The Iranian Population In United Kingdom

Immigration from Iran is generally classified by two distinct waves; pre-Revolution and post-Revolution (1978 onwards). The majority of those who emigrated from Iran before the Revolution were students, as a result of Iran requiring more skilled and academic labor after the Shah’s increasing industrialization in the 1960s. The rapid growth of graduates was overbearing for Iranian universities leading to the initially temporary migration of people to Europe and North America. This set the foundation for other Iranians to settle overseas after the Revolution, and improved incomes meant students’ relatives could also emigrate allowing for reunification of families. More Iranians are visiting their birth land, however there has been no indication that those who left will return for good until the country’s political landscape changes. The post-Revolution period saw a much greater influx of Iranian immigration, largely political refugees and exiles. Initially these people fled the Revolution and shortly after in 1980 the Iran-Iraq war however it continues to date. Approximately the same share (29%) of people immigrated during 1985-1990 than in 1975-1980. It was noted in 1990 that there were 285,000 Iranians in the USA and was one of the places along with the UK that already had an Iranian community before the Revolution. Nearly half of the USA’s Iranian community reside in California especially Los Angeles where there are approximately 80,00 Iranians.

The Iranian population in United Kingdom enlarged by nearly three times from 1971 to 1991. The Uk holds the third largest community of Iranians after USA and Canada. Of course, this data is ever changing, as the generation of students who moved away from Iran towards the end of the 20th Century went on to start families of their own in the countries in which they had settled. Therefore, there will be thousands of uncounted UK born and/or raised Iranians in existence who may not have been noticed as part of the Iranian community without a passport. According to Iranians in the United States in 1990, 69% of Iranians under 15 years old were born in the USA. These numbers could rise when one takes into account people with Iranian heritage from their mother’s side. The tight-knit personality of these communities and fast increase in population sparks an interest in the development of the Iranian diaspora. It can often feel like one is wrestling with themselves, or as though one side of you is playing tug-of-war with your other side. Half of yourself feels responsible to stay true to the traditions that raised you, but the other half feels pressure to assimilate into the culture of their friends and colleagues. Therefore, it can sometimes be difficult for young adults to recognize themselves as members of two communities or may not be fully accepted by those respective groups. As a member of the diaspora, assimilating too much to the major community often can lead to feelings of abandonment and disloyalty from one’s heritage. Inevitably all young adults eventually must establish themselves, and the process can often feel confusing.

There’s a sense of unity within the places that diaspora settle in. Every member of the community has a part of their history enveloped, that they can no longer access. The photographs from the Irangeles series by Ron Kelley, contain people as their central subject yet the figures seem to slip from the images’ boundaries. These images show mobility and oddly both freedom and restraint. However, each of the people in the photographs are well lit and graced with dignity. Our lines of sight are constantly moving, darting around to experience a vast range of passionate expressions. Kelley has produced a powerful series of images that initially allow you to forget but then soon after all too conscious of the lives these people may have lead, forever holding on to a desire for change. Professor of Art History Kate Palmer Albers asks, “how do human beings – and human bodies – experience a culture that is structured around separation?” Will separation push those beings to the outside, demanding they look inwards? These beings are in a constant state of transition, therefore they may struggle to occupy “inner spaces”. The images switch from incandescent crowded spaces to impermeable darkness flooding the background of a few figures. This echoes the separation between Iran and Los Angeles. Kelley prolifically captures day to day life of a culture that has been transferred to a different environment, “just out of routine.” Politics does not seem to be at the forefront of this archive of photographs, instead it lies in the shadows, submerged in the darkness. Photographer Barak Zamar states, “if it succeeds in being about the human experience, then it’s always about politics.” This feeling found its way into photography through divide and ambiguity. Irangeles is a portrait of community, shift and emotional labor.

