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

158 Foucault's Writings on the Iranian Revolution
marry and are not socially ostracized" (Lindholm 1982, 224). Dancing boys
were likewise quite common in Iran, a tradition that continued into the early
twentieth century.
Modernity gradually brought about a sense of shame regarding homosexuality
among the more educated sections of society, but the practice continued.
In the 1970s, "dancing girls had replaced dancing boys, and transvestites
had become rare. Nonetheless, the first sexual experience of many, if not most
boys, is with one of their passively inclined peers, or with an older man who is
a confinned bedagh. Older men still may cultivate a handsome young protege
who will accompany them everywhere, though the practice is hardly universal.
. .. Pakhtun [Pashtun) poetry is often frankly homoerotic, following the
Persian model" (Lindholm 1982, 225).
As we saw earlier, Foucault had argued that sex and friendship were mutually
incompatible. Likewise, Lindholm writes, "In sexual union the Pakhtun
see domination and subordination. This duality destroys the essence of the
hoped-for-relation, that is complete mutuality. For this reason, unlike the
Greek case, friendship is never mingled with homosexual love affairs, since
sex affinns separateness. Lovers cannot truly be friends" (Lindholm 1982,
226-2 7).
In the 1990s, after Soviet forces had left Afghanistan, and U.S.-anned Mujahedeen
divided the country into fiefdoms, Kandahar warlords violated the
ethics of courting in the most flagrant way. They simply kidnapped and raped
the boys (or girls) they desired rather then pursuing them: "Boys couldn't
come to the market because the commanders would come and take away
any that they liked" (Smith 2002, A4). In 1994, Mullah Omar, the future
leader of the Taliban, became a local hero in Kandahar when he challenged
the warlords and promised to bring an end to the abductions. But in place
of the feuding warlords, the Taliban instituted a brutal regime of its own
that punished any publicly known homosexual activity, sometimes burying
homosexuals alive under a mud wall. Still, covert homosexuality continued
to be practiced in the madrasas (seminaries) and among the Taliban
warriors.
After the ouster of the Taliban regime by the United States in late 2001,
the andent ethics of love resurfaced in the streets of Kandahar. The sight of
so many men pursuing young boys outraged the new government of Hamid
Karzai, which "issued a directive barring 'beardless boys'-a euphemism for
under-age sex partners-from police stations, military bases, and commanders
' compounds " (Smith 2002, A4). At twenty-nine, Muhammad Daud, who
in 1995 at the age of twenty-two fell in love with twelve-year-old Fareed in
an auto repair shop and courted him for months, described the routine to a