What do Iranian reformers think of making links with, say, the British SWP or political currents like it? The Iranian reformers whom Danny Postel favors do not appear to desire any such links, and maybe that's why they haven't asked. :->
<http://www.logosjournal.com/issue_5.2/jahanbegloo_interview.htm> Ideas whose time has come: A Conversation with Iranian philosopher Ramin Jahanbegloo with Danny Postel
. . . . .
DP: Why, in your view, are Iranian intellectuals and students generally not attracted to Marxist thinkers and ideas? Why do you think they tend not to be engaged by political currents like the anti-globalization movement or anti-imperialism?
RJ: It is not necessary to explore very far to find the reason for this lack of attraction to Marxism in Iran today. In Iran the number of "Marxists" was always a hundred times greater than the number of people who had actually read and studied Marx. This is the main reason why Iranian Marxism had so much trouble making sense of the Iranian Revolution. The Tudeh Party (Iranian Communist Party) and the leftist groups in Iran have no explanation today of their political and ideological struggles against liberal and democratic ideas in Iran. Most of these Marxist groups supported the anti-democratic measures taken against women and against Iranian liberals. Most of them, not to say all of them, supported the hostage-taking at the American embassy in Tehran. Some of them even backed the hard-line clerics in the elections and contributed to the Jacobinization and Bolshevization of the Islamic Republic.
Now, I ask you the question: what do you think is left of the Left in Iran? Nothing! Some live in exile around the world. Some are doing business in Iran. Some have become collaborators. A few are good scholars who teach in American and Canadian universities. Many lost their lives and will never be back among us. I salute their courage, even if I think that they were totally wrong in what they did. Those Iranian Marxist-Leninists who continue to follow their traditional line of thinking have become more of an anthropological curiosity, because they continue to hide behind their mystifying appearances, whether political or other. These people continue to regard their point of view, after all their political and intellectual failures, as a privileged theory, because they believe that it represents the point of view of the proletariat and the proletariat is the class which realizes the passage to the true history of humanity.
There are two problems here: first, no vision of history, even if it represents the view of "the last class of history" that can bring an end to all action and discussion on and in history. Second, there is really no organized proletariat in Iran and the action and self-awareness of the working class in 1979 did not take shape in the direction of a socialist revolution; on the contrary, it was clearly in favor of the Islamic revolution. Actually, the equation was quite simple for the Iranian proletariat in 1979: "They [the Islamists] believed that there is no God but Allah, and Mohammad is his prophet; while the Communists believed that there is no God, and Karl Marx is his prophet."
The heyday of the Marxist intellectuals in Iran was over as soon as the Islamic nomenclature was firmly entrenched in power. Despite the great extent of its influence, Iranian Marxism did not succeed in the realm of great intellectual achievements.
Marxism's intellectual failure in Iran today can best be illustrated by the new attitude that one finds among the younger generation of Iranian intellectuals. The methodological position of the new generation of Iranian intellectuals is characterized by two main philosophical attitudes: the extension of anti-utopian thinking on the one hand, and the urge for a non-imitative dialogical exchange with the modern West on the other. To my mind, this problem of achieving modern conditions for rational criticism is in direct opposition with the tradition of Iranian Marxism. First, because new thinking in Iran rejects any pre-given consensus as a foundation, whether traditional authority or a modern ideology. Second, because it calls for an institutionalization of the public debate in the form of rational argumentation. Therefore, the real dividing line which runs between the younger generation of Iranian intellectuals and the previous ones represented especially by the Left is between the preachers of grand narratives and monistic utopias on the one hand and the admirers of dialogue and value pluralism on the other. The point is that the new Iranian intellectual is no longer entitled to play the role of a prophet or a hero. He/she is in the Iranian public space to demystify ideological fanaticisms and not to preach them. Today in a society like Iran where there is a systemic deliberation deficit, the sentimental leftist view of the intellectual as a vanguard(ian) of Marxist ideology is inadequate to the new Iranian reality.