In a media-driven age where knowledge of Iran revolves around its domestic and foreign policy, the young diaspora can offer a counter-narrative. We are in a position to emphasize the beauty of particular aspects of our culture and history whilst looking towards the future. Therefore, perhaps modernity can only be attained by leaving other things behind. “Home is not where you were born. Home is where all your attempts to escape cease.”Naguib Mahfouz My knowledge of Iran has been accumulated through stories told by my mother’s side of the family. Tales of bobbing melons in the garden pond and picturesque boulevards with trees carrying the plumpest juiciest mulberries are before my time. Those tales date to a time when the USA and UK were not so appealing. What was the point of moving, back then? Everything one desired or needed was there, in the land of roses and nightingales. My mother left Iran at the peak of the Revolution, in 1979, and came to settle with her dear uncle along with her sister. Her uncle had moved to London years before, because of a bad feeling he had for the future. My grandmother often longingly tells me of her wonderful place in Tehran, I can see in her eyes it was everything to her and after she would tell me about having to sell virtually all of her possessions, and then the glimmer in her eyes would fade. I have an odd relationship with Iran, I know a lot about it, and I was raised by who I consider quite traditional Iranians, yet I have never been there. I have never met her, Mother Iran, but have heard plenty of fond words spoken about her. Therefore, I cannot really regard Iran as home, as my mum pointed out to me, but I know for sure Iran is much more to me than just my mother’s birthplace. Iran makes me feel a spectrum of emotions I do not think I would otherwise feel so vividly. I can think about Iran and feel blissful, depressed and concerned all at once. As I’ve grown older and come to terms with the world a touch more, I feel a heaviness in my heart. I feel isolated from it and worry that my heritage will become unfamiliar. Everything I am accustomed to here will not be the same there, of course, but I yearn to feel some kind of truth. For the most part, oddly, my life has revolved around Iran… in Europe. I like having the balance. I like being able to go to the pub for a catch-up with a mate but also every week to cook dishes like khoreshte fesenjan for my grandparents to show my respect and responsibility to them as they grow older. I always fear however that the latter will get lost somehow, that my efforts to preserve my upbringing will diminish when I get to be your age. I’m holding back tears as I write this. I wear my gold farvahar necklace, depending on where I am I will tuck it into my shirt, but it probably doesn’t matter too much. As much as I identify as an Iranian, I often do not get viewed as one, I am much more British than I like to think. I get told I am white passing often, in an uncomfortably congratulatory manor, as though I have not noticed that I inherited my English pale skin but with a slight tint of olive. But some see beyond that, concentrating more on my dorsal hump and prominent eyebrows. The closest prediction so far has been that I look ‘a bit Turkish’, it’s always a guessing game for some people. Joobin Bekhrad once wrote, “In Persian, there’s a word for people like me, and it’s not particularly pretty: gharbzadeh. I am one, who, in the philosophy of the late Jalal Al-e Ahmad, has been ‘struck’ by the epidemic of the West.” Depending on who I speak to, I will either be English or Iranian. On occasion you get a comment like, Iranian? No, you can’t be! Really? Oh, so you’re an Arab! And this quite often follows on from, Well, what’s the difference, they’re all the same.

I speak Farsi every day, love the eerily enchanting voice of Golpa and make what my grandmother considers the perfect khoreshte aaloo esfenaj, Iran is part of my daily life. It makes the mundane more colorful. When in England, my ‘Iranian-ness’ becomes much more prominent. In Iran however, I am almost certain I will be just another khareji. My London pace with turn into a slow stroll, camera in one hand, I will be a tourist. On my return I may even feel more like a woman without a country.“cho Iran nabashad, tan-e man mabad” Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh (May I cease to live should there be no Iran) Political and ideological differences shape the way cultures may view one another. This can be for the case of those with no other accessible source of information, therefore these differences may not only be apparent cross-culturally, but also among families. Due to the older generation becoming more computer literate, the internet has been a form of finding more information on the current state of affairs in other communities. Furthermore, Iranian newspapers are available sometimes for free in Persian shops and restaurants. These publications offer political and social updates but also advertise products and events that meet the needs of the diaspora. Although there has been some scrutiny of printed material because those that are printed in Iran may be censored but those printed outside of the region may be overly critical. Therefore, maybe the diaspora is lacking information on face value, and we could argue that there is a space there for a more balanced reflection. According to the Change Institute, “only a few people who came to the UK before 1979 are believed to have cut off their connections with Iran.”

