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

Debating the Outcome of the Revolution, Especially on Women's Rights 133
could reduce the two centuries from 1789 to 1979 to a modernist parenthesis
amid something far deeper and more permanent, the phenomenon of
the elemental or irreducible religious uprising. And like the more intelligent
and critical-minded of his Marxist predecessors, Foucault's support for the
new wave of Islamist uprisings that started in Iran in 1978, what he called
this "powder keg" set against the dominant global powers, was not entirely
uncritical. Yet it was fundamentally a stance of support. If his aim was to set
out a new theory of revolution that could be widely embraced, his essay was
an utter failure. It gained him no followers. And he lapsed into silence on
Iran from May 1979 until his death in 1984, making no public declarations
of any kind as the Iranian people suffered terribly under a regime for which
he had helped to build support. 13
Alongside Foucault's May 11 article on Iran, there appeared that same
day in Le Monde one entitled "Corrupter of the Earth," an analysis of the current
situation by Briere and Blanchet. Again, as in their earlier interview with
Foucault, they were more forthright than he was in condemning the repression
inside Iran, beginning their article with a detailed account of the consequences
of Khomeini's injunction to "cut off the hands of the rotten ones."
They described the heart of the Islamic revolution as directed against Westernization
and modernization, and its social base as the clergy, the bazaar
merchants, and the ordinary people. The mass executions being carried out in
the spring of 1979 were not only a form of vengeance against the past oppression
by the shah's regime, but also and more importantly, an effort to "purify"
the country of its Westernized corruption, in blood if necessary (Briere and
Blanchet 1979b). At the same time, Briere and Blanchet aclmowledged, more
than Foucault had ever done, a multiplicity of tendencies and currents within
the 1978-79 Revolution. They pointed out that the masses had cried not only
"Long live Khomeini," but also " Azadi! " (Freedom) . Here they referred to secular
as well as religious opposition groups. They noted as well that even the
Islamic leadership was hardly unanimous, citing objections to the repression
ordered by Khomeini that was coming from Ayatollahs Shariatmadari and
Taleqani as well as Prime Minister Bazargan. However, they concluded that
Khomeini had the upper hand and that therefore, unfortunately, "Islamic
fundamentalism has Iran in its grip and this can engender only dictatorship
and war" (Briere and Blanchet 1979b).
While the May 11 Le Monde article was Foucault's last word on Iran, his
critics did not allow th.e issue to die. A few months later, the political theorist
Pierre Manent published a lengthy critique, devoted entirely to the Le Monde
article. He did so in the liberal journal Commentaire, which had been founded