Foucault's orientalism and romanticization of the Iranian Revolution

The corpus of Michel Foucault’s work concerns issues of intersectionality, with tacit or explicit references to race, class, gender, and power. With his writings on the Iranian Revolution, Foucault diverges somewhat from his sociological and philosophical center point, with a foray into a combination of journalism and religious apologetics. Religion is not a core concern of Foucault, and it is the author’s ignorance of the structural and functional importance of religion that weakens his main arguments about the Iranian Revolution. Foucault imbues the Iranian brand of radical or fundamental Islam with an underdog status that it did not deserve. Moreover, Foucault systematically shut out alternative voices even while himself championing the importance of allowing the Ayatollah and his supporters to give voice to their dissent. Foucault’s analysis of the Iranian Revolution belies the French philosopher’s prior work critiquing systems of modernity and instrumental oppression, even though Foucault acknowledges the importance of Iranian self-determination. Given the geographic position of Iran, situated at the crossroads of Soviet/communist power on the one hand and Western hegemonic secularism on the other, Foucault did offer to the international community a novel and in many ways, ironic, way of framing the Revolution.
The ramifications of the Iranian Revolution continue to reverberate decades afterwards, particularly in the 21st century and after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States. Viewed in light of 21st century events and the new shape of Islamist fundamentalism, Foucault’s writings on Iran take on a new character and new meaning. Revisiting their book Foucault and the Iranian Revolution, Afary and Anderson admit that Foucault may have missed the mark in his analyses of Iran both by ignoring the role that gender played in the Revolution and also by overestimating the beneficence of the Ayatollah’s regime. Without making excuses for Foucault, Afary and Anderson nevertheless place the French philosopher into a broader historical context. Foucault’s philosophy emerged during the peak of postmodernism, in which the particular and the relative triumphed over the universal. Within the confines of postmodern particularism, it is easy to understand how the Iranian Revolution might be celebrated for its uniqueness, its singularity. “Long before most other commentators, Foucault understood, and this to his credit, that Iran was witnessing a singular kind of revolution,” (Afary and Anderson, “Revisiting” 1). Foucault may have been guilty of ethical relativism, and yet Foucault never pretended to be an ethicist at all, nor even a realist.
Foucault comes dangerously close to a polemic on postmodern nation-state building and the construction of a religious nation-state, albeit one that he is categorically and culturally removed from. It is as if Foucault unwittingly falls pray to the ultimate emblem of colonialism: the romanticizing of the other. Though he criticizes opponents of the Revolution for being “orientalist,” it is in fact Foucault himself who commits the true sin of orientalizing Iran as he glorifies, celebrates, and idealizes the Revolution. “Foucault was not immune to the type of illusions that so many Western leftists had held toward the Soviet Union and later, China,” as he seems to romanticize Iran (Afary and Anderson, “Revisiting,” 1). In fact, Afary and Anderson also point out in their revisiting of Foucault’s writings, that Foucault seems to contradict himself. In particular, “Foucault's suspicion of utopianism,” seems to fall by the wayside as he ignores the obvious utopian ideals and tenets of the Ayatollah’s political platform (Afary and Anderson, “Revisiting,” 1). Foucault forays into the realm of religion, religious politics, and even personal spirituality: domains that he should have kept well clear of given his lack of understanding. On the other hand, it does appear that “Foucault recognized the enormous power of the new discourse of militant Islam, not just for Iran, but globally,” (Afary and Anderson, “Revisiting,” 1). Revisiting Foucault through the lens of the 21st century offers insight into how the Iranian Revolution fomented similar trends throughout the Muslim world and especially in the Middle East.
