Revolution of Things: The Islamism and Post-Islamism of Objects in Tehran 9780691246369

Table of contents :
Contents
List of Figures
Acknowledgments
Revolution Of Things
Introduction
1 Khomeini’s Things: A Revolutionary Discourse of Stuff
2 Domination: The Stability of Things and Terms
3 Rupture: The Substitution of Things and Terms
4 War: The Resignification of Things and Terms
Conclusion
Notes
References
Index

Citation preview

R E VO LUTI O N O F T ­ HINGS

For a full list of titles in the series, go to https://­press​.­princeton​ .­edu​/­series​/­princeton​-­studies​-­in​-­cultural​-­sociology. Revolution of Th ­ ings: The Islamism and Post-­Islamism of Objects in Tehran by Kusha Sefat Resurrecting the Jew: Nationalism, Philosemitism, and Poland’s Jewish Revival by Geneviève Zubrzycki How Civic Action Works: Fighting for Housing in Los Angeles by Paul Lichterman The University and the Global Knowledge Society by David John Frank & John W. Meyer Billionaire Wilderness: The Ultra-­Wealthy and the Remaking of the American West by Justin Farrell Inside the Critics’ Circle: Book Reviewing in Uncertain Times by Phillipa K. Chong The Extreme Gone Mainstream: Commercialization and Far Right Youth Culture in Germany by Cynthia Miller-­Idriss Seeing the World: How US Universities Make Knowledge in a Global Era by Mitchell L. Stevens, Cynthia Miller-­Idriss & Seteney Shami ­Under the Cover: The Creation, Production, and Reception of a Novel by Clayton Childress A Fraught Embrace: The Romance and Real­ity of AIDS Altruism in Africa by Ann Swidler & Susan Cotts Watkins Contested Tastes: Foie Gras and the Politics of Food by Michaela DeSoucey Magazines and the Making of Amer­i­ca: Modernization, Community, and Print Culture, 1741–1860 by Heather A. Haveman

Revolution of T ­ hings The Islamism and Post-­Islamism of Objects in Tehran Kusha Sefat

P R I N C E ­T O N U N I V E R S I T Y P R E S S P R I N C E ­T O N A N D OX F O R D

Copyright © 2023 by Prince­ton University Press Prince­ton University Press is committed to the protection of copyright and the intellectual property our authors entrust to us. Copyright promotes the pro­gress and integrity of knowledge. Thank you for supporting ­free speech and the global exchange of ideas by purchasing an authorized edition of this book. If you wish to reproduce or distribute any part of it in any form, please obtain permission. Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to permissions@press​.­princeton​.­edu Published by Prince­ton University Press 41 William Street, Prince­ton, New Jersey 08540 99 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6JX press​.­princeton​.­edu All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Control Number 2022921606 ISBN 978-0-691-24633-8 ISBN (pbk.) 978-0-691-24634-5 ISBN (e-­book) 978-0-691-24636-9 British Library Cataloging-­in-­Publication Data is available Editorial: Meagan Levinson and Erik Beranek Production Editorial: Jill Harris Cover Design: Katie Osborne Production: Lauren ­Reese Publicity: William Pagdatoon This book has been composed in Adobe Text and Gotham Printed on acid-­free paper. ∞ Printed in the United States of Amer­i­ca 10 ​9 ​8 ​7 ​6 ​5 ​4 ​3 ​2 ​1

In loving memory of Naser Babakhani

CONTENTS

List of Figures  ix Acknowl­edgments 

xi

Introduction 1 1

Khomeini’s ­Things: A Revolutionary Discourse of Stuff  23

2

Domination: The Stability of ­Things and Terms  51

3

Rupture: The Substitution of ­Things and Terms  84

4

War: The Resignification of ­Things and Terms  110

Conclusion 140 Notes 151 References 155 Index 163

vii

FIGURES

(Longitudinal Study of Popu­lar Terms)

1. Martyr/Martyrdom (1980s)

61

2. Sacrifice (1980s)

61

3. Plurality (1980s)

66

4. Rights (1980s)

66

5. Free/Freedom (1980s)

67

6. Plurality (1980s–1990s)

96

7. Free/Freedom (1980s–1990s)

97

8. Rights (1980s–1990s)

98

ix

ACKNOWL­E DGMENTS

I wrote this book thinking about revolution through Bruno Latour, bringing to light what I ­imagined he deems worth considering and slowing down where I thought he finds reason to pause. I asked myself how Latour would reconceptualize the Islamic Republic, what he would say about the “culture of martyrdom,” and how he would link the global flow of objects to “post-­ Islamism” in Tehran. The irony of directing t­ hese questions at a person who grew up in a wine-­making ­family in Burgundy is not lost on me. Perhaps what brought me to him was the audacity and originality with which he politicized the most mundane ­things in life. I am heartbroken to have missed the chance to discuss my book with Bruno and for the lonelier world it w ­ ill be without him. ­There is much to be said about sharing authorship with our interlocutors. I discussed the idea with Reza and Mahdi, whose captivating life histories are touchstones for the book’s larger historical and analytical themes. Both preferred to remain anonymous and suggested that a s­ imple “thank you” would suffice. So, to Reza and Mahdi: Thank you for crafting this book with me. The book is based on my dissertation, which was completed u ­ nder the supervision of John B. Thompson at the University of Cambridge. While the book has under­gone many transformations since then, ­those familiar with John’s scholarship w ­ ill note its impact on my thinking. Th ­ ere w ­ ere several times when John returned early drafts of up to three hundred pages in which very few sheets w ­ ere left without a critical comment or a constructive suggestion. My debt to John, however, goes well beyond his careful attention to ­every detail in my drafts. From early on as a mentor, he abolished any distance I had ­imagined between my text and myself by showing me that the same voice pervaded both. I understood that to be reflective in my writing, to be critical and fair, I had to learn to be all of ­these in my daily life. As such, I underwent a fundamental personal transformation during my time as his student. Having grown up an immigrant who never fully worked out where he belonged, I ­will be forever indebted to John for helping me build a home in the ­human and social sciences. I consider it to be among the greatest gifts I have received. I am also grateful to Henrietta L. Moore for changing my relationship with theory. Henrietta’s power­ful lectures at Cambridge presented theory as

xi

xii Ac k n ow le d g m e nt s

a framework to think about our situation ­here at this moment. It was as though nothing was worth reading if it did not help construct a critical scheme with which to study the pre­sent. This enabled me to immerse myself in the works of social theorists with a sense of urgency I had not experienced before. Henrietta ­later engaged with my dissertation thoughtfully and patiently, providing me with the opportunity to learn more from her. I am indebted to her for this, and for her continued support. Serida L. Catalano took g­ reat care when reading my many drafts. A brilliant economist and an equally brilliant scholar of classics, she asked for emphasis on the research design and sampling methods ­every time the book tilted heavi­ly ­toward literary analy­sis and demanded thorough explanations of the particulars when the work became entrenched in social scientific inquiry. If the book manages to maintain any balance between storytelling and scientific analy­sis, it is in large mea­sure the result of her incisive comments and mastery of a broad range of disciplines. I consider myself fortunate not only ­because a scholar of such caliber engaged with my work but also ­because her intellectual generosity lifted me up during the many revisions of the manuscript. I must profusely thank Hazem Kandil and Arshin Adib-­Moghaddam for all that they have taught me. From Hazem, I learned not only how to think at the intersection of global, historical, and cultural sociology but to do so comparatively. And from Arshin, I learned what a critical study of something as complex as Ira­nian politics entails. Both are major authorities on the ­Middle East, but they are also incredibly kindhearted p ­ eople, always ready with their time and thoughtful suggestions. I feel fortunate to consider them dear friends. Conversations with three brilliant minds have contributed im­mensely to the development of many of the ideas that inform this book. Brett Wilkinson, Mazdak Tamjidi, and Torsten Geelan are my friends of twenty-­five years, fifteen years, and a de­cade, respectively. They have been key intellectual partners with whom I have even developed a distinct vocabulary. Sometimes I find it difficult to know where their ideas end and mine begin. I hope that our discussions ­will be as useful to their proj­ects as they have been to my book. I wish to thank friends and colleagues who read parts of my drafts and provided insightful feedback. ­These include Mahvish Ahmad, Richard ­Armstrong, James Caron, Jillian R. Cavanaugh, Matteo Corso, Marjan Ivkovic, Amir Khorasani, Thomas Jeffrey Miley, Arzoo Osanloo, Malihe Riazi, Nina Rismal, Ebrahim Tofigh, and Lisa Wedeen. I hope they can trace their intellectual companionship in the book. I am truly humbled that Paul DiMaggio, Michèle Lamont, Robert Wuthnow, and Viviana A. Zelizer took my work seriously and recommended it to Prince­ton University Press for publication. I am absolutely delighted to be part of their incredible book series alongside some of my favorite con­temporary

Ac k n ow le d g m e nt s xiii

sociologists. I am also grateful to my editor at Prince­ton University Press, Meagan Levinson, and her assistant, Erik Beranek, for the thoughtful way in which they guided my book through submission, review, and production. As for the anonymous reviewers, I am thankful to them for providing nuanced comments that have greatly improved my work. I wish to express my special appreciation and thanks to my colleagues in Sociology at the University of Tehran for the vari­ous ways in which they have supported me during the latter stages of writing this book. Some of ­these colleagues are fighting for their very survival as academics in light of a new round of po­liti­cal expulsions from the university. I admire their grace and incredibly positive attitudes in the face of such challenges and hope that I can follow their lead when my time as an academic h ­ ere is up. And of course, I cannot thank my students enough for inspiring me e­ very day. Their bravery, the thoughtful way in which they contest the senseless limitations imposed on them, and their endless drive to fight for what they believe are the high points of my life in Tehran. They also provided the final bit of motivation I needed as the book entered the homestretch. Many friends deserve to be acknowledged as they provided me with love, good advice, or simply a workable space during the course of writing this book. They include Maryam Ansari, Hesamodin Ashna, Hassan Beheshtipour, Shima Bolkhari, Tiago Carvalho, Saleh Dameshghi, Lori Debin, Milad Dokhanchi, Alireza Doostdar, Mehdi Etemadifard, Raheleh and Roya Fotouhi, Katie Gaddini, Rahman Ghahremanpour, Vincent Hardy, Marcos Hernando, Majid Hosseinie, Darja Irdam, Iwona Janicka, Mohammad Javad Gholamreza Kashi, Tene Kelly, Atefeh Mehraein, Lara Monticelli, Iris Pissaride, Johanna Riha, Cyrus Schayegh, Navid Vezvaei, Alex Wood, and Olga Zeveleva. I am also grateful to Brian Spooner, Robert Vitalis, and John L. Jackson for training me in anthropology and po­liti­cal science during my time at the University of Pennsylvania. All three provided mentorship during a tumultuous period in my life. The University of Cambridge Trust Foundation, the Queens’ College Walker Fellowship at Cambridge, the Cambridge Po­liti­cal Economy Society, and the Iran Heritage Foundation have all provided financial support. I gratefully acknowledge their generous assistance. Parts of this book have previously appeared in print: a significant section of chapter 2 was published in International Po­liti­cal Sociology as “­Things and Terms” (Sefat 2020), and sections of chapters 1 and 3 have appeared in Persian in Faslnameh Motaleaat-­e Farhangi va Ertebataat as “Goftoman Enghelabi-­e Ashya” (2021) and in Faslnameh Motaleaat va Tahghighat-­e Ejtemaee dar Iran as “Siasat-­e Ashya-­e Jahani dar Iran-­e Pasa Jang” (2022). Fi­nally, I wish to thank my ­mother, Roshan Nikou, for being the bravest and most sincere w ­ oman I have known, and whose voice I have sought to take up and

xiv Ac k n ow le d g m e nt s

appropriate as my own. I am also grateful for the support of my loving ­family in the United States and in Iran who must be pleased that this is fi­nally over. I wish to name them all ­here so that we can flip to this page someday and have ourselves a ball. H ­ ere they are in no par­tic­u­lar order whatsoever: Parvaneh, Parvin, Farzaneh, Parviz, Shokuh, Morteza, Abteen, Shirin, Farhad, Akhtar, Mohammad, Shideh, Reza, Pooya, Dana, Amir, and the soon-­to-be the newest member of our ­family, Fateme. Inshallahin it.