Ali Mobasser is an artist of Iranian heritage living in London. His family left Iran during the Revolution due to his grandfather’s position as chief of national police in the Shah’s government. The family moved to London at this time where Mobasser lived with his grandfather, aunt and father. Still a child at this point, he began collecting the stamps that were on letters being received from Iran by his family. In recent years he stated that, “As an adult, displacement, identity and life in exile was becoming a big factor in my life and art, and through a number of different life alignments (the death of my aunt who raised me and the birth of my son), I felt the need to tell my family’s story, mainly for therapeutic reasons after my loss.” He went on to say, “I spent my youth cultivating my Englishness, slowly building a creative and emotional dam that was getting ready to burst!”

This realization prompted him to dust off his book of stamps, photographing them each individually, forming the project Stamps of a Revolution, that was later exhibited at AG Galerie in Tehran. Each of the one hundred and seven stamps were neatly framed and ordered chronologically. The stamps had been returned to their original home, completing a journey of self-understanding with Mobasser. The re-appropriation of these personal objects communicates to the viewer his efforts to reconnect with a place that holds a lot of value to his family. For some families the idea of returning to Iran even to visit is swiftly dismissed and offspring can be sometimes be quickly dissuaded of going. But for the offspring, this can cause frustration as there seemingly is no good to time to travel there. Mobasser described this feeling as, “an ever-growing itch that was going to have to be scratched sooner or later.” For people in this position it can be problematic to come to terms with celebrating a culture all your life, having the ability to speak your mother tongue fluently, yet never knowing that country. How will one continue celebrating their culture once their elders are all gone? The very people who kept the spirit of the culture alive outside of their beloved Iran? There is a constant interference between a British and Iranian upbringing. Somerset House Studios hosted Lilian Nejatpour’s most recent performance work, Choreophobia, taking its name from Anthony Shay’s 1999 study of improvised dance in Iran. The movements in the performance vary, spanning from Persian wrestling style manoeuvres to delicate mirroring motions, with UK Garage style gun fingers in between. The two dancers are dressed in white, sports bras and trainers alluding to UK rave-wear and long flowing skirts, perhaps referring to chadors, a traditional form of showing modesty in Islamic Iranian. The two performers begin the piece by staring into each other’s eyes intensely, building up energy for the composition that is about to proceed. Nejatpour discusses the act of censoring post-Revolutionary Iran and therefore the decline in public improvised dance. Dance has always been a fundamental part of Iranian culture, and still is, now only behind closed doors. Nejatpour has chosen to use this form of expression to outline her dual upbringing which for her has disrupted her thoughts on gender and sexuality.

Choreography is defined as a staged sequence of movements, consequently, Choreophobia denotes the fear of designing dance. The movements and sound switch between that of the UK Garage scene from the late nineties and early noughties with more traditional tanbur instrumentals dictating a more fluid and rhythmic flow. This implies the struggle of changing between cultures when living in England and holidaying in Iran. The dancers show a seemingly love-hate relationship for one another as they go from beating themselves against each other’s chests to caressing their backs. This demonstrates the discomforts that ensue when the East and West have been brought together resulting in a load of cultural differences and beliefs. Choreophobia could be seen as a visual representation of a ‘culture clash’. Some of the motions reference wrestling, known to be a highly regarded and highly masculine sport in Iran. Men would execute the fight in a circle, although there has been some evidence of female wrestling, it is not as widely recognized or appreciated. At one point, the two performers are on the floor, limbs entangled, and they begin to try and free themselves by tugging on their skirts. We can see their ghost-like faces silently yelping as the fabric is pulled over their faces, only slightly revealing their faces underneath. The performers make some quite aggressive movements and on occasion would let out a small grunt due to the sheer energy within them. The work is filled with juxtaposition, reminding the audience of the jarring reality of dual cultures. The bodies seem to be perpetually unstable as though they are competing for something, but as soon as ones starts get close to ‘winning’ the other takes the lead. There is a constant sense of dichotomy in the performance, or one side continuously masking the other momentarily and their roles reverse.