In short, what all this means is that the new Iranian intellectual has finally returned to earth, to the here and now, after decades of ideological temptations looking for salvation in eschatological constructions. In other words, Marxism is no longer considered as a valid or sufficient theory for the explanation of social and political reality in Iran. In fact, it is precisely the new social and cultural situation in Iran that has occasioned the younger generation to reconsider the method and the philosophical validity of Marxism in Iran. The re-examination of Marxism that is taking place does not occur in a void. Many have arrived at the point where they feel the need to choose between the ossified Marxism of the past and the project of radical change of Iranian society. We can call this process of re-examination a "pragmatic reaction" to the failure of what many considered to be "progressive" on the grounds that it would solve society's ills. In fact, not only were the ills not solved, but Iranian Marxism became an ill itself. I am reminded of what John Kenneth Galbraith once said about Milton Friedman: "Milton's misfortune is that his policies have been tried." Well, the misfortune of Iranian Marxism is that it has been tried. And it failed.
Concerning anti-globalization movements in Iran, as you know, like elsewhere, anti-capitalism has turned into anti-globalization among the left-wing groups. Most of the anti-globalization groups in Iran are those who mourn the downfall of the Soviet Union as a countervailing superpower, but you also find the critics of globalization among the Islamic groups close to the government. This has to do with the fact that the main source of anti-globalization sentiment is the resentment toward US military and economic hegemony. There is also a third group of young intellectuals who seem to be very much influenced by the works of Derrida, Foucault, Agamben, Badiou and Žižek. The heavy influence of these authors on some Iranian students takes often nihilistic overtones that you can find expressed in articles in Iranian journals. On the other hand, you can find some democratic universalists and cosmopolitan intellectuals in Iran, like myself, who do believe that since globalization will not fully ensure the advancement of positive social agendas, we need to empower civil society in the domestic sphere, as it represents a countervailing power and prospects for better governance.
DP: You referred to Marxism's intellectual influence in Iran. What exactly has been the extent of that influence?
RJ: I think it is as necessary to understand why Marxism succeeded in influencing Iranian intellectual life as it is to understand why in the end it lost out in the 1979 revolution. There can be no doubt that Marxism and the Marxist movement registered spectacular successes in Iran despite not finally succeeding. There is also no doubt that Marxism has received a devastating political and ideological setback in Iran as elsewhere. Iran never had a working class comparable to the European proletariat of Marx's time. Marxism was propagated in Iran by the upper middle class and rich families, who were politically against the Pahlavi regime and intellectually the most prepared to embrace new ideas and to implement them in the Iranian social sphere. From the 1930s until the end of the 1960s Marxism was the doctrine that provided the Iranian elite with an intellectual grounding for a rupture with Islamic traditions. Despite this vibrant interest in Marxist ideas — which in the 1970s turned into a cult for guerilla warfare, Latin American style — very few Iranian Marxists had read Marx or were versed in the philosophical literature of western Marxism, such as the Frankfurt School, Gramsci, Korsch, Lukacs, and so on. These were too complicated and, in any event, little known. If you looked at the books, pamphlets and political tracts of the Iranian Marxist groups inside and outside Iran, you would be horrified by the low level of philosophical knowledge and by the Stalinist tone and content of the writings. Strangely enough, Marxism was able to find a significant place in the hearts and minds of many Iranian intellectuals for more than four decades.
It's interesting to note that the influence of Marxism and the activities of the Marxist political groups in Iran fluctuated in direct proportion to changes in the Iranian nationalist movement and the influence of American diplomacy in the region. The political and philosophical failures of the Iranian nationalist movement headed by Mohammad Mossadegh after the coup d'etat of 1953 helped put wind in the sails of Iranian Marxism, which presented itself as the vanguard philosophy of the revolution. Also, events such as the Chinese Cultural Revolution, the Cuban Revolution and the Vietnam War were influential factors in the spreading of Marxism among students and intellectuals in Iran. Lenin, Stalin and Mao were far more influential than Marx in shaping the consciousness and work of those in the Iranian Communist movement. Most of the members of the Iranian Communist Party considered (and some continue to this day to consider) Stalin as a great hero.
