Religious Nationalism: The Emergence of Iranian Nationalism

Sunday, August 4, 2019

The Emergence of Iranian Nationalism

This lecture by Dr. Reza Zia-Ebrahimi is based on his book, "The Emergence of Iranian Nationalism: Race and the politics of dislocation," published in 2016 by Columbia University Press. An abstract of the book from Dr. Reza's page on King's College website is given below:

Reza Zia-Ebrahimi revisits the work of Fath'ali Akhundzadeh and Mirza Aqa Khan Kermani, two Qajar-era intellectuals who founded modern Iranian nationalism. In their efforts to make sense of a difficult historical situation, these thinkers advanced an appealing ideology Zia-Ebrahimi calls "dislocative nationalism," in which pre-Islamic Iran is cast as a golden age, Islam is reinterpreted as an alien religion, and Arabs become implacable others. Dislodging Iran from its empirical reality and tying it to Europe and the Aryan race, this ideology remains the most politically potent form of identity in Iran.

Akhundzadeh and Kermani's nationalist reading of Iranian history has been drilled into the minds of Iranians since its adoption by the Pahlavi state in the early twentieth century. Spread through mass schooling, historical narratives, and official statements of support, their ideological perspective has come to define Iranian culture and domestic and foreign policy. Zia-Ebrahimi follows the development of dislocative nationalism through a range of cultural and historical materials, and he captures its incorporation of European ideas about Iranian history, the Aryan race, and a primordial nation. His work emphasizes the agency of Iranian intellectuals in translating European ideas for Iranian audiences, impressing Western conceptions of race onto Iranian identity.

Dr. Reza introduces his talk at Stanford University by clarifying what he means by Iranian nationalism. The (dislocative) Iranian nationalism, according to Dr. Zia, was constructed in the late 19th century and was based on the ideas of European orientalists, many of whom were Islamophobes. This nationalism was not accepted or even discussed in Iran before the late 19th century. He defines Iranian nationalism as a cluster of following three myths or ideas.

Iran is the land of Aryans. The Aryans are defined as a race that is generally in conflict with the Semitic race. Here, there is an attempt to link Iran with Europe and present Iranians as a European race. Many influential historians, who subscribed to this myth under Pahlavis, wrote Iranian history to affirm this myth;
Everything in pre-Islamic Iran was great. It was the golden age of Iranian/Aryan history. If one wants to study true Iranian culture, before its adulteration, then he or she has to study this age. The decline of Iran started with the invasion of Arabs;
Arabs are barbaric, uncouth, illiterate savages. Everything related to Arabs is brutish or boorish, including their culture (if it exists), their language, Arabic, and their religion, Islam.

As one can see Dr. Reza is talking about a particular type or a specific strand of Iranian nationalism. This strand rejects Islam, Arab and Semitic influences, including sometimes Shia Islam. So, Dr. Reza is telling the story of nationalism that is not accepted by millions of Iranians and the current Iranian government today. Dr. Reza explains how the myths above are ahistorical and European imports.