Diaspora and Asian Cinema 23 June, 2008

ALWAYS ON THE MOVE: MYTH BLACKBOARDS

OF

HOMELAND

IN

SAMIRA MAKHMALBAF’ S FILM

CHIH-SHENG NI

TAMKANG UNIVERSITY

Samira Makhmalbaf (born on 1980 in Tehran) is the youngest director in the world once taking part in the official section of the 1998 Cannes Film Festival at the age of 18. Makhmalbaf, is a famous Iranian filmmaker and writer.

Her Father, Mohsen

Before directing her own films, Samira

Makhmalbaf has acted as minor roles in many of her father’s films.

She abandoned formal education

to learn cinema with her father in the Makhmalbaf Film House for five years.

In 1998, her debut film

“The Apple” makes Makhmalbaf well known because of her artistic disposition in filming and her After her impressive debut film, Makhmalbaf’s second feature film

concern for the Islamic culture.

“Blackboards” (1999) was selected again by Cannes Film Festival (Official Competition) in 2000 and was granted the Jury Prize.

Co-produced by Makhmalbaf Film House with Fabrica Cinema,

“Blackboards” was widely released and received many international awards.1 Shot in the mountains of Kurdistan and on the border between Iran and Iraq, the film “Blackboards” touches on questions of nationalism and displacement of the Kurdish people.

Set in

Iran-Iraq war, the film delineates the historical traumatic experiences of Iraqi Kurdish refugees, who are dispersed by chemical weapons in Iraq.

These Kurdish people flee hither and thither in the Kurdistan

Makhmalbaf treats these issues by two teachers’ perspectives.

mountains without a fixed state.

In

the film, two teachers travel with blackboards on their backs in the Kurdistan mountains, seeking for pupils to teach.

The first teacher meets a group of old Kurdish refugees who are in search for their

homeland, and the second teacher meets a band of Kurdish boys smuggling across the Iran-Iraq border.

These two teachers try to persuade the young boys and the old men to learn reading and

writing; however, they refuse to learn.

Young boys are busy for smuggling goods back and forth

between the Iran-Iraq borders; thus, learning seems to be unnecessary for earning their livings. Moreover, the only thing these old men concern is returning to their homeland to die; therefore, they are not willing to learn, either.

Crucially, the two teachers, smugglers and old men represent three

generations of Kurdish people.

It shows not only old men’s desperation for life, but also difficulties of

living confronted by the younger generation. By means of analyzing Samira Makhmalbaf’s cinematic text “Blackboards,” this paper examines traumatic experiences and diaspora consciousness of the Iraqi Kurds according to discussions of diaspora by critics such as James Clifford, Paul Gilroy, etc.

The first part of the paper

investigates the issue of displacement and transgression of boundaries with reference to Kurdish traumatic experiences in history.

The second part clarifies Kurdish people’s collective memory of

homeland, tending to argue the idea of returning to the homeland as a myth. 1

The last part analyzes

“ Jury’ s prize,”Official Competition section of Cannes Film Festival 2000, France. 2. “ Fede r i c oFe l l i niHo nor , ”UNESCO, Paris, 2000. 3. “ Fr a nc o i sTr uf f a utpr i z e , ”Gi f f oniFi l m Fe s t i v a li nI t a l y2000 . 4. “ Gi f f oni ' sMa y orPr i z e , ”Gi f f oniFi l m Festival, Italy, 2000. 5. “ Spe c i a lc ul t ur a lPr i z e , ”UNESCO,Pa r i s ,20 00 . 6. “ TheGr a ndJ ur ypr i z e , ”American Film Institute, USA, 2000. 1

【Diaspora/Modernity Research Unit】

possibilities and difficulties of constructing their cultural identity by means of scrutinizing metaphors of blackboards with which Makhmalbaf dealt in the film. Traumatic Experiences of the Kurds The Kurds are an ancient race who have inhabited the mountainous regions in Kurdistan for three thousand years long.

Geopolitically, Kurdistan is governed by Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria, covering

parts of northern Iraq, northwestern Iran, eastern Turkey and northern Syria in the Middle East.

The

Kurds are one of the biggest ethnic groups in the Middle East, retaining their own language, customs and culture.

However, the usage of language and religious beliefs might alter after separated and

dominated by different sovereign states for a long period of time.

Without constituting an autonomous

state, the Kurds scattered on Kurdistan in the form of groups of tribes.

During the First World War,

these tribes were instigated by different European big powers, competing with each other in order to become stronger.

Initially, as a province of the Ottoman Empire, the Kurds were promised

independence after the war.

However, after the war, the Kurds were betrayed and divided by the

Ottoman and Iraq according to the Treaty of Lausanne (1923).

Therefore, the Kurds built their own

guerillas in the region of Kurdistan in order to struggle for their own authority. allied with different neighbouring countries or the world big powers.

