An Emancipated Worker

Abstract

Before the 1979 Revolution, Iranian intellectuals believed that they possessed the emancipatory knowledge the working class and the exploited required in their struggle for emancipation. Al-e Ahmad and Shariati were among the most enthusiastic intellectuals who tried to bring their possessed knowledge to the working class and the exploited. Their lectures, books, and pamphlets were the means through which they attempted to produce knowledge about the socio-cultural and political situation in Iran and bring it to the people who were entrapped in the situation. Others, such as the founders of the Mojahedin and Fadaiyan, believed that the Shah’s regime was aware of the potential influence of the intellectuals on the working class and the poor. Thus, it would not let the intellectuals mingle with the masses and working class. Iranian intellectuals started the armed uprisings to make themselves known to the working class. Regardless of their methods, the Iranian intellectuals thought that the oppressed people needed their knowledge, since they lacked the intellectual capacity to educate themselves. The oppressed classes needed them because they possessed both an explanation of the social reality and had a vision for the future. What they disregarded was the intellectual capacity of the individual members of the oppressed classes to understand and change their own situation.