The Zoroastrian religion has many similarities with the Vedic Hindu religion but it was more organized, cohesive, and much more closely associated with the great Iranian dynastic Empires. Indeed, it was the unchallenged State Religion of Iran for a thousand years. In India the Brahman might also belong to a Shraman religion while the King was unlikely to follow the same deity (ishta-deva) or even the same doctrine (matam) as his father or other predecessor. Religious tolerance, in India, arose out of free choice regarding your favourite doctrine and soteriological practice. It added a bit of variety and spice to life. Also, the disputations of the Pundits were utterly hilarious. In Iran, things were more grim. It appears the priests kept a monopoly of the written language and the charge of heresy attracted penalties. Perhaps, the more centralized nature of Persian Empires (made necessary by the very different geography and irrigation system) pushed Iran down a different path to the Indians. Or, perhaps, it was unfortunate in being closer to the cradle of religious intolerance or else suffered worse devastation from invaders from the steppes. Still, Pakistan and the Khalistani Sikhs (both 'Pak' and 'Khalis' are Persian words which mean pure) have plenty of intolerance and accusations of heresy and desecration of the Holy Book not to mention terrorists with long beards and turbans. Still, Sikhs are only 2 percent of the Indian population. Over 80 percent are Hindu. We have plenty of reasons to kill each other, but Religion isn't one of them. Since there is no sacred duty to shed the heretic's blood, the country as a whole can be secular. The Iranians, who are so much closer to the Europeans in many ways, will have to wait a century or two before they too stop babbling about martyrs and houris in heaven.
In 1909- at a time when Mahatma Gandhi was expressing scepticism about anything Western-, let alone Parliamentary Democracy- Qajar Iran adopted a Constitution and held elections. It appeared inevitable that Iran would rapidly evolve into a constitutional monarchy with separation of Church and State and a pendulum politics between a 'moderate' and 'radical' administrations. The Great War, during which parts of Iran suffered famine, derailed the project and, later, the Bolshevik Revolution changed the strategic picture more particularly because of the Royal Navy's dependence on Persian Oil.
Not all Persia's problems were external. Though no one doubted the intelligence and civilized qualities of the Persians, their spirit had been crushed by centuries of corrupt, cruel, despotic rule except perhaps in some sheltered mountainous redoubts.
Iran has repeatedly shown the ability to rise quickly from devastation. Still, there can be no question that had Persia had less Oil, it would now be a very prosperous country and, once again, a cultural super-power. Sadly, it seems, though prosperity is easily achievable for it, culturally it will remain at war with itself.
On the other hand, if Iran and Turkey jointly gain hegemony over the Arabs of the Fertile Crescent and peace comes to a region which seems unable to govern itself, it may be that the Iranians will be united by a common sense of pride and achievement. War may be a great evil but Victory is a great solvent of past animosities even if some who share in it do so only vicariously.
Writing about Iran for Aeon, two academics- Patrick Hassan & Hossein Dabbagh- argue that
a recurring criticism of calls for a secular Iran emanates from a suspicion that
the thing only benefits rich kids in posh suburbs
secularism is a thinly veiled imperialist or colonialist tool for subversion,
fuck that! This is obviously the ploy of lizard people from Planet X
dressed up in the language of freedom and human rights.
Currently, Iran has greater geopolitical power in the MENA than it possessed since the time of the Safavids- the Turkic dynasty who turned the country into a Shia' theocracy.
It is obvious that Iran will lose its proxies in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Gaza and Yemen if it abandons religion and takes up Pussy Riot.
Thus, such calls are indeed subversive of Iranian power. Moreover, it is far from clear that a Secular, Liberal, Iran won't continue to neglect rural areas, the urban proletariat, or even the Sunni minorities in Khuzestan or the Baloch region. True, the well educated urban middle class may flourish as never before. But that class has no political or other organizing capacity outside the affluent urban areas.
Antisecularism as a form of anticolonialism was a consistent and fundamental theme of revolutionary discourse among clerical factions in the lead-up to the 1979 Iranian revolution.
That 'revolutionary discourse' was as confused and incoherent as every other type of political discourse going on at that time. The Iranian intelligentsia had a tropism towards metaphysics of the Continental type rather than empirical, Statistical, spadework.
It remains so to the present day, and is even repeated by allegedly Left-leaning non-Iranian factions in Europe and North America impressed with postcolonial theory.
Who gives a toss about such non-Iranian 'factions'? Genuine Iranians might be recruitable by Mossad or other Intelligence areas. Foucault style nutjobs who aren't Persian are simply ignored.
Our aim is to, first, clearly reconstruct the anti-imperialist argument against a secular Iran in an attempt to understand the professed motivation of its proponents.
There was and is no argument. The plain fact is that Islamic Iran defeated Saddam's invaders because it was Islamic. It kept oil-rich Khuzestan. It began to prosper and did raise living standards for many. More recently, it has traded economic prosperity for an astonishing increase in its power and influence in the MENA. We now have the spectacle of a Sunni outfit- Hamas- sacrificing Sunni, Arab, lives for the greater glory of Aryan Shia's.
It may be that China will back Iran in the region while doing a separate deal with the Saudis, the Egyptians, and the Gulf. Meanwhile, the Azeris are kicking Armenian ass and Erdogan's Turkey- which isn't deeply Islamic at all (Ottoman 'Tanzimat' type secular reforms are older than Japan's)- may consent to a junior partnership with Iran predicated on a containment of the Kurds.
In any case, this is the wrong time to babble about secularism in Iran because the anti-hijab movement has collapsed.