Mostly, these troops

The only goal they strove is to

build their own country. Since 1932, Iraq, as one of British colonies, started to struggle for independence.

In order to

impede the independence, the Iraqi Kurds were instigated by the British to agitate against the Iraqi government; nevertheless, Iraq gained its independence and suppressed the resistance from Kurds in its territory at the end.

From then on, the Iraqi government dominated the Iraqi Kurds by means of

stressful repressions, preventing from their unrest again.

Animosity between the Iraqi government

and the Iraqi Kurds becomes the blasting fuse on dealing with the Kurds issues. Iranian Kurds face the similar problems.

In 1945, the Iranian Kurds, under the support of Russia, built

their own country in Mahabad in northern Iran. region after the retreat of Russian armies. holding different ideologies.

Moreover, in Iran, the

However, one year later, Iranian troops occupied the

The Iranian Kurds divided into two political parties in Iran,

Obviously, although the Kurds are in search for constructing their own

nation, they fall into different parts with divergent ideologies which make them more difficult for reunification. Beginning in 1980, the eight-years Iran-Iraq War not only revealed the ambitions of the two nations in occupying the outlet of Arvand River in the Persian Gulf, which is a significant exporting line of petroleum, but also emerged the problem of nationalism and displacement for Kurdish people. During the Iran-Iraq war, the Kurds were used by both Iran and Iraq: Both Iran and Iraq bribed the other’s Kurds, the Baghdad government paying Iranian Kurds to fight against the Tehran government, while the Tehran government bribed Iraqi Kurds to fight against the Baghdad government.

Kurdish resistance groups and

tribes continued to pursue their own domestic enmities regardless of their notional nationality. (O’ Ballance 123-4) O’Ballance points out the ambivalence in different tribes and parties.

Due to the war over the years,

political situations kept transforming and became even more complicated. 2

Both the Iraqi Kurds and

Diaspora and Asian Cinema 23 June, 2008 the Iranian Kurds have different opinions on their political tendencies because of particular advantages. The competitions among various Kurdish tribes or parties not only complicate the issue of the Kurdish nationalism, but also make this area more turbulent.

During the war, the Iraqi government decided to

expel the Iraqi Kurds in order to avoid any resistances roused by them.

More than three thousand

Kurdish villages in northern Iraq were bombarded by the Iraqi armed forces. expelled from the Iraqi territory. bombardments.

These Iraqi Kurds were

They fled from their homeland in order to escape the chemical

Thousands of the Iraqi Kurds took refuge in Iran and other neighbouring countries.

However, these refugees are never welcome in their host countries.

For a long time, they migrate

around the boundaries between Iraq and Iran without a fixed place. Diaspora Consciousness Experiences of the Kurds about displacement and homelessness constitute the idea of diaspora, namely a diaspora consciousness of the Kurdish people.

According to Paul Gilroy, the idea of

diaspora refers to people who suffered by “forced dispersal and reluctant scattering:” Push factors, like war, famine, enslavement, ethnic cleansing, conquest and political repression, are a dominant influence.

The urgency they introduce makes diaspora

more than a vogueish synonym for wandering or nomadism: life itself is at stake in the way that the word connotes flight following the threat of violence rather than freely chosen experiences of displacement. (Gilroy 318) Gilroy points out that the constitution of diaspora is related to the experiences of displacement caused by the threat of violence.

Furthermore, people who are dispersed by various kinds of terrors involve in

a strong sense of danger about forgetting the origin and root.

For Gilroy, the sense of danger

produces a diaspora consciousness, in which a sense of belonging to the location of origin is crucially considered owing to the experience of displacement.

Furthermore, such diaspora consciousness

assists to consolidate cultural identity of a particular diaspora community, binding their cultural identity to their common roots.

People who have moved out their homeland and lived in other countries

maintain their cultural identity by such a community consciousness. Moreover, the idea about common roots of diaspora community is also explained by William Safran’s definition of diaspora. characteristics.2

Mainly, Safran defines the idea of diaspora with six significant

He argues that expatriate minority communities share the collective experience of

dispersal and the memory about their original homeland.

Furthermore, similar to Gilroy’s notion,

Safran argues that the collective memory about homeland is significant to maintain the expatriate minority as a community.

Since they do not believe they will be fully accepted by the host country, the

eventual return to the original homeland becomes the most important intention for them and their 2

Safran defines the term with the following characteristics: “ 1) they, or their ancestors, have been dispersed from a specific original ‘ center’to two or more ‘ peripheral,’or foreign, regions; 2) they retain a collective memory, vision, or myth about their original homeland—its physical location, history, and achievements; 3) they believe that they are not—and perhaps cannot be—fully accepted by their host society and therefore feel partly alienated and insulated from it; 4) they regarded their ancestral homeland as their true, ideal home and as the place to which they or their descendants would (or should) eventually return—when conditions are appropriate; 5) they believe that they should, collectively, be committed to the maintenance or restoration of their original homeland and to its safety and prosperity; and 6) they continue to relate, personally or vicariously, to that homeland in one way or another, and their ethnocommunal consciousness and solidarity are importantly defined by the existence of such a relationship.”Diaspora in Modern Societies 83-84. 3

【Diaspora/Modernity Research Unit】

descendants in the future.

