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

Appendix 221
by the occupation of Azerbaijan under Stalin, and was ambiguous in its support
of the Nbourgeois nationalism " of Mossadeq. 82 With respect to the Na­
tional Front, heir of this same Mossadeq, it has been waiting for fifteen years,
without making a move, for the moment of a liberalization that it did not believe
to be possible without the permission of the Americans.83 During this
time, some impatient cadres from the Communist Party were becoming technocrats
for the regime. They were dreaming of an authoritarian government
that would develop a nationalist politics. In short, the political parties had
been victims of the Ndependent dictatorship" that was the shah's regime. In
the name of realism, some played the card of independence, others that of
freedom.
Because of, on the one hand, the absence of a colonizer-occupier and,
on the other, the presence of a national army and a sizable police force, the
political-military organizations, which elsewhere organized the struggle fo r
decolonization and which, when the time came, found themselves in a position
to negotiate independence and impose the departure of the colonial
power, could not emerge. In Iran, the rejection of the regime is a massive
social phenomenon. This does not mean that the rejection is confused, emotional,
or barely self-conscious. On the contrary, it spreads in an oddly effective
manner, from the strikes to the demonstrations, from the bazaars to the
universities, from the leaflets to the sermons, through shopkeepers, workers,
clerics, teachers, and students. For the moment, however, no party, no man,
and no political ideology can boast that it represents this movement. Nor
can anyone claim to be at its head. This movement has no counterpart and
no expression in the political order.
The paradox, however, is that it constitutes a perfectly unified collective
will. It is surprising to see this immense country, with a population distributed
around two large desert plateaus, a country able to afford the latest
technical innovations alongside forms oflife unchanged for the last thousand
years, a country that is languishing under censorship and the absence of public
freedoms, and yet demonstrating an extraordinary unity in spite of all this.
It is the same protest, it is the same will, that is expressed by a doctor from
Tehran and a provincial mullah, by an oil worker, by a postal employee, and
by a female student wearing the chador. This will includes something rather
disconcerting . It is always based on the same thing, a sole and very precise
thing, the departure of the shah. But for the Iranian people, this unique thing
means everything. This political will yearns for the · end of dependency, the
disappearance of the police, the redistribution of oil revenue, an attack on
corruption, the reactivation of Islam, another way of life, and new relations
with the West, with the Arab countries , with Asia, and so forth . Somewhat