We then argue that, on the contrary, the argument is feeble, at least as it is commonly deployed:
Arguments are indeed feeble when it is guns and bombs which are determining outcomes in the region.
secularism’s inherent merits can be (and routinely are) divorced from any alleged use of it as a colonial imposition.
Why the fuck would a colonial power impose secularism? They prefer to use Emirs and Imams and Maharajas and Maharishis as proxies. Indeed, the French and British plan was to make the Ottoman Caliph their own puppet. But when the Caliph passed a death sentence on Ataturk, and an Indian Muslim 'Khilafati' turned up to kill him, that valiant 'Ghazi' abolished the Caliphate and pushed his country down a secular path. So did the first Shah and, much less successfully, Amanullah in Afghanistan. The problem was that crazy Communist ideas were more appealing than boring, law & order, Secular Liberalism and then, later on, the Islamists turned out to be better at crony capitalism and extracting and redistributing rents to its own supporters. 'Vilayet e Faqih' turned out to involve the unjust enrichment of the clerical guardians of the realm.
Unlike the West, where Secularism was about grabbing land from monasteries or cancelling tithes or reducing Religious control of education, the economic motive for resisting Islamic government was lacking in Iran. The truth is, Iran tightened up hijab enforcement because the Taliban had come to power. Hazaras being sent to Syria to fight should not get the idea that Iran was less strict than Afghanistan. It isn't good for the morale of young men going to their deaths on foreign battle-fields to have to see lovely lasses wandering around with their hair uncovered. It might make them discontented with the goats or camels provided for their R&R.
Shortly after Ayatollah Khomeini gained power in 1979, a new constitution was instituted that sought to embody the religious principles derived from the Twelver Jaʿfarī school of Shia Islam. This constitution explicitly sets as its foundational principles ‘a system based on belief in … the One God … His exclusive sovereignty and right to legislate, and the necessity of submission to His commands’ and ‘Divine revelation and its fundamental role in setting forth the laws’ (Article 2). The constitution clearly expresses how ‘All civil, penal, financial, economic, administrative, cultural, military, political, and other laws and regulations must be based on Islamic criteria’ (Article 4), going on to proclaim the Twelver Jaʿfarī school of Islam as the official state religion (Article 12).
This constitution wasn't very different from that of Bhutto's Pakistan from 1973 onward which was made more Islamic by Zia. What was not possible was the choice of a particular mazhab as the State religion because of the large Shia population. Still, Ahmadiyas were declared apostates and no law repugnant to Islam was held to be valid.
Clearly, this theocratic framework of governance
which Pakistan already had
is fundamentally at odds with secular approaches to the political domain.
Did Iranian Shias protest if Ba'hais or Jews were persecuted or had to run away? No. Those people may have been economically productive but they were not greatly liked. The Shah's approach had let some non-Shia's, including the Hindujas!, get rich. This was not popular.
Secularism is the view that participants in public political discourse should never be in a position to assume that their interlocutors share the same religious assumptions and, as a result, the state ought to be neutral in matters of religious belief when determining public policy.
Nonsense! We can assume what we like about our interlocutors. Britain is pretty secular. But the monarch is not permitted to be a Catholic. That is our public policy.
America has 'separation of Church and State' but State laws with a clearly religious motivation- e.g. regarding abortion or the impermissibility of Gay Marriage- are not unconstitutional.
These stupid pedants are writing nonsense.
Contrary to some persisting views, this does not amount to ‘state-enforced atheism’,
Unless it does. There were countries which described themselves as 'Secular' where the State kept beating and killing priests or worshippers. North Korea protects your right to be a Rabbi- thinks nobody at all.
but rather a disfavouring of religious privilege in civil matters
Nothing of the sort obtains in any Western country. Religions tend to have tax exempt status. In Germany, money is taken directly from tax-payers to fund the religion they belong to unless they go through some onerous bureaucratic process.
It simply isn't the case that 'religious privilege'- e.g. the right of a priest not to break the seal of the confessional- has ceased to apply in most Anglo-Saxon jurisdictions in both criminal or civil matters. This is based on case law.
and a favouring of impartiality and pluralism
in which case there is no impartiality. These stupid pedants don't get that siding with the underdog is blatant partiality. It may reduce 'pluralism'.
in an attempt to guarantee equal opportunities and respect for citizens, regardless of their religious beliefs, or lack of them.
An attempt to guarantee something is utterly useless. Either an effective remedy is provided or nothing is achieved.
The corollary principle for the practical implementation of this position is that any appeal to religious reasons in public political discourse is insufficient to justify laws that would coerce citizens into certain kinds of behaviours.
In which case America isn't secular. No country is. Why suggest that Iran would benefit by trying to become like a type of State which has never existed anywhere?
One of the most influential modern justifications for secularism was offered by John Locke in his Letter on Toleration (1689):
whom the Brits ignored the fuck out of.
I esteem it above all things necessary to distinguish exactly the Business of Civil Government from that of Religion, and to settle the just Bounds that lie between the one and the other.
This had already been done. Doctors' Commons did Canon and Admiralty Law till the second half of the Nineteenth Century.
If this be not done, there can be no end put to the Controversies that will be always arising, between those that have, or at least pretend to have, on the one side, a Concernment for the Interest of Men’s Souls, and on the other side, a Care of the Commonwealth.
Parliament could discuss this sort of stuff. It doesn't matter if a particular law is motivated by religious beliefs or considerations of an economic or strategic type. What matters is that it isn't stupid or mischievous. To ensure this is the case, we need to tell pedants to fuck off. If you lurve John Locke so much why don't you shove his books up your arse? Oh. You have cancer of the butt. I'm sorry I didn't know. That's fucking hilarious!
