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<DIV class=timestamp>August 6, 2006</DIV>
<DIV class=kicker><NYT_KICKER>Iranian 101: A Lesson for
Americans</NYT_KICKER></DIV>
<H1><NYT_HEADLINE version="1.0" type=" ">The Fine Art of Hiding What You Mean to
Say </NYT_HEADLINE></H1><NYT_BYLINE version="1.0" type=" ">
<DIV class=byline>By <A title="More Articles by Michael Slackman"
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/michael_slackman/index.html?inline=nyt-per">MICHAEL
SLACKMAN</A></DIV></NYT_BYLINE><NYT_TEXT>
<DIV id=articleBody>
<P>TEHRAN</P>
<P>IT is certainly unfair to accuse all Iranians of being liars. The label is
judgmental and reeks of stereotype. The more appropriate way to phrase the
Iranian view toward honesty, the way many Iranians themselves describe it, is to
say that being direct and telling the truth are not prized principles in <A
title="More news and information about Iran."
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/iran/index.html?inline=nyt-geo">Iran</A>.</P>
<P>Often, just the opposite is true. People are expected to give false praise
and insincere promise. They are expected to tell you what you want to hear to
avoid conflict, or to offer hope when there is none. </P>
<P>There is a social principle in Iran called taarof, a concept that describes
the practice of insincerity — of inviting people to dinner when you don’t really
want their company, for example. Iranians understand such practices as manners
and are not offended by them.</P>
<P>But taarof is just one aspect of a whole framework for communication that can
put Iranian words in a completely different context from the one Americans are
familiar with.</P>
<P>“You have to guess if people are sincere, you are never sure,” said Nasser
Hadian, a political science professor at the University of Tehran. “Symbolism
and vagueness are inherent in our language.”</P>
<P>This way of communicating is suddenly essential for Americans to understand.
Increasingly, it appears that the road to peace, and war, runs through Tehran.
And so hearing what Iranians are really saying, not what Americans think they
are saying, has become a priority. Iran has outsized influence with <A
title="More articles about Hezbollah"
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/h/hezbollah/index.html?inline=nyt-org">Hezbollah</A>
in southern Lebanon. It has profound influence with the newly empowered Shiites
of Iraq. And it is locked in its own fight with the <A
title="More articles about Security Council, U.N."
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/s/security_council/index.html?inline=nyt-org">United
Nations Security Council</A> over its ambition to develop nuclear
technology.</P>
<P>And yet, understanding each other — forget about agreeing — is complicated
from the start.</P>
<P>“Speech has a different function than it does in the West,” said Kian
Tajbakhsh, a social scientist who lived for many years in England and the United
States before returning to Iran a decade ago. “In the West, 80 percent of
language is denotative. In Iran 80 percent is connotative.”</P>
<P>Translation: In the West, “yes” generally means yes. In Iran, “yes” can mean
yes, but it often means maybe or no. In Iran, Dr. Tajbakhsh said, listeners are
expected to understand that words don’t necessarily mean exactly what they mean.
</P>
<P>“This creates a rich, poetic linguistic culture,” he said. “It creates a
multidimensional culture where people are adept at picking up on nuances. On the
other hand, it makes for bad political discourse. In political discourse people
don’t know what to trust.”</P>
<P>It is not a crude ethnic joke or slur to talk about taarof, but a cultural
reality that Iranians say stems from centuries under foreign occupation. Whether
it was the Arabs, the Mongols or the French and the British, foreign hegemony
taught Iranians the value of hiding their true face. The principle is also
enshrined in the majority religion here, Shiite Islam, which in other lands is a
minority religion, often at odds with the majority. There is a concept known as
takiya in which Shiites are permitted, even encouraged, to hide their belief or
faith to protect their life, honor or property.</P>
<P>“When you tell lies, it can save your life,” said Muhammad Sanati, a social
psychologist who lived for years in England before returning to Iran in 1982.
