Abstract
In 1886, Nietzsche wrote , which consisted of 296 aphorisms, ranging in length from a few sentences to a few pages. However, in one of those axioms (No. 146) he wrote, if you gaze long enough into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you. My take on Nietzsche’s observation is that if you stay long enough on the edge of history (abyss), the history would eventually catch-up with you. This realization occurred when Iran came face-to-face with the Western advancements (military might), which imposed an existential threat to the permanency of the ruling Qajar family. Indeed, our backwardness compelled us to endure successions of defeats and humiliations, in which Iranian rulers were forced to realize that time has run out and there is no more room for a status quo oblivion. In the aftermath of horrendous routs at the hand of foreign powers, the Qajar Crown Prince, Abbas Mirza (1789–1833), in his address to a French Diplomat has stated:
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Notes
- 1.
Jaubert A (1821) Voyage en Arménie et en Perse fait dans les années 1805 et 1806. Félicier et Nepveu. (1943) Mosaferat be Iran va Armanestan (trans:Mahmoud Hedayat). Tehran, pp. 94–95. Emphasis added. See also Adamiyat F (1969) Amir Kabir and Iran [in Persian]. 3rd edition, Karazmi Publisher, Tehran, pp. 161–2.
- 2.
For instance, one Russian Diplomat called the prince [Abbas Mirza] Iran’s Peter the Great, while the other express his astonishment to see Crown Prince in that part of the world…is aware of political affairs and military advancement of the West in the last 10 years…his presence indicates a new chapter in the national Iranian history with undeniable affects…Morier observed Great Mirza is greater than anyone I met in Iran, and as Fraser stated, “if all the world gathered around, they neither can bring him, nor force him to betray his country.”(see Adamiyat F (1969) Amir Kabir and Iran [in Persian]. 3rd edition, Karazmi Publisher, Tehran, pp. 161–2).
- 3.
Martin Heidegger on question of being once wrote, “the wonder that a world is worlding around us at all, that there are beings rather than nothing. That things are and we ourselves are in their midst, that we ourselves are and yet barely know who we are, and barely know that we do not know all this.” (See Polt R (2013) Heidegger: an introduction. Routledge, p. 1). I used Heidegger since he is well known and has quite few followers in Iran for his alleged anti-Western view, hoping that one can see his intended meaning.
- 4.
However, few start to notice this frozen period. For instance, Mahnaz Shirali questioned the ‘dogmatic closing’ that, since the thirteenth century, has frozen the Islamic civilization (see Shirali M (2014) The Mystery of Contemporary Iran. Transaction Publishers; Seyf A (2011) Despotic Mind, Despotic Culture: The Case of Iran (Iran: Estebdad-e Zehn Va Farhang-e Estebdadi). H &S Media; and Azari KY (2014) Axis of Hope: A Prospective for Community Centeric Government for Iran & Other MENA Countries. Luuma Press, pp. 14–17).
- 5.
See Shils E (2008) Tradition. Reprint edition. University of Chicago Press, p. 37, footnote 5.
- 6.
This, however, does not mean that the present generation is cleared. On the contrary, we have immense responsibility to come to grip of our situation and seek a suitable way out of our gridlock that has been hemmed in our progress for centuries. Other nations, of course, are not trouble free, but their predicaments are not the same. For instance, William F. Ogburn theory of cultural lag suggests that in the West there is a gap between the technical development of a society and its moral and legal institutions. The failure of the latter to keep pace with the former is said, in more advanced societies, to explain (at least conceptually) social conflicts and problems. In 1935, Karl Mannheim in Man and Society in an Age of Reconstruction characterized the transformation of Western Society as a “crisis of liberalism and democracy” in a highly organized mass society, and suggests that newly emergent ideas were incompatible with already established notions, e.g., laissez-faire would lead necessarily to ‘maladjustment’ (see Porter T, Ross D (2004). The Cambridge History of Science, Volume 7: The Modern Social Sciences. Cambridge University Press, p. 603).
- 7.
Durkheim E (1984) The division of labor in society. In: Giddens A (ed). Macmillan Press Ltd, pp. 38–9).
- 8.
A comprehensive examination of power of remembrance in Iran is behind the scope and more importantly, the intent of the present study, and hence the outlined approach, given the present limitation, is perceived to be the second best line of inquiry.
- 9.
