E-mail a friendMarina Nemat
airdate June 16, 2009
Marina Nemat was a good student from a Christian family in Iran and accustomed to speaking her mind. The Iranian Revolution turned her world upside down. She was arrested at age 16, jailed for more than two years in a political prison in Tehran, tortured and almost executed. After gaining her freedom, Nemat immigrated to Canada, where she attended and is now an ambassador for the University of Toronto. She was awarded the first annual Human Dignity Prize and tells her story in the acclaimed memoir, Prisoner of Tehran.
Iranian writer comments on the high turnout for the election in her native country and what it might mean. (2:56)
Full interview. (10:28)
Marina Nemat
Tavis: Marina Nemat is an Iranian-born author who was imprisoned and tortured in Iran following the revolution of 1979. Details of that harrowing experience were the basis for her acclaimed memoir, "Prisoner of Tehran." The book became an international bestseller in 2007; is now available in paperback.
She joins us tonight from Toronto, where she is now a fellow at the University of Toronto's Massey College. Marina, nice to have you back on the program.
Marina Nemat: Thank you so much for having me again, Tavis.
Tavis: Before I get into the details and the particulars, let me start by asking what do you make of the outcome - at least the outcome as we know it at the moment - of the elections in Iran?
Nemat: Well, I have to tell you that I was shocked. I didn't expect the difference in the votes to be so much, such a gap. I really expected it to be 50/50 and for the election to go into a runoff. So when I heard that Mousavi had lost and that, well, Ahmadinejad had a 63 percent, I was definitely shocked about that.
And then the allegations of irregularities - the thing is that in Iran, nothing happens without irregularity. But here, it's such a huge gap. Iran has a 70 million population; 85 percent voted. So you're talking about probably millions of votes here that somehow went missing or were changed, so it will be interesting to see how this happened.
I know that Mousavi is saying that his people were not allowed to oversee the situation in the voting stations, so that's definitely going to be interesting, how this will unfold.
Tavis: To your point of a moment ago, what do you make of the fact that they had an 85 percent turnout rate? When I saw that number it was astounding to me because we never approach anything like that here in the United States. Eight-five percent turnout - what do you make of that?
Nemat: Well, Tavis, think about it. In the United States, things usually go pretty smoothly and the lives of half of the population is not in danger for no good reason - usually. So in Iran, the fact that we had an 85 percent turnout is simply because so many people are at the end of their rope.
So a lot - millions of people who had never, ever voted before ran to the polling stations. It was kind of like - Iran to me is kind of like a ship that has begun to - the Islamic Republic is like a ship that has begun to sink, and everybody kind of began running to the lifeboats. And Mousavi was - we had kind of four lifeboats, you can say.
Well, three of them are not really to be trusted at all, and Mousavi - all of them were kind of bad choices, but Mousavi seemed to be the one that was in best shape.
Tavis: When you say at the end of their rope, a Titanic going down, what do you mean with regard to everyday people in Iran?
Nemat: Well, there's so much pressure you can put on people. For the last 30 years - 30 years we are talking, since the success of the Islamic revolution - they have done horrible things to the people. We had the revolution against the shah to get liberty and freedom and democracy, and this is not what we got. For 30 years, people have been tortured and for really petty, for little things - basically for speaking out against the government. That was why I was in prison in the '80s.
And even if you wear lipstick and you go on the street, you're going to be prosecuted. Your covering - the jacket you are wearing is a little bit short, and you're going to get in trouble. You say the wrong word and you're going to get in trouble.
So people are really, really fed up with that, and for the last four years, Ahmadinejad has really made Iranians to be not respected around the world. So a lot of my friends are saying when we go, we show our passport, we feel ashamed, and this is because of Ahmadinejad and all the rhetoric that he's been basically spreading around the world.
Tavis: But if they feel that way about him, how, then, do you explain the massive turnout, and beyond the turnout, which we just discussed, the votes that show him, at the moment, at least, to be the leader? We'll talk about the irregularities in just a second, but if they feel embarrassed by him, if they feel he's been bad for the country, why does he get reelected?
Nemat: Yes, well, the thing is when I'm talking about people who are embarrassed, I was talking about the people who are traveling, and the people who are traveling abroad are the people who are from middle class or higher middle class.
The people who are supporting Ahmadinejad are from lower classes. They don't travel around the world, and they usually have much lower education. So the people who basically - most of the people who voted for Mousavi, they live in central urban areas, and they're either middle class or higher class and they're very well educated and they do travel.
