“The Zone” is what Thomas Pynchon labels immediate post-World War II Germany in his mammoth novel “Gravity’s Rainbow.” It’s a district of political mirage where contradictions reign: lawlessness and exploitation are imposed through military strictures, shambling intelligence assets and seemingly peaceful actors, while a gloss of international conflict coats mutual deals between rival powers, negotiated under the table, leaving average people in the dark.
It’s hard not to think of Pynchon’s “Zone” when viewing, in horror, the current war of aggression against the state of Iran that began this spring. The country’s history over the 20th century — and now into the 21st — has been one of political upheaval and panic, revolutions and coup d’etats, in large part ignited by meddling Western powers honing the tricks of their trade to destabilize life for the 93 million Iranians within, for profit and vague gestures towards “security.” Just over the past 100-odd-years, they have endured the bloody wounds of British and Czarist imperialism, two stints under a hereditary dictatorship and a gamble on a popular revolution in 1979 that has led to its own diametric regime of repression and representation. Life there, as here, is nothing but a jumble of contradictions.
What is missing most in all this political intrigue are the people of Iran, whose day-to-day lives are one-to-one like our own: worrying over a sick child; the stomach drop of first love; the existential dread of obtaining a fulfilling life in a hyper-capitalist, globalized world. All this shared humanity is obscured by a never-ending, ever-changing blitz of propaganda. We in the West are encouraged to ignore our similarities with Iranians if said similarities don’t bolster support for military actions or diplomatic provocations.