If we would have listened to one of the most important writers on the subject of constitutional monarchy, a Victorian economist Water Bagehot, we could have saved ourselves from many troubles, as he stated, “The great difficulty [of establishing constitutional monarchy] which history records is not that of the first step, but that of the second step. What is most evident is not the difficulty of getting a fixed law, but getting out of a fixed law; not of cementing (as upon a former occasion I phrased it) a cake of custom, but of breaking the cake of custom; not of making the first preservative habit, but of breaking through it, and reaching something better…. This is the precise case with the whole family of arrested civilization.” (see Bagehot W (2001) Physics and Politics. Batoche Books Limited (originally published by Henry S. King & Co, 1872), p. 33).
- 10.
Shuster WM (1912) The Strangling of Persia: A Personal Narrative. The Century Company, New York, pp. li–lii.
- 11.
An example of this situation is outlined by Garvin Hambly: “Riza Khan [Reza Shah] wanted to have a bill passed to establish mandatory national service for 2 years. This proposal was strongly opposed by the landlords, since such a measure would reduce their workforce, and weaken the traditional dependency of cultivators in landlord-owned villages towards their agha. The ulama objected equally strongly, fearing a measure which would expose the entire male population to a way of life and an ethos essentially foreign, Western and secular.” (Hambly G (1991) The Pahlavi Autocracy: Riza Shah, 1921–1941. In: Avery P, Hambly G, Melville C (eds) The Cambridge History of Iran (Vol. 7): From Nadir Shah to the Islamic Republic. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, p. 223, 213–243).
- 12.
In fact, Soviet policies, which pertained to take advantage of utter chaotic situation of Iran aimed to eliminate the Persian historical and linguistic legacy, which were dated back to before the Communist era of 1917–1990. They are in fact dated back to the Czarist era, around the 1830s, right after the conclusion of the disastrous Russo-Iranian war in which Iran was forced to cede her will in the Caucasus (everything above the Araxes River just above the Iranian province of Azarbaijan) to Russia. According to C. W. Hostler, the Russians, despite their victory in the Caucasus, were highly apprehensive of the power and hold of the Persian language and culture over Arran (present-day Republic of Azerbaijan), as he has observed, “This cultural link between the newly conquered country [modern-day Republic of Azerbaijan, historically known as Arran until May 1918] and its still strong Persian neighbor annoyed Russia who tried to destroy it by supporting local Turkish cultural developments“(Hostler CW (1957) Turkism and Soviets. George Allen & Unwin, p. 22). The map of Iranian territorial losses during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (losses to Czarist Russia in Central Asia and the Caucasus) can be accessed at: http://kavehfarrokh.com/articles/iranian-anti-persianism/the-iranian-left-and-tudeh-communist-party/.
- 13.
Here a populism platform meant to imply those politicians who were developing the interests of the public by providing attractive, but empty settings of the political agenda, and in doing so,perceived the masses as a homogenous group of similar interests. They appear temporarily successful often during or after failed experiences, in which the public is ready to embrace any idea as long as it is different from the past experiences, regardless of possible cost. In our contemporary era, populism platform began by the tobacco uprising.
- 14.
For a quite unorthodox, in respect to Iranian common view, analysis of the background of events at the time see, Tetlock PE, Belkin A (1996) Counterfactual Thought Experiments in World Politics. Princeton University Press, pp. 157–162.
- 15.
Two examples come to mind. First, Mossadegh decision to dissolve the Parliament, which set in motion a chain of events leading to his downfall. The second, the lawlessness that was promoted by both Tudeh party’s supporters and nationalists significantly contributed to the weakening the Mosaddegh government, which possibly aimed to boost support for adversities of the Monarch as well as marginalized other opponents. Here are excerpts from NY times in August 18 and 23 of 1958 respectively: “Mobs threw down from their pedestals today the statues of Iran’s two Kings of the Pahlevi line, the late Riza Shah and Shah Mohammed Riza,” (see http://partners.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/081853iran-statues.html); and “Communist and nationalist mobs raced through the Teheran streets screaming “Death to the Shah!” Statues of the monarch and his father were pelted and desecrated, then toppled from their pedestals. The Mossadegh press screamed for ‘revenge’ and the ‘gallows’.” (see http://partners.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/082353iran-reversal.html).
In addition, one cannot overlook the internal opposition to both the Tudeh party and Nation Front among the major mercantilist class, landlords, and more importantly among religious leaders. This last observation may provide an attractive plot for those who claimed Mossadegh’s legitimacy. However, what is often disregarded in such narratives is that legitimacy is established only by the people. As a direct result of the absence of mass support, his regime was outset, allegedly, by small hired mobs. In short, Mossadegh could not have been removed if a significant segment of population had supported his regime and his leadership, as no one could have preserved Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in 1978.
- 16.