Secularism seems reasonable because
Religion is crazy shit.
it is very rare for an entire nation to share belief in one source of law as an authority, let alone share the same interpretation of that law.
The English Nation believes that its common law was originated by Greek speaking Druids. Also, Lord Coke thought certain aristocratic women had had sex with baboons. Seriously, if you think Scripture is crazy shit, try reading Coke's Institutes.
Because there is no widespread informed agreement about which religion (if any) is the ‘correct’ one, our epistemic limitations dictate that it is prudent to avoid basing civil laws upon any of them, with an eye to protecting the civil rights of all citizens.
No. It is prudent to use the existing laws, modifying them as required rather than rewriting the whole fucking constitution every other day so as promote the rights of transgender Guatemalan goats currently seeking gainful employments as Jewish Imams of Lesbian Rabbit Creches.
In nations with significant religious diversity, this form of neutrality is all the more pressing.
India has religious diversity. It had a Constituent Assembly which wrote a Constitution based on what had gone before and what was feasible going forward.
Neutrality, however, wasn't pressing at all. Improving what obtained was all that was required. Iran's Ayatollahs have done plenty of codification. Speaking generally, access to civil law remedies has improved in many places. There is less vendetta though, obviously, there may be other problems I am unaware of.
However, it might be argued that the type of ‘neutrality’ that secularism depends upon is a myth.
Neutrality does not matter. It may be desirable for Judges or Arbitrators to appear impartial and to proceed in a protocol bound manner. But political and juristic processes much increase utility or else they cease to pay for themselves and may be displaced or disintermediated.
The opinions of pedagogues are irrelevant even if they aren't utterly foolish.
The way we define and conceptualise neutrality is almost always rooted in
stupidity. Smart people don't bother trying to define 'Tarskian primitives'.
the structure of the context we live in. The alleged implication is that ‘neutrality’ is not itself neutral.
Are these guys channelling Kuhn's 'no neutral algorithm' theorem?
So secularism might be ‘neutral’ based upon one particular type of power structure (ie, the one dominant in the West) but not necessarily those prevalent elsewhere.
How is the West 'neutral' in religious matters? Why can't a Muslim citizen of Britain or France bring in all four of his wives? Christianity may insist on monogamy coz our Church is the one and only bride of Christ. All the other Churches are sluts.
The anthropologist Saba Mahmood,
a nice but dim Pakistani lady whose brains were scrambled on American campuses.
for example, argued that political secularism’s legal framework is not neutral because an intrinsic part of the nation-state’s structure is shaped by its unique historical norms and values.
Where in the world could 'political secularism' be found at the time she was writing? Erdogan's Turkey? The Brahmin Dynasty's India? Americans and Britishers don't speak of their countries as being secular. The word belongs to the vanished mid-Victorian era of Besant and Bradlaugh. But blasphemy remains an offense in Northern Ireland. England only got rid of it a dozen or so years ago.
This is a fair point to make. The ideal version of pure neutrality does not exist anywhere.
Nothing these pedants talk about exists.
Human beings are all situated in particular contexts; hence our value systems for navigating the world are by default contextual.
No. The value system is 'intensional'. Contexts determine 'extensions'.
However, this does not entail that we cannot rise from particular contexts and imagine other value systems, nor that some level of neutrality is not achievable.
Why imagine shit? Just ask other people. Buy them a drink. Have a nice chat. Parliament is a good place to do stuff of this sort. I hear they have a subsidized bar.
Seeking this level of neutrality towards citizens’ diverse religious beliefs is important because, without it, oppression is an inevitable result.
Nonsense! Oppression means 'rights' violation'. Either there is an incentive compatible remedy or there isn't irrespective of whether neutrality or noesis or noema or some other such nonsense is sought for or bought off Ebay or caught in flagrante with the Pope.
No doubt that secularism can itself become oppressive if it operates under the dubious assumption that the outcome of secular legislation – ie, its contents – is ‘sacred’, and so must be accepted without critical analysis.
Fuck off! We are welcome to consider anything at all as sacred- like my oath not to fart if you invite me to Xmas dinner. What? I said fart, not shart.
Under such circumstances, secularism would not respect impartiality and pluralism.
Yes it would- unless it is utterly despotic
Ironically, an example of this is the prohibition on wearing the hijab in public spaces in Iran
under a despotic Emperor
under the Kashf-e hijab initiative, enforced during the early Pahlavi dynasty from 1936-1941.
Women should stay at home, not go gallivanting in public spaces- unless, obviously, they are whores. The Shah's 1967 coronation was not secular but represented a sort of State Religion (din-e-dowlat).
But, crucially, what explains why such policies ought to be condemned is precisely that they fail to protect beliefs of conscience
Faith needs no protection. What these guys means is that specific practices of believers, not their beliefs themselves, are not 'protected'- i.e. don't give rise to a Hohfeldian immunity. But this is a justiciable matter. Various tests- proportionality, public interest, etc. may be applied.
It is not the case that a policy is per se wrong because it fails to do something which it is wholly unconcerned with. Thus, British fiscal policy is not condemnable, even though it is secular enough, because it fails to protect my religious belief that it is unconscionable that I should be forced to do my own washing-up.
– of which religious belief is merely one among others – in a tolerant society that achieves an appropriate degree of state neutrality.
That appropriate degree would be achieved by the State becoming completely useless. Lots of peeps have religious objections to paying taxes or having to go to jail.
The tension between the principles of secularism and the principles of the Islamic Republic is quite deliberate.
