Rebuilding the homeland in poetry and song: Simin Behbahani, Dariush Eghbali, and the making of a transnational national anthem

ABSTRACT

This article traces the transformation of an Iranian nationalist poem by Simin Behbahani entitled “I Will Rebuild You, Homeland” (1981) into an expatriate national anthem, and the poem-song’s subsequent incorporation into protests and political speeches by individuals and groups in and outside of Iran. Employing musical and textual analysis, interviews, and a transnational perspective on cultural circulation and reception, I show how exile pop singer Dariush Eghbali’s adaptation of the original poem mobilized the text and opened it to audience participation. The article argues that the poem and its musical–textual permutations exemplify contemporary Iranian practices of national identification in which conflicting parties attempt to motivate “the Iranian people” to political ends. As actors from around the world and across the political spectrum repeatedly turn to nationalist poetry, song, anthem, and political speech, we observe how mass-mediated popular culture reveals ongoing recourse to nationalist forms even in transnational space.

Notes

¹ I am thinking especially of singer-songwriters Mohsen Namjoo and Arash Sobhani and rappers Hichkas and Shahin Najafi. All operate outside of official or expatriate music industries, which lends them a kind of artistic independence.

² For other examples related to music, see Guy (2005) on the Taiwanese appropriation of Beijing Opera and Reyes (1999) on Vietnamese refugees’ preservation of Westernized popular music in Orange County, California.

³ According to Dehkordi and Loloi (2011), the popularity of “Ey Irān” “increased even further after the Revolution of 1978–79 when it became a favorite anthem for those opposed to the new Islamic regime’s over-reliance on religion rather than nationhood as the communal bond.”

⁴ The group Kiki (2002) produced an upbeat techno instrumental version of “Ey Irān,” while Los Angeles Iranian pop music fixture Andy Madadian (1998) has recorded a slow-tempo, wistful version with acoustic guitar.

⁵ The video can be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhHomoIEeSw. Following the 2009 Iranian protests, Dariush and Dr. Abbasseh Towfigh, Secretary of the Ayeneh Foundation and frequent partner in Dariush’s activist endeavors, developed a new video based on a more hopeful imagery of sprouting leaves, including images of imprisoned protestors on green leaves and deceased protestors on red leaves, interspersed with other images of Ghandi and other famous activists, Iranian and otherwise. The goal, Dr. Towfigh told me, was “to celebrate all those who have been fighting for democracy” (A. Towfigh, personal communication, 26 June 2016). The video was shown on a screen behind Dariush and his band at the 12 September 2011 concert I attended at the Gibson Amphitheater.

⁶ This image appeared on the cover of The Economist following the protests. Batebi was jailed for being the subject of this much-reproduced picture and on charges of fomenting unrest, for which he was given a death sentence, later reduced to 15 years. While on temporary medical leave from prison in 2008, he escaped the country.

⁷ The album I Will Rebuild You, Homeland includes two versions of the song: the version analyzed here and a live recording of Dariush performing the piece in concert in which he leads the audience to sing the piece. He has also done this in more recent concerts, as I observed at his performance in 2011 in Los Angeles’s Gibson Amphitheater.

⁸ Dariush is not alone in having noted its adoption in political fora: Talattof notes that in June 2005 the song was taken up at a protest following President Ahmadinejad’s first election. Talattof reports that Behbahani attended the rally and gave a speech, and that the crowd members “recited and sang” the song “as they were threatened and harassed by pro-regime vigilante groups” (2008, p. 30).

⁹ The term “khun bāzi” is multilayered in meaning. One meaning is “mainlining blood,” the practice of injecting drug-infused blood when pure drugs are lacking. Another meaning intended by Dariush, and conveyed to me by Ayeneh Foundation Secretary Dr. Abbasseh Towfigh, is “the sad fact that in Iran the least valuable thing is someone’s life. [The title] represents the inhuman acts, the violation of every aspect of the human rights, the fact that the most worthless commodity is the people’s life and soul” (A. Towfigh, personal communication, 26 June 2016).