Lessons From the Islamic Revolution: Return
If you wish to return, you must first know whence you came. Miscalculate and you find yourself sinking in the abyss you so dearly sought to escape.
This is hardly a genealogy of the Iranian Islamic Revolution, unfortunately there does not yet exist one that isn’t progressive or islamic drivel; this is not where I seek to fill this deficit. Instead, in this piece I want to point out certain motivations and philosophical foundations of the islamic revolution which I think are relevant to the moment we are experiencing in the west. Are we experiencing a moment akin to the decline of Rome or the collapse of the Weimar republic? Much effort has been spent making cases for various historical analogies. By no means do I think that we can compare the modern west to Iran in 1979, there are, however, always some parallels in moments of turbulent politics to events of the past. If I keep my parallels ambiguous I will have accomplished my goals, it is up to you to draw the analogies.
The islamic revolution presents us an interesting case study, in which a relatively secular population was over taken by islamist sentiment during a time in which many will tell you Iran was flourishing. It is undoubtedly true that Iran under the rule of the Shah was better off by todays standards, but the Shah made a grave error; he misunderstood the nature of human of hierarchy, where the masses stand in regard to the elite. His extensive series of reform known as the 'White Revolution’, failed to treat Iran as a multi-ethnic kingdom of elites and peasants, instead mistaking it for a homogenous state of elites, and elites-to-be.
The White Revolution
Starting in 1963, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi initiated a series of aggressive and essentially progressive reforms aimed at modernizing and developing Iran. It can be said that the Shah, perhaps out of love for his kingdom, developed an obsession which ‘getting Iran with the times’, which would eventually be his downfall. The long list of shitlib reforms is too extensive to cover every aspect here but include:
Privatization of government enterprises
Nationalization of private enterprises
Profit sharing and wealth redistribution schemes
Compulsory education
Women’s suffrage
Housing reforms
Not everything was a total failure, but I wish to cover the one particular area of reform which was undoubtedly the Shah’s greatest mistake; land reforms and the consequences thereof. From interstate wars to peasant revolts, land and territory remain at the heart of all conflicts. Up until the 1960s, Iran maintained a feudalistic system of a large land owning nobility which employed an underclass of peasant agricultural workers. The urge to end feudalism has reared its head hundreds of times throughout history, often stemming from the serf class through Marxist and proto-marxist ideologies but too often from the monarch himself. And each time it is attempted it exacerbates the sorrows it sought to rectify.
When a monarch embarks on land reforms, particularly with the goal to end feudalism, he typically makes a specific gamble; the favor he will win among the people will outweigh the disdain he will receive from the land owning nobility or clergy. For a monarch, this is an attempt to liberate himself from the nobility all together. But this gamble is always bitterly miscalculated. As a general rule, when it comes to reforms, particularly in the old world, and particularly among states with expansive histories like Iran, means of life which had persisted for hundreds if not thousands of years cannot be changed through politics in a matter of years without catastrophic consequences.
Iran cannot be said to ever have maintained a particularly Islamic culture, on the contrary, post-islamic conquest Persia is marked by it resistance to islam, and Arabization. Its national epic, the Book of Kings (Shahnameh), was deliberately written by Ferdowsi sometime around 1000 AD to exclude as many Arabic loan words as possible to maintain the purity of the language and fend off the normalization of arabic as the language of the Persians. Likewise, the famous photos of Persian girls in skirts we all love to share so much demonstrate the lack of Islamic zeal among ethnic Persians; though these photos would become motives of revolution. While Iran may not have been a particularly Islamic society, it was deeply traditional. The shah’s reforms (universal suffrage, land reform, etc.) boiled down to forcing an ancient people to turn on its traditions, this is important to keep in mind for the next section.
During the period of land reform, the government forced large landowners to sell their land to the government which in turn sold small plots to landless farmers. Here lies the problem; there was not nearly enough land for all of the displaced serfs. Those who did receive land could not afford employees to work the land or gather the resources required, nor did they actually know how to run a farm for they were just serfs. Under the feudal system, as it was also in most of Europe, the landowners were responsible for the education, healthcare, and general well-being of the serfs. Post-reform, serfs were left to provide for themselves but simply did not have the intelligence or means to do so.
