History and the Future

I am in the middle of "Reading Lolita in Tehran" by Azar Nafisi. I read her second memoir "Things I've Been Silent About: Memories" when it first came out in 2008, and her descriptions of typical life in Iran during times of turmoil intrigued me enough to go back and read her first memoir.

Nafisi grew up in Tehran, studied in Switzerland and the United States, and returned to Tehran as a professor of English literature. "Reading Lolita in Tehran" compares certain novels to the revolution and women's rights issues in Iran in the 1970s when Nafisi taught at the University of Tehran. In reference to "The Great Gatsby" Nafisi says this:

"We in ancient countries have our past - we obsess over the past. They, the Americans, have a dream: they feel nostalgia about the promise of the future." (p. 109)

I have to admit that several times during my semesters abroad, I would listen halfheartedly to my Asian and Central Asian friends' recollections of history. On the outside I was smiling and nodding my head, but inside I was impatient and restless, waiting for the monologue to end. I wanted to hear about what life in their countries was like for them today and where their countries were headed for the future. The past? We can and should learn from it, but we shouldn't cling to it. What an American attitude!