Norooz and Neutrality
columbia’s iranian student club talks persian politics, culture
With the media storm that was Ahmadinejad’s visit to Columbia last fall, you had better believe the Columbia Iranian Students Association was particularly targeted by the press.
“A lot of news sources contacted us, asking us to make a statement about his visit,” says Sogoal Salari, CC ’08, vice president of cisa.
The board understandably felt compelled to issue a statement about the president’s engagement at Columbia. Yet, as cisa is a decidedly nonpolitical club, choosing exactly what to say about the Ahmadinejad visit was a delicate process.
“There was some back-and-forth among the members,” Salari says. “It was important we stayed neutral in our position because we are a cultural organization, and we didn’t want to take an isolating position.”
They eventually did release a statement, and it expressed their desire to remain politically undefined. An excerpt read, “As a point of clarification, the invitation extended to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was extended by the University, not cisa. cisa is comprised of individuals with various opinions and beliefs. ... Our organization’s focus is to support the united student’s efforts to provide a safe and productive outlet for the expression of students’ views.”
While Ahmadinejad’s visit may have challenged cisa in its quest to remain politically neutral, Salari finds that such a controversial event is an anomaly for the club and that for the most part cisa is successful in maintaining its cultural focus, leaving politics and religion at the door.
“We want to be able to unify all Persian people and make sure everyone feels welcome and comfortable,” Salari says.
“What I really like about cisa is that it provides opportunities for all the Iranians and also non-Iranians, free from their political or religious background and beliefs, to learn about Iranian custom, while enjoying some beautiful aspects of Persian art, literature, and culture,” says Hamed Mojahed, CC ’08, webmaster for cisa.
This cultural focus mostly takes the form of event planning and hosting. cisa organizes film screenings, social mixers, and panel discussions.
“We like to do socials at least once a month because those are pretty standard. We do one or two panel discussions a semester, though we haven’t done as many this semester,” Salari says.
This past semester, the club hosted a screening of the popular coming of age Iranian film, Persepolis, a movie based on a graphic novel. Later this month, the Nobel Prize-winning human rights advocate Shirin Ebadi will be visiting Barnard, and the club “will be putting some stuff together for that day as well,” Salari says. They also often co-sponsor panel speakers with the Columbia Political Union, without taking a stance on the actual speakers so as to maintain their political neutrality.
The event that is dearest to the organization and by far the largest in terms of turnout is the Norooz Banquet. Norooz is the Persian New Year celebration, and cisa organizes a dinner accompanied by cultural performances for the special occasion. This year’s event saw about 300 people, which included both Columbia students and non-Columbia affiliated Iranian enthusiasts.
“It’s one of our most important holidays in Iran where as students we get 13 days or more off, and families get enough time to visit most, if not all, their relatives and friends and sometimes go for a vacation. Here in NYC, every year we throw a dinner party for public while presenting cultural and musical aspects of the Iranian culture. Everybody in the group works so passionately to organize this exciting event and we always have a great turn out, from slide shows of Iran, to the fine Iranian cuisine, to musical or traditional dance performances and plays, to the public dance to the Iranian DJ at the end of the night. I enjoy it when I see people’s reaction when they interact with Iranians for the first time, they always say ‘I had no idea you guys were this much fun,’” Mojahed says.
“Norooz is the pinnacle of our organization,” Salari confirms. “We put more effort into it than anything else. It is what we take the most pride in, and to be able to share that with the school is great, to see other people who are not Persian come out.”
While Norooz has the greatest number of non-Persian participants, Most of cisa’s events are frequented by Iranians. The club has a listserv of about 400 people, which includes both Columbia students and Iranians living in the surrounding area.
“People usually hear about our events via the listserv,” Salari says. “For the most part, the club consists of Iranian Americans. Most of us have been born and raised in America. But we identify strongly with our culture.”
Salari who is from Detroit, found cisa to be a great opportunity to connect with those who shared similar family life experiences, especially because, growing up in Michigan, she did not have many Iranian friends her age.
“The Iranian population in Detroit is not as high as say, Los Angeles, which is known to have a huge Persian population. For me it was really nice coming in as a freshman. I met students with such similar backgrounds. Here it was nice to have someone to relate to,” she says. \\\