foucault-and-the-iranian-revolution-janet-afary

Visits to Iran and Controversies with " Atoussa H." and Maxime Rodinson 97
During this second visit to Iran, Foucault met with two groups of workers
who were involved in what were by then ongoing nationwide strikes against
the regime. These were, on the one hand, the relatively well-off and westernized
airline pilots and flight attendants, and on the other, blue-collar workers
who were laboring in the far harsher environment of the Abadan Oil Refinery.
Again, he found what he had previously termed a H collective will," now going
so far as to refer to a universal ulove" for Khomeini:
The point of connection is found outside of the country, outside of the polit­
ical organizations, outside of all possible negotiations. This is in Khomeini,
in his inflexible refusal to compromise and in the love that everyone individually
feels for him. It was impressive to hear a Boeing pilot say in the name of
his workmates: "You have in France the most precious thing that Iran has
possessed for the last century. It is up to you to protect it. " The tone was com­
manding. It was even more impressive to hear the strikers of Abadan say: "We
are not particularly religious." "Whom do you trust then? A political party?" I
asked. "No, no one. n "A man?" I asked. "No, no one, except Khomeini, and he
alone. " ("Revolt in Iran Spreads, n app., 218; emphasis added) 20
Foucault mentioned the Marxist groups involved in the Abadan strike, but
only in passing. He also noted, without comment, the strikers' Hcontinual
call for the foreigners to leave" Iran, here mentioning not only HAmerican
technicians" and uFrench air hostesses," but also uAfghan laborers. " Foucault
might have asked what the latter group had to do with Western hegemony .21
He ended this article with the use of cassette tapes by the Islamists to
spread their message. He termed these cassettes Hthe tool par excellence of
counter-information," before launching into a reverie with lyrical overtones:
But one can find, outside the doors of most provincial mosques, tapes of the
most renowned orators at a very low price. One encounters children walking
down the most crowded streets with tape recorders in their hands. They play
these recorded voices from Qom, Mashhad, and Isfahan so loudly that they
drown out the sound of cars; passersby do not need to stop to be able to
hear them. From town to town, the strikes start, die out, and start again, like
flickering fires on the eve of the nights of Muharram. ( "Revolt in Iran Spreads, "
app., 219-20)
Foucault's last article in his fall 1978 series for Corriere della sera, HThe
Mythical Leader of the Iranian Revolt, " appeared on November 26. Not so
much a reporting on events as a theoretical analysis of the significance of