No. The Islamic Republic beat the fuck out of secularism and then kicked its head in. That released any tension it might otherwise have felt.
Properly understanding the function of religion in contemporary Iranian governance requires acknowledging
that the Supreme Guide is an Ayatollah.
how the notion of an ‘Islamic Republic’ was, and still is, championed as an explicit and allegedly superior alternative to secular governance.
It kicks ass. That's all that matters. Those who disagree are welcome to get beaten to death.
We noted earlier that one of the most pervasive objections to a secular Iran – made by both the current regime and various non-Iranian factions in the Western world – is anchored in an anti-imperialist and postcolonial framework.
Imperialism disappeared long ago because it was unprofitable. Why not have an 'anti-Neanderthal' framework? Only by establishing a genuinely neutral secular polity can we prevent the return of types of hominid which disappeared from the Earth fifty thousand years ago.
Some versions of the objection hold, additionally, that secularism is fundamentally antireligious in nature (and therefore anti-Islamic).
Similarly, Communism is fundamentally anti-Capitalist in nature.
Combined with a further claim that Islamic ideals are (or ought to be) at the fundamental kernel of Iranian cultural identity, secularism is considered to be anti-Iranian, and a means by which foreign powers have aimed to homogenise the interests and evaluative outlook of Iranians in a way that more closely aligns with their own, thus facilitating a greater sphere of influence and an easier extraction of resources.
Foreign powers are also causing women to bleed from their kooch once a month. Fuck you, foreign powers! Fuck, you very much!
This objection has its origins at least partially in dissatisfaction with the rapid state-enforced modernisation instituted by the preceding Pahlavi dynasty (1925-79),
which had nothing to do with foreign powers. The Brits didn't like the first Shah and got rid of him. They were thinking of restoring the Qajars but decided that, because of Soviet influence in the North, a 'Cossack' dynasty might be more useful- or supine.
where its secularism was concurrent with increased Anglo-American influence in Iranian state affairs and industry, including a CIA-backed coup to oust the nationalist prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh and reinstall the Shah in 1953.
Zaehner & Kim Roosevelt- both great admirers of Persian literature- toppled Mosaddegh who was, au fond, a silly sausage. It was only after the White Revolution (land reform of the type advocated by American advisers in South Asia) that the Shah became despotic. You can't fight inflation by throwing bakers in jail for raising the price of bread.
But narratives of this kind are not unique to the Iranian sphere – they have found wide acceptance in the Muslim world more broadly. As it emerged in the European context, secularism was a product of
wanting to take land and educational and other institutions from the Church
widespread debate within those societies, provoked by socioeconomic changes and the concurrent challenges of guaranteeing civil obedience in light of increasingly fracturing religious authorities.
Nonsense! Henry VIII wanted a divorce. He stripped the Catholic Church of its wealth and threw it out of the country when the Pope failed to oblige. The French chopped off lots of heads which was hilarious because those French heads spoke French. Sadly, not enough heads were chopped off which is why Macron can't spick Inglis gud like wot I can.
But in the Muslim world, modern secularism was typically installed from the top down, first by the colonial powers and then the postcolonial state.
The Muslim world never had an independent, extra-territorial, Religious establishment. It did have laws regarding blasphemy and so forth. However, a Sultan could refuse to enforce such laws.
Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan were never colonized. Algeria received substantial numbers of colonists from France from 1830 onward but its present secularism is of a Left wing type. Something similar could be said of Indonesia. Monarchies were never secular. Ba'athists were based on particular sects or even clans of particular sects. It is foolish to generalize about Secularism in Islam.
As in the case of Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Turkey (arguably similar to Pahlavi Iran), these states were secular autocracies, often installed or heavily supported by Western governments, and they sought to ‘modernise’ their nations in ways felt by many to be too quick.
Nonsense! Tunisia and Algeria where ex-colonies like Libya. They weren't heavily supported by anybody. Yemen was and is a shitshow. The Houthis prevailed over Nasser and are now more than holding their own against the Saudis. Nobody gives a fuck about the place.
On the other hand, it is true that Assad is heavily supported by Western governments. Many Syrians felt he was trying to modernize their bodies too quickly with his bullets and bombs which is why they ran away to medieval Germany.
Subsequently, as the contemporary scholar of Islamic studies Muhammad Khalid Masud
Pakistan is very good at studying Islamic studies
has noted: ‘Muslim thinkers found it very difficult to understand new ideas like secularism in isolation from Christian (Western colonial) supremacy.’
What he meant was 'Muslim thinker 'is an oxymoron. Look at Iqbal! What a shithead!' You have to read between the lines in these matters.
It must be granted, then, that there is at least some historical association between secularism and imperialism, even if it is not a causal association.
Why? The term was coined by a British Chartist. He did suggest that Christian proselytists were responsible for the Indian Mutiny. But what he objected to was being jailed for blasphemy in England. He'd have been free to say what he liked in British India.
The pertinent issue, however, and one we wish to dispute, is whether this association is inherent or inevitable.
It isn't. Once the majority of kids start going to 'secular' schools, you have Secularism. If they are being taught Scripture by priests, you don't have Secularism though you may have a lot of sodomy.
The broader narrative of colonial exploitation was intellectualised in the wider Muslim world by Edward Said’s influential book Orientalism (1978), which sought to elucidate the ways in which ‘the West’ routinely depicts ‘the East’ in essentially simplistic and contemptuous ways.
Which was funny because us Orientals have been routinely depicting the West as totes Gay- but not in a good way.