R E VO LUTI O N O F T ­ HINGS

​Introduction This book rethinks the place of language and materiality in politics by bringing the cultural and material turns into conversation. To be sure, a curious gap permeates cultural and material understandings of po­liti­cal transformations. The cultural turn in the ­human sciences in the 1980s and 1990s put language at the center of our understanding of social relations. Language, ­whether backed by power (Bourdieu 1991) or as a form that power takes (Foucault 1972, 1990, 1995), was seen to occasion m ­ atter so that materiality came to be understood, in part, as an “effect” of language (Butler 1993:63). The theoretical canon that emerged in the fields of sociology and anthropology, however, fell short of offering an analy­sis of the reciprocal role of the properties of material objects in the formation of language. Conversely, the interdisciplinary material turn (the new materialism) has sought to illustrate that materiality is just as integral as language to social life (see Latour 2005; Keane 2006; Alexander 2008; Mitchell 2011; Mukerji 2012; Braidotti 2013; Kohn 2013). Yet by seeking to release m ­ atter from its subordination to language, many scholars of the material turn largely ignore language. Rather, they turn to studies of the po­liti­cal impact of materiality by focusing on the senses: taste, sight, sound, smell, touch, and the intersection of ­these sensory perceptions (see Pinney 2006; Farquhar 2006; Biddle and Knights 2007; DeSoucey 2010; Levitt 2015; Sherman 2009; Surak 2017; Zubrzycki 2011, 2017a; Benzecry 2017). Thus mutual relations between language and material objects as social phenomena remain largely unexamined in the canons of both the cultural and material turns, leading to the failure of the ­human and social sciences to properly tackle this question: What are the po­liti­cal implications of the dif­fer­ent ways in which t­ hings and terms are interwoven?

1

2 I ntro d u c ti o n

I bring this question to bear on the social and po­liti­cal history of postrevolutionary Iran. Influenced, in part, by the logocentric tradition in Western ­human sciences, the canon of revolutionary Iran tends to ignore everyday objects as key po­liti­cal d ­ rivers in the Islamic Republic. As Jacques Derrida’s deconstructionist theory has demonstrated, pairs of opposites such as nature/ culture, body/soul, matter/mind, and form/content play a fundamental role in ordering discourses in Western cultures (1977). This is a hierarchy of value in which one side is given priority over the other. Another opposition of subordination that is less talked about is language over ­things, which renders material objects marginal and derivative. This hierarchy of value may be seen as related to the ­human exceptionalism that permeates the field of Ira­nian studies whereby attributes that are distinctive to ­humans—­discourse, culture, religion, economy, ideology, and propaganda—­are fashioned as tools to understand both h ­ umans and politics. This approach tends to generate, to use Eduardo Kohn’s terminology, a “circular closure” that confines us to understand the distinctively ­human by means of that which is distinctive to ­humans, conflating analytical objects with analytics in the pro­cess (2013:6). As a result, scholars of Iran have overlooked the myriad ways in which ­people and politics are connected to a broader world of ­things, or how this fundamental connection changes what it might mean to conceive of agency, re­sis­tance, and the po­liti­cal. This is not to say that the canon of revolutionary Iran completely ignores the object world (see Bayat 2007; Sohrabi 2016; Sadeghi-­Boroujerdi 2019). Rather, discussions of Iran tend to treat materiality insofar as objects are seen as extensions. Influenced by historical materialism, some scholars of Iran highlight the importance of material t­ hings to the extent that they plug into the production pro­cess. ­Others view objects as having agency with which they are endowed by means of some form of extensionality, whereby t­ hings e­ ither reflect already existing norms and values, as in Jean Baudrillard’s sense of consumer society/culture (1970), or are inscribed with meaning and value by the po­liti­cal field, as in Arjun Appadurai’s sense of the social life of ­things (1986). And yet, ­others view the efficacy of objects through the prism of Foucault’s dispositive (1977), where material objects are endowed with utility at the juncture of a heterogeneous ensemble consisting of discourses, institutions, regulatory laws, administrative mea­sures, and so on. As anthropologist Webb Keane explains, ­these approaches “invite us to dematerialize materiality once again by finding the ultimate locus, the source of that agency in some kind of ­will, or some kind of agentive proj­ect for which itself ­there is no material account” (Keane and Silverstein 2017:33). This book seeks to move beyond such logocentric and human-­centric approaches to materiality and politics in the Islamic Republic. In ­doing so, the ensuing chapters also take issue with recent phenomenological studies of materiality that strive to illuminate the agency of objects by

I ntro d u c ti o n 3

showing how ­things affect persons through their senses (see Pinney 2006; Farquhar 2006; Biddle and Knights 2007; DeSoucey 2010; Levitt 2015; Sherman 2009; Surak 2017; Zubrzycki 2011, 2017a; Benzecry 2017). This lit­er­a­ture has made a tremendous contribution to our understanding of objects not as mere facilitators of action that point the source of agency back to h ­ umans but as ­things that expand, or bring into existence, the subject. And yet ­these works have unnecessarily ignored language. “­There is no way of speaking about materiality,” says Judith Butler, “that is outside of language” (1993:36). And since language is not simply a tool of power but a form that power takes, the more we speak of an object, the more that object comes into formation. Thus, while it is true that the sheer materiality of ­things provides openings to new systems of meaning and languages that traverse pro­cesses of subject formation (Keane 2006), we must also remember the organ­izing structural role that language plays in forming our material world. As such, it is impor­tant to establish a dynamism between materiality and language that enables us to better understand how their merger permeates subject formation, po­liti­cal action, and re­sis­tance. Revolution of ­Things addresses t­ hese prob­lems by telling the story of po­liti­ cal transformations in Iran from the vantage point of the relationships between everyday objects and words. Drawing on twenty years of involvement with Iran and twenty-­five months of fieldwork in Tehran, this book explores politics in terms of the discursive possibilities that the presence and absence of material ­things generate. It shows that material objects from the moon to corpses to walls can reveal the ontological indiscernibility of medium and world for many Ira­ni­ans, affording distinct sets of signifiers that are part of the provincial historical text, even if ­those signifiers have not been extensively used before. In the pro­cess, the book illustrates how everyday objects act, by means of their very materiality, as po­liti­cal players that mobilize Islamist and post-­Islamist discourses in revolutionary Iran, with wide-­ranging consequences. Taking ­things and terms as generative actors, the book then explores how shifting relations between the two occasion dif­fer­ent kinds of politics. Specifically, it shows that the dif­fer­ent confluences of the material and linguistic worlds have brought about qualitatively distinct social fields, with each affording unique possibilities for subjectivity, re­sis­tance, and thought in Tehran. So ­doing, the book seeks to contribute to: first, posthuman critiques of the ways in which we have treated ­humans as the primary source of agency (see Deleuze and Guattari 1987; Mukerji 1994; Miller 1998; Latour 1991, 2005; Gell 1992, 1998; Keane 2006, 2017; Tilley 2006a; Mitchell 2011; Braidotti 2013; Kohn 2013; Peters 2015; Molnár 2016, 2017; Zubrzycki 2017a); second, the material turn critique of post-­structuralist models of re­sis­tance, which are linked to the internal dynamics of referential systems, and not the relations between ­those systems and the object world (see Giddens 1979; Spivak 1985b; Latour 1991;

4 I ntro d u c ti o n

Mahmood 2005; Oslen 2006; van Dommelen 2006; Kohn 2013); and fi­nally, our understanding of how shifting relations between ­things and terms have brought about structural po­liti­cal transformations in postrevolutionary Iran. In the pro­cess, the book provides what is, to my knowledge, one of the most sustained empirical and analytical studies of how the confluence of materiality and language shapes our social and po­liti­cal world. ­These arguments are cultivated in four chapters. The rest of the introduction develops a theoretical and historical framework drawing on the concepts of affordance, disaffordance, re­sis­tance/resignification, and form/social structure. ­These concepts are situated within the relevant lit­er­a­ture in the fields of sociology, anthropology, po­liti­cal science, and literary studies, and posited against the backdrop of revolutionary politics, the rise of po­liti­cal Islam, and international conflict. The introduction provides a synthesis of ­these concepts in order to fashion an analytics that explores the fundamental ways in which ­things and terms have brought about dif­fer­ent forms that the social takes in Tehran.1 By social I mean relations not just between h ­ umans but also between ­humans and t­ hings. This is followed by a brief discussion of how empirical sources are used in relation to the examination and theorization of the relations between materiality, language, and politics. The introduction then provides an overview of the book’s empirical chapters, each of which focuses on the po­liti­cal implications of the distinct ways in which ­things and terms became intertwined. Chapters 1–4 provide an empirical and analytical account of the specificity of the relations between ­things, terms, and politics that progresses chronologically from the dawn of the 1979 Revolution to the Green Movement uprising in 2009. The book concludes by providing an alternative schema for conceptualizing the po­liti­cal transformations that have occurred in revolutionary Iran. Material Affordances and Disaffordances of Language In thinking about the revolution of ­things, we need to reflect on how everyday objects act. Bruno Latour’s contention in this regard is that if action is ­limited a priori to what intentional meaningful ­humans do, it is hard to see how a hammer or a ­table or ­human hair could act (2005). By contrast, if we take agencies as anything that does make a difference, we have an additional set of actors to consider. As Shalini Shankar and Jillian Cavanaugh (2017) have shown, everyday objects can authorize, allow, afford, encourage, permit, suggest, influence, and block po­liti­cal words and concepts. In other words, material ­things are complicit in the formation, efficacy, and lived experience of our po­liti­cal vocabularies, alternative languages, and revolutionary discourses. The first step in fashioning an analytics that addresses the relations between materiality, language, and politics, therefore, is to consider a conception of

I ntro d u c ti o n 5

language that is not restricted to the internal dynamics of the signifying chain in the way that the French linguist Ferdinand de Saussure has formulated it (1960). As Anthony Giddens rightly points out, the French school of structural analy­sis pays l­ ittle attention to, or finds no way of coping with, the object world (1979). Even Derrida’s radical critique of the sign, which reworks the relations between signifier and signified, fails to consider the materiality of the latter (1967, 1972). Thus, a more suitable starting point might be a conception of language that is not about the object world but part of it (see Wittgenstein 1998; Austin 1962; Cavell 1996; Peirce 1931). Semiotics, that is, the study of sign pro­cesses, takes on added significance ­here. Material objects play a key role in Charles Peirce’s remarkable semiotic schemata (1931, 1992, 1998). Smoke, says Peirce, comes to represent fire, but only ­because of the causal relationship between the sign (smoke) and its referent (fire). Which is to say that if not directly generating its sign, fire places constraints and conditions on how it can and cannot be represented. Relations between signifiers and their material referents, however, need not always be casual. Rather, pro­cesses of signification can be deeply rooted in convention (Peirce 1992). The dead body of an Ira­nian soldier killed during the Iran-­Iraq conflict, for instance, imposed constraints on what words came to successfully represent it socially. “Renegade,” “rebel,” and “mercenary” are all terms that failed to signify the corpses of Ira­nian soldiers at the level of multitudes in Tehran during the 1980s. Conversely, the politico-­religious term “martyr,” which is embedded within provincial historical text and speech in Iran, was disseminated widely during this time even if it had not been extensively used before. The institutionalization of martyrdom that followed in Tehran between 1981 and 1989, therefore, was also a pro­cess by which the proliferation of dead bodies mobilized provincial terms into an Islamist discourse of martyrdom (Sefat 2020). But was the specific way in which corpses and the vocabulary of martyrdom merged together in Iran inevitable? “Affordances” is a productive term with which to think about this question. Ecological psychologist James Gibson introduced affordances as the potentialities held by an object for a par­tic­u­lar set of actions (1979). The chair, for instance, invites us to sit down. Or, a plunge into a river’s pool invites the indexical name/signifier ta ta for the Runa in the Amazon (Kohn 2013). Tim Ingold (1992, 2018) and, more recently, Webb Keane (2018) have helped develop this concept by arguing that the sheer materiality of ­things can provide openings to new possibilities, systems of meaning, and languages that traverse pro­cesses of subject formation. Indeed, this insight shapes Keane’s (2018) attempt to replace the term “precondition” with “affordances.”2 To call something a precondition, he explains, suggests that ­there is only one relevant outcome. “Affordances,” Keane continues, “leave t­ hings more open-­ended—­ without, however, turning p ­ eople into Promethean creators of their worlds,