“Then you can see the problem of language in this country.”</P>
<P>Diplomacy everywhere is the art of not showing your hand, and if Iranians
have shown skill at forcing negotiations over negotiations, or winning by
stalling, it would be an overstatement to say that it can be explained solely by
a culture of taarof. But Western diplomats based in Iran say that Iran’s
cultural foundation gives it a leg up when dealing with the more studied
negotiating skills of the Americans. </P>
<P>Perhaps more important, such diplomats and Iranians themselves said,
Americans need to understand Iran’s approach to interpersonal communications in
order to understand the complexities Iranians face in dealing with each other.
Analyst after analyst said that after centuries of cloaking their true feelings,
Iranians are often unsure whom they can trust when dealing with each other, let
alone foreigners.</P>
<P>One Western diplomat, who insisted on anonymity because that is standard
diplomatic protocol, said it was possible that when Iran said it could not
respond before the end of August to the West’s offer on its nuclear program,
that it was not only a diplomatic maneuver, but may also have been a nod to the
reality of internal Iranian politics. Major decisions on the nuclear issue
involve consensus at the highest levels of the political elite. But consensus
can be hard to achieve when interpersonal communications, at least initially,
are defined by taarof, mistrust and different political agendas, the diplomat
said.</P>
<P>At the same time, understanding the cultural/moral foundation of a community
can also help Americans understand whether or not an agreement was actually
reached, even when the Iranians seem to say that a deal is done. “You can
translate words, but can you translate feelings?” asked Saeed Leylaz, a
political analyst and former government official in Tehran. “British diplomats
are more successful with us. They understand our ways and our culture.”</P>
<P>Indeed, Americans and Iranians speak two different languages. Americans are
pragmatists and word choice is often based on the shortest route from here to
there. Iranians are poets and tend to use language as though it were paint, to
be spread out, blended, swirled. Words can be presented as pieces in a puzzle,
pieces that may or may not fit together neatly. </P>
<P>“In Iran, you praise people but you don’t mean it,” Dr. Sanati said. “You
invite people for all sorts of things, and you don’t mean it. You promise
things, and you don’t mean it. People who live here understand that.”</P>
<P>Today, Iranians are expecting the United States to take the time to
understand its culture. It has seen America fail the test of cultural
translation in Iraq.</P>
<P>“It is up to America to understand us, because it is stronger,” said Mr.
Leylaz, the political analyst. There are differences of opinion about how much
taarof, or indirection, or as some people call it, expediency, actually affects
public discourse. People in Iran assume that when a politician offers something
he knows he can’t deliver, it is taarof. They don’t call it a lie.</P>
<P>But what about when President <A
title="More articles about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad."
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/a/mahmoud_ahmadinejad/index.html?inline=nyt-per">Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad</A> sends a letter to President Bush. Is it sincere, or taarof? The
letter has been interpreted by some Iranians as the president trying to follow
the path of the Prophet Muhammad, who sent letters to his enemies, or of copying
Ayatollah <A title="More articles about Ruhollah Khomeini"
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/k/ruhollah_khomeini/index.html?inline=nyt-per">Ruhollah
Khomeini</A>, who sent a letter in 1989 to <A
title="More articles about Mikhail S. Gorbachev."
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/mikhail_s_gorbachev/index.html?inline=nyt-per">Mikhail
Gorbachev</A>. Some have called it naïve, or just bad politics. Certainly its
import is unclear, but to all of these people, it seemed intended as a serious
overture. Washington, in contrast, dismissed the letter as irrelevant because it
did not address any of the substantial issues on the table. It wanted Tehran to
be more direct.</P>
<P>Dr. Hadian, who was a childhood friend of the president, suggested a
different approach: “If you talk to Ahmadinejad you have to consider taarof.”
</P>
<P>“Taarof is a sign of respect, even if we don’t mean it.” </P>
<P>Muhammad Atrianfar, publisher of the reform-minded daily newspaper Shargh,
said Iranians find Americans easy to deal with because they are straightforward.
That, he implied, could give Iranians an advantage in any negotiations. But for
Americans to understand Iranians, he said, they must recognize that with
Iranians, “the mind thinks something, the heart feels something else, the tongue
says something else, and manners do something else.</P>
<P>“It doesn’t mean people are lying,” he said. “They are just dealing with you
with a different character.”</P></DIV></NYT_TEXT><BR>
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