Foucault's writings on Iran were in fact “closely related to his general theoretical writings on the discourses of power and the hazards of modernity,” (Afary and Anderson, “Revisiting,” 1). In particular, Foucault remained poignantly concerned with the ways social and political institutions wield and maintain power. Foucault’s writings on surveillance and his description of the panopticon’s role in the penal institution revolutionized thought on authoritarian power. For all his astute powers of perception and analysis, Foucault failed to realize the enormous potential of the Ayatollah’s regime to use the same tools of oppression including surveillance technologies, the technologies of warfare, and the tools of propaganda. Likewise, for all of Foucault’s understanding of the role of gender in power structures, hierarchies, and social relationships, “Foucault remained insensitive toward the diverse ways in which power affected women, as against men. He ignored the fact that those most traumatized by pre-modern disciplinary practices were often woman and children,” (Afary and Anderson, “Revisiting,” 1). Foucault’s writings on Iran remain ironic because of their author’s inability to consider the intersections between class, gender, religion, and power in Iran. Orientalism, white privilege, male privilege, and his lack of familiarity with Iranian culture and history likely led Foucault down a rabbit’s hole of misunderstanding.
It is true that the Iranian Revolution offered hope that within a dual-superpower universe, it was still possible to carve out alternative systems of power, self-governance, and ideological autonomy. Iran’s transformation from the Shah to its current form as a religious autocracy occurred during the height of the Cold War, during which resentment against Soviet and Chinese communist forces equaled antipathy against the United States and its presumed cultural superiority. Against the binary backdrop of the Cold War, Iran emerged as an unlikely hero: the revolutionary regime ready to stand up in the face of multiple aggressors and disparate forms of political, economic, and social oppression. The Ayatollah symbolized a rebellion against established hegemonies, represented by the Soviets/communists on the one hand and the Americans/capitalists on the other. Demonstrating a remarkable means of self-empowerment, Iran also stood apart from counterpart Muslim nations including its neighbors like Iraq. Thus endowed with a near-celebrity underdog status, Iran became Foucault’s poster child for resistance. Never mind that the Revolution imposed a far more sinister form of oppression than the Shah had; what Foucault wanted the European world to appreciate was the simple fact that religion could foreseeably be fused with politics in the postmodern world, offering culturally-specific means of resisting the outmoded forms of colonial oppression. Thus, Foucault’s specific brand of orientalism is described as the “seductions of Islamism,” (Afary and Anderson). Foucault was thoroughly seduced by Islamism, which offered what seemed to be a viable alternative to existing hegemonies.
Another powerful irony evident in Foucault’s work on Iran is his “powder keg” prediction. Yet Foucault’s version of a powder keg was far from the actualities that emerged in the decades following the Iranian Revolution. Islamist fundamentalism did indeed explode across the world’s stage, but Foucault conveniently relativized the phenomenon. Instead of being willing to take a stand or make a judgment about the consequences of religious fundamentalism as state policy, Foucault remained decidedly permissive. Whether it was a “wait and see” attitude or a genuine belief in the propaganda of the Revolution, Foucault saw the powder keg as only having positive implications for international relations. The rise of a political Islam in West Asia challenged the existing hegemonies, and also challenged the presumptions of scholars and modernists who eschewed religion. Whereas modernists had dismissed religion out of hand as being a sign of ignorance or backwardness, the postmodernists like Foucault took a different approach of permissiveness and relativism.
Foucault understood that the Iranian Revolution was definitively religious, and markedly fundamentalist in character in that it reverted to anachronistic interpretations of Islam. One of the main reasons why Foucault may have—unconsciously or not—reverted to orientalism in his assessment of the character and implications of the Iranian Revolution was his fascination with liminal experiences. Liminal experiences represent fringe life: human encounters with razor’s edge dwelling between one extreme and the other. Foucault likely believed Iran was in a liminal position between East and West, between Soviet and American, between communist and capitalist, and between tradition and modernity. On a microcosmic level, Foucault also saw that individual liminal experiences created the divisions between us and them, insider and outsider, empowered and disempowered. Through his biased window into Islam, Foucault also perceived the liminality of martyrdom as it was being framed during the Revolution. Foucault saw that the passionate supporters of the Ayatollah were hailed as martyrs and were living with passion and purpose in their pursuit of liberation from Western hegemony or the encroachment of communism. Being on the edge of their own society also made the supporters of the Revolution liminal by nature, and therefore underdog in status.