6 I ntro d u c ti o n

as if from scratch” (2018:32). This is why Keane considers affordance as an alternative to the more reductive versions of determinism. Let us, however, move beyond the classic example of the chair’s affordances and ask: What are we to make of the profound asymmetries, the muffling of radical contingency, or the radical elimination of chance that the vast so­cio­log­ i­cal lit­er­a­ture on domination has brought to light (see Thompson 1984; Scott 1990; Bourdieu 1991)? Can t­ here ­really be more than one relevant outcome ­under domination? Does the concept of “affordances,” as formulated by Keane, retain its relevance in such a context? As Gayatri Spivak deftly inquired, when the robber pre­sents the non-­choice of “your money or your life,” what voice are you ­really afforded (1985a:129)? While the attempt to develop a more dynamic and flexible alternative to determinism is understandable, the notion of affordances does not offer an adequate matrix for understanding how the materiality of ­things, in their presences or absences, generates vari­ous forms that the social takes, including domination. Affordances, I wish to contend, is a more useful concept if deployed in juxtaposition to disaffordances. Whereas affordances is about how the presence of certain kinds of materiality occasions vari­ous outcomes, disaffordances is about how the absence of distinct kinds of materiality stifles certain possibilities. This includes unique kinds of repre­sen­ta­tion, like how the absence of fire disaffords smoke. It also includes alternative referential systems, like how the disappearance of a ­great many ­things from the public in Tehran during the 1980s disafforded a liberal vocabulary. Indeed, just as ­women’s hair, bright attire, luxury items, Western foods, and so forth—­all discursively relating to bodily pleasures—­were pushed out of the public and into the private domain in Tehran between 1981 and 1989, liberal terms such as “freedom,” “plurality,” and “rights” vanished from public use for ­these words no longer had material t­ hings to refer to and circulate through, highlighting the ontological linkages between ­things and terms. In other words, the elimination of distinct kinds of materiality disafforded an alternative liberal vocabulary at the level of multitudes during Khomeini’s leadership in the Islamic Republic, and this was but one way through which domination was established ­under his reign. This book, as such, seeks to explore politics in terms of the affordances and disaffordances that the presence and absence of ­things generate. In so d ­ oing, it offers, on the one hand, a material account of the Islamist and post-­Islamist discourses that emerged in postrevolutionary Iran while, on the other hand, it shows how the absence of certain kinds of materiality suppressed the formation of vari­ous alternative referential systems, impeding distinct kinds of po­liti­cal action and re­sis­tance in the pro­cess. This analy­sis paves the way for critical engagement with post-­structuralist conceptions of agency and re­sis­tance, which have found it difficult to cope

I ntro d u c ti o n 7

with the social implications of the presence or absence of materiality and are formulated on the basis of the subversion of existing referential systems instead. The Material Decolonization of Re­sis­tance By the 1970s, many theorists had found in post-­structuralism something the economic determinism of orthodox Marxists could not offer in its own terms, that is, a special attention to difference, but also a new conceptual schema for exploring and understanding re­sis­tance in its multifaceted forms (Young 1990). Edward Said (1978, 1983), Homi Bhabha (1983, 1984), and ­later Judith Butler (1990, 1993) all produced remarkable works that showed how colonial and phallogocentric repre­sen­ta­tions of the subaltern, gender, and sex w ­ ere ­shaped by power. Emerging postcolonialist/Marxist and feminist theorists, therefore, turned their attention to colonial and patriarchal modes of symbolic repre­sen­ta­tion. The urgency to do so was explained by Baudrillard: “As soon as the other can be represented, it can be appropriated and controlled” (1983:20). A new battlefield thus emerged centered on the domain of repre­sen­ta­tion itself, which, as in the case of Orientalism, did not refer to a material existence or real­ity outside of that repre­sen­ta­tion (Young 1990). Indeed, a material account of repre­sen­ ta­tion and discourse did not seem necessary. This ethos was captured by Baudrillard, who insisted that “the worst error of all our revolutionary strategies is to believe that we ­will put an end to the system on the plane of the real . . . ​ we must [instead] displace every­thing into the sphere of the symbolic, where reversal is the law” (1993:33; emphasis added). Derrida’s concept of breakage (1978), Bhabha’s mimicry (1984), Butler’s resignification and performativity (1990, 1993), and Baudrillard’s own notion of reversal (1993) ­were all formulations of re­sis­tance rooted in the pos­si­ble failure of the sign or the norm and their reappropriation within the dominant systems of repre­sen­ta­tion. Where the material realities of ­those systems ­were addressed by Spivak (1985b), they ­were shown to have been displaced by epistemic vio­lence and thus pushed out of the domain of intelligibility altogether. And when they ­were addressed by Butler, they ­were shown to be nothing given, being neither a site nor a substance, but a “pro­cess of materialization that stabilizes over time to produce the effect of boundary, fixity, and surface we call ­matter” (Butler 1993:9). As Bjornar Oslen observes, such formulations are based on an inverted hierarchy of opposition in which materialization is seen solely as a pro­cess in ser­vice (or an effect) of power. “Materialization and its by-­product m ­ atter,” Oslen continues, “end up as epiphenomena of something more primary (power, regulatory ideas, ­etc.) . . . ​well in concordance with the effective history of modern Western thought in which materiality continues to

8 I ntro d u c ti o n

be viewed with suspicion and contempt, entailing the old vision of freedom and emancipation as that which escapes the material” (2006:96). For Latour (1991), the strength of this lit­er­a­ture and its critique of repre­sen­ ta­tion was to show that text and language make meaning and even produce references internal to discourse and to the speakers installed with discourse. Its weakness, however, was to render more difficult the connections between the domain of representation—­discourse—­and what was shelved: materiality and the subject (Latour 1991:66). Objects are si­mul­ta­neously real, discursive, and social. “If one atomizes discourse by turning materiality over to epistemologists,” says Latour, “and gives up the subject to sociologists, one makes it impossible to stitch back together ­these three fundamental resources [the object, language, and the subject]” (1991:66). This book explores how we might rethink pro­cesses of subject formation and re­sis­tance by considering the generative materiality of discourse, along with its lived experience. It does this by endowing semiotics with so­cio­log­ i­cal and anthropological depth. Specifically, the book connects semiotics to two other levels of analy­sis, that is, the po­liti­cal economy of ­things and terms, and the lived experiences of ­those t­ hings and terms. Continuous movement through ­these three registers for social analy­sis enables us to consider the possibilities for subjectivity and re­sis­tance not within language but at the intersection of language and materiality. Indeed, the book explores ­whether shifting relations between ­things and terms generate dif­fer­ent kinds of structuralities altogether, with each affording and disaffording distinct prospects for subjectivity, agency, and re­sis­tance. Materiality, Structure, and Agency “Social structure” and “form” are terms regularly used in sociology, a discipline known for its interest in structural transformations. Both terms, however, pre­sent certain prob­lems in anthropology for they are often associated with the search for ultimate truths—­the kinds that E. B. Tylor’s social Darwinism (1871), Bronislaw Malinowski’s functionalism (1944), and Claude Lévi-­Strauss’s structuralism (1968) sought to uncover and failed to do so. I wish to convey that social structure and form need not be linked to the quest for laws that govern society and culture. Rather, understanding both concepts as pro­cesses of structuration (Giddens 1984) and pattern production and propagation (Kohn 2013) offers a conceptual schema that might produce useful perspectives on the multifaceted relations between materiality, language, and re­sis­tance. When “one is inside it [structure/form],” Kohn explains, “­there is nothing against which to push it, it cannot be defined by the way it resists. . . . ​It is not amenable to this kind of palpation, to this way of knowing” (2013:20). Form is also “fragile and ephemeral,” Kohn continues, “it may vanish when

I ntro d u c ti o n 9

the constraints and possibilities that sustain it dis­appear” (2013:20). It thus remains largely hidden from our conventional modes of analy­sis. Structures are invisible, as Bourdieu would say (1991). And yet, form and social structure exhibit peculiar generative logics, which permeate materiality and language as they harness it. They display their own kind of efficacy and come to be interwoven with agency and re­sis­tance. The sublimation of the kinds of politics a certain structure affords and disaffords distinguishes one form that social relations takes from another. And shifting relations between materiality and language are at the center of ­these vari­ous social forms. Anthropologists have been good at considering the materiality of the dif­ fer­ent structures and forms that the social takes, even if they have substituted “structure” for similar concepts (see Descola 1994; Viveiros de Castro 2015). This attention to materiality, however, has been largely overlooked in the so­cio­log­ic­ al canon of structural analy­sis. While Giddens (1979), for instance, acknowledges the importance of materiality to pro­cesses of structuration, that is, the forces that shape structures, his theoretical schemata overlooks the implications of the specificity of the object world for dif­fer­ent structures. Instead, the main burden of explaining structuration is carried by the descriptive term “power,” for which ­there is no material account. Similarly, while Walter Powell and Paul DiMaggio (1991) direct our attention to the myriad actors involved in the structuration of vari­ous orga­nizational and po­liti­cal fields, public objects are not considered key actors in ­these pro­cesses. And yet, Giddens, Powell, and DiMaggio cannot be blamed for this gap in the lit­er­a­ture as their work appeared before the material turn. A distinct kind of ­human exceptionalism, nonetheless, still pervades most, if not all, recent so­cio­log­i­cal lit­er­a­ture whereby the structural analy­sis of orga­nizational and po­liti­cal fields is rooted in attributes that are distinctive to ­humans, including ideology (see Feldman 2003; Henry 2011), technical media (see Arsenault and Castells 2008; Castells 2009; Mehri 2017), and intentional meaning ful action (see Maoz 2012; Hassanpour 2017). In other words, a human-­centric model of evaluation shapes the canon of structural analy­sis, which is firmly embedded within the domains of the subject, intentional meaningful action, and social motivation and aggregate. By neglecting contingent material objects, this lit­er­a­ture disregards a dif­fer­ent set of actors central to the formation and conceptualization of social structures and to our understanding of how the confluence of materiality and language permeates the dif­fer­ent forms that social relations take. Revolution of Th ­ ings addresses this gap. Each ensuing chapter explores a distinct structurality that has formed at the merger of materiality and language in postrevolutionary Tehran and probes the sorts of agencies it occasioned. Specifically, the book shows that relations between objects and words can be

10 I ntro d u c ti o n

both stable and unstable. Chapter 2, for instance, illustrates that once public objects w ­ ere regularized in Tehran in such a way so as to muffle an alternative referential system during the 1980s, relations between words and their material referents became stable at the level of multitudes. What developed was a unique social structure in which distinct kinds of re­sis­tance, such as public pro­ cesses of resignification and performativity, ­were impeded in ways that might have threatened the centrality of the revolutionary leader, Imam Khomeini. Conversely, chapters 3 and 4 explore a dif­fer­ent relationship between t­ hings and terms. They demonstrate that once new imported objects emerged and ­were regularized in such a way so as to afford two competing referential systems in Tehran a­ fter 1990, relations between words and their material referents became highly unstable, harnessing a new social structure in which pro­cesses of resignification and performativity became the norm, threatening the centrality of the new revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. ­These chapters demonstrate that in all of ­these instances, the distinct ways in which t­ hings and terms merged generated qualitatively dif­fer­ent forms that the social took, with each affording unique kinds of po­liti­cal action and re­sis­tance. Why Iran? Where Is Iran? What Is Iran? Revolutionary Iran provides an ideal object-­domain for exploring relations between objects, words, and politics. This is b ­ ecause Iran has under­gone fundamental po­liti­cal changes over the past four de­cades. The dif­fer­ent strategic contexts that situated Iran’s two revolutionary leaders, that is, Imam Khomeini and his successor, Ayatollah Khamenei, speak to the scale of this po­liti­cal shift. From 1981 to 1989, many anti-­regime dissenters inside Tehran began to view Imam Khomeini as beyond their reach, as beyond the law, and as interchangeable with the Islamic Republic. This condition propagated two primary fantasies about the end of Khomeini’s reign among t­ hese dissenters in Tehran, that is, the regime’s implosion or a foreign invasion. Moreover, many of the same dissidents saw—­and this is key—no role for themselves in ­either scenario. Rather, the regime’s “backwardness,” it was primarily thought, would lead to its own demise so that Khomeini’s unraveling seemed inconceivable short of the implosion of the totality and the subject saw no role for itself in bringing about such an outcome. In other words, so long as the totality remained, Khomeini appeared as beyond the dissenters’ reach, and beyond the possibility of defeat for that reason. This was, therefore, a context in which one faction—­ Imam Khomeini and his followers—­never seemed to face the possibility of po­liti­cal defeat. Imam Khomeini’s successor, Ayatollah Khamenei, emerged into the center of realpolitik amid a transforming po­liti­cal context. By the time the mass

