Clarifying Azar Nafisi's lecture

The article on Azar Nafisi's talk at Tufts on April 1 ("Author condemns Iran's social repression," April 2) did not do justice to Professor Nafisi's lecture. I would like to offer some clarifications and voice a concern.

Professor Nafisi is an important figure both here and in Iran. Her memoir 'Reading Lolita in Tehran' is a best-seller in the United States and what she has to say is monitored very closely in Iran by large groups of people who have been inspired by her book and also by those who oppose her views. Professor Nafisi offered Iran as a case model in the Middle East and the Muslim world of a society taking a critical look at itself and trying to change through a process of democracy.

In response to a question from the audience as to whether she would support "regime change" in Iran and Iraq she emphatically answered that she would not. She expressed her intense disapproval of Saddam Hussein but also her feeling that military intervention was not the best way to confront him. She also asserted that she believed that change in Iran would come non-violently through a democratic process, and that Iran's recent Nobel Peace Laureate, the lawyer Shirin Ebadi , was a symbol of movement toward a civil society.

She urged people in the United States and other countries to extend their efforts to support freedom for political prisoners and freedom of expression in Iran. Professor Nafisi praised the young men and women in Iran who refuse to comply with the ruling elite's repressive laws and who take on the "morality squads" in the streets of Tehran.

The substance of her talk focused on the ways in which people can resist and change oppressive systems by subversive uses of the imagination. She celebrated "ordinary people" defending their dignity.

I cannot stress enough how important it is, in the days of worldwide internet publication, for newspapers to be accurate in their reporting. The Tufts Daily has a responsibility equal to that of any other newspaper.



Jonathan Wilson

Professor of English

Fletcher Professor of Rhetoric and Debate

Chair of English Department