Unfortunately, it seems that Foucault’s denial of the real implications of the “powder keg,” and the postmodern orientation towards moral and cultural relativism led to the fomentation of trans-state terrorism. Only when pressed on the issue did Foucault admit that the Iranian Revolution had a “chauvinistic,” as well as anti-Semitic, nationalist, and elitist dimension (Afary and Anderson, “Revisiting,” 1). Overly permissive attitudes towards religious fundamentalism of all types have allowed undercurrents of intolerance to perpetuate themselves throughout Europe and North America, as well as the Middle East and West Asia. It is one thing to celebrate religious and cultural diversity, but quite another to allow injustice, rape, and violence in the name of religion, culture, or identity. While Foucault cannot himself be blamed for this trend or tendency, the theories he promotes in his writings on Iran did bleed through to similarly minded postmodern political philosophers. The result was a correspondingly permissive trend in political science, political discourse, political policy, and political philosophy.
Although fundamentalism was not a new problem in 1978, the September 11 terrorist attacks of 2001 necessitated a reassessment of postmodernism. What is surprising is that Foucault himself could not place Iran into a broader historical or cultural context. Afary and Anderson claim that Foucault was overtly in denial. He was first in denial about his own ignorance of Iranian society and its diversity. Foucault, for example, believed that almost all of Iran was unified in support for the Ayatollah. Second, Foucault was in denial of history itself: of the problems inherent in Islamism, the systematic subjugation of subordinate classes of people, the use of religion as a means of social control. Not just in the Middle East but also in Europe and North America, religion has been used as a weapon of oppression and a means of generating and maintaining control. Religion can bolster political propaganda and generate counterproductive worldviews, clouding judgment and leading to the current trends in anti-intellectualism and anti-science.
Another irony in Foucault’s orientalism is that he acknowledged the Shah government’s use of surveillance—referring directly to the Shah’s “gaze,” in fact—but did not acknowledge his own Western/male/hegemonic gaze at Persian society. Foucault failed to see that the leftist and Marxist intellectuals in Iran, even those who had tacitly supported the Revolution because of what it meant for extricating the country from American control, would fail to infiltrate the Ayatollah’s political circle. In short, Foucault underestimated the power of religion in the Ayatollah’s regime, and the way religion is a source of demanding panoptic control. This is especially true in light of the religious regime’s control of women. During the Revolution itself, secular Iranian women were pressured into wearing a chador in order to show support for overthrowing the Shah. Foucault’s perception of a unified front was strongly misguided by these oppressive attempts to generate the illusion of uniformity. The Ayatollah quickly admitted to imposing a “separate but equal status” for women in Iran, also something that Foucault failed to recognize for what it was: legal subjugation and oppression (Afary and Anderson, “Revisiting” 1). Foucault’s inability to recognize the importance of gender as a tool of oppression almost undermines the author’s entire corpus of work.
Foucault’s support for the Iranian Revolution likely stems more from an anti-American worldview and sentiment than from a pro-Islam one. In his analyses of Iran, Foucault spends a considerable amount of time remarking on the role of the United States in creating the Shah’s regime, manipulating the government for self-serving and strategic goals. “Would the United States be ready to deprive itself of a position that...would allow them to intervene...or monitor the peace,” (Afary and Anderson 203). As Foucault is correct in his general assessment of the Shah and the American support of his regime, he still idealizes the revolutionary alternative. In his writing on Iran, Foucault claims that Persian Shi’ite Islam “never ceased to give an irreducible strength to everything from the depths of a people that can oppose state power,” (Afari and Anderson 203). Moreover, Foucault recognizes the importance of differentiating between Persian culture and Arab culture and also between Shi’ite Islam and Sunni. Yet his recognition of the diversity in Islam still leads to orientalism: “the light that is capable of illuminating the law from the inside,” (Afari and Anderson 205). Enamored with the prospect of an alternative to American or Soviet power, Foucault denigrates the capacity of Persian people to establish a secular government not dissimilar from that of 20th century Turkey.