I ntro d u c ti o n 11

uprising known as the Green Movement erupted in 2009, protesters did not view Ayatollah Khamenei as beyond their reach, as beyond the law, and as interchangeable with the Islamic Republic. Rather, many protesters sought to force him to retreat and allow an election recount in 2009; they claimed the presidency had been fraudulently handed to Khamenei’s close ally at the time, Mahmood Ahmadinejad. Remarkably, even Khamenei’s key security and intelligence lieutenants ­were unable to predict with confidence the outcome of the mass uprising at its apex. Thus, whereas Imam Khomeini was situated by a context in which he did not seem to face the possibility of po­liti­cal defeat, Ayatollah Khamenei found himself in a new kind of context in which all factions—­including Khamenei himself—­had to face this possibility. The movement from one po­liti­cal formation to another provides a fertile ground for examining relations between objects, words, and politics. More specifically, it enables us to examine how dif­fer­ent relations between objects and words assembled ­these two qualitatively distinct forms that the social took. To be sure, however, the study of “Iran” pre­sents a number of prob­lems underscored by anthropologist Mazdak Tamjidi, who asks, “Where is Iran?” Is it Tehran? Isfahan? Or is it the marginalized and forgotten city of Zabol in the south? The prevalent temporality in Zabol, Tamjidi explains (2020), is more bound by seasonal floods, droughts, and sandstorms than presidential elections and international agreements centered on Tehran. While it is not uncommon for a book or a research proj­ect to be about a country, what one means by that country remains less clear. The prob­lem of studying Iran is further exacerbated by disciplinary differences. We often assume that it is pos­si­ble to advance an account of modern Iran that is not prefigured by disciplinary bound­aries. While ­there is considerable overlap between vari­ous disciplines—­sociology, anthropology, history—­their respective questions, interests, and methodological tools illuminate dif­fer­ent aspects of social phenomena. Having been trained as a sociologist and an anthropologist, I particularly value the insights that the two modes of inquiry make pos­si­ble. As a sociologist, I do not shy away from speaking about “Iran” or “Tehran” even if I understand the terms as signposts rather than homogeneous totalities. The signpost is used to explore pro­cesses that cannot be reduced to a locality. Take, for instance, many of the material objects that this book tracks, which circulate globally and link international pro­cesses such as economic sanctions, the global flow of capital, and geopolitics to social and po­liti­cal transformations across Iran. Or take the geopo­liti­cal conflict between Iran and Iraq during the 1980s, which engulfed the entire topography that we call Iran. While border cities in the south and the east endured most of the fighting, state centralization—­the hallmark of international conflict (Skocpol 1979)—­changed the social and po­liti­cal geography of the entire country (Harris 2017). ­These are all pro­cesses that occur at the national level—­they are “objective” conditions, as it ­were, which

12 I ntro d u c ti o n

occasion a multiplicity of experiences. I find the terms “Iran,” “Tehran,” the “Islamic Republic,” and so on useful in addressing ­these broad pro­cesses. And yet, as an anthropologist, I seek to remain vigilant in exploring the lived experiences of ­these national trends so as to avoid advancing totalizing accounts. The bulk of Afghans, Baluchis, Baha’is, Kurds, and so forth have never been included within the dominant discourses that arose in the Islamic Republic and with which this book is concerned. Indeed, no po­liti­cal horizon (not even the reforms/post-­Islamism) has included any of ­these “so­cio­log­i­cal groups.” Moreover, the experiences of dif­f er­ent concrete-­abstract social fields, which w ­ ill be discussed in chapters 2, 3, and 4, ­were never encompassing forms that the social took from the vantage point of many Afghans living on the border of the Khorasan province, the Baluchis in the south, the Baha’is in hiding across the country, and the Kurds ­under constant state surveillance in eastern Iran. The only po­liti­cal field for the subaltern in Iran was and remains domination. Fi­nally, I wish to briefly discuss the contentious task of writing an account of postrevolutionary Iran, particularly for an author like me, who teaches at the University of Tehran but speaks to the Anglo-­Saxon canon of revolutionary Iran. The tension implicit in this position, in part, has to do with the two contesting historiographies of the Ira­nian Revolution that have emerged in the Islamic Republic and the West. As Naghmeh Sohrabi (2018) correctly points out, the lit­er­a­ture on the Ira­nian Revolution produced in the Islamic Republic tends to privilege Khomeini’s role in the revolutionary pro­cess over Leftist revolutionary groups. Conversely, the lit­er­a­ture on the Ira­nian Revolution advanced chiefly by Ira­nian scholars in diaspora tends to emphasize the significance of revolutionary groups that w ­ ere pushed out of the po­liti­cal geography of the Islamic Republic shortly a­ fter its inception (Sohrabi 2018). The result has been two contending narratives, each interwoven with distinct power/ knowledge relations that trace the revolution to dif­fer­ent origins. The victory of Islamists led by Khomeini is widely seen as a first critical turning point in the short history of the revolution. Many researchers who ­were excluded from social and po­liti­cal life in Iran following that event attained positions in Western institutions and wrote prolifically about the Ira­nian Revolution. While many of ­these works have been translated and published in Iran, the lit­er­a­ture produced in the Islamic Republic remains available only in Persian. As Sohrabi explains, this one-­way street has helped perpetuate the hegemonic position of diaspora scholars so that the history of the 1979 Revolution has, indeed, been written by the losers of that revolution (2018:6). This hegemonic position may be part of the reason colleagues in the West generally view scholars who live in Iran with some degree of suspicion. While language disparity is a ­factor, and the politics of publishing is another, this suspicion may also play a role in preventing scholars in Iran from intervening

I ntro d u c ti o n 13

in the Anglo-­Saxon canon of revolutionary Iran. Even when scholars who live in Iran are featured in works produced by diaspora researchers, they are, more often than not, depicted as “intellectuals,” “social and po­liti­cal actors,” and so on, whose works need to be addressed as the manifestation of power and politics in the Islamic Republic. This does not mean that all diaspora scholars pre­sent scholars in Iran in such a way. Nor does it mean that t­ hese persons in Iran are not intellectuals or key social and po­liti­cal actors. Rather, most of ­these intellectuals are also university professors whose academic texts do not seem to always merit scholastic engagement. And yet, many diaspora scholars in the West pre­sent their findings as knowledge without acknowledging how that knowledge is itself ­shaped and sustained by imperial power and diaspora politics. Indeed, knowledge and values cannot be clearly separated. The values and interests we hold w ­ ill, in part, determine what we believe to be knowledge. This is but one reason why writing about revolutionary Iran is particularly contentious. On many occasions, associates in the West have stated that I underplay Khomeini’s vio­lence in my discussion of Islamism. Conversely, colleagues at the University of Tehran accuse me of overplaying Khomeini’s vio­lence. It is as if one’s work has to address two contradictory sets of checklists—­a difficult, if not impossible, task since neither side seems satisfied with anything less than full adherence to its own narrative. For Sohrabi (2018), life history is one way to problematize the neatly cut narratives of the revolution that have emerged in Iran and the West. To illuminate her point, she highlights two remarkable biographical and autobiographical accounts by Roy Mottahedeh (1985) and Behrooz Ghamari-­Tabrizi (2016), respectively, which capture the muddled, fractured, and messy feel of the Ira­nian Revolution at its genesis. Certainly, I agree with Sohrabi’s assessment about the possibilities that are implicit in life history accounts and have, indeed, centered my book on two biographical accounts that link ­matters of social structure to personal belief, prayer, and the experience and understanding of politics and God, while capturing the radical contingencies that permeate ­these pro­cesses. But ­there is another, often overlooked, way of recovering the contingencies that have been integral to the revolution and its aftermath—­ one that revolves around the multifaceted ways in which revolutionary Iran has been connected to a broader world of ­things. Objects can reveal untold stories if brought into the fold. Since the materiality of objects affords and disaffords our interpretations of them, writing a story from the vantage point of objects is a ­matter of recovering. Material ­things retain an unpredictable range of concealed possibilities. And yet, objects themselves bind each of ­these possibilities. When I construct the po­liti­cal history of Iran at the merger of materiality and language, I try to show the distinct ways in which that merger formed the grounds for vari­ous modes of action whose limits, if

14 I ntro d u c ti o n

any, may be unknown. In this way, we might come to see that as violent as he was, Khomeini was but one player among many—­mostly nonhumans—­who became complicit in institutionalizing a “culture of martyrdom” in Iran. Or we might come to notice that just as Islamism fashioned its own objects by means of vio­lence, tyrannical objects violently generated a distinct form of Islamism by means of their immanent properties. Or we may come to better understand the complexities of President Rafsanjani’s “liberalization” during the 1990s, based not merely on his policies and post-­Islamist ideology but on the unlikely ­things that helped engender and sustain “liberalism” in Iran. The point ­here is not—­not necessarily—to alter historical facts but to show how we can rethink the ­matter of ­those facts. It is an attempt to recover the possibilities that our dominant historiographical and analytical forms have stifled and to prepare ourselves for the possibility of a new critical scheme with which to scrutinize the pre­sent and its formative absences. I thus hope that Revolution of ­Things ­will be received by scholars of Iran in relation to the goal it has set for itself, that is, to politicize objects in the field of Ira­nian studies and to create an alternative framework that moves us beyond the cultural schemata when we think and write about the revolution and its aftermath. Methods and Sources We sometimes assume that research proj­ects inspired by the recent material turn must necessarily draw from the lit­er­a­ture on Actor-­Network Theory (ANT). Indeed, Latour and ANT have become synonymous in some corners within the acad­emy. This is partly linked to ANT’s emphasis on the relational character of our being-­in-­the-­world (Heidegger 1962; Merleau-­Ponty 1962; Law and Hassard 1999), which constitutes a fitting approach for dealing with the complex hybridity we call “­things.” However, not all objects are products of their position in a relational web. A blade has competences that cannot be replaced by just any other signifier so that even if it is activated or realized as part of a relational w ­ hole, its immanent properties m ­ atter. As archaeologist Bjornar Oslen explains, “If we avoid the fundamentalist trap of swearing allegiances to this or that theoretical regime, in other words caring more for ­things’ needs than of the purity of philosophies, we may also dare to develop an . . . ​approach that acknowledges that t­ here are qualities immanent to t­ hings (beings, actants) themselves” (2006:99). Indeed, Latour’s stipulation of ANT seems to be more concerned with highlighting several “controversies” in social scientific research than with developing a homogeneous methodology (1999, 2005). Some of ­these controversies include: (a) not thinking in terms of groups but group formation; (b) providing a narrative on figuration, that is, how action comes to be carried out; and (c) rendering the agency of objects vis­i­ble by situating one’s inquiry not

I ntro d u c ti o n 15

within a certain social context ­after it has been brought into being but at the moment of its assemblage or disintegration. ­These are im­mensely insightful, if not original, perspectives that I bring to bear on a dif­fer­ent so­cio­log­i­cal system of inquiry, that is, the tripartite approach. This approach, I believe, not only addresses the qualities of objects but illuminates the relations between objects, language, and politics. What is the tripartite approach? Hermeneutic phenomenologists and ordinary language phi­los­o­phers have long considered dif­f er­ent modes of access to social phenomena in general, and social change in par­tic­u­lar. By offering a synthesis of ­these two traditions, John B. Thompson has argued for the disclosure of social phenomena by way of multilayered forms of contextualization (1981, 1990). In the pro­cess, he has delineated three interrelated object-­domains for social analy­sis: (a) the context of the production, proliferation, and disclosure of the ­thing, the utterance, or the action, generally analyzed by way of social and historical methods and po­liti­cal economy approaches; (b) the t­ hing, the utterance, or the action as text, analyzed by way of semiotics and discursive approaches; and (c) the way the t­ hing, the utterance, or the action constitutes being as it lives and is lived, analyzed by ethnographic methods and life history accounts. The three object-­domains are of course interrelated; understanding any one of them feeds into and sheds light on the other two. The power of this approach is rooted in its ability to overcome the economic and technicist reductionism in some versions of Marxism and the timeless synchronism of vari­ous versions of structuralism by relying on ethnography and life history. It also overcomes the lack of consideration of power and domination in much phenomenological thought by relying on po­liti­cal economy. And it overcomes the lack of attention to the materiality of ­things in vari­ous cultural renditions of objects by relying on Peirce’s semiotics. The tripartite approach is thus a good fit for this study, as the relations between materiality, language, and politics in Iran cannot be comprehensively explained without bringing together aspects of po­liti­cal economy, discursive methods, and interpretive approaches. Continuous movements through ­these three registers constitute my empirical chapters. I draw on twenty years of involvement with Iran and from my fieldwork in Tehran between 2013 and 2015. In ­doing so I use a significant array of primary and secondary sources, including relevant lit­er­a­ture, po­liti­cally instrumental media, and critical information secured through interviews with po­liti­cal insiders in Iran. In addition to recording two life history accounts, to which I s­ hall return shortly, I conducted semi-­structured interviews with thirty-­two individuals. Of ­these, eigh­ teen ­were ­women and fourteen ­were men; fourteen ­were former regime dissenters, eight of whom ­were affiliated with the Mojahedin-­e Khalgh (MEK), two with Aghaliat, two with Aksariat, and two with Arman. Six ­were Hezbollahie revolutionaries at the dawn of the revolution. Of ­these, two are now state