This in turn, Said argued, makes studies of, for example, Middle Eastern societies intrinsically political in nature and supportive of existing colonial power structures.
Said, poor fellow, hadn't noticed that there were no fucking existing colonies. You can't support shite which was scrapped decades ago. Still, there were silly peeps back then who said 'If you drink Coca Cola you are the secret catamite of Satanic Capitalist Cocks.'
In Iran specifically, the narrative was intellectualised by the likes of Jalāl Āl-e-Ahmad
who broke with the Communists in 1948
in his Occidentosis: A Plague from the West (1962), and Dariush Shayegan in his Asia v the West (1978). Āl-e-Ahmad deployed the now-notorious phrase ‘West-toxification’ or ‘West-struck-ness’ (in Persian, ‘Gharbzadegi’) to describe Iran’s unfortunate dependence on Western materials and conceptual apparatus that prohibits an ‘authentic’ Iranian identity.
Satanic Capitalist Cocks were constantly fucking that identity in the ass. It turned out, being authentically Iranian meant vomiting up Fanon's Marxian shite. This was because Satanic Capitalist Cocks were preventing Iranian intellectuals shitting it out.
This philosophy – which (ironically) took strong influence from an eclectic mix of traditions in mostly European philosophy, particularly the ideas of Jean-Paul Sartre, Martin Heidegger, Frantz Fanon and Karl Marx – was embraced by many of the factions and figures driving the 1979 revolution.
The Shah only executed about 100 political prisoners in his last decade in power. 8000 is the figure to aim at for a country the size of Iran.
In 1971, for instance, an exiled Khomeini expressed explicit concerns about the pervasive influence of imperialist culture in Muslim communities, asserting that it overshadowed the teachings of the Quran and led the youth to serve foreign interests.
He had a point. Lots of kids thought Maoism was cool back then.
One initial concern about this narrative surrounds the legitimacy of the sharp ‘East v West’ dichotomy central to it. The Islamic Republic thrives on this dichotomy.
No. It thrives on money and killing people who try to fuck with it. Nothing thrives on stupid dichotomies which live only in the shitty brains of shitty pedants.
Indeed, it is its entire ideological foundation.
Or religious foundation. There is such a thing as 'Ishraqi' mysticism which was revived under the Safavids. Mulla Sadr was its great master. Khomeini himself had a mystical side as did many of the learned Shia jurists.
One issue is that it is ambiguous who or what ‘the West’ is supposed to be in this context.
It is the opposite of Ishraqi illumination
It is evident that ‘the West’ is considered more than a mere geographical designation. But is it a specific socioeconomic system (ie, capitalism)? A level of development in science and technology? A confederacy of states with shared political interests? A moral framework? At times, Khomeini equated ‘the West’ with colonialism, but at other times he emphasised its essential nature as one of decadence or a lack of morality. This point is important because, without a credible definition of ‘the West’ (and ‘the East’, for that matter), the narrative threatens to make superficial any political analysis involving it. This is evident, for instance, in the fact that many Muslim-majority countries, such as Malaysia and Indonesia, and other countries with histories of colonial subjection, such as Japan,
Japan has never been anybody's colony. There was a brief American occupation which helped it after the War.
have moved beyond the dichotomy, adopting some typically ‘Western’ values without sacrificing their own cultural identity.
We don't move beyond a dichotomy by adopting features from one side or the other. There is a dichotomy between men and women. The latter don't go beyond that dichotomy if they decide some male items of clothing are more comfortable. Sadly, when I demand a seat on public transport on the grounds of my advanced pregnancy, I am rudely rebuffed.
The ‘East v West’ dichotomy leant upon by the Islamic Republic
which actually leans on an Islam/Kaffir dichotomy
can also perpetuate the same mistake that Said diagnosed in colonial frameworks, namely: oversimplifying and essentialising entire cultures.
A religion is an essence- i.e. it is the same in all possible worlds. There was no 'mistake' in colonial frameworks. Either they paid for themselves or they were abandoned.
The dichotomy is clumsy insofar as it postulates a fantasy of homogeneity, obscuring the wide range of political factions within Iran.
But the Supreme Guide distinguishes guys essentially faithful to the State Religion and who are allowed to stand for election and other people who it may be preferable to kill. That dichotomy isn't clumsy at all. It has worked very well for the Ayatollahs.
The Islamic Republic is just as committed to this fantasy
Iran isn't a fantasy. Like Israel, it genuinely exists.
as any European orientalist.
Where are they? I've never met one though I have met plenty of people from Iran who think the Orient sucks ass big time. We often get into fights as to which our ancestral homelands have spawned the more shitheaded kleptocrats.
In the preamble of its constitution, praise is poured upon ‘the awakened conscience of the nation, under the leadership of Imam Khomeini’, which came to form a ‘united movement of the people’ towards a ‘genuinely Islamic and ideological line in its struggles’. This account, however, is historically revisionary insofar as it depends upon a fictitious narrative over the object of unification in pre-revolutionary Iranian society.
So what? Constitutions don't matter- especially in that part of the world.
While dissatisfaction with the policies of the Pahlavi dynasty was clearly widespread, ideas about what form of government was to replace them was not a unified affair but fragmented, with diverse factions – communists, merchants, students, workers, educated women and secular nationalists – not necessarily in harmony with clerical aims.
Who doesn't know this? What matters is that the eco-lesbians failed to ally with the Anarcho-Trotskyites to slaughter Tudeh before it could pave the way to 'velayet-e-faqih'. I single out for condemnation the lethargy displayed by the Chairman Miaow faction of the Revolutionary Front of Persian Felines to make sufficiently progressive purring noises during those fatal days.
