21 Feb 23 | FEATURED: Jemimah Steinfield, Index Arts, News and features, United Kingdom
As a child I used to dream about the day I would go to Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. I’d watch the movie on repeat, always captivated by the moment when Charlie enters that room, the one with the marshmallow trees and the chocolate river. In other words, the room of childhood dreams. Flash forward to a year ago. My son was having a tantrum, refusing to leave the house (he was three, it happens). I was trying the normal tricks to calm and cajole him. Nothing was working. Eventually I told him about the Willy Wonka room. As if by magic he calmed instantly, put on his coat and we left.
I didn’t mention Augustus Gloop in my retelling. If I had I might have missed out the fact he was “fat” because, well, I try to avoid that word in my house. I don’t want my son to grow up body conscious or to fat shame others. That is my prerogative as a parent; I can filter and rewrite as I see fit. It is not, though, the prerogative of the publishing house, or a streaming service. But that’s exactly the role they have given themselves. As was recently announced in The Daily Telegraph, Roald Dahl’s children’s books are being rewritten to remove language deemed offensive by the publisher Puffin. Sensitivity readers have been hired, their job to bring the books up to the 21st Century. So Augustus Gloop is now “enormous” not “fat” and, amongst other issues that I’ll get to shortly, I’m curious as to whether that is even any better?
Ditto references to “female” characters like Miss Trunchbull in Matilda, who has gone from a “most formidable female” to a now “most formidable woman”. Shouldn’t that be “person”? Or do we have to wait for the 2024 edition?
This sets a really bad precedent. I hate to be the cliché – work at Index on Censorship, talk about slippery slopes – but this really is a slippery slope. The library shelf that Dahl’s books sit on is full of works that teeter on the edge of PC. Take just one example, Judith Kerr’s beloved The Tiger Who Came to Tea. In this it’s Sophie’s mother who is at home looking after Sophie while it’s Sophie’s father who is at work, and it’s Sophie’s father who has the great idea to go out for sausages and chips (and presumably has all the capital to pay for it). Of course Daddy bloody saves the day! Shall we rewrite that?
I don’t like the traditional gender roles of Kerr’s book, nor do I like some of the language and descriptions in Dahl’s. But these books are products of our uncomfortable past and no amount of editing can change that past. Editing can, however, gloss over it as if it never happened, which is far more concerning. How are we supposed to understand who we are today if we don’t have the context of where we’ve come from? It even denies us our victories. “Look! Mummy and Daddy both work today!” I can tell my kids proudly if they question the dynamics in Kerr’s Tiger.
Another troubling aspect concerns author consent. In the journalism industry, once something has been published it’s considered bad practise to make any changes, certainly without the permission of the author. With Dahl, not only have words been changed, passages have been added. According to the Roald Dahl Story Company “it’s not unusual to review the language” during a new print run and any changes were “small and carefully considered”. Are these small? In The Witches, when it first introduces the witches as bald beneath their wigs a new line follows: “There are plenty of other reasons why women might wear wigs and there is certainly nothing wrong with that.” That’s very well-meaning, it’s just that Dahl didn’t write that. I fear the power we are giving to publishers and estates to reword as they see fit. Ultimately in the wrong hands good intentions easily turn bad.
My final irritation is more personal. My son’s bookshelf is spilling over with stories, a glorious catalogue of old and new. I’m amazed by the number of fantastic children’s writers out there today and a little overwhelmed. Justification for the Dahl modifications seems to be along the lines of a commitment to diversity and inclusivity, something we can all get behind. If Puffin and Netflix are so committed to these values why don’t they instead invest in and support authors from other backgrounds? After all, Roald Dahl was a white male with an anti-Semitic track record. He’s hardly the poster boy of 2023.
As much as they have their problems, I like some of Dahl’s characters and plots both from a place of nostalgia and from a place of good story-telling. I look forward to the day when my son progresses from tales of golden tickets to giants outside windows (way too scary for now). But he shouldn’t need to watch Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on repeat like me because there are many other brilliant books out there, waiting to be turned into film. What we need is money channelled to new stories, not new, redacted versions of Matilda.
This article originally appeared in The Bookseller here.
21 Feb 23 | News and features, Russia, Ukraine
Immediately after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov loudly announced the active involvement of Chechen security forces in it. Units of the Russian army and the Interior Ministry for Chechnya, which de facto report to Kadyrov personally, lined the grounds of his residence in the centre of the Chechen capital. Kadyrov said at the time that 12,000 Chechen volunteers were ready to leave for any special operation in the interests of Russia.
