Mass Metamorphosis

Couple of weeks ago, we went to “Rhinoceros” theatre play with friends. The play is written by Eugène Ionesco and the performance was directed by Farhad Ayish in Tehran City Theatre. I liked it.

It is a simple show of how easily people can metamorphose into animals. It was an attempt at revealing the pattern of people’s mass metamorphosis: when people start denouncing their routine lives and praise glory of some greater good or sort of collective power and finally end up with turning into Rhinoceros, a symbol of bestial power. The play is often considered as a response to the sudden upsurge of Communism, Fascism and Nazism during the events preceding World War II.

Do we have such experience in Iran?
Yes, after the Islamic revolution of 1979. However the ruling discourse in Iran’s case was neither Nazism nor Communism. It was Islamism, the idea of Islamizing Iranian’s social and individual lives. The utopia depicted by this theory is Islam’s universal governance, wherein the citizens are treated as Servants of God rather than free individuals. The Islamic Republic of Iran is the pilot project of bringing God’s kingship to earth. Hence the mass metamorphosis here was turning into dogmatic servants of God. This looked very awkward in the beginning but the idea very soon propagated all over the society. Religion and ideology overcame human relationships. Many fathers executed their sons on charge of being communists. Many parents contributed the government to indoctrinate their children not to question red lines of Islam and Quran. And the outcome of this historical mass metamorphosis of Iranians is today’s totalitarian regime which even wants to control the way people dress.