An Iranian odyssey: Maziar Bahari and the Iranian regime

Maziar Bahari is perhaps best known in the United States as the subject of Daily Show host Jon Stewart’s directorial debut Rosewater, which was about Bahari’s 2009 imprisonment and torture at the hands of the Iranian regime. Bahari was invited by the Program in Iranian Studies in the Council on Middle East Studies at the MacMillan Center to give a talk on October 28 entitled, “An Iranian Odyssey: Maziar Bahari and the Iranian Regime.” It was moderated by Abbas Amanat, Professor of History and International Studies. Rather than focusing on his personal narrative, Bahari spoke on Iran and America’s relationship.

“I have been fascinated with Connecticut since childhood,” he began. “As far as I can remember, that was the beginning of my fascination with America and all things American.” This fascination with American culture, music, and art, he said, “became a way for him to escape the ideological zealotry that surrounded him in Iran.” He knows he wasn’t the only one.

“Americans and Iranians have a lot in common. Iranians also believe in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” Bahari said. He emphasized that a mutual understanding of the historical narratives that have shaped American and Iranian culture will be crucial to diplomatic relations and the rebuilding of trust between the two nations — both their governments and their people. 

To facilitate his audience’s understanding of this narrative, Bahari went back to the 1905 Constitutional Revolution, which, he said, is the historical root of the current movement for civil rights. He highlighted two Americans — Howard Baskerville and William Shuster — who devoted their lives to the fight for Iranian democracy and freedom from foreign corruption. “It didn’t matter that it wasn’t an American cause,” said Bahari. “It mattered that it was other human beings who were striving for freedom and justice. Americans and Iranians have been friends for generations, regardless of the problems between their governments.”

The Allied invasion of Iran in 1941 sparked an anti-American sentiment, Bahari said, that manifested itself in the 1979 Iranian Revolution under Ayatollah Khomeini. In his quest to create a Shia state, Khomeini’s brutal murders of dissidents and support of terrorists led him against the liberal principles that the revolution which brought him to power was attempting to espouse. Bahari went on to say that Mahmoud Ahamdinejad was the latest iteration of this historical struggle.

“We are witnessing a 20th century analog dictatorship, accustomed to imprisoning and killing its critics, shutting down newspapers and interfering with short-wave radio signals, having to fight its own people digitally on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram,” said Bahari of the current regime. “The regime is out of its depth. They are using the same analog means of repression in the digital age. It can’t work forever. It barely works today.”

Bahari concluded by saying that what America needs to understand is that the ideological fears that characterize the Iranian political climate have their roots in “the reality that Iran has been dominated by authoritarian regimes in one way or another throughout its history, and that foreign governments have interfered in Iranian affairs for centuries.” Bahari said that, understanding this, the American administration needs to have two objectives in its negotiations: “curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions while recognizing its right to peaceful nuclear technology, and to continue speaking out on human rights abuses in Iran and to show solidarity with the people of Iran.”

Following his prepared talk, Bahari answered questions from members of the audience on topics including anti-Semitism in Iran, how the film Rosewater changed American’s perception of Iran, and the current state of human rights in Iran.

Written by Olivia Paschal, Yale College Class of 2018.