Since then, various sources have claimed that about 200 Chechens have been killed. The figure for the number of Chechens fighting for Russia is about 10,000 according to Kadyrov. Russian human rights activists put the number at around 3,000.
In September 2022 several women decided to organise a demonstration against sending Chechens to join Russia’s war. In a voice message that circulated on social media at the time, the organisers called on people to come to the central square of the city of Grozny: “They killed us in two wars, aren’t there enough dead, mutilated and crippled?” the woman in the message asks. On the same day, Kadyrov said on his Telegram channel that the women had been detained, a preventive conversation was held with them, and he promised to send their sons to fight in Ukraine.
This was something of an understatement. The human rights group Memorial has since confirmed that the women were taken to Grozny’s City Hall and their husbands forced to beat them. The son of at least one of the women was sent to Ukraine and her husband died a few days later, seemingly of “a broken heart”.
This kind of harsh reaction had an effect: people became afraid to express their opinions, even in front of their long-time friends. Umar from Grozny says that recently a friend of his sent a meme about the war in Ukraine into a group chat room, and five minutes later deleted it. “This has never happened before, everyone knows everyone in this chat room and before the war everyone trusted each other,” said Umar.
That said, one activist of a Russian human rights organisation believes that the situation of free speech in Chechnya has changed, but not necessarily for the worse. She confirms that people are less likely to express their discontent with the authorities in public, but among trusted circles, criticism of the Chechen authorities has become harsher. She says that even those who used to be apolitical are now speaking out against the actions of the authorities. She believes that the people who fear that their sons who survived the Chechen wars or were born later will die in a new, “alien war”.
According to Marina, a 33-year-old who works at a public institution in Chechnya, “not a single lunch with friends goes by without talking about Ukraine”. She follows all the news from the front and cheers for Ukraine’s victory. Most of Marina’s friends also support Ukraine and want Russia to lose. When she and her friends discuss Ukraine in a café, everyone keeps asking each other to keep their voices down.
“Ukraine is going through the same thing we went through. The same rhetoric, only we were accused of being a nation of terrorists, while the Ukrainians are ‘Nazis’,” Marina said. She is sure that among Chechens there is no patriotism toward Russia. “Where does it come from?” she asked rhetorically.
“The Chechens we see on social networks and state channels talking about love for Russia are people who need something from the authorities. They pursue purely material goals.”
Marina personally knows Chechens who went to Ukraine for money but that was at the very beginning of the war (the minimum amount paid by the Russian government for participation in the war is 195,000 rubles monthly, about $2615),
Umar, 43, a courier from Grozny, tells of his neighbour who was sent to Ukraine recently. “He liked to drink and make noise. He was taken to prison and stayed there for several months. Then he was offered: either you go to Ukraine or we put you in jail for a long time. He agreed to Ukraine. I recently saw a picture of him standing somewhere in the Luhansk region of Ukraine, in a Russian military uniform, with a submachine gun in his hands”. According to Umar, there are many such cases.
There are also those in Chechnya who think differently and support Kadyrov’s army. These are mostly families of Chechens who are fighting on the side of Russia. “They are not rooting for Russia’s victory, but for their family members,” said Tamara, a 49-year-old housewife from a Chechen village. Those whose children have gone to fight in Ukraine sincerely want them to return home and support them. These parents need to explain to themselves that their sons are not risking their lives for nothing, and they speak “the language of television” Tamara said. Most of their rhetoric boils down to a line they’ve been told that Russia was forced to attack and that “the (Russian) government isn’t stupid”.
For the residents of Grozny, which was rebuilt after almost total destruction in the early 2000s, today they live ordinary, peaceful lives. As in other Russian cities, there is almost no indication that the country is waging an aggressive war against its neighbour. It is almost the same war Russia waged against Chechnya in the 1990s and 2000s when it fought for independence. The graffiti on the walls that used to say “Welcome to hell”, left for the Russian soldiers by Chechen fighters for independence, has been replaced by murals depicting Kadyrov and his men. But there is little faith in the sincerity of Kadyrov’s love for the Russian leadership. Marina says:
“Kadyrov has no patriotism for Russia. All he protects is his position and his stability.”
