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

Processions, Passion Plays, and Rites of Penance 55
are recognized for two attributes: They are givers of martyrs (as sisters, wives,
and mothers of the men who die) and the eventual victims in the play. The
wives of Hussein never speak, but Zainab, the sister of Hussein, is glorified
because she accepts the eventual destiny of her brother, helps prepare him
for his last battle, and eventually lives to tell the story. The ethics and politics
of Muharram, like the black shirts and the white shrouds of the mourners,
are unambiguous. Hussein and the entire clan of Muhammad are good, decent,
ethical, and pure, while the enemy is wicked, impure, unethical, and
immoral. Only a sinner or an unbeliever would ask if the clan of Hussein was
justified in its claim to the eternal leadership of the entire Muslim community
by virtue of its birthright.
In his accounts of both Christian and Muslim rituals, Foucault's omissions
are surprising and troubling. He belonged to a generation that was well
aware of the uses that fascist movements had made of Christian rituals of
martyrdom and passion plays. Why was there no reference to any of this in
his 1978-79 writings on Iran, or even in his work on the hermeneutics of religion
in the 1980s, which was written much later and far away from the frenzy
of the revolutionary moment? These omissions were all the more surprising,
given the political agenda of Khomeinism, with its intolerance toward
minority religions and ethnicities, its hostility toward "atheistic" leftists and
secularists, and its dismissal of women's rights.
For Christians raised on the story of the crucifixion of Jesus and related
passion plays, the story of the martyrdom of Imam Hussein sounds remarkably
familiar. 17 If we compare Ta'ziyeh performances with the longestsurviving
passion play in Europe, the one that has been held in the village of
Oberammergau (Bavarian Alps) since 1634, we find numerous similarities.
The Oberammergau passion play centers on Jesus and his supporters, while
the Ta'ziyeh centers on Hussein and his clan. Jesus is betrayed by those who
are initially loyal to him, while Hussein is betrayed by the once-loyal Kufans.
The Christian play is devoted to the "passion" of Jesus, meaning his suffering
and gruesome death, just as the Ta'ziyeh is devoted to the tragic suffering
and death of Hussein and his family. A significant part of both stories deals
with the grieving, as well as the courage, of women, whether of Mary who
mourns the loss of her son, or of Zainab, who lives to tell the story of her
brother's martyrdom (Pinault 1998; Humayuni 1979). Both plays include
flashbacks to Old Testament stories, such as the expulsion of Adam and Eve
from the Garden of Eden, Abraham's near-sacrifice of his son, and Moses
leading the Hebrews across the Red Sea. As Gordon Mork points out, Jesus
is not portrayed as a "powerful avenger." Rather, he is seen as a "suffering
servant" of God, who allowed him to be sacrificed "to atone fo r the sins of