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

Introduction 9
also believe that, like his writings and activism concerning modem forms
of punishment, the Iran writings express characteristic aspects of Foucault's
worldview.
We have been unable to locate any discussions by Foucault about the
Nicaraguan Revolution of 1979, one that featured a form of political spirituality,
liberation theology, that was more open and humanistic than Iranian
Islamism. Latin American liberation theology did not develop cult
of martyrdom and death, nor was it an authoritarian movement. The example
of liberation theology is also important for another reason. There have
been numerous forms of political spirituality in the past century. Some, like
liberation theology, Gandhianism, or much of the u.S. Civil Rights Movement,
favored a politics of democracy, tolerance, humanism, and to a degree,
women's rights. 6 The same could be said of the progressive Muslim thinkers
who have joined Iran's Reform Movement since 1997. Others, like Iranian
Islamism in 1978-79, were authoritarian movements that targeted religious
and ethnic minorities as well as women. In our present exploration of Foucault's
relationship to Iranian Islamism, we limit our critique of political spirituality
to such authoritarian forms. In the Islamic world today, they can be
compared to Western Christian fundamentalism, to extremist currents within
Zionism, or to authoritarian Hindu revivalism in contemporary India.
A few of Foucault's supporters in the English-speaking world have attempted
to exercise damage control in their discussions of the Iran episode. 7
However, English-language scholars sympathetic to Foucault from the field
of religious studies have approached his Iran writings with somewhat greater
care. Jeremy Carrette, who has produced two volumes on Foucault and religion,
distanced himselffrom Foucault's uncritical embrace of the Iranian ayatollahs
and wrote, "There were clearly huge miscalculations ofIran and Islarn
in Foucault's journalistic work, but the force of his interest in the power of religious
subjectivity in the shaping of human life is clear" (Carrette 2000, 140;
see also Carrette 1999). The Amsterdam-based philosopher Michiel Leezenberg
held that "Foucault correctly saw the decisive importance of political
Islam in the protests" of 1978, but this insight was "paired, however, with
a number of seriously flawed or oversimplified remarks on shi'ism" (1998,
79). The notion that Foucault made some "miscalculations" on Iran usually
refers to the fact that the regime of the ayatollahs quickly became a brutal
theocracy, something Foucault did not anticipate. A deeper questioning of
Foucault's generalized enthusiasm for Islamist "spiritual politics" and his vehement
rejection of other alternatives to the shah's regime, whether liberal,
nationalist, or social democratic, is not to be found here. Another issue with