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

Debating the Outcome of the Revolution, Especially on Women's Rights 107
favor of the government Khomeini had appointed. As the military started to
crack, Air Force technicians began to back Khomeini openly, while the Immortals,
an elite military unit, continued to resist. Barricades now went up
in the streets, and on February I I, the final remnants of resistance by the old
regime collapsed, as Bakhtiar resigned and went into hiding.
It was at this point, on February 13, that Foucault's last article for Carriere
della sera, "A Powder Keg Called Islam, II appeared. He wrote that until now,
it had been hard to label the events in Iran a revolution in the traditional
sense of the word. With the barricades in the streets, II a known figure finally
appears," he suggested ("Powder Keg, " app., 239). Mocking French Mawst
discourse, he continued:
Today, we feel as though we are in a more familiar world. There were the
barricades; weapons had been seized from the arsenals; and a council assem­
bled hastily left the ministers just enough time to resign before stones began
shattering the windows and before the doors burst open under the pressure
of the crowd. History just placed on the bottom of the page the red seal that
authenticates a revolution. Religion's role was to open the curtain; the mullahs
will now disperse, taking off in a great flight of black and white robes. The
decor is changing. The first act is going to begin: that of the struggle of the
classes, of the anned vanguards, and of the party that organizes the masses,
and so forth. (Ibid.)
Foucault's dismissal of predictions that the secular nationalist or Mawst Left
would now take center stage would certainly prove to be accurate.
Even more important, he noted, a new type of revolutionary movement
had emerged, one that would have an impact far beyond Iran's borders:
Maybe its historic significance will be found, not in its conformity to a
recognized "revolutionary" model, but instead in its potential to ovenum
the existing political situation in the Middle East and thus the global strategic
equilibrium. Its singularity, which has up to now constituted its force, conse­
quently threatens give it the power to expand. Thus, it is true that as an "Islamic"
movement, it can set the entire region afire, overturn the most unstable regimes, and
disturb the most solid ones. Islam-which is not simply a religion, but an entire way
of life, an adherence to a history and a civilization-has a good chance to become a
gigantic powder keg, at the level of hundreds of millions of men. Since yesterday, any
Muslim state can be revolutionized from the inside, based on its time·honored
traditions. ("Powder Keg, " app., 241; emphasis added)