16 I ntro d u c ti o n

officials, and four work in the private sector. Overall, six of the interviewees ­were journalists who wrote for key newspapers during dif­fer­ent epochs in postrevolutionary Iran. I conducted ­these interviews in order to understand how objects from bodies to attire to foods w ­ ere regularized in Iran between 1981 and 2009, and focus on the policies and contingencies that enabled their proliferation. I ask: How did distinct sets of objects and signs dis­appear from the public or proliferate in Iran during dif­f er­ent epochs? And what ­were the policies and contingencies that enabled ­these pro­cesses? Addressing ­these questions makes pos­si­ble a social and historical analy­sis of the proliferation of everyday objects and words that came to signify them. Moreover, I conducted quantitative sampling of newspapers to explore the relations between the circulation of distinct objects and words. I analyzed the most impor­tant newspapers from 1977 to 2009 in Iran, including Kayhan, Jomhuri-­e Eslami, Etelaat, Resalat, Hamshahri, Salam, Yalasarat, and Shalamcheh. The research design aims to examine w ­ hether the increased circulation of certain public objects is associated with the increased circulation of certain terms, and w ­ hether the decreased proliferation of certain public objects is associated with the decreased dissemination of other terms. My sampling of newspapers is purposive—­a nonprobability sampling method that enables the se­lection of newspapers that are considered impor­tant (Wells and King 1994; Riffe, Lacy, and Fico 2005). It is imperative to bear in mind, however, that the research design is not concerned with the editorial attitudes of individual newspapers or even with meaningful content. Rather, the research design aims to illustrate the usage of distinct terms by popu­lar newspapers. The terms searched for in all the pages that ­were randomly selected ­were “freedom,” “plurality,” “rights,” “martyr,” “sacrifice,” and “justice.” Th ­ ese terms w ­ ere selected in light of scholarly and literary contributions by Mohammad Javad Gholamreza Kashi and Morteza Avini. Both researchers highlight the significance of ­these terms to the culture of martyrdom during the 1980s and to the discourses of reformists and second-­generation Hezbollahies during the 1990s and 2000s (Kashi 2002; Avini 1983). I cross-­referenced my findings from the content analy­sis of newspapers with interviews and over a hundred hours of films produced in the Islamic Republic in order to examine w ­ hether the terms that w ­ ere eliminated from newspapers ­were also not used in films and tele­vi­sion programs around the same time. I then looked for the objects that w ­ ere eliminated from the public during this time frame. Specifically, I examined ­whether the exclusion of certain terms such as “freedom” and “plurality” from popu­lar newspapers converged with the removal of certain material ­things from the public, such as ­women’s hair and skin. As we ­shall see in the ensuing chapters, a time frame is designated during which a positive correlation is shown to exist between

I ntro d u c ti o n 17

certain objects and certain terms that ­either emerged si­mul­ta­neously or ­were eliminated together from the public. This analy­sis is central to understanding the links between words and their material referents, as well as their po­liti­cal implications in Iran. I then offer visual and textual semiotics and content analy­sis of prevailing public objects and discourses by reading them as text. To focus on this object-­domain is to give priority to formal discursive analy­sis, that is, to analyze content as a complex symbolic construction that displays an articulated structure. Specifically, I analyze the works of documentary filmmaker Morteza Avini to show the linkages between Khomeini, the “culture of martyrdom,” and dif­fer­ent material t­ hings from bright attire to corpses during the 1980s. Moreover, I analyze the aesthetics of second-­generation Hezbollahies, including that of Mahmood Ahmadinejad, to illustrate the interconnections between the reconfiguration of the discourse of martyrdom and cheap Iranian-­made objects during the 1990s and 2000s. At the same time, I analyze the aesthetics of young reformists to illuminate the linkages between a liberal vocabulary and imported foreign objects during the same period. This analy­sis sheds light on what sorts of words ­were afforded and disafforded by the appearance and disappearance of dif­fer­ent, and often asymmetrical, material ­things. Next, I offer an analy­sis of how ­these ­things and terms ­were lived and made sense of by drawing on life history accounts. I rely on the biographical narrative interpretive method (BNIM) (Wengraf 1999), which, in part, draws from the so­cio­log­ic­ al tradition of in-­depth hermeneutics (Roseneil 2015). This method is “oriented to the exploration of life histories, lived situations and personal meanings, and seeks to attend to the complexity and specificity of lived experience” (Roseneil 2015:149). It requires tracking the individual and the par­tic­u­lar within the social historical pro­cesses that situate them. As Sasha Roseneil explains, the assumption of this approach is that individuals make sense of their experiences by telling stories. Life history interviews thus enable researchers to draw out more complex and richer information about personal meanings and emotions. (2015:151). While many researchers, such as Roseneil (2015) and Thomas Scheff (1997), use this method primarily to showcase par­tic­u­lar case studies of “lived experiences” of specific historical moments and pro­cesses, I deploy this method for broader objectives. On the one hand, I am interested in the lived experiences of the dif­f er­ent concrete-­abstract social fields that emerged in postrevolutionary Tehran, while on the other hand, I use life histories to arrive at a generalized understanding of the vari­ous concrete-­abstract discourses that brought ­these structures into being in postrevolutionary Tehran. More specifically, I ask: What are the systems of belief and values and the dif­f er­ent logics within a par­tic­u­lar discourse? What are the terms and objects that occasion this discourse? And how does this discourse generate distinct kinds of politics? Given that individuals are

18 I ntro d u c ti o n

generative subjects and thus implicated in all the pro­cesses mentioned, life histories are an ideal vantage point for addressing the questions I ask. Thus while I begin with the assumption that no discursive formation is experienced in the same way for all, I show that we can still draw from a par­tic­u­lar life history a level of generalizability about any par­tic­u­lar discourse within which that life is entrenched. I turn to Stanley Cavell’s development of the notion of the “voice” to further explain this point. For Cavell, the voice is the accumulation of the operations of discourse (its languages, objects, logics, disciplinary techniques, ­etc.) and historically specific events that have ­shaped it (1996:1–50). The voice is par­ tic­ul­ ar ­because despite being pervaded by discourse it is endowed by capitals that generate dif­fer­ent experiences of a social field. The voice, however, can also be generalized in relation to a social structure, for it emerges within the public languages and by way of the public objects—­including one’s body—­that together constitute that structure. Indeed, for Cavell, the par­tic­u­lar and the general are never separate accounts (1996:1–52). The two persons whose life histories I offer have been immersed in the three main concrete-­abstract discourses that came into formation in postrevolutionary Iran and generated distinct social structures in the pro­cess. So while t­ hese life histories provide case studies on the “lived experiences” of ­these social structures, they also show us the objects, languages, logics, and systems of belief and values and their relations that together occasioned ­these distinct discourses and forms of structuralities. Mahdi and Reza are the two individuals whom this book features. Mahdi was a devoted Hezbollahie and one of the most impor­tant po­liti­cal players of his generation when I met him. I have known him since 2009, when he was a se­nior po­liti­cal con­sul­tant to the mayor of Tehran, Mohammad Baghir Ghalibaf. At the time, I was an amateur ethnographer interested in understanding how Ghalibaf devised his media strategy to advance his po­liti­cal ambitions. While that study never amounted to much, it helped establish a strong working relationship between Mahdi and me.3 ­Because Mahdi had a PhD in po­liti­cal science, he looked favorably upon my numerous research proj­ects on the media and politics in Tehran. So when I asked him if I could rec­ord his life history between 2013 and 2015, he agreed. All in all, I recorded about one hundred hours of interviews and discussions with him, which enabled me to link his status as a Hezbollahie to m ­ atters of God, politics, and objects, as well as providing a front-­row seat to Ira­nian politics. Reza is the central interlocutor of this book. He is a legendary figure among students, intellectuals, politicians, and ­those interested in Ira­nian politics ­because he was a key member of the infamous halghe kian (Kian Chain) that many deem responsible for creating the horizon of the reforms. Reza was also a prominent professor before he was suspended by the Ahmadinejad

I ntro d u c ti o n 19

administration.4 He has fiercely loyal students, and his counsel is often sought ­after by a range of politicians that at dif­f er­ent points included former reformist president Mohammad Khatami and the leader of the Green Movement, Mir Hossein Musavi. This extends to Reza a form of mystique that is augmented by the fact that he rarely responds to phone calls and emails. I came into contact with Reza through Mahdi. Reza was one of Mahdi’s PhD examiners at the University of Tehran. For Reza, Mahdi’s remarkable rise as a po­liti­cal player meant access to firsthand po­liti­cal data few ­others could provide. The 2013 election cycle was close, and Mahdi’s boss, Ghalibaf, had de­cided to run for president. This was an ideal time for Reza to respond to Mahdi’s calls and emails. Mahdi had or­ga­nized a study group of four ­people, of which I was one. While I knew within the first ten minutes of meeting him that Reza had to be the central figure of my work, I waited ­until four meetings ­later to ask. He agreed to conduct a single interview. Once we began, I learned that Reza had been involved in writing an autobiography, which was the result of having thought about his life in a systematic way for over a de­cade. He offered remarkable perspectives in the pro­cess, which led me to almost beg him for a second interview. And this is more or less how ­things progressed. I would never know ­whether each interview would be my last, as Reza would only make that decision based on his assessment of the current session. In total, he gave me about twenty interviews and a remarkable story, saying all that both he and I felt needed to be said. This is despite the profound asymmetry between us, something I am still painfully reminded of as I listen to the recordings of my interviews of Reza, and the sheer folly of some of my comments and interventions. I can almost hear the frustration in Reza’s sigh ­after a number of my comments. On so many occasions I was out of my depth. During my interviews with both interlocutors, I focused on how they had immersed themselves in dif­fer­ent discourses to gain insights into how t­ hese discourses came into being. I concentrated on each discourse’s key terms and tried to look at how both Reza and Mahdi had understood them. What I found was that concepts registered with them by way of certain objects, ­whether ­these terms ­were “justice,” “freedom,” or “Evil.” This enabled a perspective that the empirical chapters illustrate vividly: discourses come into formation in relation to objects they speak about and proliferate through. Moreover, I sought to home in on Reza’s and Mahdi’s voices. For Cavell, hearing the voice requires tracing and interrogating the individual amid a transformation between discourses (1996:1–50). The self ’s distinctness, the voice, comes into view amid t­ hese transformations. Thus I focused part of my interviews on Reza’s and Mahdi’s major life transformations. In so ­doing, I produce general and par­tic­u­lar accounts of the discourses that emerged in postrevolutionary Iran and illuminate what it means to live each of the

20 I ntro d u c ti o n

concrete-­abstract worlds of the reforms and the Hezbollahies. More specifically, we see their objects, terms, logics, and the relations between them. As I weave ­these two biographies with the other two object-­domains I discussed ­earlier, we begin to see links between objects and words that constitute dif­ fer­ent discourses, and the relationships between the latter and politics. In the pro­cess, the tripartite approach enables a perspective on major po­liti­cal transformations in postrevolutionary Iran. I wish to state three brief points about the way I write Reza’s and Mahdi’s biographical accounts. First, while I include many of their quotes, most of the text consists of my narration of their stories based on our interviews. Second, at times my narration of Reza’s life might seem fictionalized. But I merely relay what Reza says. For instance, Reza might say, “Time slowed down on that eve­ning.” Then he speaks as though time had ­really slowed down. Reza often uses this technique to convey certain feelings about a par­tic­u­lar situation. I did not change any of ­these sorts of commentary. Fi­nally, at times I did take some editorial liberties to capture a certain feeling that he may have had. For instance, when he said that he had fallen in love with a w ­ oman, I asked, “What was she like?” More specifically, I asked if she was “cute, pretty, or beautiful.” “The latter,” he responded. So I wrote, “She was beautiful.” Fi­nally, I would like to mention what I believe are three weaknesses in my work. First, both of my interviewees ­were men. By the time I was able to establish a link with female interlocutors, and began to rec­ord data, I was at the very end of fieldwork. I ­will certainly include biographical accounts of some of the female interlocutors whom I have begun working with as I further develop this work in the ­future. Nevertheless, not having biographical accounts of ­women in this work has at least one impor­tant implication. Discourses come to constitute and signify gender. A clear implication of this in Iran is the forced hijab for ­women. Thus ­women in Iran enter into discourse and decipher it in ways that are profoundly unique and fundamentally dif­fer­ent from men. By not including ­women as the central components of this work we lose further particularities with regard to subject positions within any given discourse. The second, and equally disheartening, weakness of my work is that neither of the interlocutors is from a minority group. As I have already explained, the bulk of Afghans, Baluchis, Baha’is, Kurds, and so on have never r­ eally been included within the three centers in postrevolutionary Iran. In other words, no po­liti­cal horizon (not even the reforms) has included them. For ­these groups, then, the only po­liti­cal field was and is domination. Third, as Roseneil points out, any account that the interviewee offers “must always be understood in relation to the particularity of the intersubjective context of the interview situation and its specific relational dynamics” (2015:150). While I try to provide enough information about myself, and the power dynamics between Reza, Mahdi, and me, to show the intersubjective

