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

132 Foucault's Writings on the Iranian Revolution
seemingly well-armed regime, all the while remaining in touch with the old
dreams that were once familiar to the West, when it too wanted to inscribe
the figures of spirituality on the ground of politics. ("Is It Useless to Revolt?" app.,
264-65; emphasis added)
Here again, Foucault spoke of political spirituality, a dream that had been
abandoned by the West but could be reborn as a result .of the Iranian Revolution.
Finally, Foucault began to address some of the problematic features of
post-revolutionary Iran: "At this stage, the most important and the most atrocious
mingle-the extraordinary hope of remaking Islam into a great living
civilization and various forms of virulent xenophobia, as well as the global
stakes and the regional rivalries. And the problem of imperialisms. And the
subjugation of women, and so on " ("Is It Useless to Revolt?" app., 265; emphasis
added). This passing reference to women was the only time in over eight
months of discussion of Iran that Foucault had mentioned women's oppression.
It was an offhand, almost grudging acknowledgment, without any elaboration.
At no point, however, did he mention the summary executions of
gay men that were continuing as he was writing these very lines.
Foucault now swerved once again toward the themes of death and martyrdom,
as he sought to separate the martyrs of 1978 from the regime: "The
spirituality of those who were going to their deaths has no similarity whatsoever
with the bloody government of a fundamentalist clergy" ("Is It Useless
to Revolt?" app., 265). This seemed like a strong critique, and in some
sense, it was. But why the focus on 1978, rather than May 1979, the time of
this writing? What about the nonspirituality of those Iranians who wanted
to live, to experience freedom in this world, especially the women of March
8 and their allies? There was no room in Foucault's binary schema for them,
any more than there had been for the dissent of "Atoussa H." five months
earlier. He concluded with a defiant refusal to acknowledge any errors in his
writings on the Iranian Revolution: "It is certainly not shameful to change
one's opinions, but there is no reason to say that one's opinion has changed
when one is against hands being chopped off today, after having been against
the tortures of the SAVAK yesterday" (ibid., 266).
As a whole, this article seemed to set out what can only be described as
a new concept of revolution that attempted to go beyond both liberalism
and Marxism. Just as most Marxists regarded the 1917 Russian Revolution
as a new type of revolution that had gone beyond the perspectives of 1789,
so Foucault seemed to see a new epoch unfolding in Iran in 1979, one that