their destiny). An abstract "constructivist" style example (Figure 1) has a red arrow inscribed "revolution" moving from right to left (like the Arabic script) breaking a black block (a crown falling offits upper surface), and beginning to destroy a second block, inscribed "internal reactionaries"; a third block awaiting its turn is labeled "imperialism" and is capped with Uncle Sam's hat; on the far side is a red sun, for victory. The other graphic tradition is that of traditional Iranian painting styles, in Persian miniatures and the murals used in coffeehouses to prompt epic reciters. These posters are done with a broader palate, including prominently Islamic green; there is much more detail, and multiple events portrayed; individuals, rather than roles, are shown, although some, such 30 as the family of the Prophet, are represented by standardized, traditional iconography; there are many and rich references to Iranian tradition and to Islam; and the ideology is Godcentered rather than human-centered. A classic example of the Persian miniature style is a poster of Khomeini in the role of Moses with a dragon/serpent at his feet, victorious over Pharaoh, pointing towards the depiction of tortures in hell that await the shah who cowers lower left with broken crown and sword and clings to the coattails of Uncle Sam with British and Israeli insignia. In the version shown here (Figure 2), the Khomeini regime has added Ali Shariati and S. Mahmud Taleqani to assert a claim to their legacies. Graphic design is among the most long-standing contribu? tions of Iran and Islamic civilization; it remains vibrant in the arts of the Islamic Republic. Among such designs, calligraphy has played a central role, mediating the visual and the linguis? tic, subordinating the pictoral to the graphic, balancing the abstract and the particular, meaning and form. Interlaced arabesque, geometric as well as curvolinear, is another such design feature. Both are integrative, open to incorporation of new elements, simple yet encompassing of intricacy and multiple allusions, vehicles for harmonizing the old and the new, modernity and tradition(s). Most interesting are those posters that fuse the two graphic Middle East Report ? July-August1989 This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 18 Oct 2014 17:20:26 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions traditions into a kind of condensation (in which two cultural traditions remain in creative tension). Thus, for instance, there is a Mojahedin May Day poster done essentially in the international style: a worker in overalls holds a rifle aloft, a broken chain flying from his wrist, a mallet in his other hand; he is set against a red background and a white anvil. Diago? nally across the top left of the poster is written the verse of Iron: "We sent our messengers with revelations, the book, and scales, that the people may rise for justice"(57:25). The Islamic Republican Party issued a poster with similar imagery, inscribed in Arabic, "He who earns his bread is like a man fighting in the way of God," and in Persian, "The committed laborers (kargaran-e mota'ahhed) are holy war? riors" (Figure 3). In a kind of socialist realist style it shows working class men kneeling in prayer, the man in front with a wrench in his pocket and a mor (clay from Karbala) before him, against a background of industrial scales (justice). There are many images of fighting imperialism. A series of posters about the oil industry inscribed with the slogan "Con? tinuation of the Revolution until Termination of Looting" includes one of a hand flicking away an American flag beach ball; another has a hand choking an American flag serpent above an oil derrick on the beach by the Gulf; another shows a set of gasoline pump nozzles marked "US," "USSR," "Israel," and "England," against an abstract background of oil derrick, refinery cracking tower and pipes, and a flare chimney that ends in a fist. A powerful poster put out by the Ministry of Islamic Guidance shows the UN as a foot with five toes (the five powers with a veto in the Security Council) stomping on justice; the big toe is shaped like an ear with a hole in it, a visual allusion to the idiom "gush-esh bad gir-e" ("in one ear, out the other"). Fists and victory signs merge with Islamic symbols and also with photos of demonstrating crowds. A poster commemorat? ing the death of Zeinab, and honoring revolutionary women (Figure 4), shows Zeinab in white silhouette with raised fist cracking apart an orange crown and green entrance pillars (the "green palace" of the tyrant Yezid in Damascus); the bottom of her chador is a picture of veiled women with their fists raised; to the right is a line of camels each with mother and child moving towards an arched and pillared building with palms (the tomb of Zeinab?). Images of martyrdom abound: the hatchet of the US cutting down one red flower growing from