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

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Processions, Passion Plays, and Rites of Penance
Foucault, Shi'ism, and Early Christian Rituals
The motifs of pain and suffering from injustice, as well as rituals that glorify
martyrdom, have been at the core of Iranian Shi'ism since the sixteenth
century. 1 But these rituals of penitence found a new political meaning in the
course of the Iranian Revolution, when Ayatollah Khomeini reappropriated
them for his movement to establish an Islamist government. In fall 1978,
thousands of people joined the anti-shah demonstrations on the streets of
Tehran wearing white shrouds as a sign of their willingness to face death.
Demonstrators carried pictures of martyred political prisoners and chanted
slogans calling for their deaths to be avenged. Even secular and leftist political
organizations of this period drew their legitimacy from the number of
martyrs they had given to the revolutionary cause. Many newspapers of the
revolutionary period, especially those of the Islamic-leftist Mujahedeen Khalq
and the Marxist-Leninist Fedayeen-i Khalq, were filled with pictures of young
martyrs who had lost their lives in the prisons of the shah. 2
Foucault's writings on "practices ofthe self" in early Christian communities
provide us with a very useful way of understanding the phenomenon of
the Iranian Revolution, specifically the Islamists' utilization of Shi'ite narratives
and ritual practices.
Foucault was fascinated by the dramatic mass demonstrations he witnessed
in Iran, especially by the Islamists' appropriation of Shi'ite rituals to
create what he called a "political spirituality. " In the rhythmic chants of the
protesters, the self-flagellation of the demonstrators, and the exuberance of
the death-defying crowds-the men dressed in black shirts, the women in
black veils-Foucault may have been reminded of rituals of early Christian-
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