Moreover, it is not true that all factions responsible for the revolution supported the substantive policies of the theocracy that emerged.
No kidding! It wasn't till 1983 that the Commies were fully suppressed. In the Orwellian year of 1984, prominent Communists appeared on TV confessing their treason and praising the Great Leader. I believe the last of them were killed in 1988 unless they had already fled.
As early as 8 March 1979 – a matter of weeks after the conclusion of the revolution – tens of thousands of women marched in the streets of Tehran for six days to protest Khomeini’s announcement that women in Iran ought to adhere to religious dress code (ie, the hijab or chador).
Women don't matter because they will get raped to death if anarchy supervenes. The only question is whether they will wear what the Commies or the Clergy tells them to wear. But Iran's Commies were crazier than their Clergy. The latter, at the least, knew their own theology and jurisprudence. The former knew no Economics- and Marxism is an economic theory- or History or anything else.
The history, even recent history, of religion in political affairs in Iran is more complicated, and pluralist, than the Iranian government admits.
Why the fuck would the Iranian government want to admit or deny that the country had plenty of leftie nutters of various stripes?
In this respect, Islamists and postcolonial scholars who champion the ‘anti-imperialist’ narrative are in many ways in agreement,
Why stop there? Why not suggest that they are bumming each other surreptitiously?
and as such suffer from the same conceptual problems.
not to mention genital warts.
The narrative presented so far functions as part of the justification for rejecting calls for a secular Iran.
We reject calls to jump off tall buildings not because of any fucking narrative. We do so because we know that obeying those calls will result in death. Justifications don't matter. Not getting killed does.
Assuming the challenges addressed above can be reasonably met, the argument can be charitably reconstructed as follows: first, imperialism ought to be resisted where it is found because it is intrinsically wrong;
Sadly, resistance tends to mean things like not buying this rather than that. It can have very dramatic effects. I recall briefly refusing to buy Soviet Vodka because I'd switched to Polish Vodka. This caused the collapse of that Evil Empire.
second, the idea of a secular Iran has its origins in, and continues to foster the cause of, Western imperialism;
Sadly, Western or Eastern or any other sort of imperialists want territories to be less fucking shitty and difficult to profitably interact with. No Westerner ever thought Iran or Iraq or India was a lovely, well run, place. They considered them shitholes ruled by horrible sociopaths.
and so, third, the idea of a secular Iran ought to be resisted.
The idea of Iran as a regional hegemon ought to be resisted by non-Iranians. If that resistance is effective, Iranians too will have a reason to give the thing up. Let somebody else train and finance murderous sociopaths.
The first claim may be justified on a number of grounds:
there is only one ground to justify it- viz. the thing disappeared long ago and saying 'boo to Imperialism' makes darkies happy.
perhaps, for example, imperialism is intrinsically wrong because it is a form of oppression,
just like the possession of dicks. Dicks cause RAPE! Ban them now.
and necessarily undermines the value of national self-determination
No. The value of a thing remains even if something with superior value is chosen. A nation may choose to pool sovereignty or delegate it entirely for some specific purpose or period of time.
and causes individual or cultural harm, or perhaps because it is expressive of objectionable cultural chauvinism.
These pedants are employed to say 'Whitey bad. Whitey should apologize for being so goddam White. Also dicks must be banned. Dicks cause RAPE!'
We can grant this claim’s truth for our current purposes,
we both teach cretins. Our current purpose is to make Aeon readers feel sorry for us. Did you know my Daddy is a dentist? Sadly, he dropped me on my head when I was a baby which is why I am stuck in the Grievance Studies' ghetto.'
for the second claim is especially vulnerable to a host of criticisms that ultimately render the argument implausible.
Very true. The second claim reacts to criticism by wailing loudly and shitting itself copiously. However, what should be of far greater concern to these two pedagogues is the fact that many of their students are vulnerable to beating and sodomy by any inanimate objects they happen to have in their hands. This is because of Neo-Liberalism though Satanic Capitalist Cocks may also be implicated.
It is crucial that the claim mentions not only that secular Iran is an idea with origins in Western imperialism, but also one that continues to propagate its aims. If it was merely the former, the argument would be patently invalid insofar as it would fallaciously assume that the current function and value of something can be determined solely by reference to what it originally emerged to do.
It is perfectly acceptable, heuristically speaking, to determine the current function and value of a thing by referencing only what it was originally intended to do. There may be exceptions to this rule. However, no logical fallacy is involved. Suppose an evil Western power didn't want to have the bother of colonizing Muslim Iranians. It wanted them to first become Secular so as to 'soften them up'. In that case we might say, 'ditch the project of secularizing Iran. Guess which country is next to it? Pakistan. You really want to have them guys on the border of your colony? They will keep dropping by for a game of cricket and then one thing will lead to another and you end up with a wicket up your arse.'
Even if we grant that secularism in the Iranian context was originally a subversive tool of Western imperialism, this itself would not establish that secularism continues to be such, and that there aren’t independent reasons speaking in its favour now.
But it would be enough for us to have a reasonable doubt about its worth.
It is patronising to say Iranians are incapable of deliberating their values outside of a religious framework
No. People who hate Iranians don't want to patronize them at all. They want them to fuck off and die.
The second part of the premise, which claims that calls for a secular Iran continue to foster the cause of Western imperialism, seems unfounded.
Because there is no fucking Western imperialism.
