Exiled in France since 2011, Mana Neyestani fled Iran, his country of origin, sixteen years ago. But his bond with his native land never wavered. On the contrary, it has strengthened with the protests against the Islamic regime in Iran, the latest wave of which has been raging since mid-September. A cartoonist for the press, he now uses the only weapons he knows how to handle to support his people: a pen and a sheet of paper.
Mana finds us in a Parisian cafe, beret screwed on the skull and dressed in a sweater bearing the image of Snoopy. ” I remember being surrounded by comics and drawings all my childhood. Tintin, Marvel comics, drawings by Jean-Jacques Sempé, Roland Topor… I read them, I looked at them, I imitated them, I drew them from the age of three. And in all honesty, they were good drawings! I was a little genius “, he jokes in English.
A lightness that contrasts with his pensive gaze, that of a man who, at 49, has lived and seen much more than others. That of an Iranian refugee in France for eleven years, after months in prison in his country of origin, passing between Dubai, Kuala Lumpur, and Istanbul, and weeks of fear that death awaits him. Mana’s story is therefore a story of uprooting. A story of several years of flight, wandering, painful memories, but also resilience, and above all, passion.
The love of drawing in the blood
Born into a family of intellectuals in Tehran in 1973, from a poet father and a literature professor mother, both opposed to the Islamic regime after the 1979 revolution, Mana turned very early to drawing. His big brother, thirteen years older than him, Touka Neyestani, a famous cartoonist in Iran, influenced him from kindergarten. ” Touka is my role model even now. He’s 62 now and he’s still so much better than me. I remember me, as a child, watching him draw and wanting to be like him “, admits the Iranian.
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But in his memories, adolescence in Tehran was anything but peaceful. The revolution and the bloody war against Iraq have left a gaping wound in society and the battered country. ” I remember the endless queues in front of the stores to buy food, the sirens warning us of an attack. Before the revolution, television was so colorful, then when I was seven years old, all of a sudden, everything became duller. In the first year of primary school, just after the revolution, her mistress did not wear a veil. The following year, he saw her again, covered from head to toe in black.
Fascinated very early on by drawing, Mana would never have imagined making it his profession. While he was destined for a career as an architect, he began to publish political cartoons in specialized magazines, from the age of 16. ” It was very risky to work there because the country’s secret services monitored all the newspapers. But despite the fear, I did it because it was the only thing I could do. »
In 1999, the reformist government came to power and Mana began to hope for change. But that hope is immediately snatched from him. ” Suddenly, in one night, sixteen newspapers were banned and I lost my job. For a moment, I was afraid that censorship would kill our creativity “, he remembers.
However, the cartoonist persists and finds work in the children’s press, his love of the blank page too strong to abandon this path of life. ” Caricature is like a means of self-defense for me. I’m not very strong, I’m not that brave. But I can draw. Drawing is a strange form of courage, isn’t it? “, he launches, sketching a smile.
Imprisoned for a misinterpreted drawing
Everything changes in 2006. In a cartoon, Mana illustrates a child in the middle of a discussion with a cockroach who proclaims the word ” Namana? », « what ” In turkish. A word generally used by Azeris, a discriminated Turkish minority in Iran. And the community immediately interprets the drawing as a racist insult that intends to represent them as an insect. The Azeris organize large demonstrations against power, bloodily repressed by the police. Mana is quickly sent to prison to ease the tension and show that the culprit has been arrested.
He finds himself imprisoned for three months. ” I still have nightmares of that time “, blows the designer. He celebrates his 33rd birthday alone, in his cell, on May 29. Mana spends the majority of her time with her fellow inmate, her editor, chatting and debating. ” It was so hard to keep hope, to think, to concentrate. I had no idea what was going to happen to me. Mana receives books, which he cannot read because fear is gnawing at him, and a pencil. He draws sketches and mostly writes love letters to his wife. ” I have become so fragile, a real romantic! I needed to feel emotions, I was thirsty for love…“, he reveals.
The moment of exile
At the end of the three months, Mana is released temporarily. During a hearing at his trial, he realizes that he will probably end his life in prison, or even worse, that he will be executed. Mana then decides to flee Iran with his wife, and twelve days later the couple leaves the country for Dubai with the help of friends abroad.
Then begins his obstacle course. ” I think that anyway, the regime prefers us, us artists, journalists, intellectuals, out of Iranunderlines the designer. So we bought our plane tickets with a tourist visa and took a chance. Mana and his wife try to find help from Western embassies, to no avail. When their visa expired, the couple went to the Turkish coast, to Istanbul, then to Ankara.
From start to finish, from city to city, exile is like a sudden death for him. ” We left everything behind: our things, our house. We took the bare minimum, but just wanted to leave. Above all, Mana leaves behind his mother, to whom he was nevertheless so close. ” I remember that I didn’t say goodbye to my mother. I couldn’t tell him I was leaving, for security reasons “, he says, his eyes filled with tears.
Mana calls him a few days later from Dubai. She doesn’t blame him, she’s only relieved to know he’s alive. ” My mother was so strong. After my arrest, she was destroyed, physically and spiritually. I feel guilty for leaving her. I feel guilty that she got sick and then died, alone and in pain, last yearhe confides in a breath. But feeling guilty is what characterizes us Iranians. Since his departure in 2006, Mana has never returned to Iran.
After Turkey, Mana and her partner find themselves in Malaysia, where a trafficker organizes their illegal passage to Europe. But the couple is arrested during their stopover in China. ” I thought it was the end of my life, that I was going to be sent back to Iran. They were repatriated to Malaysia, then in 2010, his candidacy as an exiled artist was finally validated by the International Network of Refugee Cities (ICORN), which found him a place in Paris. Mana then flies away with his wife, his computer, his few clothes and his pencils, for France.
Adapting to Parisian life
Mana would have preferred to go to an English-speaking country, but who cares, ” I couldn’t do my difficult “, he admits. The cartoonist obtains refugee status in 2012 and tries to rebuild another life in the capital. In his journey, his days of doubt and apprehension, one thing remained intact: his taste for drawing. A creativity that opens doors for him in France. He easily finds work, sells his cartoons to national newspapers, continues to collaborate with Iranian media based abroad, and publishes in the space of ten years five graphic novels (published by Çà et là) in which he retraces his history.
But her ties to Iran are far too strong to draw a line under this part of her identity, to the point that Mana only learns the basics of French. ” I cannot consider Paris as my home. My wife has adapted much better to life here since she really cut ties with Iran, and she is ten years younger than me. But I spent my youth there, having to face a bloody dictatorship, at terrible times. I’m still imbued with it, I can’t forget it. »
Drawing, a way to fight against the regime
Even from Paris, he remains constantly connected to Iranian news, especially since the protests against the regime began in September. In one of his most recent cartoons, we see women cutting their hair and burying Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, with their locks. “ It’s the vision that amazes me the most: seeing young Iranian women screaming in the streets, their hair flying, their hijabs raised, says Mana showing us her works. It kills me to think that the new Iranian generation will have to endure what we have endured. And there is something in me that pushes me not to be silent. It is not a duty, rather it is a responsibility, a burning desire to draw. That’s why Mana’s drawings seem to come so much from her gut, from her instinct.
The cartoonist took a break from all his projects to devote himself entirely to his cartoons on the uprising in Iran. Demonstrations against the Islamic regime have been raging across the country since September 16 and the announcement of the death of Mahsa Aminia 22-year-old student arrested three days earlier by the morality police for a veil judged “ badly worn “. ” I feel a mixture of fear and hope, describes Mana. I hope this time it will be different. The new generation is more thoughtful than us, it is more courageous, more radical. Young people no longer want to negotiate, they are just determined to be free. »
In his own way, the artist tries to encourage the Iranians to continue their fight, and to alert the rest of the world to the situation. ” Drawing is the only thing I can do from Paris. And on social media. Followed by more than a million people on Instagram, Mana spends more time on the internet than in the streets of the capital. ” This is how I maintain my connection with Iran. Thanks to the internet, the artists of the diaspora are all connected to each other. And given what’s going on right now, I can’t tear myself away from my screen. »
Heart in Tehran, feet in Paris. A journey strewn with pitfalls but also filled with resilience and hope for his people. Mana says she has no regrets. ” I am already very lucky. Few people have the opportunity to do a job that they love so much and that is meaningful to them. he smiles. As for the aftermath, the cartoonist has only one certainty: he will continue to draw until his hands can no longer hold a pencil.