Tavis: So what, then, is the connection between, as you would put it, the lower classes and Ahmadinejad?
Nemat: Well, the lower classes in Iran, religion for them is everything, and Ahmadinejad has turned religion into a tool. He basically tells - he has. He has actually told the people - I've seen the video on TV - that he actually sees a halo around his head, and he really, really tells the people that he is speaking on behalf of God and that they should follow him.
And if you are not educated enough and you hear all of these things - and he's a good actor, he seems like he actually means it - you're going to believe that.
Tavis: Now to these voting irregularities, or at least the issue that's been raised of voting irregularities - the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has called for an investigation looking into these allegations. Why did he do that, and what do you make of the fact that he did it?
Nemat: Well, this situation to me is really interesting because all the four candidates that were in this election, they were first selected by Ayatollah Khamenei. So they are all approved. He put an okay on all of them. I think what happened was that he didn't foresee how much support Mousavi will have down the road, because when Mousavi just entered this race, he was kind of popular but kind of so-so.
So I think that Khamenei didn't really foresee how much support Mousavi could have, and I think the support that Mousavi received is not really, really because the people who voted for him really approve of him, but it's only because he's the best choice between quite a few bad ones.
So I think this is what happened - this situation really got out of hand. I think the government of Iran was full of itself, so when they actually let Mousavi run, they never saw that he could receive so much support and now they feel threatened by it.
Tavis: How has, to your mind, the U.S. government - that would be specifically the Obama administration - how have they played this issue? Just about right? Altogether wrong? And when I say how they played it, I mean to suggest by that, as many of us know, that our vice president, Joe Biden, over the weekend said, and I'm paraphrasing here, that clearly, there are some questions about the outcome of this election.
It seems to be that if Ahmadinejad is the guy who ultimately is going to be declared the winner, he's the guy we got to dance with for the next four years or however long that will be, and in that regard how has the Obama administration, you think, played this issue to date?
Nemat: Well, Obama administration, I think they have done the best job they possibly could under the circumstances. Right now, nobody really knows how this unrest in Iran will turn out. Is this really the beginning of the end of the Islamic Republic? And if it is really the beginning of the end of the Islamic Republic, how long is this process going to take?
Is it going to take five years, is it going to take 30 year, or is it going to take 60? So right now, this is anybody's guess, and I don't think Obama or anybody in his administration can guess any better than I do or you do how long this is going to take.
So I think their best bet is to play it safe, and that's exactly what they have been doing. I don't think Ahmadinejad is the kind of guy to really want to talk to any U.S. administration, so they have probably a very tough four years ahead of them, and I think they have to really, really play it safe.
Tavis: What's your sense of how this hurts or helps Iran, or does it matter, given that if there's no change in leadership we at least know who we're dealing with. How does this hurt or help Iran around the world, not just with the U.S.?
Nemat: Well, the thing is that even if Mousavi had been elected - let's say Mousavi was elected. I don't think you could have made such a big difference, because at the end of the day in Iran it's not the president who's the boss; it's Khamenei. It's the supreme leader who's the boss. He can veto any decision of the president, of the parliament, of anybody, basically. So everybody else is a puppet.
The thing is that a president like Mousavi can just mellow down things a little bit, can make the lives of Iranians a little bit easier - say if you wear makeup, you're not going to get arrested in the street - and he's definitely going to use much milder language. The thing is that that doesn't look like it's going to happen, so I think we're stuck with Ahmadinejad.
Now, is that a good thing or a bad thing? I really feel sorry for the people of Iran. Like if I lived in Iran, I would be on the streets right now - not because I'm a big fan of Mousavi, because I was in prison when he was the prime minister in Iran, so no, I'm not a big fan of his because I think if he could do anything, he would have done it back then.
But at the same time, if I had to choose between Mousavi and Ahmadinejad, I would definitely choose Mousavi. But at the same time, I think another four years of Ahmadinejad is going to destroy Iran, like with the kind of rhetoric he uses and the kind of policies he has, I really, really think that he's going to push Iran to the verge of an explosion.
Now in some ways, that is a good thing; in some ways, it's a bad thing, because I really don't want to see thousands, maybe millions of people to get killed in another round of violence. But we really have to wait and see how this unfolds.
Tavis: Her name is Marina Nemat. Her book, now out in paperback, is called "Prisoner of Tehran: One Woman's Story of Survival Inside an Iranian Prison." Marina, nice to have you on. Thanks for sharing your insights.
Nemat: Thank you so much for having me, Tavis.
Tavis: It's my pleasure.
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