Pars Today

Pars Today - Seyyed Morteza Avini was a documentary filmmaker, photographer, journalist, writer, and theorist of Iranian "Islamic Cinema", whose life and thoughts are discussed in this article.

 

After the victory of the Islamic Revolution, he left architecture in the university and turned to filmmaking as per the necessities of the revolution. He started his media activities in late 1983, simultaneously with participating in the war fronts – Iraq's imposed war against Iran - and producing documentary films about the war.

 

During this period, he thought about cinema, art, global culture, and its confrontation with various issues. Avini's research collection and discussions were published in the monthly artistic magazine "Soureh" and later collected in the book "Magic Mirror," which is the first volume of his articles and film critiques.

Seyyed Morteza Avini, was martyred on April 9, 1993, in Fakkeh, southwestern Iran, while making a documentary and television series "Chronicles of Victory", due to explosion of a landmine, remaining from the time of war.

 

He critically analyzed famous works in philosophy, art, cinema, etc., producing three famous books among his works:

- The book " The Victory of Blood " analyzes the martyrdom of Imam Hussein (PBUH) the freedom and justice seeker grandson of the Prophet of Islam.

- The book " Development and Foundations of Western Civilization" analyzes fundamental challenges of the West.

- The book "Magic Mirror" analyzes media.

Here we take a look at some of his analyses on art and the West, all of which belong to years before 1990.

 

Art in Martyr Avini's thought

The language of art

Avini about the language of art writes:

"The artist is a keeper of hidden treasures and his language is the language of symbolism. Therefore, he must recognize the secret and mystery of the emergence of sublime truths and the quality of the emergence of divine command in the world. This discovery is not necessarily with self-awareness; rather, the artist's soul must become a place for the descent of hidden symbols and truths."

Art, thought, and mysticism

In explaining the relationship between art, mysticism, and thought, Avini writes:

"In terms of content and substance, art is like thinking, wisdom, and mysticism and is only different in how it is expressed and manifested. The main source of art is also love and mysticism."

Artist

Avini says: "The artist is someone who, in addition to being a lover of the truth, has also received the power of expression it from the Almighty."

Western art

The great Iranian thinker, Martyr Seyyed Morteza Avini, about the characteristics of contemporary Western art writes:

"Western art is self-indulgent; and it's not about truth and divinity. Western art is the expression of modern human narcissism."

He writes elsewhere: "Western civilization is in search of earthly paradise. The historical journey of art in the West has been traversed with such an extreme goal."

 

Art and commitment

According to him: "An artist must be free in purposeful thinking, but at the same time, art is an exact social commitment; because the existence of a human being is an exact commitment and art cannot be devoid of commitment as a manifestation of human."

"An artist must be a person of pain, and this pain is not only the source of artistic beauty but also a measure of humanity. A painless person is not an artist, in fact, not a human being at all."

The West from the perspective of Martyr Avini

Seyyed Morteza and Western studies

A careful study of the various dimensions of the personality of martyr Avini reveals that he had a complete and necessary familiarity with Islamic issues and teachings and had been able to make himself a competent writer through years of study and research in the field of literature.

Aside from that, Seyyed Morteza had a very high command of mysticism and philosophy and was fully familiar with the philosophical schools of the world. Avini, in a comparative manner, delved into Islamic perspectives and compared them with other schools of thought.

In his study of Western studies, he not only explained its foundations but also listed its weaknesses and ways to deal with them and its negative consequences in various fields.

Factors of global hegemonic development

In explaining the set of factors that contribute to the realization of global hegemony, martyr Avini refers to certain matters and says:

"Among the factors that have helped America in this global hegemony, there are 3 important pillars: Modern technology should be considered the most fundamental factor in global hegemonic development... The second factor is that humans are often weak-willed, bound by habits and attachments, and captivated by appearances, which constantly leads them to join the ranks of the followers of this global unified system. The third factor, somewhat related to the second factor, is fear, especially fear of death. Weaker individuals are more afraid of America's power, but those who are steadfast, like Imam Khomeini (God bless his soul), who have severed all attachments and killed fear within themselves, speak the truth that America cannot do a damn thing."