Consequently, millions of young men, often ethnically non-Persian (kurds, afghans, turkmen) were forced to flood the cities in search of work. Tehran became a time bomb. Multi-ethnic men poured into the city, poor, and unable to find work. In contrast, were the exceedingly wealthy Persians, wealthier than what many Europeans could fathom. If there is anything one should not underestimate, it is the reserve of resentment within the unwashed masses, among the ‘salt of earth’ people. Resentment swelled in Tehran, everything was considered a sign of decadence and westernization.
What I have described to you is a fairly common narrative, though some have recently tried to refute it by saying that the migration from the rural areas into the cities wasn’t nearly as large as often portrayed. But making light of migration patterns - as they so love to do - hardly refutes the unquestionable resentment which fermented among the masses which is really the point I wish to make.
The resentment of all things “decadent” and “western” gave rise to a movement of ‘Return”
Misreading Heidegger: The Return
For Heidegger (put excessively simply), being (Dasein) finds itself being pulled between two poles. On one side there is a Dasein of falling (Verfallen), which is to say an existence in which ones actions conform to the social milieu, they are not authentic (eigentlich), we simply do what we do. On the other side there is an existence of authenticity (Eigentlichkeit), when one through anxiety becomes aware of one’s mortality and lives to fulfil a purpose – what we may call a telos or even kleos. To become authentic requires that one become aware of whom one is when one seizes falling, and acting in a manner which pursues and reinforces one’s telos. In civilizational terms, this means a return to the origins.
In the 60s and 70s, as Iran pursued modernization – what many perceived as “westernization” – concerns grew among islamists that the Shah had turned his back on an authentic Iran, instead choosing to simply fall into the west. Heidegger’s philosophy became popular throughout revolutionary circles, particularly through University of Tehran professor Ahmad Fardid. In the struggle of tradition vs. modernity – modernity, for Fardid was manifested by decadent western liberalism while tradition was found in oriental islam. As Heidegger argued that the west (particularly Germany) was in decline and thus must look for reevaluation within the ancient Greeks, Fardid argued that Iran must become authentic through an reevaluation within islam. But this is absurd.
Fardid fundamentally fails at abstracting Heidegger’s diagnosis and prescription for Germany and applying it Iran. Had Heidegger argued that Germany should reevaluate itself through Christianity, Fardid’s argument might have made sense. But Heidegger doesn’t do that because Germany does not find its origins in Christianity just as Iran does not find its origins in islam. For what the ancient Greeks are to the west, there is a direct and obvious parallel to Iran; namely, the ancient Persians. A reevaluation of Iran through its origins would mean to reevaluate it through the ancient Persians, not islam.
To reevaluate Iran through islam would be as foreign, modern, and inauthentic as the “westernization” which islamist so passionately decried. Let it never be forgotten that islam is a arab code, imposed on Persia, which has only suffocated traditions, culture, and the vast human capital of Iran’s Aryan (indo-european) origin. Iran could never return to islam for it is not whence it came.
Post-Revolution Islamic Return
After the 1979 revolution, the Islamic “return” of Iran became manifest in ways that one can only describe as “reddit”. During the hostage crises, Khomeini had decided to release women and blacks early because “Islam reserves special rights for women" and that "blacks for a long time have lived under oppression and pressure in America and may have been sent [to Iran under duress.]" Can this be said to be much different than modern progressive notions of privilege and reparations? Both are bugish perception of morality. Even today, Islamic defense of Palestine and hamas within Iran and without are mere regurgitations of leftist “decolonization” slop. There is nothing bronze age about this, as some have suggested. The cultural traditions of Iran, which had continued in its aryanism, despite its Islamism – though persisting – were driven into the underground. What the schoolmarm fulfills in the west is done by the mullahs in Iran: constant finger wagging about naughty and immoral music, books, ideology, etc. all while they themselves perpetuate the most perverted and destructive habits.
When the origin is misunderstood, any attempted return is meaningless and ultimately leads to venerating an intermediary which lead to the crisis the return sought to resolve. In Iran this meant embracing islam, which developed in Iran well after the origins of Persia, and in fact was a contributor to the degradation of Persia. To have had reevaluated Iran through its origins, its authentic-self, would have meant reaching out to its Aryan roots.