Most important of all was the lack of sufficient awareness among most Iranian Communists about the force of religion and the strong social networking of the Islamist groups in Iran. What the Iranian Communists lacked was an appreciation of Islam as an important social-historical factor in the formation and consolidation of the Iranian masses. Iranian Marxists, despite their ambition to be close to the masses, never spoke the language of common people; they were hopelessly out of tune with the traditions and idioms of the people. This got in the way of their progress as a revolutionary force, but not necessarily as intellectuals. They ended up after the 1979 revolution as unhappy intellectuals with no political party. This reminds me of Brecht's line: "Unhappy the nation that needs heroes." Maybe I could add in the context of what has been said: "Tragic the movement that cannot have the heroes it needs"!
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
DP: You mentioned a number of contemporary European thinkers in whom there is interest among some young Iranians today: Derrida, Foucault, Agamben, Badiou, Žižek. Does Antonio Negri also belong in this group? I know that you brought him to lecture in Iran last year — which I found interesting, given your views on Marxism. Writing about Negri's reception in Iran, Nina Power, who was there, commented that his ideas were generally regarded as "oddly tangential to [Iran's] most pressing concerns." Negri's "concept of radicalism," she noted, appeared to possess "no frontal relation to the constraints of the existing order" in Iran. If anything, she observed, Negri's message appealed more to the religious hard right. "If there is to be a new Iranian revolution from below," she concluded, "it is unlikely to take the form of a plebeian carnival or quasi-Biblical 'exodus'." This sounds entirely consonant with your own thoughts on the failure of Marxism in Iran. Isn't it?
RJ: I know Negri from the time I was living in Paris. We are now close friends and I have been reading his writings with great interest, especially his work on Spinoza. I think there is nothing strange in appreciating Isaiah Berlin and Negri at the same time. This maybe has to do with the fact that I consider myself a politically moderate and nonviolent person, but a philosophically radical-minded person. I think philosophy is not only having a true sense of reality (as Hegel says: "Philosophy is its own time raised to the level of thought") but also knowing how to resist it. Philosophy is the daily practice of dissent at the level of thought. Being a true radical is having the courage to think and to judge independently.
As I told you before, what sounded fake to me in Iranian Marxism was that it was supposed to be a revolutionary philosophy and yet it produced ultra-conservative elements in Iranian society, who knew how to grow a Stalin moustache or put on a Che Guevara beret, but had retrograde ideas on social issues like women's rights or children's education. You can see the best example of this in the political attitude of the Marxist-Leninist groups in Iran regarding the first demonstration of women against the Islamic regime. Therefore, to make my point I would add that being a radical today has nothing to do with slogans, but has to do with the process of thinking differently. On this matter, Negri reminds me very much of Cornelius Castoriadis, whom I knew very well during my years in France. They both represent a generation of men of character and integrity who speak truth to power. I think despite the fact that many continue to consider Negri as somebody who, according to the former Italian President Francesco Cossiga, "poisoned the minds of an entire generation of Italy's youth," Negri is a radical mind that we need in the context of today's world. I think Negri and Hardt's Empire was wrongly characterized by many as a mystical and romantic invocation of a decentered postmodernist and post-imperialist world. Unfortunately, most people missed the important point of the book which is the discussion of the biopolitical context of empire. According to Negri and Hardt, the production of capital converges ever more with the production and reproduction of social life itself and it becomes ever more difficult to maintain distinctions among material labor and what they call immaterial labor. Those who are familiar with the works of the French philosopher Deleuze know that theoretically speaking Hardt and Negri situate themselves in the line of Deleuze and Guattari's A Thousand Plateaus. One might not agree with the conclusions of Hardt and Negri's book, but one can say that Empire is a work of visionary intensity.
Maybe this is the main reason I invited Negri to Iran. His presence and his lectures had a great impact. For those of us who live and work in Iran, every visit of a prominent intellectual figure is a breath of fresh air which gives us the oxygen necessary to continue thinking differently. In Iran today, "intellectualism" is an accusation often concomitant with that of "being pro-Western," a deviation from the official line. Therefore, inviting intellectuals like Negri, Rorty, Habermas, Heller and Ricoeur is a way of crossing borderlines without leaving the country. It is a way of bringing into Iran the voices of other cultures so as to further cross-cultural dialogue. -- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>