Western freedom

Martyr Avini says: “The freedom that is defined in the West is acceptance of the servitude of habits and relationships and is the same as slavery. Today’s human runs away from freedom, and has described this escape from freedom as freedom; so in this way, he has splashed water on the fire [that arises from] the reproaches of his conscience”.

“The practical result of accepting this concept is that human does not obey anything but the desires of his evil-commanding soul (Nafs ammara); being unaware that by doing this, he limits himself to the boundaries of his animal existence.”

 

Ethics in Western civilization

About the situation of ethics in the Western world, Martyr Avini writes: “Ethics too, in the new world, follow a technological education system that raises everyone similar [to each other] without self- awareness, subjectivism and personhood, at the service of a global government.”

Western democracy

Referring to democracy and its truth, Martyr Avini says:

“One of the contradictions that exists in the essence of Western civilization and has now been revealed, is democracy. Democracy means rule by the people; but in practice, even in the best examples of a democratic government, the rich have hidden [themselves] behind the mask of people’s rights.

The concept of ​​democracy, meaning rule by the people, is very deceptive and attractive, but in practice, just a few people always take over the rule by using hypocrisy and demagoguery... Western democracies are the most complex and advanced types of totalitarian (authoritarian) systems, and for this reason, the totalitarianism inside them is hidden behind social and political institutions, whose appearances do not indicate the truth about their being.”

Western development

According to Avini: "A developed society is a society in which everything is defined around the material axis and enjoyment as much as possible from the pleasures that are available on earth."

 

Western propaganda

Referring to the truth and method of propaganda in the West, Martyr Avini writes: "Advertising in today's world has taken on the meaning of propaganda and has fallen to the lowest degrees of existence. But the divine purpose of publicity is the same duty that was assigned to the prophets and the people of God... and it is based on the awareness of the addressee and his human discretion. There is a quotation from Hitler that best describes the propaganda content of the West. He said: If you want to make people do something, target their lowest instincts in your propaganda. Arouse their sexual instincts to buy [a pair of] socks[!]. This quotation is the basis of Western propaganda.”

The function of Western propaganda media

Referring to the function of new propaganda media, Martyr Avini writes: "Governments seek to reduce their problems by propaganda, and ruling systems try to perpetuate the stabilization of their rule, in the name of freedom and democracy, by depriving people of reason, free will and freedom.”

Anticipation of intellectual jihad with the West

Martyr Avini mentions the future of the struggle with the West with a special sharp-sightedness, in this way:

“In the future, there will be an all-out struggle between us and the West; not more than a decade has passed since the victory of the Islamic Revolution, and its effects are visible all over the world. This struggle is not only a military one, and the military struggle is actually a manifestation of the cultural struggle that is involved among us; intellectual and philosophical struggle. The military struggle is only the appearance of this struggle, and inside, a much bigger war is going on, which I interpret as intellectual jihad. It is necessary to stand in this struggle, that we know the nature of the West and find the relationship between the works and tools of Western civilization with their roots, and this is only possible through philosophy; Because the West and the civilization attributed to it is the birth of philosophy.”

The promise of the decay of Western civilization

In this regard, Martyr Avini says: "If the renaissance diverted human attention from the sky to the earth, this evolution of the human spirit will once again direct the human to the sky... the West has gone through its historical period and is now facing decay and collapse. ... Now, man has once again turned away from the earth and his soul and has paid attention to the world of meaning and heaven, and this requires another revolution and transformation; contrary to what happened in the Renaissance. Man has been born again and another era has begun and the earth has entered the last stage of history before the end of the world.”

The Islamic Revolution and the Western World Order

In explaining the truth of the world system, Martyr Avini writes:

"This system of world domination, from the economic point of view, with a global banking system whose head is at the bottom of Wall Street, controls all economic developments in the world and the dollar is the standard of all the currencies. From the political point of view, this system of world domination is a single system with the American rule. This world domination system deceives mankind through his spiritual and sensual tendencies.”

Introducing of the Islamic Revolution, Martyr Avini then says: "The Islamic Revolution is the historical resurrection of mankind after centuries of decline. This revolution is a historical repentance. Therefore, its goals are never economic, social and political; It is a cultural revolution. ...This revolution originates from a thinking that is not based on rationalism, but on revelation.”

MG-AE/MG