PHOTO: Comedian Alireza Khamseh “A society that is far from disappointment is healthier”
Iran’s capital Tehran has opened a City Satire Center “to brighten up the face of the megacity”.
At the inaugural ceremony, Shahram Gilabadi, the director of the Tehran Municipality’s Centre for Communication and International Relations, said the center would be a place for artists and satirists to exchange ideas.
Gilabadi asked them to organize meetings at the center, located at a park in west Tehran, “to present the people with a romantic feeling in order to help them raise their spirits”.
He added, “This is the greatest job: to help people feel happy.”
The officials at the ceremony did not note the satirists, artists, or cartoonists who have been detained and harassed over their work. They did not refer to leading satirists, such as Ebrahim Nabavi, who have chosen exile following imprisonment. Nor did they mention the restrictions on publication by regime offices concerned about material that might promote “sedition”.
Instead, comedian Alireza Khamseh declared, “In urban life, a society that is far from disappointment is healthier.”
Khamseh did venture a political point, saying that “improvement in economic conditions in people’s lives is the key to help them feel happy, otherwise they would hardly ever laugh”.