For Safran, the sense of alienation in the host countries makes these

expatriate minorities continue to relate to their homeland in different ways; therefore, they could maintain their cultural identity after the traumatic experience of displacement. In the film “Blackboards,” the experience of displacement is represented by the history of the dispersed Iraqi Kurds. process of dispersal.

Owing to the war, they took refuge in Iran; however, they did not forget the After many years of fleeing for safety in Iran, these old Iraqi Kurds seek to return

to their homeland to die: When Halabcheh was bombarded, we lost our homes and came to Iran. We’re old now. It’s time for us to die and want to go back home to die where we were born. much as we search, we can’t find the border.

But as

If you know the way to the Iraqi border,

show it to us. (Makhmalbaf 23:08 to 23:21) These Iraqi Kurds lose their directions and travel around the mountains of Kurdistan on the borders between Iran and Iraq in order to find the way home.

During the process, they confront the threat of

firing and bombarding by the forced armies stationed on the borders. appears to be difficult and arduous.

Thus, returning to the homeland

It is cogent that they are a group of diaspora community who

share a common history of displacement in Iran.

Furthermore, by means of repeatedly rethinking the

eventual return, the Iraqi Kurds have a strong sense of belonging to the original homeland. Myth of Homeland The concept of returning to the original homeland is problematic due to many reasons.

James

Clifford questions the idea of the original homeland, arguing that “[e]ven ancient homelands have seldom been pure or discrete” (252).

Cogently, it is indistinct to figure out the indigenous rights of any

territories in the processes of historical transformation.

Furthermore, identities of people who suffered

the experience of displacement are much more ambivalent in the host societies when confronting different forms of traditions and cultures.

Clifford clarifies that a sense of connection to the homeland

of dispersed peoples, who are forced to live in other host societies, “must be strong enough to resist erasure through the normalizing processes of forgetting, assimilating, and distancing” (Clifford 255). From Clifford’s notions, crucially, diaspora communities maintain their identities of communities by a vision of collective homeland, by which they have collective homes away from the original home.

In

other words, by sharing with the collective memory of homeland and experiences of dispersal, expatriate minorities not only maintain their own communities but also construct their collective homes in the host countries, which is away from the original homeland.

The eventual return to the original

homeland of diaspora communities is nothing but a desire and imagination resulted from a sense of alienation and of belonging to the original root. According to Stuart Hall, diaspora communities always impose an imaginary coherence on constructing identities by the shared culture about the experience of dispersal and fragmentation. Moreover, for dispersed peoples, their cultural identities are strongly tied with their prior traditions and cultures in the original homeland, memorizing a collective ideal homeland and the absolute return. However, for Hall, cultural identities are never fixed and stable: “[i]t is not a fixed origin to which we can make some final and absolute Return” (113).

Such an imaginary reunification of cultural identities for 4

Diaspora and Asian Cinema 23 June, 2008 diaspora communities is in fact “constructed through memory, fantasy, narrative and myth” (113). Hall’s notions help to explain the idea that the absolute return to the original homeland is a kind of fantasy, which functions as a support for maintaining the cultural identity. The idea of returning to the homeland is regarded as a kind of myth due to the transformation of political situations and ideologies.

Safran argues that “although a homeland may exist, it is not a

welcoming place with which they can identify politically, ideologically, or socially; . . .” (Safran 91).

In

the case of the Iraqi Kurds, their original homeland on the Kurdistan mountains is governed apart from Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria. welcome back.

The dispersed Kurds are forced to leave their homeland and not

Although the land is still existence, political situations and ideologies appear to be

different after the division over the years.

These dispersed Kurds are not welcome by both the host

country and their homeland, which is dominated by other sovereign countries. such an ideal homeland for them to return.

Therefore, there is no

It only exists in the memory.

In the film “Blackboards,” these Iraqi Kurdish refugees lose their directions in the mountains of Kurdistan, trying to cross the border and reach their homeland.

However, after they are led to the

border by the first teacher, they can not recognize it at the first sight. that they are already on the border, their homeland.

These refugees do not believe

After the first teacher points to the direction and

insists there is Halabcheh, their homeland, these refugees finally believe him and run across the border to the so-called homeland.

However, there is no sign of any homeland in the scene.

shot the scene in a thick fog without any land visible. midair” (Dabashi 275).

