“Marg bar _” and “zende ba _” have continued to live on as colloquial phrases incorporated into political chants, and they have been appropriated to express opposition to or support for any number of subjects. These two phrases became entrenched within Iranian political discourse, and during the Iranian Revolution of 1979, swarms of protestors took to the streets chanting “marg bar Shah” to express their dissatisfaction with Iran’s monarchy. The phrase became popular during the Persian Constitutional Revolution (1905-1911), when political activists would chant “zende ba _” (“long live _”) in support of a policy or leader, or “marg bar _” in opposition. Yes, the Farsi word “marg” can translate to “death,” but “marg bar _” translates to “Down with _” įurthermore, the “down with _” chant as it is used today is not about a violent overthrow or physically harming the people of a nation. The “Death to _” chant commonly heard in Iranian political protests for well over sixty years, is a mistranslation. For this reason, cultural context is absolutely imperative. People rely on your work to understand the Other. This more or less amounts to “They want to kill us, they said so!” I am so fed up with these misconceptions, and the news media and translators need to take responsibility for their part in it.Īs someone who does a lot of translating, I understand that there is an ethical component to the craft. It is hard not to love these people for their creativity and braveness.A recent guest post at the Log by Reza Mirsajadi clears up a point that had eluded me even though I studied Persian fairly intensively for a while:įor much of my adult life, whenever I have had to defend the Iranian people to conservatives, they have fought back with the “Death to America” argument. To take these most secure weapons of the regime and to turn them against the regime in such a potent way is a sweet victory. You have to realize that we Iranians are numb to the official slogans they have been repeated so often that they have lost all meaning and content to us. More significantly, when he yelled "the blood in our veins is a gift to our leader" the crowd spontaneously and apparently without much coordination responded "the blood in our veins is a gift to our nation." Every Iranian I have talked to or corresponded with since yesterday has been deeply touched by this act of defiance. Yesterday, a sizable portion of the crowd chanted "death to Russia" in response to "death to America", or "death to Israel", or "death to England". In Friday prayers, there is a person who is mockingly called "the minister of slogans" and shouts all the official slogans of "death to America, Israel, etc" and the people who attend the Friday prayers (usually staunch supporters of the regime) follow him and repeat the same slogans. Although you have already reported on it, I want to emphasize the significance of the incident Friday, in which people changed the official slogans to their own benefit. I can't think of a simple way to replace it with another word which conveys the same meaning and provides such a resourceful musicality.ģ.
" is a simple formula which can be put to music depending on the number of syllables in what follows it. So not every slogan would work, and in this uprising people have been amazingly creative in coming up with poetic slogans that fit the occasion and are powerful and witty. Put anything in metered poetry and its chances of affecting the Iranian soul triples. It is worthwhile to understand the importance of meter and rhyming in the Persian language.
0 kommentar(er)