Cadre party is generally organized by relatively small elite groups of activists, who are detached from the reality of daily lives of ordinary people. This is due to the fact that as a political party it mainly attempts to gather influential individuals, well-known intellectuals or those who represent the interest of ruling apparatus, which often manifest by particular agenda, regardless of the national interest. For instance, the National Front’s agenda of the oil nationalization to curtail British influence is far removed from any attempt for institutionalization of system of government as well as economic and social reforms. A similar analogy can be said about Tudeh party’s anti-imperialist stand. Neither party had ever addressed the disaster consequences of closing down of many industrial plans that were initiated by Reza Shah but forced to shut down during the WWII as a result of the shortage of spare parts or raw materials (see Baldwin GB (1967) Planning and Development in Iran. John Hopkins Press, p. 24). In short, these parties have their own agendas to pursue and were completely indifferent and totally inattentive to the urgent needs of the country at the crucial time in our history. Politics in Iran means settling score, rather than art of governing.
- 17.
The ample illustration of the farce nature of political parties in Iran is the fact that the most effective political movements in the country prevailed among students in higher educational institutions.
- 18.
For instance, the Military wing of the Tudeh Party of Iran (sazman-e nizami-yi hizb-i Tudeh-ye Iran), which also known as the Officers Organization (sazman-i afsaran), was created in 1944, 4 years after allied forces invasion of the country. It included a secret network of military officers, a cell if you would, to operate against the Iranian national armed forces. According to Maziar Behrooz, there were two episodes that signify this aim; first, in August 1944, around twenty army personnel in the Khurasan division of the army rebelled and attempted to reach the Turkman areas of west Khurasan and east Mazandaran in order to stage war against the central government. The rebellion was led by Major Eskandani and Col. Azar. Many of the personnel involved in this venture, including Eskandani, were killed before they reached their destination and others, such as Azar fled to the Soviet Union; second, the Military Organization sent aid and officers to Azerbaijan at a time when the province was rebelling against the central government (see Behrooz M (2000) Rebels with a Cause: The Failure of the left in Iran, 2nd edition. I. Bo. Tauris, p. 13). The question is what purpose does it serve for a political party to plan plots against the state and national army, while the country was under occupation?
- 19.
Here, I do not use the verb “to demonize” in a classic descriptive sense of denoting how someone becomes demonic, but to describe and hold responsible those who cast the aspersion of being demonic, or simply being accused of wrong doing or inappropriate thoughts, on others regularly and too easily and without proper due process. To demonize, according to De Luca and Buell, “is to use language or other symbols in ways that meet two requirements. First, to strongly imply or directly suggest that others have very bad, immoral, or evil qualities, and often that they are capable of quite immoral deeds; or to directly suggest that they have done reprehensible deeds. Second, to do so without sufficient evidence, inquiry, justification, or consideration of the consequences.” (see de Luca T, Buell J (2005) Liars! Cheaters! Evildoers!: Demonization and the End of Civil Debate in American Politics, NYU Press, p. 4). Having said that, I also recognize accusing others of demonizing is a strong charge to the extent that my own claimed that political parties in Iran were/are engaging in demonization, can be characterized as such. Therefore, I further note that a demonization label used here to underline a blending of tactical, strategic, and tool for politics of demagogy.
- 20.
This tendency is not limited to the political parties but extends to every aspect of government in Iran. For instance, Plan Organization (PO) never bothered to prepare a transparent step-by-step plan, not a slogan, until the summer of 1946 when International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) forced the organization, as a part of a loan conditionality, to prepare a concert step-by-step plan to explain as to how PO plans to use the money. (see Baldwin GB (1967) Planning and Development in Iran. John Hopkins Press, p. 25–7).
- 21.
Binder L (1962) Iran: political development in a changing society, University of California Press, 1962, p. 85.
- 22.
Within this context, I argue that Iranian view of world is a religious view of world that basically means that God creates us and therefore, throughout our life, everything that happens is by God’s will and thus God is the main factor in determining our life.
- 23.
According to Janet Afary and Kevin B. Anderson, “Foucault was ………intrigued by the relationship between the discourse of martyrdom and the new form of political spirituality to which the Islamists aspired. He held that the Western world had abandoned this form of spirituality ever since the French Revolution.” They further observed, “To Foucault, it seemed that Shi’ism had a different approach to death. It was not seen as the end but simply one more stage in the drama of life. In an imaginary conversation with an Iranian sociologist, he summarized this worldview: ‘What preoccupies you, you Westerners, is death. You ask her to detach you from life and she teaches you how to give up. As for us, we care about the dead, because they attach us to life. We hold out our hands to them in order for them to link us to the permanent obligation of justice. They speak to us of right and of the struggle that is necessary for right to triumph.’” (see Afary J, Anderson KB (2005) Foucault and the Iranian Revolution: Gender and the Seductions of Islamism. University of Chicago Press, p. 50).