I ntro d u c ti o n 21

context in which t­ hese accounts are told, I recognize that one is always ­limited in trying to achieve this objective. Book Outline Chapter 1, which explores the years leading up to the 1979 Revolution, differs from the chapters that follow. It does not deal with the po­liti­cal economy of ­things and terms. Rather, by focusing on the connections between semiotics and life history, the chapter traces the development of the voice of this work’s main interlocutor in order to show how the asymmetry between everyday material objects endowed Ali Shariati’s texts and sermons with radical fervor for a revolutionary subject. In the pro­cess, the chapter illuminates the interconnections between the vocabulary of an ideologue of the Ira­nian Revolution, Shariati, the object world, and the formation of a revolutionary subject in Tehran. This analy­sis progresses by examining the fusion of ­things like the moon, w ­ omen’s bodies, and expensive cologne, on the one hand, and Shariati’s key terms such as “Good and Evil,” “oppression,” and “Imperialism,” on the other. It concludes by illustrating how the confluence of ­these material and linguistic worlds endowed Khomeini with transcendental status for many of his followers in the lead-up to the 1979 Revolution. Chapter 2 progresses by a continuous movement through three registers for social analy­sis, that is, the po­liti­cal economy of ­things and terms, the content analy­sis of ­things and terms, and biographical accounts of the lived experiences of ­those t­ hings and terms. In so d ­ oing, it argues that shifting relations between materiality and language occasion dif­fer­ent kinds of politics. Specifically, the chapter provides a new interpretation of one of the most critical epochs in the po­liti­cal history of modern Iran by illustrating that the confluence of the material and linguistic worlds in the Islamic Republic during the 1980s brought about a distinct social field in which relations between words and material referents became stable at the level of multitudes. This stifled public pro­cesses of performativity and resignification of signs in ways that might have threatened the centrality of the revolutionary leader, Imam Khomeini. As a result, Khomeini never seemed to face the possibility of po­liti­cal defeat between 1981 and 1989. The chapter concludes by theorizing this social field as domination. This analy­sis is undertaken not only in relation to the theoretical canon of domination and to publicly available discourses—­television, newspapers, and the like—­but also through a careful exploration of how domination was lived and how its public objects w ­ ere seen from the vantage point of a key social actor who was involved in po­liti­cal events as they unfolded. Chapter 3 illuminates the ways in which the physicality of Tehran was interlinked with what was po­liti­cally thinkable ­there between 1989 and 1997. This analy­sis is centered on how the globalization of objects engendered and

22 I ntro d u c ti o n

sustained the “post-­Islamist” liberal discourse of the reforms and the “Islamist” vocabulary of the second-­generation Hezbollahies. This pro­cess destabilized the prior relations between words and their material referents, permitting not only the substitutions of signs with astounding speed but also the rapid disintegration of the “culture of martyrdom,” which had been prevalent in Iran ­under Khomeini’s reign. The chapter theorizes this new social field as rupture. Chapter 4 moves the analy­sis of materiality and language further by exploring their relationships between 1997 and 2009. It illustrates that once the reformist and Hezbollahie modes of life, along with the objects that generated them, began to vie for centrality, pro­cesses of resignification became the norm, generating a context in which all sides—­including the new revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Khamenei—­came to face the possibility of strategic defeat in politics. The Green Movement uprising in 2009 was the apex of this feud. The chapter concludes by theorizing this distinct structurality as war. Again, where this work is particularly insightful is through its exploration of how po­liti­cal objects and terms—­and their radical contingency—­operated through the vantage point of life history accounts. It provides a par­tic­u­lar understanding of the mechanism through which po­liti­cal defeat, and the terror of failure, took hold in Tehran. In sum, the book demonstrates that shifting relations between materiality and language afforded unique social fields in revolutionary Tehran that ­were sequentially connected, with the movement from domination to rupture to war. In so d ­ oing, it contributes to the canon of Ira­nian studies by mapping out postrevolutionary Tehran’s successive social fields and illuminating how each field’s structurality afforded distinct modes of public action while foreclosing ­others. In light of ­these insights, the book concludes by revisiting and revising numerous theoretical positions advanced by scholars of post-­structuralist theory, so­cio­log­i­cal and anthropological theory, and media studies.

1 Khomeini’s ­Things A REVOLUTIONARY DISCOURSE OF STUFF

How to tell a shattered story? By slowly becoming every­body. No. By slowly becoming every­thing. —­A RUND H ATI ROY, T H E M I N I S T RY OF UTMOST HAPPINESS

A radical discourse and the moon w ­ ere integral to the 1979 Revolution in Iran. When thousands gazed at the moon above their rooftops across Tehran on the last night of the last month prior to revolution, they saw the image of their leader, Imam Khomeini. Reza, Iran’s preeminent intellectual, a university professor, and my primary interlocutor, was one of ­those revolutionaries. Reza provides a detailed allegory of that night, of how cold it was, of his fear while standing on his rooftop within range of the Shah’s armed guards, and of hearing the excited voice of a neighbor as it called attention to Khomeini’s image. Reza then said, quite nonchalantly, “I saw Khomeini in a flash.” No sooner did I intervene, but professor, than Reza acknowledged the absurdity of his claim. “Look,” he responded, “I need to think about this. . . . ​All I can say now,” he lowered his chin and whispered, “all I can say is that for a split second, I saw Khomeini up ­there.” But how is this pos­si­ble? Ali Shariati is known as the ideologue of the Ira­nian Revolution for designing a revolutionary battlefield between hagh (God/Good) and batel (Evil/Bad).1 This battlefield came to be infused with Khomeini and the Shah 23

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of Iran. If Shariati’s conceptual script had pitted the forces of God against Evil, Khomeini and the Shah came to lead each army, respectively. If Shariati had demanded an immediate presence on the battlefield, Khomeini brought millions of revolutionaries to the streets in protest against the Shah at weekly intervals. And if Shariati’s entire revolutionary proj­ect relied upon the willingness to die for the cause, Khomeini played a key role in institutionalizing a “culture of martyrdom” in Iran that is unique in history. As Shariati’s ­battle played out, Khomeini traveled closer to “God,” while his nemesis, the Shah of Iran, inched ­toward “Evil.” And once it became clear that the Shah would fall at the very apex of the revolution, Khomeini moved beyond his mere association with “God” and replaced it altogether. Thus it was the formative power of that revolutionary discourse that brought Khomeini into being as a revolutionary master-­signifier, elevating his image to appear on the moon in the pro­cess. But why the moon? Unlike the sun, which we cannot stare at for long, or a cloud, which does not appear to every­one in one city, the material construction of the moon that renders it bright but not too bright, its very position as central and thus apparent to all across Iran, enables the multitudes to proj­ect images onto it. Furthermore, the fact that the moon stands over and above us with an air of someplace e­ lse affords a sense of transcendence. It was thus the moon’s unique materiality and positionality that extended an air of transcendence to Khomeini in the first place. What we see h ­ ere are two ways of explaining how Khomeini transformed into a transcendental figure at the height of the Ira­nian Revolution. Associated with the “cultural” approach, the former is a crude explanation of how a revolutionary discourse—as a form that power takes—­came to endow Khomeini with transcendental status. Associated with the “material turn” approach, the latter is a crude explanation of how the very material constitution of the moon itself enabled a transcendental sign. At ­every point, the culturalist schema privileges language over ­things, while the material turn framework privileges ­things over language. In so d ­ oing, both camps fall short of acknowledging that far from one producing the other, the moon and discourse interweaved in tandem as mutually generative of a transcendental Khomeini. This is ­because, on the one hand, no object is pre-­discursive, while on the other hand, for discourse to come into formation it must have objects about which to speak and by means of which to proliferate. This chapter is about how Reza came to see Khomeini on the moon, a pro­ cess I explore by relying on Reza’s life history account. My emphasis on life history is critical, as any study of agentive objects would be well served by paying attention to biographical frames of meaning and the specific relations that are established between ­things and persons. What the biographical vantage

Kh o m e i n i ’ s Thi n g s 25

point can illuminate is the hybridity of ­things and ­humans by pointing to the multifaceted ways in which the two are intertwined. Biographies are bound up not only with the agency of persons but also with the agency of ­things in relation to t­ hese persons (Gell 1992, 1998). Or put differently, a person’s voice is constituted by the relations between language, objects (including one’s body), disciplinary techniques, and historically contingent events (Cavell 1996), such that exploring Reza’s voice as a medium through which relations between objects, words, and subjectivity are shown requires a biography of Reza’s life. This approach, however, constitutes a relatively recent way of thinking about the biography of objects. While Malinowski’s early work on the “personality” of shells in the Western Pacific facilitated the development of a more biographical approach in anthropology (1922), ­later studies of objects generated a dif­f er­ent idea of how t­ hings have “biographies.” By the 1980s, Arjun Appadurai, Igor Kopytoff, and Brian Spooner demonstrated that objects can move through a series of transformations from gifts to commodities to inalienable positions so as to have social lives like persons, making biography an ideal approach for exploring their paths and life histories. As Janet Hoskins points out, what ensued was an “anthropomorphizing” of objects (2006:75), which has inspired many new studies in anthropology and cultural sociology that seek to highlight the mutability of objects in dif­fer­ent contexts. One of the first challenges to this “anthropomorphizing” of ­things came from a phenomenological perspective advanced by Alfred Gell, who argued against focusing strictly on how ­people act through objects by distributing parts of their personhood, language, and value system onto t­ hings (Hoskins 2006:76). Gell was more interested in how the reverse pro­cess takes place, that is, the ways in which objects can generate new subject positions. For Gell, certain objects defy an understanding of how they are formed, making it difficult for us to possess them in an intellectual and linguistic way so that their effect on us seems “magical,” generating feelings of happiness, anger, fear, and lust in the pro­cess (1998). In other words, Gell draws our attention to how enchantments with certain incomprehensible objects shape pro­cesses of subject formation. This perspective has come to permeate more recent ethnographic and biographical studies of objects in anthropology and cultural sociology, which hinge on the notion of affect. ­Here, one is less concerned with the social lives of objects and how ­humans are invested in them and more with how objects shape subjects through sound, sight, touch, smell, and taste. While this body of work has advanced our understanding of how objects can bring new subjects into being, the analy­sis of the role of language within this pro­cess remains inadequate. To be sure, enchantments with certain

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incomprehensible objects shape subjects through their senses but such enchantments also shape language, and the confluence of ­things and terms permeates pro­cesses of subject formation. In other words, materiality, language, and subjectivity are connected in such a way that the reduction of one is always already the reduction of the other two. This chapter uses Gell’s insights both analytically and as a point of departure to explore the interconnections between materiality, language, and subjectivity. In so ­doing, it pursues two parallel inquiries. In the first instance, and following Gell, the chapter focuses on what objects do rather than what they mean. It shows how certain objects dazzled Reza in ways he was unable to articulate—­objects that stirred fundamental transformations in his subject position. It demonstrates, for instance, how Reza’s immersion in Islamism before turning his back on Khomeini w ­ ere pro­cesses animated by the agency of incomprehensible objects. In the second instance, however, the chapter explores how the same incomprehensible ­things afforded subversive words and concepts that together occasioned a radical discourse for Reza—­one in which he became immersed. It illustrates how Shariati’s vocabulary with terms such as “Imperialism,” “oppressor,” and “oppressed” was endowed with revolutionary fervor in relation to the asymmetry between material t­ hings like foreign cologne, Ira­nian rosewater, ­women’s bodies, and corpses. In so d ­ oing, the chapter illustrates how the confluence of everyday asymmetrical objects and Shariati’s text brought a transcendental Khomeini into being for Reza. This chapter, then, is not concerned with Shariati’s po­liti­cal thought (for a comprehensive understanding of Shariati’s ideas, see Fischer 1980; Abrahamian 1982; Dabashi 1997; Rahnema 1998, 2000; Ghamari-­Tabrizi 2004; Adib-­Moghaddam 2021). When needed, I discuss Shariati’s ideas in terms of how they w ­ ere understood in relation to objects for Reza. Nor is this chapter about how or why the revolution took place (for more on this question, see Keddle 1981; Abrahamian 1982, 2018; Arjomand 1988; Parsa 1989; Dabashi 1997; Kurzman 2005; Afary and Anderson 2010; Ghamari-­Tabrizi 2016; Adib-­Moghaddam 2021). Rather, it is about how a revolutionary subject was born at the intersection of ­things and terms in Iran in the lead-up to the 1979 Revolution. This means that exploring Reza’s narrative requires a path of patience. As explained in the introduction, telling a story from the vantage point of objects and words through Reza’s voice involves a pro­cess of recovering that traverses Reza’s life cycle—­one that is messy and, at times, difficult to understand. A few sections in this chapter may seem to fail to even deal directly with objects. But they do tell the story of a stage in Reza’s life whose connection to materiality becomes evident in the ensuing sections. Let us now turn to Reza and his gradual transformation into a Shariati subject by means of everyday objects.

