I have yet to read the book, The Politics of Nationalism in Modern Iran by Professor Ali Ansari. However, after reading his extended interview with Eskandar Boroujerdi [1], I felt the need to respond to some of the points he made here.
On the whole, it seems to me that his take on the reign of Reza Shah is written from the perspective of an admirer and apologist who tends to justify his actions. Why do so many elites, including Mir Fetrus, Shokat, Abbas Milani, and Sadegh Zibakalam, play this role in relation to despots? In my view, the unfortunate fact is that many of our elites admire power, or believe that there is 'good power' and 'bad power' and that the former can overcome the latter. They fail to understand that power itself is the problem. What we call power is what emerges within and as a result of unequal relations (you can't think of power outside of a relationship). Power is the result of domination, and we can't have good domination (for example, we can't have good patriarchy or good racism). Domination negates freedom. Hence, power is anti-freedom and freedom is the absence of power; or at least this is the definition of freedom from within a negative equilibrium paradigm.
We can see the terrible effects of such an admiration of power among many of our elites in their support for the recent coup in Egypt, and among the others who rushed to vote for Rouhani under banners of pragmatism and realism, or out of a hatred for idealism or 'bringing ethics into politics', or desiring a military attack against Syria by the US.Here we can see why the current mafia regime has lasted this long. Many opponents are like the regime: they understand politics in Machiavellian terms and have no time for ethics.
The problem with functioning within such a discourse of power is illustrated by Professor Ansari’s interview. Below are a few points in response.
In answering the question about his view on the Shah’s policies forcing Iranians to wear European clothes, which included forcing women to remove their hejab, and especially whether this was a form of pseudo-modernism, he responds: “I don’t think it had anything to do with pseudo-modernism. At the time, the belief among nationalists was that dress and appearance mattered, and here the example of Peter the Great looms large in their thinking. It was about revolutionising the self. You dress differently, you think differently. We view this as odd today but at the time it was a mainstream view. The Asian country that reformists admired most was Japan, and they had done just this with the Meiji restoration.”
Maybe the example of Peter the Great, who more than two hundred years before Reza Shah’s time had forced Russians to either shave their beards or pay taxes. Suits Ansari’s attempt to justify the violent coercion of Iranians to change their dress into European style, but the example of Japan is far from true. They did not force the Japanese to do things, including change their style of clothing, to their liking. It was through education, military discipline, and educating housewives and mothers that they tried to achieve their goal. Unlike Reza Shah, they were not fanatical about a western dress code and tried to combine Japanese and European styles. This is why in pictures we can see that the emperor was “renewed” and wore both western dress and traditional. The only exception was in 1871 when the Meiji Emperor ordered that Western clothing must be worn, but only by high officials and during business meetings with westerners. To find out more, I suggest reading Fujitani’s Splendid Monarchy, which is very informative.
Ansari also argues that “Reza Khan’s rise from relative obscurity mirrors the emergence of other Iranian dynasts, who had little or no connection with the ruling elites of the day, most obviously Nader Shah. The fact that he was an outsider in every sense of the term had an important impact on his attitude towards the ruling elites of the day and vice versa.”
Such an analogy can be terribly misleading. Although both Nader Shah and Reza Shah rose from humble backgrounds, the former‘s rise was due to his own abilities, genius and merit while the latter’s was through his connection to the British, who had already tried to nominate others to conduct a coup (with Shapur Jay, the British agent, ultimately identifying Reza Khan as a person who would be willing to play such a role).[2] The inappropriateness of such a comparison can also be clearly seen in the armies that both of these leaders assembled and trained. Nader Shah commanded a powerful army, despite the internal revolt of Afghans, the Safavid Dynasty having crumbled and the powerful Ottoman and Russian armies trying to add large parts of Iran to their empires. Within a short time he defeated the internal revolt, heavily defeated the Ottoman army to the extent that the Russian army speedily left the country in order to avoid such destiny with his ultimatum, and even ended up invading India (a terrible act with terrible consequences, but here I am referring only to his military accomplishment). Reza Shah’s “Modern Army”, on which he spent a large percentage of the country’s budget, confronted a few British and Soviet battalions and melted away within a few days. This was a testimony to his total ineptitude as a commander.
Furthermore, although Reza Khan was an outsider, he had already agreed to all British conditions, one of which was that he should leave the wealth of the Qajars intact. So, apart from a few, the Qajar elites embraced him and made him one of them.
In response to the question of Reza Shah’s theft of land, which made him into the country’s greatest land owner, Ansari again uses apologetic language and argues: “He did indeed become one of the largest landowners in northern Iran though he always claimed that the land was being left fallow and he wanted to use it to lead by example. This may be somewhat disingenuous but it is also not unusual for a dynasty without a landed base to accumulate land. It may not be what we might term best practice but we should not be surprised by it. What matters in some ways is what he did with the land and in this respect it does appear that he cultivated it.”
So for Ansari, it is understandable that a modernist dictator who wants to force Iran onto the path of “progress” acts like the traditional monarchs which he aimed to be done with? Furthermore, his argument that Reza Shah cultivated the land which was left fallow shatters in the face of reality, as the officers who were sent to forcibly take the land from its owners had a duty to indentify the most fertile land and seize it for the Shah. This policy, which forced the now-landless peasants into horrendous conditions working for a meagre income to die of hunger or ending up as beggars in towns and cities. For example, the Koosheh newspaper at the time wrote: “They have thrown the miserable Mazndari peasants to the state of pre-historic times. They have neither shoes nor clothes to wear. From dusk to dawn they have to sleep in dark because they can’t afford to buy a few ounces of oil for lighting.” [3] Another report describes the situation of other peasants who lost their land to Reza Shah: “Now the peasants with their own expenditure have to travel 120km in order to work on land, and the only encounter with the landowners is the lashes which they receive. At night they sent them to sleep in stables and in the morning they bring them out like animals, while being hungry and naked, and if someone complained that he was sick his remedy was the lashes he would receive, which would lead to his death. They also used to sexually exploit their women [ناموس مردم در روسای املاک بازیچه ای بیش نبود ([4 As the result of such brutal mismanagement, unlike what Ansari argues, agricultural production in these lands decreased.
In regard to the wealth that Reza Shah acquired through such means, Ansari argues: “It is worth bearing in mind that at his death his wealth was estimated to be £129,317.” This is not even remotely close to the facts. For example, we know by the end of his reign there were around 44,000 ownership certificates issued for him. His average annual income was 70 million Ryal[5] of which 60 million (less than 10%, or around $25million) was sent to European and American banks.[6] In fact, in his time he had become one of the wealthiest men in the world.[7]
When one sees justification for such astronomical corruption of a despot, then we cannot be surprised if future historians use the same logic to justify the gigantic corruption which is committed by elites like Rafsanjani, Khamenei and others by referring to their humble backgrounds (since Khamenei was only a preacher, rozeh khan, and Rafsanjani a petty house buyer) and their need to catch up!
There are other points which I would like to make about this interview, but they can wait.
In conclusion, I would like to argue that acting as “critical” admirers or apologetics for dictators still glorifies them. As long as Iranian elites do not prioritise human dignity and human rights, independence and freedom, politics will always be occupied by power, and power will receive legitimacy at the cost of turning a blind eye to the violation of human dignity and rights, or even justifying it as a price worth paid. With this reasoning, it is also easy to celebrate the ruling mafia regime in Iran. It has made many more roads, brought electricity to thousands of villages, built schools and universities in which 60% of students are female, and almost doubled the rate of literacy. So why not celebrate the current regime since the achievements of Reza Shah and his son fade in the light of the mafia regime’s achievements?
The thing is, only if such elites free themselves from discourses of power, they would not see Reza Shah as a great modernizer and “Father of Modern Iran”, but as someone who aborted the Constitutional revolution and prevented it, through preventing trial and failure, from achieving democratic methods of development. Hence, nothing is more important than to revolutionize our understanding of politics and, instead of viewing it as a method to achieve and manage power, learn to understand it as a method of becoming free. For that we need ethics, and we need for human dignity and human rights to occupy centre stage in our struggle. If we can manage to do this, then it is more likely that we will be able to create a democratic system in Iran after overthrowing the regime, to ensure that it is independent from foreign interference, and to build a state whose main task is not to threaten but to protect the dignity, human, and national rights of all the people who live in Iran.
[1] http://iranwire.com/en/projects/2287
[2] Hussein Fardoost, The Rise and Collapse of Pahlavi Dynasty ( Tehran, Moaseseye Motaleaat va Pazoohesh’haaye Siasi Enteshaaraate Etela’at. 1371), 2nd volume, p.144
[3] Jaami(Pseudo name for the writers of the book), Past is the light to the future (Tehran, Entesharat-e Negah, 1392), p. 24
[4] Ibid. P. 102
[5] Doktor Shapur Ravasani, State and Government in Iran (Tehran, Nashre Sham, Bija, Bita) p. 123
[6] Ibid: Quotes from Aajir newspaper, issue 188. 16/06.1323
[7] Ahmad Faroughi, translated by Mehdi Naraghi, The corruption of Pahlavi Family ( Tehran, Sepahbod, 1377), p. 49
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