Contesting The Iranian Revolution – Pouya Alimagham (1)

They ruled harshly and exploitatively, justifying their pat- ronizing control by belittling native cultures in the name of “civiliz- ing” their subjects with their own cultural norms. While Iran was never formally subjected to colonial rule, the Pahlavi Shahs facilitated the same function in terms of undermining Iran’s Islamic mores, doing so more effectively because they were indigenous to the land. Speaking the common language, Persian, they presented these West- ernizing cultural norms through word (and deed) as “progress” en route to the “Great Civilization.”

They even subscribed to a colonial racial index that placed the US-installed Shah ‒ the so-called Light of the Aryans ‒ at the top of the hierarchy. The condescension and heavy-handed exploitative rule of the colonialists and the Pahlavi dynasty eventually sparked nativist backlashes in Iran and across the Global South. In the build-up to the 1979 revolution, for example, many activist women, including those without a devout worldview, wore the hijab as a revolutionary symbol of defiance against the government’s subservience to foreign-power governments’ seeming betrayal of Iranian culture and the head of state’s authority.316 In 2009, the hijab as a mechanism for contestation came full circle in an unexpected and unprecedented way.

In a bizarre twist of fate, Iranian and non-Iranian men, some even with full beards, wore the hijab to snub the government, just as pious and secular Iranian women had donned the headscarf to show their opposition towards the Shah in 1978. Once again, Iranian activists (and their international sympa- thizers) were attacking the state’s ideological repertoire by using its own symbols. These acts of solidarity with Tavakoli, however, did not convince the government to show the imprisoned student leader any leniency.

Contesting the Iranian Revolution Most observers of Iran viewed the Green Uprisings of 2009 as a “failed revolution,” with many Iranians and those in neighboring Arab countries agreeing. In Contesting the Iranian Revolution, however, Pouya Alimag- ham re-examines this evaluation, deconstructing the conventional win–lose binary interpretations in a way that underscores the subtle but important victories on the ground, and reveals how Iran’s modern history imbues those triumphs with consequential meaning. Focusing on the men and women who made this dynamic history, and who exist at the center of these contentious politics, this “history from below” brings to the fore the post-Islamist discursive assault on the government’s symbols of legitimation.

From powerful symbols rooted in Shiʿite Islam, Palestinian liberation, and the Iranian Revolution, Alimag- ham harnesses the wider history of Iran and the Middle East to highlight how activists contested the Islamic Republic’s legitimacy to its very core. pouya alimagham is a lecturer and historian of the Middle East at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

He received his PhD in history from the University of Michigan. His thesis, on which this book is based, was awarded the Mehrdad Mashayekhi Dissertation Award by the Association for Iranian Studies in 2016. Contesting the Iranian Revolution The Green Uprisings pouya alimagham Massachusetts Institute of Technology University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, NY 10006, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia 314–321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi – 110025, India 79 Anson Road, #06–04/06, Singapore 079906 Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge.

It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781108475440 DOI: 10.1017/9781108567060 © Pouya Alimagham 2020 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2020 Printed in the United Kingdom by TJ International Ltd. Padstow Cornwall A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Alimagham, Pouya, author. Title: Contesting the Iranian revolution : the green uprisings / Pouya Alimagham. Description: Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019038198 (print) | LCCN 2019038199 (ebook) | ISBN 9781108475440 (hardback) | ISBN 9781108466899 (paperback) | ISBN 9781108567060 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: Revolutions–Iran–History.

| Protest movements–Iran–History–21st century. | Iran–History–Election protests, 2009. | Iran–Politics and government–1997- | Iran–Politics and government–1979-1997.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

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