- 24.
Ṭabāṭabā’ī SMḤ (1975) Shi’ite Islam (No. 5). State University of New York Press, p. 29, 31.
- 25.
For instance, see Dabashi H (1993). Theology of Discontent : The Ideological Foundation of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Transaction Publishers; Algar H (1991) Religious Forces in Twentieth-Century Iran. In: Avery P, Hambly G, Melville C (eds) The Cambridge History of Iran (Vol. 7): From Nadir Shah to the Islamic Republic. Chapter 20. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 732–764; Afary J, Anderson KB (2005) Foucault and the Iranian Revolution: Gender and the Seductions of Islamism. University of Chicago Press; Dabashi H (2008) Islamic liberation theology: Resisting the empire. Routledge; Chelkowski PJ, Dabashi H (2000) Staging a revolution: The art of persuasion in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Booth-Clibborn.
- 26.
Literary means descendent of an imam, is also a term for a shrine-tomb of the descendants of Imams, who are directly related to the Prophet Mohammad.
- 27.
It should be noted that these centers of pilgrimage and imamzadeh are considered to be sacred ground, and hence often were used as sanctuaries by many political dissidents, of which the 1907 Constitutional Revolution was an ample example.
- 28.
In the ancient Iran, calendar was solar based, commonly known as the “New Avestan Calendar, that was closely tied to the beliefs and practices of the Zoroastrian religion. The year began at the moment of the vernal (spring) equinox, and consisted of 12 equal months of 30 days. There were no weeks, and each day had its own name.” (see Daniel EL, Mahdī AA (2006). Culture and customs of Iran. Greenwood Publishing Group, p. 178). In the aftermath of Arab invasion, the lunar calendar (12 lunar months in a year of about 354 days because a lunar cycle takes just over 29.5 days. This means, lunar calendar is 11 days shorter than the other standard calendar) was introduced in Iran and for many years it was the only calendar in general use and serves as the only system for festivities and mourning according to events in Islamic history. The Islamic Calendar (Hijri Calendar) begins by the Prophet Mohammad relocation (Hijrat) from Mecca to Medina in 622 C.E. The current Islamic year is 1436 Hijri. However, in the eleventh century, when Jalal-ed-din Malek, the king of Seljuq dynasty in Iran commissioned a panel of scientists, the most prominent among the scientists was Omar Khayyám, to create a calendar more accurate than the lunar calendar use at the time. As a result, the Old Persian solar system was improved and advanced to the widely accepted solar system called Jalali calendar (a year begins, as the ancient time on the first day of spring. The Jalali calendar consists of 12 months: the first 6 months are each 31 days, the next five 30 days, and the last 29, except in leap years, when it is 30 days). (See http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/astronomy/IranianCalendar.html). Almost, nine centuries later, the Jalali calendar was adopted as the official calendar of Iran by the second Persian parliament in 1911, and remained in use until 1925. Under Pahlavi monarchy, the present Iranian calendar was legally adopted on 31 March 1925. The first day of the year by decree became the first day of spring. The current Iranian year is 1394.
- 29.
A. Shapur Shahbazi, Nowruz ii: In the Islamic Period” at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/nowruz-ii. Emphasis added. For a more recent discussion of the Islamiyat and Iraniyat, see Holliday SJ (2013) Defining Iran: Politics of Resistance. Ashgate Publishing Ltd.
- 30.
Meskoob S (2011) Iranian Identity and Farsi Language, 5th edition. Farzon Publisher, p. 28. Translated by the author.
- 31.
In this month, Shi’i begins mourning from the first night of Muharram and continue for ten nights, climaxing on the 10th of Muharram, known as the Day of Ashura. The last few days up until and including the Day of Ashura are the most important because these were the days in which Imam Hussain and his family and followers (including women, children, and elderly people) were deprived of water from the 7th onward and on the 10th, Imam Hussain and 72 of his followers were martyred by the army of Yazid I (the second Caliph of the Umayyad Caliphate and the first one through inheritance) at the Battle of Karbala on Yazid’s orders. The surviving members of Imam Hussein’s family and those of his followers were taken captive, marched to Damascus, and imprisoned there. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muharram.
- 32.