a mosque, with three red spots spurting forth; a white silhouette of a man holding out his hands has, where the face would be (and where a veil appears on the icons of Muhammad and 'Ali), a red tulip inscribed with the emblem of the Islamic Republic; its stem MiddleEast Report ? July-August1989 This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 18 Oct 2014 17:20:26 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 31 pours blood into the hands, which frame pictures of a crowd holding Khomeini's portrait and a skyline of the seminary town of Qom with a red flag with the Islamic credo. On another poster, a white dove against a red background rips a hole through the army green and black bars framed by the letters "USA," and the legend reads: "We value the blood of martyrs of the way of truth, and we hurry toward the Islamic Republic." Another image of time or process through revolu? tionary sacrifice is one of red footprints over a broken crown. Calligraphic posters themselves can be very dramatic, convey? ing a sense of movement: among the best are a line of revolutionary fists that spell out the Islamic credo in reds and black, and an olympic-style torch, the flame of which is the Islamic credo. Among our favorite posters are Khomeini's icy stare melt? ing US guns; a wounded woman with child on an asphalt imperial highway (built with petroleum literally and with its profits) through desert desolation at the end of which great tulips rise, leading to the image of Khomeini looming over the horizon; and a stamp portraying the merged images of Bilal (the first Muslim muezzin, or caller to prayer, a Black Ethio? pian) and Malcolm X calling people to the Islamic revolution. A poster in Persian and English shows a cameraman with the camera pointed toward the viewer, the lens reflecting a dem? onstration (Figure 5); the inscription pleads with journalists to show the Islamic revolution as it really is. Apart from the counterpoint between graphic and symbolic traditions, allusions and allegories, the posters also dramatize the competition over legitimacy and the use of symbols by the different factions within the revolution. A handsome black, red and white Mojahedin poster well illustrates the compe? tition for meaning: four Mojahedin martyrs are portrayed in black T-shirts, a prison bar behind each, and a red splotch on each chest pouring blood down into a red flood below. The Mojahedin in particular, but also other marginalized factions, invoke photographs of martyrs to remind people of sacrifices and effortsignored by the government: photography is a localizing, personalizing device. Among the most artistic of these are a series of posters the Mojahedin issued to commemorate the legacy of "Ayatollah" Sayyid Mahmud Taleqani, who defended the Islamic left and whose last Friday sermon warned of tyranny by the mullahs: one poster shows Taleqani characteristically seated, head in hand, on the floor away from the seats of honor claimed by other clerics; another in the sky looking down on portraits of has Taleqani Mojahedin in the jails of the Islamic Republic; the most potent is a poster of Taleqani's head superimposed on the cover of Samad Behrangi's famous children's book, "The Little Black Fish," a protest parable about the oppressiveness ? of conformity to government rules. * ? 417 441 Dead Days Themilitary ofPalestine is as brutal occupation as ever.Humanrights aresuspended. Tensof arearrested thousands andimprisoned without Dozensofhomesaredynamited without charge. cause.Virtually there is a funeral for every day another childkilled bythegunsandteargas thatU.S.taxdollarssupply. Yetthepeoplestandfirm, forself?calling forliberty determination, andforpeacewith Israelandintheir ownland. thePalestinians' toresist. Support strength JoinGrassroots International insupporting local actionprojects including: ? backyard livestock victory gardens, raising andfood-processing ? mobile medical clinicsforremote villages andurbanghettos ? first aidtraining tosavethelivesofvictims ofviolence ? a cooperative center forchildren daycare ofworking women dollarwesendtotheseprojects Every carries a messageofsolidarity from thepeopleofthe U.S.tothousands ofwomen, menandchildren oftheIntifadah. Anditis a humanitarian investment inthemostbasicneedforpeacein theMiddle East? an independent Palestine. death toll 28,1989 'January DataBase onPalestinian figures from Project Human IL Rights. Chicago, Photo Credit: Sarah Putnam ? $100 ? $50 ? $35 ? $20 YESS ? Youcancount onmysupport for Ma, thePalestinians Sighting against andhunger. oppression Address_ ismytax-deductible Enclosed City_ contribution. _Zip_ Phone( ). Returnwithyourcheck to: Grassroots International MA02139 ^ P.O.Box312Cambridge, HF (617)497-9180 32 Middle East Report ? July-August1989 This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 18 Oct 2014 17:20:26 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions