Foucault and the Iranian Revolution

Afary, Janet

doi:10.7208/chicago/9780226007878.001.0001

Cited by 307 publications

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“…In this sense, the Iran writings contribute something important to our understanding of this major social philosopher.' (Afary & Anderson 2004:3) 'We think of Foucault as this very cool, unsentimental thinker who would be immune to the revolutionary romanticism that has overtaken intellectuals who covered up Stalin's atrocities or Mao's … but in this case, he abandoned much of his critical perspective in his intoxication with what he saw in Iran. Here was a great philosopher of difference who looked around him in Iran and everywhere saw unanimity' (Anderson, what the revolt would hold for the natural dissidents of the revolution, namely women, homosexuals and secularists in general.…”

Section: Overview Of the Scholarshipmentioning

confidence: 89%

Hamartia: Foucault and Iran 1978–1979 (2: Scholarship and significance)

Beükes

2009

HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies

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Against the backdrop of the introduction and analysis of Foucault's Iran writings in the fi rst of two articles, this second article attempts to contribute to an understanding of Foucault's involvement in the revolution in Iran (1978Iran ( -1979 by 1) employing the concluding suggestions in the fi rst article as premises for 2) an analysis of three explicit contributions (Janet Afary and Kevin Anderson, Ian Almond, and Danny Postel) that have been made recently on this traditionally neglected issue in Foucault scholarship, 3) and, via the notion of an 'ethics of Self-discomfort', arguing for an acknowledgement of the philosophical signifi cance of Foucault's involvement in Iran and his writings from that period.

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Section: Overview Of the Scholarshipmentioning

confidence: 89%

Hamartia: Foucault and Iran 1978–1979 (2: Scholarship and significance)

Beükes

2009

HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies

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“…Both institutions (which resulted from the 1906 and 1979 revolutions) were designed to perform the same function of subjecting the general will to a clerical veto to ensure that parliamentary legislation met the standards of Islamic authenticity. 25 Furthermore, in 1993, the conservative hard-line speaker of the Iranian parliament, Ali Akbar Nateq-Nuri, funded and organized a major conference in the city of Nur in celebration of Ayatollah Fazlollah Nuri's contribution to Iranian politics. In short, in the official doctrine of the Islamic Republic of Iran today, Ayatollah Fazlollah Nuri is a celebrated hero, while Ayatollah Muhammad Husayn Na'ini is a forgotten figure, although a revered one among reformists and religious intellectuals who frequently quote him.…”

Section: The Iranian Constitutional Revolution (1906-1911)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Religious Disputation and Democratic Constitutionalism: The Enduring Legacy of the Constitutional Revolution On the Struggle for Democracy in Iran

Hashemi

2010

Constellations

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The key argument of this article is that the origins of today's ideological conflict between Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Mir Hossein Mousavi can be traced back to the Iranian Constitutional Revolution of 1906Revolution of -1911. One of the key disputes that emerged during this period was between a group of clerics and a coalition of constitutionalists who clashed over whether a council of religious experts should have veto power over parliamentary deliberations. While the constitutionalists prevailed in 1907 over their religious rivals in the short term, the ideological battle over this issue continued throughout the 20 th century and resurfaced again after the Islamic Revolution in 1979. This time religious conservatives were victorious. They successfully wrote and passed a constitution where sovereignty was divided between religious clerics and the masses. If ever the two should clash, it was the clerics who had the final say. The present conflict in Iran today, in the aftermath of the disputed June 12, 2009 presidential election between conservatives and reformists, is rooted in this legacy of the unresolved ideological dispute over the proper location of political sovereignty that began in the early 20 th century. Here I seek to explore these linkages between the past and the present and to comment on the internal struggle for democracy in Iran. The focus of this paper will be on the lessons for democratic theory that emerge from the conflict and tension between religion and politics in Iran. In particular, it will focus on lessons that can be drawn from debates over the moral basis of legitimate political authority and what role religion should play in emerging Muslim democratic polities. The Failure of Democracy in 20 th Century Iran: Relevant Democratic NotesThe current struggle for democracy in Iran today did not emerge out of a vacuum -a century of history lies behind it. Broadly speaking, it is often forgotten that most democratic transformations are rarely victorious on their first attempt; there is a legacy of struggle, defeat, intellectual transformation, sacrifice, political experience and democratic learning that is accumulated prior to any transition to democracy. Even when democracy has been consolidated, the possibility of rollback remains. In Contention and Democracy in Europe, 1650 Tilly noted that examples of democratization in Europe in the past 350 years are as frequent and numerous as de-democratization. 1 The struggle for democracy in Iran over the past century follows a similar oscillating pattern of democratization and dedemocratization. More recently, the rise and fall of the reformist presidency of Muhammad Khatami (1997Khatami ( -2005, followed by the ascendency of the hard-line presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the brief democratization of Iranian politics in the lead up to the June 12, 2009 presidential election, followed by the subsequent electoral coup d'état all fall within this oscillating pattern.

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“…Did he really deserve the eulogy at his death in 1984 that still lamented 'the mistake we made together' (Foucault's friend Jean Daniel, in Eribon 1992:289;see Lilla 2003:158;Macey 2004:128) In other words: Did Foucault have a flash of insight or did he miss the point entirely? 3 I will place myself, with these two articles, in the centre of three remarkable contextualisations and analyses of Foucault's involvement in Iran, explicitly so by Janet Afary and Kevin Anderson (2004, Ian Almond (2004Almond ( , 2007 and Danny Postel (2006), arguing that the answer is to be found somewhere in the middle of the flash and the void, somewhere in the middle of Foucault's peculiar mixture of naïveté and perceptiveness about the events in Iran in late 1978 and early 1979. These two articles therefore attempt to answer one basic question (and, of course, the delta of questions arising from it): What was Foucault trying to achieve in Iran in 1978 to 1979 as a political journalist, explicitly supporting the cause of the revolting masses and effectively isolating himself from the European intellectual community and Western liberal tradition?…”

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confidence: 99%

Hamartia: Foucault and Iran 1978–1979 (1: Introduction and texts)

Beükes

2009

HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies

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In 1978 Michel Foucault went to Iran as a distinguished intellectual but novice political journalist, controversially reporting on the unfolding revolution, undeniably compromising and wounding his reputation in the European intellectual community. Given the revolution’s bloody aftermath and its violent theocratic development, is Foucault’s Iranian expedition simply to be understood as hamartia, a critical error in judgement, with disastrous consequences for his legacy? What exactly did Foucault hope to achieve in Iran in 1978 to 1979, explicitly supporting the cause of the revolting masses and effectively isolating himself from the European intellectual community and the Western liberal tradition? This series of two articles attempts to shed light on these questions by, in the first article, 1) introducing and contextualising the philosophical issues and 2) discussing the relevant texts; then, in the second article, 3) elaborating on three explicit contributions (Janet Afary and Kevin Anderson; Ian Almond; and Danny Postel) that recently have been made on this neglected issue in Foucault scholarship and 4) eventually indicating the possible philosophical signifi cance of Foucault’s peculiar mixture of naïveté and perceptivity – indeed his peculiar hamartia – regarding the events in Iran. Presenting Foucault as a ‘self-conscious Greek in Persia’, the argument in both articles is that Foucault’s ‘present-historical’ writings on the Iran revolution were closely related to his general theoretical writings on the discourses of power and his cynical perspectives on the inherent risks of modernity. Foucault’s journalistic writings on Iran in 1978 to 1979 are therefore to be appreciated as essentially philosophical contributions to his extensive modern-critical oeuvre. Foucault’s perspectives on power, revolt, Otherness, ‘political spirituality’ and his ‘ethics of Self-discomfort’ may prove to be as significant for an understanding of our world today as the author considers them to have been during the events of September 1978 to April 1979, with Tehran’s self-esteem still radiating in the desert skies 30 years later.

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Foucault and the Iranian Revolution

Cited by 307 publications

References 0 publications

<i>Hamartia</i>: Foucault and Iran 1978–1979 (2: Scholarship and significance)

<i>Hamartia</i>: Foucault and Iran 1978–1979 (2: Scholarship and significance)

Religious Disputation and Democratic Constitutionalism: The Enduring Legacy of the Constitutional Revolution On the Struggle for Democracy in Iran

<i>Hamartia:</i> Foucault and Iran 1978–1979 (1: Introduction and texts)

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