In order to avoid being a mere speculation about the motives of secularists, it would have to be shown not only that (a) a secular Iran would be in the interests of imperialist powers;
If any such existed, they would rather conquer a secular rather than a religious Iran. Why? Religious Iranians showed extraordinary valour fighting the Iraqis whose regime was Secular. The fact is the Jihadi or Basiji warrior inspires fear around the world. Saddam's or Assad's or the Khalqi's soldiers seemed less committed- though I may be wrong about this.
but, crucially, that (b) calls for a secular Iran are exclusively a causal product of imperialist powers.
No. It is enough that they are advantageous to those mythical beasts.
The fact is that, as we have noted earlier, there is a large portion of Iranians within the country calling for a separation of state and religious authorities.
There is such a separation but the former are subordinated to the latter. This actually strengthens both because the Supreme Guide has been less interventionist than the Shah.
To ignore these Iranians, or to implausibly brush them aside as products of false consciousness and brainwashing by Western media would be, ironically, to silence them in ways that
don't involve beating or raping or killing them. If I were an Iranian dissident I'd prefer this to a spell in Evin prison.
‘anti-imperialists’ typically find to be criterial of colonial subjection.
Which ended long ago. Still, it may be, these anti-imperialists believe there is an Evil Empire presided over by a Sith Lord who is also a shape-shifting lizard. That would be cool.
Perhaps the anti-imperialist’s point is rather that since secularism emerged from, and developed within, a European context (ie, its specific socioeconomic, cultural and religious system),
Actually, British India was Secular at a time when England was not. That was the first time the word 'Secularism' was used. The argument was that if India could be run cheaply and effectively in a secular manner, why not England which was way ahead culturally and ethically? The bigger problem was the privileges of the Established Church and stuff like tithes and blasphemy laws and the ban on birth control literature,
it is best suited to that context, and unsuitable or even harmful when implemented elsewhere.
These guys live in England. The traditional English view was foreign countries- even if part of the Empire- should be ruled as far as possible according to their own customs or through their own institutions.
However, there are at least two fatal problems with this relativistic formulation of the argument. The first is that it is unacceptably ahistorical.
Unacceptable to whom? Is it the Sith Lords who secretly rule over the Galactic Empire?
There are many examples of secularism outside of ‘Western’ societies prior to colonisation – eg, in the philosophical milieu and political structures of India and in numerous Chinese dynasties – and secularism also has its own history within Islamic contexts.
No. Some rulers were tolerant, others were not- but there was a Court Religion.
Thus, claiming that secularism is exclusively suited to Europe or ‘the West’ is false,
Why not say it is suited to places where it is considered crazy to persecute people because they disagree with you on some theological issue? It is obvious that secularism would suit secular societies where people have a long tradition of being tolerant of the religious beliefs and rituals of others? The non-Abrahamic religions tend to be of this sort.
and cannot rescue the argument. The second reason this relativism fails is that it is itself patronising, essentialist and even racist to propose that Iranians are inherently incapable of deliberating about their values, beliefs and practices outside of a religious framework.
Iranian Leftists were inherently incapable of getting their shit together. The Americans themselves thought the Commies would get 40 percent of the vote if elections had been held
One of the most significant problems with the anti-imperialist argument under consideration is
also the biggest problem with the anti-Lizard People argument for doing stupid shit
in how it obscures, and can even justify, the problems that secularism was designed to resolve.
Secularism wasn't designed to resolve shit. Some peeps thought it would be nice to be able to tell God to go fuck himself coz he gave me a tiny dick without having to worry about being beheaded for blasphemy.
One of the specific problems of theocratic governance, identified by Locke, is its systematic failure to guarantee the civil liberties of a religiously diverse citizenry.
Nobody gave a fuck about that. Theocratic governance failed in Geneva while the Papal States were a fucking shambles. Money makes the world go round. Rich peeps need to be able to get the Government to do smart things so they get richer. This means 'no taxation without representation'. Sadly, this isn't a panacea. But, if workers start paying tax and they get the vote, things can improve because 'collective action problems' have an incentive compatible solution. Sometimes. It occurs to me that my generation may have irrevocably fucked the planet.
This is historically apparent, but vividly clear in the Islamic Republic. Its constitution recognises only three religious minorities: Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians (Article 13). But this selection is morally arbitrary. Despite the Islamic Republic’s dubious official claim in 2011 that Iran is 99.4 per cent Muslim, Iran is a multi-religious society, which, in addition to the above, has significant adherents to the Baháʼí Faith,
considered a heretical Babi offshoot
Mandaeism,
recognized as a people of the Book in 1996
Yarsanism and even to other branches of Islam, namely Sunni Islam.
Which is Muslim just as Ismaili or Zaydi Islam. The Ayatollahs are trying to get Sunnis to worship in Shia mosques.
Tehran even has a very small community of Sikhs, as well as atheists, and deists associated with no religion.
Saudi Arabia has a lot of Hindus. So what?
Far from being ‘anti-religious’, secularism is a requirement for the guarantee of religious freedom
Nope. As a Hindu, I am safer in Saudi Arabia than Srinagar. What guarantees religious freedom is the police turning up and arresting guys who want to cut my kaffir head off.
Members of these religious minorities face discrimination on a variety of fronts. Baháʼís are routinely denied university education, evicted from their homes, arbitrarily arrested and detained, and imprisoned, all on the basis of their religious beliefs.
The Zoroastrians suffered worse for centuries. Jews too were considered 'najis'- unclean though an Ayatollah gave a ruling against that.
In 1991, a leaked government document on ‘the Baháʼí question’, signed by the supreme leader Ali Khamenei, postulated the benefits of eradicating this religious community in more subtle ways, such as: enrolling them in schools with especially strict Islamic ideology, destroying their cultural roots outside of Iran, denying them employment in influent positions, and so on.
