Page - 96 - in Medienraum Diaspora - Verortungen zeitgenössischer iranischer Diasporafilme

98 Verortung der iranischen Diaspora encounter with one’s material life (wherever it might be) is evident in these sad, sorrowful pages of misery. Collapsing into the abyss of such sorry sentiments degenerates into a metaphysics of identity crisis that is simply pre-modern in its underlying assumptions. For all the presumptuous post- modernity of their rhetorical devices, these so-called ,narratives of exile‘ are positively medieval in their senti- mental celebrations of an outdated crisis of identity, of such gross, historically untenable, binary oppositions presumed between ,home‘ and ,exile‘. (249) Diese Narrative und Rhetoriken von „Heimat“ und „Exil“ werden durch Familie und Popkultur auch an nächste Generationen weitergegeben. Dabashi sieht dabei das produktive Potenzial von diesen gut verdienenden und gut ausgebildeten Menschen außerhalb Irans vergeudet: Instead of being a jubilant feast of freedom and possibilities otherwise denied at ,home‘, the Los Angeles carnival, rep- resenting all others, is a miserable mourning procession of an émigré sub-culture impotent to deliver itself from the mortifying memories of a past that never was, unable to face a present which could potentially be theirs, and inca- pable of imagining a future, visualizing a horizon that just might be their children’s. (252) Er entlarvt das Narrativ des Exils als Konstrukt, wenn er schließlich argumen- tiert, dass der Großteil außerhalb Irans lebender Menschen strikt gesehen gar nicht im Exil, sondern in einer Diaspora lebt: The fact is that with few exceptions the overwhelming ma- jority of Iranians living outside Iran can get on an airplane and return to their homeland and there lead a half-decent life not particularly worse or better than what they lead in Los Angeles, Washington DC, London, or Paris. (251)