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

Debating the Outcome of the Revolution, Especially on Wo men's Rights 129
Third, Foucault suggested that, rather than leading to new forms of oppression,
the injection of religion into government might have the opposite
effect: "You said that by invoking Islam, a government would thereby create
important limitations upon its basic sovereignty over civil society, due to
obligations grounded on religion." Foucault added that although this idea
"seemed important," he "was somewhat skeptical" as to whether governments
could so limit themselves ("Open Letter, " app., 261 -62). Why was
he only somewhat skeptical? Apparently because government, especially the
modem centralized state, was the major danger to human dignity and autonomy.
This had certainly been the theme of his today well-known 1978 essay,
"Govemmentality," which had been concerned with issues such as "reason
of state" and the development of the modem state as a whole. The problem
was that the modem state was Hgovemed according to rational principles
that are intrinsic to it and cannot be derived from natural or divine laws or
the principles of wisdom and prudence" (Foucault 2000b, 212-13; emphasis
added). Thus, it would seem that even a state justifying itself by "divine laws"
was less a danger than a religiously neutral but therefore more autonomous
modem state.
After these preliminaries, Foucault began his critique of the Islamic Republic,
writing that "the trials taking place in Iran today do not fail to cause
concern" ("Open Letter, " app., 262). He went on to ask if those on trial had
been given their full rights to defend themselves, noting that in a situation
where a defendant is hated by the public, this is especially difficult. Foucault
then expressed the wish that Bazargan would hear his plea, despite the fact
that Iranians were tired of having Westerners tell them what to do.
Seen in the context of the discussions in France at the time over Iran,
Foucault's criticisms were rather mild and hesitant. This was probably because
this letter was addressed to the Iranian prime minister rather than the
French public. But it could hardly have satisfied Foucault's critics very much,
since he never called into question the overall project of an Islamist government.
The closest Foucault carne to a reply to his now numerous critics, still
without naming any of them, was in his article "Is It Useless to Revolt?" which
was published on the front page of Le Monde on May II, 1979. Foucault
began with some general comments on revolutionary uprisings, mentioning
not only Iran, but also the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising against the Nazis:
Uprisings belong to history, but in a certain way, they escape it. The movement
through which a lone man, a group, a minority, or an entire people say, "I
will no longer obey, /I and are willing to risk their lives in the face of a power