Kh o m e i n i ’ s Thi n g s 27

Higher Love, Shariati, and a Revolutionary Subject Born into one of Tehran’s impoverished southern neighborhoods, Reza was raised by a peculiar ­family. On the one hand, his maternal grand­father was such a devout Muslim that ­people prayed ­behind him in the mosque ­every time the neighborhood imam failed to make an appearance. Disciplined and strict, Reza’s grand­father maintained a permanent distance from Reza. When Reza urinated in the bathroom while standing up once at the age of twelve, his grand­father did not just give him a warning and ask that he be seated next time. Instead, he treated Reza as a disappointment beyond repair. ­There was no ­music at this ­house, no tele­vi­sion, no radio, and generally nothing remotely frivolous or entertaining. Not even anything beyond uniformly blue pens with which to create a colorful drawing. A large Qu’ran on the ­table in the living room, the sounds of his grand­father’s voice praying regularly, the dif­fer­ent types of cloth that made up his grand­mother’s hijabs, and a large majestic frame on the wall that read “Allah” rendered Reza’s grand­father’s home a holy space. For Reza, the place was also permanently critical of his be­hav­ior and constantly demanding a level of orthodox devotion that was beyond his grasp. And yet, Reza felt safe ­there. This h ­ ouse had a second floor where Reza lived with his ­mother and ­father. Reza’s f­ ather was like a villain out of a Bollywood film. An adulterer, a gambler, and a drinker, he had no scruples. The sound of ­music emanating from one room, tele­vi­sion blaring in another, his ­father’s drunken leftovers spoiling in the kitchen—­all in all, this was an exciting place for Reza. And yet, he never felt safe ­there. As Reza traveled vertically from his grand­father’s ground floor to his ­father’s apartment upstairs, he passed from one world into another. When Reza’s grand­father had fi­nally had enough of Reza’s ­father and made him leave, the ­family moved to the other side of the neighborhood to a place that was twice as impoverished. Reza, however, was left b ­ ehind to live in the more stable environment of his grand­father’s h ­ ouse and visited his f­ ather on the weekends. Reza’s vertical journey between the holy ground-­floor world of his grand­ father and the exciting upstairs-­world of his ­father soon transformed into a horizontal voyage. As Reza left his grand­father’s ­house for his ­father’s on the weekend he passed from a mosque to a Hossaiynieh (religious place of prayer) to a Sagha Khaneh (smaller space of prayer), to a rec­ord store to an illegal opium distribution shack, and fi­nally to a ­house of prostitution two blocks before his destination. Reza’s ­father lived in a rough neighborhood. When he reached puberty, Reza had a million and one questions about his body. He thought about sex often. On the way back from school, Reza frequently visited a rec­ord store to look at the pictures of singers hanging on the walls. He was fascinated by how “soft” ­women’s bodies appeared. How smooth

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their skin was, how shiny their hair looked. He was enchanted by their hands. Fin­gers. And the polish on their nails. Sex, however, did not have any romantic connotations in ­either world Reza knew. It seemed like an unthinkable, unspeakable non-­practice at his grand­ father’s. And deployed only in reference to prostitution and rape at his ­father’s. When gangsters from another neighborhood abducted a teenage girl from Reza’s block, they gang-­raped her and dropped her off on the block drunk several days l­ ater. This infuriated the local criminals. One of the neighborhood gangsters stood before the teenage girl’s ­house with a ­bottle of alcohol only hours a­ fter she had been found and roared, “If anyone was ­going to fuck her, it ­should’ve been us, not them!” Sex was frightening in this neighborhood. Reza was caught between the two worlds. His grand­father espoused a degree of holiness and devotion that Reza could never hope to achieve. His ­father offered vari­ous objects of plea­sure such as sex. But this too was equally inaccessible given that it was tied to vio­lence. What Reza did was ingenious. He dissolved the two worlds into each other and created a new concrete-­ abstract universe. Reza took the unachievable holiness of his grand­father’s world and fused it with the equally unachievable pleasures of his ­father’s world and created a universe that he calls “higher love.” It was “higher” ­because it was produced, in part, in the image of a certain holiness that pervaded his grand­father’s world. This “higher love,” however, was not directed at a God that could not be seen. It was aimed at ­women, demarcated, most notably for Reza, by the particularities of their bodies—­their long hair, hands, and scent. This concrete-­abstract world of “higher love” was thus concrete ­because it was generated, in part, by ­women’s bodies. But this world was also abstract ­because of the way it had interwoven ­these bodies with the “holiness” that traversed Reza’s grand­father’s. ­Women, as objects of this holy love, came to be viewed as holy too, as pure ­things to be cherished. But this higher and holy love was, paradoxically, also a bodiless love, as nothing about the body was e­ ither pure or holy within the space that Reza knew. Thus the very objects that, in part, generated higher love would in turn be rejected by that love itself so that this was ultimately a tragic love. With time, Reza found that his concrete-­abstract world of “higher love” was omnipresent. For instance, the most popu­lar singers of the time, such as Marzieh, Hayedeh, Darioush, Ebi, and even Googoosh, sang of a lost love, a love that could never be, a love that was only pain. A love that was directed at a specific gender but lacked a body, a love that was holy and pure, and unachievable for that reason. Take, for instance, one of Hayedeh’s most popu­ lar songs. It runs: “donya be cheshm-­e ashegh, ye donya-­e gharib-­e, nefrin be harchi eshgh-­e, mikham ashegh nabasham” (from the vantage point of the one in love, the world is unfamiliar, love is cursed, I do not wish to be in love). This was a tragic and “higher” love that the Shah’s tele­vi­sion, nevertheless,

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promoted through singers, movies, and so on. And perhaps it was an unwitting promotion, since t­ hese concrete-­abstracts became the very spaces through which Shariati proliferated his revolutionary language. Let us turn to Reza as he establishes this link quite brilliantly. Someone may have asked: Why ­don’t you accept your grand­father’s traditional world? But what did that world require? D ­ on’t drink alcohol, ­don’t listen to m ­ usic, d ­ on’t look at girls, their bodies, d ­ on’t think about sex, e­ tcetera. This entailed a constant strug­gle. So I c­ ouldn’t just accept my grand­father’s world. But the space in which ­music and sex had proliferated was problematic too. First, it was not clear if I would even be allowed to enter that world. Bowling alleys, for instance, w ­ ere known to be mingling places for young boys and girls. But when I would see tele­vi­sion commercials for the bowling alleys, they exhibited ­women with very distinct types of haircuts and attire that ­were simply non­ex­is­tent in my neighborhood. Or the boys sported brand-­name shirts that I could never afford. And even if I could find my way into such spaces, I still ­couldn’t understand how I was supposed to enjoy myself ­there while wearing clothes that my grand­mother had made for me and the cheap shoes that kids used for playing street football. I c­ ouldn’t understand how I was to maintain a coherent identity. What I looked for was a synthesis of my grand­father’s safe and my f­ ather’s exciting universes, a fusion of ­these two inharmonious spaces. And this was precisely what Shariati did. He offered a synthesis of ­these two worlds. ­Here was Shariati, a credible man who was modern. We knew this ­because he had a PhD in sociology and he spoke as an intellectual. But he was also critical of the modern world from which he had emerged. And he had emerged to make us an offer; let us deploy my critical gaze, Shariati would say, as we travel through this modern world together. So we got moving. And Shariati began to point ­things out ­here, ­there, bit by bit. Then he ­stopped. “Is this not an unjust world?” He asked, looking at us out of the corner of his eye. Yes, I answer. Of course it is. B ­ ecause I am poor. B ­ ecause I ­don’t possess any of the tools with which I can enjoy this world’s objects of plea­sure. I d ­ on’t have nice clothes, I ­don’t have nice shoes, I d ­ on’t have a good education, my f­ amily ­isn’t part of the aristocracy, and, worst of all, my two eyebrows are connected. Shariati would proceed to identify my unsatisfied desires and touch my pain. Having located both within me, he would then construct his entire discursive apparatus in that space. He would never tell us that look, t­ hese pits, this pain, ­these scars are costs you must endure for your individuality, self-­realization, or what­ever. Now, this could have been an erroneous statement or not. It ­doesn’t ­matter. Shariati never went down this path.

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Instead, he pushed t­ hings in the other direction. He attached my feelings of impotence in the face of existing pleasures with concepts such as “tyranny,” “oppression,” and “imperialism.” By the time Shariati was through with me, only two questions remained: Who is responsible for all of this pain? And when do I begin battling him? Soon, the “­battle” that this concrete-­abstract world promulgated would regularize public objects in distinct ways. Revolutionary ­women’s attire was one example. Many such ­women began to display themselves publicly wearing long jackets (overcoats), long button-up shirts, s­ imple jeans, ponytails (or, alternatively, a tiny scarf covering the hair), no jewelry, and very ­little to no makeup. Interviews I conducted with dozens of ­these revolutionaries suggest that a certain ruthless scorning was directed at what many at the time identified as traditional w ­ omen like Reza’s grand­mother and ­mother. More specifically, ­women who wore the full hijab (covering their bodies as well as their hair) stayed home and waited for their husbands to return from work. As one female interlocutor explained to me, “We tended to ridicule t­ hese ­women in light of our conviction that they w ­ ere absent from the battlefield.” On the other hand, many of the same revolutionaries disparaged what ­people understood as modern, “hip” ­women who wore fancy clothes and ­were out and about, open to the pleasures that their world had to offer. “­These ­women constituted the other side of that same equation,” said the same interlocutor, “just as detached from the battlefield, and equally derided by many of us [revolutionaries] for that reason.” It appears, then, that the concrete-­abstract cosmos that had generated “higher love,” in between the so-­called “traditional” world of Reza’s grand­ father and the so-­called “modern” world of his ­father, had come to shape many revolutionary w ­ omen at the time.2 And Shariati seemed to have been right ­there with them. In one of his lectures titled “Our Expectation from Muslim ­Women” (1972), Shariati speaks of a w ­ oman who is f­ ree, insurgent, an activist, and pre­sent in the ­battle of Good versus Evil.3 ­Women seemed to have been rid of their bodies in the pro­cess, for Shariati spoke of a bodiless w ­ oman. The full hijab and the short skirts ­were equally as despicable. “It was not clear what relationship we w ­ ere supposed to have with our bodies,” another female interlocutor explained. “The appropriate body for us was an invisible body, and this invisibility translated into what was considered masculine attire at the time.” ­Women in socialist groups such as Aksariat or Aghaliat, semi-­religious socialist groups such as Arman, and socialist-­Islamist groups such as the Mojahedin-­e Khalgh (MEK) all followed this “masculine” code with minor variations. Remarkably, the Shah had also come to embrace this concrete-­abstract space between the “traditional” world he sought to reformulate and the “modern” world he hoped to offer. Beginning with the Kennedy administration, the White House had exerted pressure on the Shah to de­moc­ra­tize from within

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(Goode 1991). This stemmed from Washington’s fear of an eventual uprising against the monarchy. The Shah was particularly annoyed once Jimmy Car­ ter came to power and augmented Amer­i­ca’s liberal posture through foreign policy (Talebi 2011). As po­liti­cal scientist Gholamreza Kashi explained to me, “The Shah wished to tell the Americans that what worked for them did not necessarily work for Iran.” “The Shah,” Kashi continued, “thus multiplied his efforts in constructing a new identity for Ira­ni­ans.” In so d ­ oing, he too aimed for something in between the “traditional” world that Reza’s grand­father evoked and the “modern” world to which Reza’s ­father ascribed. Indeed, the Shah’s wife, Farah Pahlavi, funded an array of cultural centers (academic, artistic, ­etc.). She called upon, for instance, the most well-­known “modern” architects who had developed “traditional” designs. Together they began constructing “modern traditional centers” all over the city (Tabibi 2014). Even the avant-­garde sagha-­khaneh movement used Islamic and so-­called traditional ele­ments and motifs in the production of modern art. Sagha-­khaneh refers to a place of prayer for Shi’ites in Iran. Karim Emami, who coined the name for this movement, recalls: Parviz Tanavoli and Hussein Zenderoodi had traveled to shahr-­e rai near Tehran and came upon a few religious posters. They w ­ ere fascinated by the posters’ simplicity, repetition of religious ele­ments, and the bright colors. The first works that ­were created by the sagha-­khoone movement ­were inspired by ­these posters, which left a significant impact on the College of Fine Arts at the University of Tehran. (Emami 2015) Countless artists, architects, authors, politicians, and revolutionaries seemed adamant about constructing a new identity that was somehow both “modern” and “traditional.” Shariati’s artillery, it seems, became particularly useful for many in the pro­cess ­because it was he who had attempted to theorize this synthesis. That many had been influenced, directly or not, by the overall ethos of Shariati’s thought is not a new insight. Arshin Adib-­Moghaddam (2021) notes how Shariati’s influential ideas corresponded with the construction of a distinct “identity” galvanized by the global pro­cess of decolonization. And Naghmeh Sohrabi points out that the postcolonial “ideals of liberation, social justice, and au­then­tic identity,” which permeated Shariati’s writings and sermons, “­shaped the critiques leveled by the revolutionaries to their pre­sent and their dreams of the ­future” (2018:5; emphasis added). This is why Shariati appears to be one of the few revolutionary figures deemed too impor­tant for any strand of the historiography of revolutionary Iran to ignore (Sohrabi 2018:6). What is impor­tant to bear in mind, however, is the material and linguistic dynamics that generated “high love,” a dynamic that created the foundation for Shariati’s ascendance for many would-be revolutionaries like Reza. Indeed, asymmetrical material ­things from w ­ omen’s bodies to cheap attire afforded Shariati’s key

