Iran: Cultural Values, Self images and Negotiation Behavior

Self-Images and StereotypesThe Shah paradigm of authority, however, is not the only one that derives fromtraditional Persian character. Another is that of the relationship between the Caliphand his Grand Vizier. The epitome of the Grand Vizier was that of a shrewd bazaaritypeindividual who succeeded in ingratiating himself to the Caliph (or, to that extent,with the pre-Islamic King such as in the Biblical story of Esther), and manipulatinghim. The dominant trait in this type of a relationship is, therefore, not obsequiousness,but shrewdness and court intrigue.RevolutionarismThe other side of the coin of Iranian acceptance of authority is a predilection inIranian society towards revolutionarism. The wide range of words in Persian todescribe states of civil unrest is indicative of the prevalence of such a state. Theyinclude the Arabic fitnah (civil strife), fassad (corruption, sedition), inqilab (revolt)and harj-o-marj (anarchy). The first two hold clearly negative Islamic overtones,whilethe third is used to refer to the Islamic revolution. Other terms are the Persian ashub(disturbance, turmoil), naa–arami (unrest), shouresh (rebellion), eghteshash (rioting)– all having negative connotations. Modern Iranian Persian, however, does not see allcivil disobedience as negative: the concepts of ghiyam (rebellion, used to refer to theShiites in Iraq), khizesh (jump), enghelaab (revolution), nehzat (movement) andjombesh (movement) all are seen as positive phenomena of rebellion. This tendencytowards civil disobedience and rebellion, apparent in Iran and unparalleled in theArab Middle East, has been attributed to a wide gamut of causes.Many Iranians and sympathetic scholars ascribe it to Iranian individualism andsocial mobility. According to this school of thought, Iranian society is populist orrevolution-prone in various ways: intellectual rebellion against the Arab dominationhas persisted from the beginning of the Muslim conquest of Iran through literatureand poetry. According to this view, it was expressed in the armed rebellions of AbuMuslim (747) and Babak and Mazyar (816-838), and later movements of theAssassins. This populism is attributed to motifs in Iranian political culture rooted inthe activism of Persian Zoroastrianism and concepts of justice inherent in the ancientconcept of Kingship in Iran. These motifs were fertile ground for adoption of theegalitarian ideas of the teachings of the Prophet Mohammad. They found theirexpression in a series of political and intellectual movements: the social thought of theKhoramdin in the eighth and ninth centuries, the utopianism of the Isma’ilis andQarmatians in the tenth through the thirteenth centuries, the populism of theSarbedaaraan and Hurufiyya movements in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, andthe political rebellion against colonial domination in the nineteenth and twentiethcenturies. 87A parallel interpretation leans on a mixture of religious and sociological etiologies.A major tenet of Iranian Shiite Islam is the Messianic expectation for the return of the“hidden Imam,” as the Mahdi who would deliver the world from tyranny and imposethe true mandate of Heaven. This heavenly order is supposed to redeem the oppressedupon the earth and create a new and egalitarian social structure in the spirit of theteachings of the Prophet and the Imam ‘Ali. This fundamental belief is widely87 Manochehr Dorraj, From Zarathustra to Khomeini – Populism and Dissent in Iran(London: LynneRienner Publishers 1990): 165.21