Religion and spirituality are not necessarily anathema to democracy, freedom, and equality. In practice, however, imbuing political institutions with religious authority creates rigid systems of law and order. Given the patriarchal nature of world religions, too, it is impossible to envision a genuinely egalitarian state that has a religious government. If patriarchy is encoded in religious texts, and those religious texts form the basis of even secular laws, then the subjugation of women will ensue. Foucault speaks of the potential to “open a spiritual dimension in politics,” (Afari and Anderson 208). Idealistic as it seems to welcome a spiritual tone in political discourse, it is impossible to do so also without isolating the large groups of those who do not hold the same spiritual beliefs, attitudes, or opinions. Foucault almost admits that prior to Islam, Persia created the social, cultural, and political institutions that helped it become a global empire. Yet no sooner does he admit to the need to separate mosque and state does he revert to orientalism: “it derived a religion that gave to its people infinite resources to resist state power,” (Afari and Anderson 208). It is impossible to resist state power from within an autocratic regime that by definition stifles dissent in order to perpetuate its rule.
There are several clear reasons why it is understandable that Foucault might have harbored some sympathies with the Iranian Revolution, given his postmodern worldview. Postmodernism critiques the tools and artifacts of modernity including the modern secular nation-state, the idealization of material, industrial, or technological progress, the almost deification of the legal and political systems of democracy. What Foucault saw in Iran was a similar disdain for the symbols of modernity, including a direct affront to the modern nation-state by creating a new, postmodern form of a theocracy. Reverting to a pre-modern state, Iran’s revolution was viewed as a reasonable solution to the shortcomings of modernity, a view held by both the Ayatollah and Foucault. Their respective male privilege allowed for the glossing over of the implications of perpetual patriarchy. Foucault also subtly supports the theme of authenticity: authenticity as it implies fundamentalist interpretations of Islam but also authenticity in individual reactions to capitalism or nationalism. When individuals become martyrs to a cause, they are acting authentically as well as celebrating the power of liminality.
In his writings, Foucault exposes his own disillusionment with secularism in general. By siding firmly with the Ayatollah on the need for a “spiritual dimension in politics,” Foucault shows that he perceives an emptiness in secular politics as if he misses the nebulous nature of decisions made according to whimsical and superstitious beliefs. Yet it is not an affection for superstition that necessarily drives Foucault’s fascination with Iran and Islam. Foucault equates secularism with Western hegemony, just as fundamental Islam does. Likewise, Foucault equates secularism with capitalism, which fundamental Islam also does. Foucault also equates secularism with hedonism, and believes that self-abnegation and denial are preferable paths towards resistance. Both Foucault and Iranian Islamism also shunned Marxism and left-liberalism because Marxism and liberalism simply replaced one form of power with another. Foucault never actually presents his views on the overarching goals of the Iranian Revolution, and does not clarify why he feels that irrational and religious sources of power and control are in any way preferable to the political institutions of the secular modern nation-state. If Foucault denies the power of the individual in favor of collectivism, he never says so, although doing so would seem to contradict his critique of state power.