This article is written by a journalist from Chechnya. For their safety they wished to remain anonymous and excluded identifying features of those they spoke to as well
08 Feb 23 | Iran, Iraq, News and features, Syria, Turkey
The murder of a 22-year-old Kurdish woman in Iran by the Gasht-e-Ershad ‘guidance patrols’ in September sparked protests worldwide. Celebrities cut off their hair and chanted ‘Women, Life, Freedom’ in support of the movement born out of her funeral. But ‘Mahsa Amini’ – as she is identified by the mainstream press – is a misnomer.
“Her formal name according to the Iranian state is Mahsa, but she was known as Mahsa only by the authorities,” British-Kurdish writer and organiser Elif Sarican told Index. “She was known as Jina to her family, friends and everyone that knew her. It’s what is on her gravestone.”
Sarican described the deliberate misnaming of Kurds as a tactic to deny their existence. The insistence on calling Jina the wrong name is “painful” she said, particularly when it’s by the mainstream media.
“It’s very difficult in Iran – not impossible – but very difficult, to have a Kurdish name,” she explained. “The Iranian state is very specific about the kind of Iran it envisages. Unfortunately, similarly to other parts of Kurdistan, Kurdish people cannot name their children with Kurdish names.”
In 1990, Sarican and her family migrated to London from Maraş in north Kurdistan, the site of one of the largest Kurdish massacres in contemporary Turkey. It was aimed at people just like her family – Kurdish Alevis.
The unrest in Iran, Sarican says, is representative of a universal Kurdish experience. It’s an uprising of people that have been denied for 100 years.
“‘Women, Life Freedom’, or ‘Jin, Jîyan, Azadî’ in Kurdish, comes from the Kurdish Women’s Movement,” she continued. “It’s a part of the Kurdish Freedom Movement founded by the imprisoned Abdullah Öcalan.”
Since the news of Jina Amini’s murder broke, the slogan has been adopted internationally as a symbol of solidarity. But the phrase, Sarican tells me, has been dissociated from its radical, political origins. It exists as a result of decades of struggle for women’s liberation and marked a big shift in the Kurdish Freedom Movement when women’s liberation was adopted and cemented as a core pillar.
“Bringing together women, life and freedom is what the Kurdish Freedom Movement ideology is. It’s based on radical democracy, ecology and women’s liberation. All of these coming together is the only way to achieve freedom.”
It’s no surprise, she explains, that Iranian protesters took inspiration and borrowed this slogan from their brothers and sisters in other parts of Kurdistan. “This is an expression of universal Kurdish struggle.”
The persecution of Kurds persists across the region. “100 years ago – and this year is the 100-year anniversary of the Treaty of Lozan – the Kurdish regions were divided into four nation states: Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. As a result of that, the experience of Kurdish people has been denied,” Sarican explained.
Kurdish language, culture and political expression are suppressed across the region. Fundamentally, they are denied the right to exist, she says. In Turkey, in the last 10 years, many Kurdish activists, elected MPs, mayors and councillors have been imprisoned. Although the Kurdish language is no longer formally banned in Turkey, it is repressed.
“To have education in your mother tongue is an international human right,” she explains. This is not a right granted to Kurds in Turkey.
While the treatment of Kurds in Iran, Syria and Iraq is brutal, Sarican says, it is limited to their own borders. Turkey not only oppresses Kurds in its own borders, but has invaded Syria, and continues to build military bases in northern Iraq.
“They are interfering in the lives of Kurdish people in at least three areas of Kurdistan. When the protests were happening in Iran and there was solidarity being shown in parts of Turkey, the police brutally cracked down on these demonstrations.”
Mournfully, she tells me that this month is the 10-year anniversary of the assassination of three Kurdish women by Turkish intelligence in Paris. In a disturbing mark of the anniversary, three more activists were assassinated in the same location just a few weeks ago.
“The Kurdish people are feeling unsafe not only in most parts of Kurdistan, but also in other parts of Europe,” Sarican continued.
Kurdish people constitute 10% of Iran’s population but make up about 50% of their political prisoner numbers. Many prisoners are denied proper health access, the most basic human rights, proper visits with family and connection with the outside world. Sadly, she says, many European states also extend these policies against Kurdish people in Europe.
“Kurdish communities are some of the most politically organised. The Kurdish freedom movement is not only one of the biggest political movements in the Middle East right now it is actually one of the largest social movements in Europe as well. [Criminalisation of our communities] really curtails and impacts the organising and protests.”