Makhmalbaf

These old refugees seem to “be suspended in

Symbolically, the image of invisible homeland denotes that the land they reach

is not the original homeland any more.

They are besieged with a thick fog and involved in continual

search for the homeland in their memory. Blackboards in the Film Symbolically, the meaning of blackboard contains two aspects here, including of culture and knowledge passed down by teaching and of the issue about education.

Nevertheless, in the film, such

meanings are effaced owing to the difficulties of life for the dispersed Kurdish people.

Blackboards in

the film can be considered as a metaphor refers to several problems encountered by the dispersed Kurds.

In the film, two teachers travel with their blackboards in the Kurdistan mountains in order to

find pupils to teach.

They attempt to teach people how to write their names by their blackboards.

Symbolically, teaching how to write one’s own name could never be regardless of one’s own cultural identity; however, the blackboards here lose the original functions of teaching and writing.

After the

first teacher takes part in the journey to the border with a group of old refugees, his blackboard functions as a clothes horse, a stretcher for a sick old man, and a shield against the burst of gunfire. Rather than functions as its original intention, blackboard carried by the second teacher also functions as an improvised splint for a Kurdish child’s broken leg.

It is implicated that the blackboard plays a

significant metaphoric part in signifying the degradation of its original meaning to maintain the cultural identity after the experience of displacement. Samira Makhmalbaf reveals the difficulties for the dispersed people to carry on their lives and put education into practice for the dispersed Kurds after the history of displacement. 5

In the film, it seems

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depressed to think about the future of these dispersed Kurds because of the fact that old men are too old to learn and think about the future.

Moreover, young boys are always on the move without a stable

living condition; thus, they are not allowed to learn: We’re just porters.

We always take other people’s goods around. We bring smuggled

goods from the other side of the Iraqi border to Iran. We’re always running away in fear. One who’s always running in fear can’t study anything. (Makhmalbaf 19:26 to 19:46) People who suffered from the unstable living conditions are mentally and physically exhausted; therefore, learning seems to be unnecessary for carrying on their lives.

Seemingly, how to keep on

the life becomes more important than anything because of the living conditions. However, such a depression and frustration caused by the history of displacement could never be the ultimate fate for the Kurds.

Makhmalbaf tends to infuse their lives with a hope by means of

elaborating the symbolic meanings of the blackboards.

At the end of the film, a Kurdish mother

receives the blackboard from her divorced husband, the first teacher, when she reaches the border with the group of refugees.

Symbolically, the scene attempts to convey the ideas of passing down cultural

identity and of the possibility to put education into practice in the future.

Since the land they try to

cross is in fact an unknown land, which is also a symbol for the unknown future, it is always possible to carry on life and pass down culture through educating their younger generation.

In the film, teacher’s

blackboards imply the way to construct these possibilities for the Kurds in the future. Conclusion The film “Blackboards” depicts the traumatic experience and diaspora consciousness of the dispersed Kurds resulted from the war and displacement over the years.

Each dispersed community

of the Kurds is gradually alienated due to the transformation of socio-political situations.

Different

community struggles for their own identities in their host countries, attempting to maintain the ethnic subjectivity by the shared experience of dispersal and a collective memory of their own culture.

The

ideal homeland becomes a vision which assists these dispersed Kurds to maintain their cultural identity, associating them with their roots and origins.

However, the eventual return to their ideal homeland

seems to be in the distant future because of the alienation caused by the displacement.

Such

alienation also emerges among different groups of these dispersed communities; thus, there forms different ideal homelands for them to return to.

It is not important to argue that whether the land they

return is the origin or not since it may not exist; moreover, what’s more important is that how to carry on the life, maintain the cultural identity and educate the younger generation in the unknown land for the unknown future.

Instead of offering the pessimistic point of view, Makhmalbaf tends to provide a

positive one to argue various possibilities in the future.

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Diaspora and Asian Cinema 23 June, 2008

Works Cited Clifford, James. “Diasporas.” Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late twentieth Century. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 1996. 244-77. Dabashi, Hamid. Close Up: Iranian Cinema, Past, Present, Future. London and New York: Verso, 2001. Hall, Stuart. “Cultural Identity and Diaspora.” Contemporary Postcolonial Theory. Ed. Padmini Mongia. London: Arnold, 1996. Johnston, Sheila. “Blackboards: Young Makhmalbaf Makes the Grade.” Rev. of Blackboards, dir. Samira Makhmalbaf. 13 May 2000: 40. Makhmalbaf, Samira. dir. “Blackboards.” ed. Mohsen Makhmalbaf. Makhmalbaf Film House, 1999. O’Ballance, Edgar. The Kurdish Struggle. Houndmills, Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 1996. Safran, William. “Diaspora in Modern Societies: Myths of Homeland and Return.” Diaspora. 1.1 (1991): 83-99.

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