From Cultural Icon to Freedom Fighter

From Cultural Icon to Freedom Fighter

The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, October/November 1995

... Marzieh, Iran's best-known female singer has performed for Britain's Queen Elizabeth. German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, and once in Tehran and once in the United States for President Richard Nixon...

"I want to ask the whole world to impose an economic and military embargo on this regime which is highly isolated in Iran." she told the Washington Report in an interview in the U.S. national capital. "The people of Iran are determined and have the means to bring about change. But the world has a responsibility to deprive this regime of the resources and the means of repression.

"I want to emphasize that the sanctions imposed by President Clinton are in the interests of the people of Iran, and the rest of the world must join in a comprehensive embargo. They must support the aspirations of the people of Iran for democracy and for peace. The ruling mullahs have done nothing for the past 15 years but suppress the people, plunder their wealth and export terrorism, fundamentalism and chaos to keep themselves in power. It is only the ruling clergy and their associates who are benefiting and the rest of the 66 million Iranians are living in poverty and discontent."

Such strong statements, on the record, are seldom heard from Iranians with relatives still living in Iran. In the case of Marzieh, the near-legendary "nightingale of Persia"... political opposition takes special courage. her husband, a banker, and her 18-year-old granddaughter still live in Tehran, as does her 42-year-old daughter, Hengameh Amini, a French trained architect. When Marzieh defected in August 1994, her daughter, who had never been involved in politics, was arrested and held incommunicado in prison. She was released from prison after Amnesty International and a number of world leaders generated a protest campaign, but she remains under house arrest.

At present Marzieh depends upon her reputation as the Grande dame of Iranian music to protect her family as she pursues a schedule of international concerts sponsored by the Mojahedin-e- Khalq (People's Mojahedin), the largest organized Iranian opposition group. Asked about danger to her own person from a regime that has been accused by various European and Middle Eastern governments of assassinating its political enemies, particularly Mujahedin leaders, on their soil, Marzieh responds with optimism.

"As far as the people of Iran are concerned, they are well- prepared to bring about the necessary change because of the anger they have expressed against the mullahs and through the Mojahedin," she explains. "it is a movement that consists of the elite-the most dedicated members of society and those who have sacrificed... I hope the rest of the world will get to know the quality and the dignity of the people of this resistance."

There is little in the life of this one-time icon of Iranian art and culture to explain her conversion, at age 69, to a firebrand activist willing to risk everything for a political cause. In the world press she has been compared to Greece's Melina Mercouri or Britain's Vanessa Redgrave, both of whom put their beliefs ahead of successful careers and personal safety...

... [Marzieh's] performing career actually began in 1942 when, as a strikingly beautiful 17-year-old, for 37 performances she played the role of Shirin in a famous Iranian play, "Shirin and Farhad."

"In the same year I was invited to cooperate with Tehran radio," she recalls. "Three consecutive weeks, every Friday from 12:30 to 1 p.m., I was on the air, performing live. The public reacted enthusiastically."

Her instant success lead to a nightly radio program from 10 to 11 p.m. that had perhaps the largest audience in the country....

Marzieh's enormous popularity led to competition among composers, lyricists, and poets to get her to perform their works. As a result, she still has a repertoire of more than 1,000 songs, and her unique style has influenced Persian music permanently.

All of those personal successes were played out against a background of severe society tension, however, as religious conservatives scorned music and sought to humiliate actors and singers by calling them corrupt....

... So long as Khomeini ruled, only military or revolutionary music could be played. Because he decreed that "women's voices should not be heard by men other than members of their own families," there was no role at all for women singers.

Marzieh, a charismatic and vivacious woman whose singing voice is as strong today as when she began her career more than 50 years ago, grows indignant as she describes this interpretation of her religion. "In Islam it is not prohibited for women to sing and in fact the Prophet Mohammad very much enjoyed great voices," she explains. "His granddaughter, Zeinab, was a great orator and there were many prominent women in the early years of Islam.

"There was no prohibition on others hearing the voices of women. The Prophet was the messenger of the emancipation of women. The point is that these mullahs by no means represent true Islam. They misuse and harm Islam. True Islam is represented by the Mojahedin."...

Although she traveled abroad frequently, she also spent about eight months of every year in a house on her family's land in Lalun, a village outside of Tehran. There, she said, her voice remained strong because daily "I went into the desert and sang for the birds, the trees, the river, the passing clouds and the stars."

In 1994, en route to an engagement with the BBC in London and then a trip to the United States, she stooped in Paris for a conversation with Maryam Rajavi, whose brother and sister had been executed in Iran and who had been elected by the National Council of Resistance of Iran as the president-elect of a future multi-part democratic government. It was then that Marzieh decided to remain in Paris where she was appointed adviser for cultural and artistic affairs to Mrs. Rajavi, and a member of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, of which the People's Mojahedin is the major constituent party.

"The situation of women in my country was constantly deteriorating. I therefore decided in France to echo the cry of the women in Iran ...

Back
 Home