They are routinely accused of being Mossad agents. What would be cool is if it turned out the Supreme Leader too was a Mossad agent but one who was didn't get that his mission was to go out and get some doner kebabs not end up as the Grand Ayatollah. What? Stuff like that happens all the time. Crack a book sometime.
The Islamic Republic’s discrimination of citizens based on their religious views also extends to other Muslim sects. As for the religious minorities that are recognised as genuine in the Islamic Republic’s constitution, they do not share the same civil rights and liberties as their Shia compatriots. Article 3 commits the government to the goal of ‘the expansion and strengthening of Islamic brotherhood’, and this manifests in ways inimical to the equal civil status of Christians, Zoroastrians and Jews. For example, senior government posts are exclusively reserved for Shia male Muslims, and members of all minority religious groups are barred from being elected president. Members of religious minorities are also required to abide by Islamic codes of conduct, for example in the wearing of hijab, and adherence to norms surrounding Islamic festivals such as Ramadan.
The problem with giving women freedom is that the fucking kaffirs have women too. Seeing their mothers and wives going around fearlessly, the infidel men too might become uppity.
As well as having independent reasons for thinking these forms of discrimination are unjust, these policies are also internally inconsistent with other goals allegedly championed by the Islamic Republic’s constitution.
Not if only the Supreme Guide is given the right to interpret it. I may say some action of the State is inconsistent with the Constitution but only the Supreme Court can confirm that this indeed so.
Article 3 states a commitment to ‘the participation of the entire people in determining their political, economic, social, and cultural destiny’.
Some participate by being killed pour encourager les autres. Missionaries are encouraged to participate in cannibal feasts unless, obviously, they have little meat on their bones.
But this clearly is not (and cannot be) achieved if Islamic (or any religious) rules of governance are implemented in a multireligious society, where vast swathes of the population are effectively excluded from the public sphere.
We don't know that. My own impression is that Islamic rules of governance can be and have been implemented in a very satisfactory fashion. No doubt, virtue signallers may raise a hue and cry about hijabs being banned inside the classrooms of girl's school (which is what happens in Saudi Arabia) but that is a different matter.
To claim that the plethora of forms of religious discrimination in Iran merely canvassed here are coincidental to the fact that Iran is currently a theocracy would be painfully naive.
No. The correct claim is that an extremist section of the Islamic clergy has imposed a harsh regime. One may say this was a 'revolutionary necessity' more particularly at the time of the Iran-Iraq war. But the fact is some of the families concerned have become very very fucking rich.
It is evident that far from being ‘anti-religious’, secularism is a requirement for the guarantee of religious freedom.
It is wholly irrelevant. There is no religious freedom if the police can't protect you from murderous fanatics. The guarantee of any freedom is provided by the Police and the Judiciary and the Penal System unless, of course, individuals or communities have enough firepower to secure their liberties for themselves.
It seems that the argument against Iranian secularism based upon the tired narrative of ‘anti-imperialism’ is weak,
It is stronger than ever precisely because Iran's position in the Fertile Crescent has never been higher. It warms the cockles of the Iranian heart to see Arab Sunnis, in Gaza, go to the slaughter for the greater glory of the Ayatollahs.
and embodies many of the same problems that genuine imperialism is (rightly) accused of, namely: ignoring Indigenous voices;
Very true. The major moral objection to what was done to the indigenous Tasmanians was that their voices crying out 'please don't kill me, for the Holy sake of Fuck!' were ignored.
oversimplifying and essentialising the Other;
as opposed to raping and enslaving them or just slaughtering them on an industrial scale
and the denial of fundamental civil liberties.
Gay Tasmanians voices demanding the right to get married before being slaughtered were ignored.
Those who recite the narrative that the Islamic Republic is a beacon of heroically defiant resistance to Western imperialism
Iran is defying the West. These two nutters probably think Israel is a 'settler colony' guilty of 'apartheid'. If so, they can scarcely deny that Iran is Israel's greatest threat at this moment. Hamas is Iran's proxy though its current aim is to get a respite in Erdogan's Turkey.
not only ignore its own foreign policy,
which involves training terrorists to kill Israeli babies
but ignore the plight of Indigenous communities in Iran, offering a shallow apology for rampant oppression.
I suppose these two nutters are constantly being approached by Iranians offering them shallow apologies for rampant activities of a type it would be preferable to prudishly draw a veil over.
The transparent poverty of this anti-imperialist argument
Any argument made to me which does not involve buying me a drink is as poor as fuck.
will also likely undermine wider attention
from whom?
to genuine concerns over the continued compromising of nations’ sovereignty in ways that are appropriately described as ‘imperialist’.
It is one thing to believe in God, the Creator. It is another to think that there is some omnipotent force which pays attention to genuine concerns about how stupid academics teaching shit subjects use words like 'imperialist' or 'apartheid' or 'neo-liberal'.
Those trapped in the hypnotic pull of Gharbzadegi must shake off their deep paranoia about secularism,
but not their deep paranoia about Lizard-People from Planet X
and recognise the juvenility of its lurking assumption that opposition to Western imperialism is a sufficient condition of legitimate governance.
I get it. These guys teach wannabe terrorists with very low IQs. They keep saying to them 'opposition to Western imperialism is not a sufficient condition for slitting your mother's throat even if you think she is an utter slut, deserving of death, coz she made you do the washing up.' The trouble is, by ex falso quodlibet, everything can be a necessary condition for doing crazy shit because it is a lie that there can be any actual opposing of something which doesn't fucking exist.
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