For all his concern about the detrimental and devastating effects of unbridled state power and control, Foucault fails to recognize the Ayatollah as imposing a dreadful new order on the Persian people. Just as Marxism led to the erection of totalitarian state regimes instead of to egalitarian empowerment, the Iranian Revolution caused totalitarianism and authoritarianism. Foucault seems to believe that just because the Ayatollah was anti-communist as well as anti-Western and anti-modern that the Iranian Revolution offered a better alternative than any other option. It is possible that Foucault wrote his analyses because he had succumbed to propaganda messages, but it seems that the French philosopher actually does believe what he writes. As a result, Foucault’s reputation in France suffered. Because most of his writings on Iran were not translated into English, Foucault remains a darling of the Anglo academic world. Foucault’s discourse on power and control make perfect sense, and almost completely contradicts his view of the Iranian Revolution. Foucault might not be a feminist, but he did appreciate the ways power is wielded symbolically through sociological and political institutions, language, technology, and other tools of modernity.
Foucault’s focus on the authenticity of the Iranian Revolution showcases a fundamental flaw in the Frenchman’s logic, as he fails to show how fundamentalist Shi’ite Islam is any more authentic than any other paradigm. In a section of his writings called “The Inventors of the State,” Foucault refers to the Iranian Revolution as a form of “political will,” (Afary and Anderson 208). The political will as it is manifest in the Iranian Revolution is “sufficiently intense,” with a “clear determination” (Afary and Anderson 208). On the other hand, the Shah’s embrace of Western-style parliamentary politics and Western support of the Shah are presented as antithetical to authenticity. The Iranian Revolution would “undoubtedly privilege the Islamic religion,” as Foucault admits (Afary and Anderson 208). Another feature of the political will manifest in the Iranian Revolution is that it has the potential to become embedded in the ongoing historical narrative of Persia. Foucault points out, or claims, that the concept of the caliphate originated prior to Islam and was in fact a vestige of pre-Muslim Persia. At the same time, Foucault claims that the unique situation in Persia can combine its vestigial political structures with Islam to generate a uniquely Persian form of government: what Foucault refers to as the Persian “political will.” The political will means self-determination, defining political, social, cultural, and religious institutions independently of any outside influence. It is totally impossible to be without any outside influence, though: something that Foucault seems to have forgotten. Even Islam sprouted from the Abrahamic traditions that gave rise to Judaism and Christianity.
A problem with Foucault’s political spirituality is that it is based on arbitrary demarcations of power. Foucault should have been aware of the dangers of political spirituality already, given his astute observations of the ways state power divests individuals of their rights. Any form of oppression or hegemony has the potential to create systematic social injustice. When the Ayatollah overthrew the Shah with the widespread support of large swathes of Persian people, the act was simply replacing one form of oppression or hegemony with another. In the case of the Ayatollah, it was replacing a puppet regime of the capitalists with a totalitarian, authoritarian, patriarchal regime based on religion. Religion is itself arbitrary, as Foucault should have recognized. Denying the Ayatollah is not an affront to Islam. On the contrary, had Foucault bothered to acknowledge the efficacy of Sunni Islam, of Sufism, or of any other interpretation of the teachings of Muhammad, he might have reached different conclusions. Unless Foucault was under duress when writing about Iran, he reveals a sordid weakness in his understandings of power and intersectionality, practically undermining his own integrity.
Foucault actually admits his own ignorance when he misinterprets the phrase “Islamic government.” For example, Foucault states, “nobody in Iran means a political regime in which the clerics would have a role of supervision or control,” (Afary and Anderson 206). If not supervision or control, then what would the role of the clerics be, exactly? As Islamist fundamentalism continues to permeate different regions of the world, its diverse and disparate forms disprove what Foucault has to say, anyway, especially in his claims of authenticity. How can all the different brands of fundamentalism be authentic, and how is the systematic subjugation of women and minorities authentic either? Staunch anti-Semitism also taints the Ayatollah’s legacy, but it should not be surprising that Foucault might have sympathized with the regime on this count as well as on the count of patriarchy. Foucault denies the relevance or feasibility of utopian visions but seems to approve of idealism if it takes the form of Islam. Similarly, Foucault denies that patriarchy is a problem even though he recognizes abuses of power as stifling human progress.