Calmard J (1996) Shi’i Rituals and Power II. The Consolidation of Safavid Shi’ism: Folklore and Popular Religion. In: Melville C (ed) Safavid Persia: The History and Politics of an Islamic Society. I. B. Tauris, p. 158.
- 33.
Momen M (1985) An introduction to Shi’i Islam: the history and doctrines of Twelver Shi’ism. Yale University Press, p. 116. According to Janet Afary and Kevin B. Anderson, the result of Majlisi works led to 1695 edict, which “prohibited all activities not approved by the shariat. Wine from the royal court cellars was destroyed, and coffeehouses shut down. Music, dance, gambling, backgammon, chess, opium, and herbs that induced hallucinations became illegal. The shah also banned many previously acceptable social practices for women. Henceforth, for example, women could not go on the streets unless they had a valid and legitimate reason” (see Afary J, Anderson KB (2005) Foucault and the Iranian Revolution: Gender and the Seductions of Islamism. University of Chicago Press, p. 43).
- 34.
Algar H (1981) Islam and revolution: Writings and declarations of Imam Khomeini. Mizan Press, Berkeley, California, p. 242.
- 35.
According to Hamid Algar, “As soon as Muharram began, demonstrators wrapped in shrouds unhesitatingly defied the government-imposed curfew. On the ninth day of the month, as many as a million people marched through Tehran to Shahyad Square—a monument to monarchy that now ironically became a focal point of the revolution and was renamed Maidan-i Azadi (Freedom Square). The following day, some two million demonstrators, led by Ayatullah Talaqani (who had been released from his final imprisonment on 30 October), again converged on the square, and approved by acclamation a seventeen-point charter that called for the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of an Islamic government under the leadership of Imam Khumaini.” (see Algar H (1991) Religious Forces in Twentieth-Century Iran. In: Avery P, Hambly G, Melville C (eds) The Cambridge History of Iran (Vol. 7): From Nadir Shah to the Islamic Republic. Chapter 20. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 7, 732–764).
- 36.
As Faegheh Shirazi has observed, “In Iran, the Iran–Iraq was pitched in Shiite terms as the revived Battle of Karbala, while Ashura ceremonies became consecrated arenas for public mourning. By drawing upon the analogical maxim that “all battlefields were Karbala, all months were Muharram, and all days were Ashura,” the war gained meta-history proportions. Such associations are clearly transferred through the mirror’s main inscription, which similarly states that “every earth is Karbala and every month is Muharram”(See Shirazi F (2013) Death, the Great Equalizer: Memorializing Martyred (Shahid) Women in the Islamic Republic of Iran. In: Khosronejad P (Ed) (2013) Unburied Memories: The Politics of Bodies of Sacred Defense Martyrs in Iran. Routledge, p. 87).
- 37.
The work that enjoyed most popularity throughout the period was the Husain ibn All Kashifi’s Rauzat al-Shuhada, published in 1875 in Bombay, India. The work is a combination of formal Shi’i doctrine and oral lore, which later became the master text of Shi’i ceremonies commemorating the martyrdom of Imam Hussain and his entire family in the battle of Karbala. According to Azfar Moin, “Kashifi wrote voluminously, producing, for example, a mystical exegesis of the Quran based on the inner symbolism of its letters and word, a famous work of chivalry (futuwwa) laying out the mystical code of conduct for artisanal fraternities, and a rendition of Indian animal fables entitled Anwar-i Suhayli.” (See Moin A A (2012) The millennial sovereign: sacred kingship and sainthood in Islam. Columbia University Press, p. 225). For an overview of Kashifi, see Subtelny ME (2003) Husayn Vaciz-i Kashifi: polymath, popularizer, and preserver. The Society for Iranian Studies 36(4):463–467.
- 38.
See Canetti E (1973) Crowds and Power. (trans: Stewart C). Continuum, p. 17–22.
- 39.
Ibid. p. 20. The Bastille was a fortress in Paris, known formally as the Bastille Saint-Antoine. It played an important role in the internal conflicts of France and for most of its history was used as a state prison by the kings of France. It was stormed by a crowd on 14 July 1789 in the French Revolution, becoming an important symbol for the French Republican movement, and was later demolished and replaced by the Place de la Bastille.
- 40.
Ibid. p. 22.
- 41.
Dostoevsky F (1991) The Brothers Karamazov. (trans: Pevear R, Volokhonsky L). Vintage Books, New York, p. 48.
- 42.
Dabashi H (1993) Theology of Discontent: The Ideological Foundation of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Transaction Publishers, p. 175.
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Pirzadeh, A. (2016). Introduction. In: Iran Revisited. Arts, Research, Innovation and Society. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-30485-4_1
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