“Staying in tune with what’s happening in Kurdistan is of the utmost importance. It’s important that any future, whether it’s in Turkey or Iran – because it’s all connected, very very closely – is a future that works for the people. That’s a future of radical democracy, of ecology and of women’s liberation. Because otherwise these theocratic dictatorships will cement themselves.”
She stressed the significance of understanding the political projects that are already in existence across Kurdistan, instead of trying to impose a Western solution. “My call would be for people to understand the Kurdish Freedom Movement programme and what it’s offering. Read the memoir of Kurdish revolutionary Sakine Cansiz. Read the works of Abdullah Öcalan. Understand what the political project is and how we can work together to realise it. [The crisis in the Middle East] will only result in an actual, meaningful freedom if there is a political vision, led by the Kurdish freedom movement. It’s time we support that movement and come together to make sure that that is what the future of Kurdistan looks like.”
01 Feb 23 | Iran, News and features
Wild at Heart (Portrait of Pouran Shapoori), 2019 Credit: Soheila Sokhanvari, courtesy Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery
The long, winding path of The Curve art gallery at London’s Barbican Centre has been transformed into a devotional space. The cavernous room is dimly lit and echoes with the calming voices of female Iranian singers. Sprawling, Islamic, geometric patterns roll down the tall walls which are splintered with the light projected onto them by dazzling mirrored sculptures. Apart from the female voices, it feels like a mosque.
Take a closer look, and the walls are scattered with traditional Persian miniatures, depicting women whose histories have been erased in Iran. In painstaking detail, Soheila Sokhanvari’s portraits provide a snapshot into women’s lives pre-revolution. Born in Shiraz in the Fars Province of Iran, she came to England in 1978, just a year before the Islamic Revolution. But Sokhanvari remains enchanted with the country she left behind. Her miniatures depict unveiled and glamorous women, creative dissidents who pursued careers in a country awash with Western style but not its freedoms.
“I can relate directly to the women in my paintings,” she told Index. “Like them I am an artist but, unlike them, I am able to pursue my career, wear what I want and act as I want, and the idea that one day someone could take my freedom away from me is unthinkable”.
The portraits are displayed without names or biographical info but, by scanning a QR code, we are guided through the exhibition by their stories. There are 28 in total: actors, singers, poets, writers, dancers and film directors, all of which were either forced into silence or exile in 1979, when the Islamic Revolution led to a rollback in women’s legal rights. Much of their work is censored in Iran today. “I knew of many of the women from my own experience and time in Iran as a young girl,” Sokhanvari explained. “They were my idols, but finding out more information about the lives of several of the women took lots of research – they were essentially erased from the record by the regime”. She said that a small number of the women – like singer and actress Googoosh – are very famous, but that several had tragically died too young and were hard to trace.
The exhibition draws the spotlight back onto these talented women for which, she says, she feels a deep loss. The portraits beautifully capture this feeling: a simultaneous celebration of their bravery and a mourning of their freedoms. Vivid patterns and clothing contrast monochromatic faces, which make the pictures feel both vibrant and ghostly. The use of new and old multimedia was significant in telling these stories too. “I painted my portraits in the ancient technique of egg tempera, onto calf vellum, and I included films in which the women starred, ” Sokhanvari said. Two holograms of dancing Iranian actors Kobra Saeedi and Jamileh are also hidden in boxes. “I wanted the viewers to see these women, to watch them dance and to hear them sing, since they have been banned from these platforms.” The broadcasting of women’s voices in public is illegal in Iran. “I wanted to show these women at the height of their creativity, to show them as the sensational artists that they are, and using multimedia helped to achieve this immersive experience.”
This contrast of old and new is fitting. While the exhibition was curated without sight of the current unrest in Iran, the portraits certainly gain a tragic poignancy because of it. The brave women of Sokhanvari’s portraits embody much of what people are fighting for today. “Young women are at the front of this revolution and that is what gives it its power,” she told Index. “I feel a new sense of positivity and hope that perhaps we will see the end of this regime, but simultaneously I feel pain and bitterness that it is at the cost of so many bright lives.”
Although she doesn’t describe her artwork as a protest, she says that the message is political.
“What is happening in Iran can no longer be seen as just another protest, it is a revolution and I stand in solidarity with my sisters.” I asked if her portraits reflect a lost past or a hopeful future. She says both.
‘Rebel Rebel’ at The Curve, Barbican is open until 26 February 2023
