Iran is not an Islamic Society
Interview with Mansoor Hekmat
mhekmat@yahoo.comWorker-communist Party of Iran literature asserts that Iran is not an Islamic society. What is the reasoning behind this assertion?
Mansoor Hekmat: Initially we must be precise about the definitions given by those who state Iran is an Islamic society or that certain societies are Islamic in order to understand what need this definition is responding to. The image of an Islamic society prevalent in the West is one of pious believers of Islam who abide by its rules, pray and fast, and whose opinions are formed by religious texts or sources. In fact, it imagines that a citizen of a society like Iran is a follower of Mr Khomeini, is really offended if someone ventures onto the streets unveiled, does not like Western music, does not drink alcohol nor eat pork, etc.
Given this definition, however, we all know that Iran is not an Islamic society. This is a stereotypical and clichéd image that the West itself has created of societies out of reach of its citizens; it is not an independent and exact yardstick. Islam in Iran, like Christianity in for example Italy or Ireland, definitely influences the thought and temperament of some people. Undoubtedly, religious culture and its thousands of years old dreadful legacy influences peoples' behaviours, prejudices and even the way they view each other. But this also applies to Italy, Ireland and France with all their secularism; after all, one could say those countries are also Christian. A French person, however, would certainly assert that France is not a Christian society, although Christianity is part of its past and has some bearing. In this manner, Islam has some bearing in Iran. For example, when you read the writings of Iranian poets, writers and intellectuals, the images you are given on women is Islam's legacy of women. The images you are given of pleasure and sorrow, the fascination with misery, death and martyrdom in culture are extracted from Islam. But when the West speaks of an Islamic society, it suggests a society in which Islamic rules and regulations have been internalised and become inherent for people. We, on the other hand, argue that Islam has been imposed on the people of Iran in a political process through prisons, massacres, arrests and herds of Hezbollah thugs. Iran is not an Islamic society because it wasn't one before they arrived. And since they have arrived, people have withstood them and defended themselves.
Imagine that you want to bend a rod; you keep bending it, but it springs back to its first position as soon as you remove any force. While they have tried to impose the veil on women in Iran during the last twenty years with killings, brute force and daily propaganda, women immediately push back their veils as soon as knife wielding and acid-throwing diminishes; women in this society, therefore, have not accepted Islamic measures. Among the 60 million people in Iran, there are certainly 100 thousand who accept and even propagate veiling, but ordinary people, in their millions, do not see nor want Islamic veiling as part of their nature and culture.
The music that the people of Iran listen to is not what the government is officially lenient towards or has surrendered to as a result of people's cultural demands, but rather Michael Jackson, Madonna and other Western pop musicians. The singer, Gogoosh, was a much more popular personality in the history of Iran than Khomeini. The illegal consumption and production of beer has always exceeded the production of religious and prayer items. These are the same people. If one has lived in Iran like you and I and doesn't want to view Iran from the media's angle, one knows that this country is not an Islamic country and that deep down it aspires to be similar to Western society. Even now, as soon as an Iranian reaches abroad, s/he quickly adopts the Western way of life; even patriarchal, chauvinistic values of an Eastern man - although still prevalent - are undermined more quickly in comparison with those coming from countries more severely fraught with Islam.
Iran, in specific, is not an Islamic society as defined by Western orientalists, Western media or the Islamic regime in Iran. Iran is a society keen for civilisation and sympathetic to 21st century Western culture. It believes in science. Two generations ago, women walked the streets without veils. Western music and films have always been a part of that culture. Well-known personalities in the West have also been famous in Iran. Similarities to the West, whether in urban planning, schooling, science, art and culture, are seen as virtues. One might also be critical of this - I don't want to enter that debate now - but Iranian society has accepted Western culture as a model to emulate. It is precisely because of this that the Islamic Republic cannot control these people. A generation of people has been born under the rule of the Islamic Republic who has even more enmity with this system than you and I.Iran is not an Islamic society and will not accept it, but we have not had a powerful political and philosophical anti-Islamic movement that could be turned into an historical achievement. There has been no movement that would make a decisive break with the relics of the old social order i.e. Islam. This is one of the important problems of Iran.
Mansoor Hekmat is the WPI's Leader. The above is a translated summary of an interview with Radio Hambastegi in Sweden, dated June 13, 1999. The rest of the interview will be published in the next issue of WPI Briefing.