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terms, including “tyranny” and “imperialism,” to register for Reza, enabling his gradual transformation into a Shariati subject—­a pro­cess the ensuing sections ­will further explore. Love. Revolution. Khomeini. Many Ira­ni­ans consider Tehran an exceptionally ugly city. Endless arrays of streets that never seem to lead anywhere, impossible traffic, suffocating pollution, uncontrollable feral cats, construction site a­ fter construction site—­all in all, Tehran proj­ects a foul image of itself, made all the starker by the menacing questions that circulate among the city’s youth. Is she in love with me too? Is she thinking about me now? How about when I am not ­there? Does she love me as much as I love her? And what exactly is it that she is in love with—my eyes? My status? What is frightening about love is its inherent risk. The two of us, the lovers, allow the falling in love to proceed despite t­ hese menacing questions. We feel brave in the pro­cess. We feel power­ ful, and this power, we think, stems from something transcendent about love. What often escapes us, however, is that the risk that pervades falling in love is the very condition that enables bravery within love. For bravery is only pos­si­ble in the face of risks. When we accept the risks of falling in love, we derive plea­sure from the bravery it induces and thus the power it endows us with. We might say that the degree of risk equals the degree of bravery it occasions, which equals the degree of plea­sure it produces. We see t­ hings differently walking the streets years l­ ater while grieving the loss of our former lover. Tehran’s endless array of alleys that gave both of us the opportunity to sweat and thus embrace each other’s scent, the nauseating pollution that was the source of our light-­headedness which came with a hundred laughs, the traffic we ­were both stuck in, which gave us endless time to speak, to stay s­ ilent, to smoke a cigarette, and that rugged smelly feral cat which we both de­cided to feed and play with while in love. So, on the other hand, many Ira­ni­ans see Tehran as an exceptionally beautiful city. They have fallen in love t­ here. And what makes Tehran beautiful to them is that it was the space through which a certain potential was released. A potential that sprang from the duality of risk and bravery, not only transforming the lovers forever but also altering how the endless alleys, pollution, traffic, and feral cats came to be seen. Revolution has a peculiar likeness to falling in love. Just as lovers g­ amble, as protesters we face the risk of arrest and persecution. It is precisely this risk that enables us to feel brave. And this bravery is augmented when we find ourselves among thousands of ­others in the same state. Together we feel power­ful. We feel that even if nothing changes in realpolitik, something has changed for us from within.

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Just as with love, many decentralized protest movements seem to emerge out of nowhere and evaporate into nothing fungible in realpolitik. But we sometimes seek that experience again, similar to how we desire love, and the power love and protests endow within us is like the dopamine that our neurons crave. However, since we are unaware of where that protest, the love, came from and where they went, we go about our days wondering when it might all happen again. But let us imagine that this power invoked within us had a master, a person with legs, cheeks, and a chin. And this person had the ability to bring about a transformative experience seemingly at ­will. He had the aptitude to push ­people into the streets and have them kill and die for him. By capturing the streets, this master endows us with a certain potential and in so ­doing grants us power. The source of this power is our ac­cep­tance of facing the consequences of protesting against the most power­ful man in the region: the Shah. On June 3, 1963, fifteen years prior to the final protest that would overthrow the Pahlavi dynasty, Khomeini made a speech in which he scorned the Shah of Iran. It was uncanny: Let me give you some advice, Mr. Shah . . . ​I ­don’t want you to turn out like your ­father . . . ​so listen close, ignore your masters in Israel. . . . ​You poor ­thing . . . ​it’s time that you use your brain, that you learn from the fate of your poor f­ ather. Khomeini had addressed the Shah of Iran as though he w ­ ere a fourteen-­ year-­old schoolboy. In so ­doing, Khomeini had taken an incalculable risk, equal to incalculable bravery, which was the source of incalculable plea­sure for many. Thousands of protestors poured into the streets following this speech. “We marched past the Shah’s palace,” one revolutionary interlocutor told me, “chanting ‘death to the dictator.’ ” The Shah was dumbfounded, as ­were his confidants. The Shah’s security forces surrounded Imam’s ­house in the city of Qom and arrested him a day l­ater. Masses of protesters took to the streets as the news of his arrest spread from Qom to Tehran to Mashhad. They chanted, “ya marg ya Khomeini!” (Release Khomeini or kill us!) (Moin 2000:106). “We attacked police stations, the SAVAK [the Shah’s intelligence bureau], and government buildings,” said the same interlocutor. A ­ fter martial law, tanks, and soldiers in combat gear, it took about six days to restore order. ­These events shocked the Shah (Institute for Po­liti­cal Research 2013). ­After much deliberation within the Shah’s immediate circle, Imam was sent into exile in November 1964, almost a year ­after the riots (Moin 2000). First he went to Turkey, then to Iraq; Imam’s final destination was Neauphle-­ le-­Château in France. Overall, he spent slightly less than fifteen years away from Iran. “During this time,” said another revolutionary interlocutor, “Khomeini’s image grew larger than life for many of us.” Indeed, Khomeini had

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emerged as one of the most vis­i­ble leaders of vari­ous revolutionary movements by 1978 (Sohrabi 2018). Reza—­now in his final year of m ­ iddle school—­moved back in with his f­ ather almost a de­cade ­after Khomeini had left Iran. Reza’s ­father belonged to the group of urban workers that lacked professional-­level skills, constituting about 85  ­percent of the workforce during the 1970s (Nomani and Behdad 2006). Reza and his ­family lived in a neighborhood composed of narrow, winding streets with high walls of adobe and brick, often roofed at vari­ous intervals, and saturated by the scent of burning opium. The h ­ ouse itself was a traditional Persian Takye. Entering the doorway, one had to take a step down into the yard, which was centered by a small pool that the residents used to wash dishes. The ­house had one kitchen and seven rooms. Each door faced the tiny pool so that the internal structure of the ­house was more or less circular. Reza’s f­ ather had rented this h ­ ouse, although Reza along with his three b ­ rothers and their parents only occupied two rooms. Reza’s ­father had rented out the remaining five rooms to five other families, with every­one sharing the kitchen. This gave Reza’s ­father the opportunity to both rule over the ­house and make a tiny profit on the side. Reza’a ­father was a generous man. ­Every c­ ouple of months or so, he would take a large metal cooker filled with a mix of rice and stew into one of the neighboring h ­ ouses. Reza often strolled along and once saw the tenants swarm over the metal cooker at a ­house several blocks down. He knew that the tenants had e­ ither missed several meals during the week or expected to do so in the coming week. Poverty was a constant presence on the block. Reza frequented this block ­after school, as did most of his peers. This frightened the neighborhood parents. The threats of drug addiction, sexual deviation, and illicit adventurism ­were always pre­sent. So when a pious local boy named Saeed emerged to drag teenage kids off the block and into the neighborhood mosque, no parent objected. Reza was introduced to the mosque in the pro­cess. Reza hated praying regularly at his grand­father’s, which he was forced to do. But in the mosque, Reza grew comfortable with every­thing that took place. He had also grown to count on Saeed and his peers as friends. The activities, the discussions, and eventually even praying and fasting all created a safe space for him in that crime-­infested neighborhood. And in time, a certain belief in God was instilled within Reza. God’s connection with Reza, however, was not underpinned by love. God, having partly emanated from two safe places, first his grand­father’s and now the neighborhood mosque, was a point of reliance. And it was within this safe space that Reza began to form an identity on the block, one that was nevertheless interwoven with God and the mosque. Saeed recited the Qur’an for Reza and his peers each Friday, ­after which they mourned Imam Hussein’s martyrdom. Sometime ­later, Saeed began

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distributing Shariati tapes at the mosque. Soon Saeed began giving po­liti­cal lectures echoing Shariati’s talks. Saeed said that three key pillars anchored Shariati’s sermons. First, ­there is an eternal ­battle between the forces of hagh (Good) and batel (Evil). This b ­ attle, which comes to the fore from time to time, was epitomized by the 680 AD ­battle of Karbala, a city in present-­day Iraq, between the third Shi’ite imam, the mazlum (oppressed) Hussein, and the zalem (tyrant) ruler, Yazid. Imam Hussein, as Shariati pointed out, summoned his men the night before ­battle and asked t­ hose who wished to leave to do so ­under the cover of night. He presented his men with this option in light of the profound asymmetry between the two forces. By dawn, only seventy-­two men remained to fight alongside him. Second, never leave the battlefield. Shariati scorned ­those who left Imam Hussein on that gloomy night. He attributed their treason to their love of the “everyday life.” It is preposterous to concern oneself with daily ­matters and practicalities amid war. A Shariati subject is always pre­sent in the eternal b ­ attle of Good versus Evil, no ­matter the price. Third, and insofar as the price is concerned, a Shariati subject has to accept the ultimate cost: martyrdom. Yazid’s army slaughtered all seventy-­two men along with Imam Hussein in Karbala. Imam Hussein’s vindication, meanwhile, rested upon his prior knowledge of this outcome, for it illustrated that he was not motivated by the desire to replace Yazid and rule over the Islamic community but by the desire to fight Evil itself. For Shariati, then, nothing has been more instrumental to the continuation of the ­battle against Evil as the legacy of Imam Hussein’s martyrdom. Two of Shariati’s terms stood out for Reza. Zalem (tyrant) came to characterize ­those with money. And Reza distinguished them through his occasional trips to the north. He became aware of ­people who owned nice cars, sported nice suits with ties, had shaved f­ aces, and smelled g­ reat. Th ­ ese p ­ eople, their cars, attire, and cologne ­were ­things that installed a profound sense of underachievement, of shame, and of impotence within Reza during each of his brief sojourns in the affluent parts of northern Tehran. Mazlum (oppressed) was the second Shariati term that registered for Reza. And he did not need to look beyond his own neighborhood to find them. Reza was shocked to wake up to a ferocious gun b ­ attle in the m ­ iddle of a cold winter’s night a year before the revolution. The next morning he realized that some of the most impor­tant members of radical revolutionary groups like the MEK ­were part of a po­liti­cal network that lived in “team ­houses” on the block. He was bewildered as to how the MEK fighters had managed to keep themselves hidden from the gangsters and thugs, who more or less controlled the streets, along with Saeed and the p ­ eople in the mosque. Security incursions onto the block and nocturnal gun ­battles ­were on the rise, and SAVAK agents

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that attacked homes, searched them, and dragged residents out all fit the bill. They wore nice suits with ties, w ­ ere clean-­shaven, and filled the alleys with the scent of their cologne before racing off in their fancy cars. Indeed, the links between Shariati’s terms and posh objects are suggestive. During my interviews with Reza, I learned that the emergence of terms such as zalem and mazlum for him w ­ ere simultaneous with the recognition of what they referred to. And what they referred to w ­ ere objects vis­i­ble to Reza. The term zalem for instance, was evoked, in part, in relation to the smart attire, suits and ties, exotic cologne, and the lack of facial hair, which was sported by SAVAK agents as well as many among the affluent of northern Tehran. The more security incursions took place and the more violent they became, the more Reza began to dislike the SAVAK and—by extension—­the p ­ eople on the north side of the city. Conversely, the term mazlum referred to the ­faces of ­those who swarmed to his ­father’s monthly charity meals in the southern neighborhood where Reza lived. They ­were ­people who wore “Ira­nian” attire, men who usually had facial hair and smelled of ­either body odor or the cheap and widely available rosewater. It seems, then, that Shariati’s ­battle of Good versus Evil was not merely a conceptual narrative but came into formation through distinct sets of asymmetrical objects—­things that afforded the terms zalem and mazlum to register for Reza. Good vs. Evil When Reza and Saeed attended an Allameh Yahya Nuri sermon at Zhaleh Square on September 1, 1978, they anticipated an exciting eve­ning. A group of the notorious MEK fighters had disarmed a number of the Shah’s guards a few days prior. The regime’s armed forces ­were out for vengeance. The Allameh Yahya Nuri crowd did not seem to care. It moved ­toward the exit door, chanting, “Allaho Akbar,” in protest against the Shah. Reza was in the front of the crowd. Saeed was right next to him. As they neared the exit, they felt a hot wind blow in from the outside. Reza stepped out onto the street first. He looked to his right and saw hundreds of empty wooden fruit boxes lying on the pavement. He looked to his left and saw a line of blazing fire separating Zhaleh Square from the main street. No one knew who had started the fire. The crowd immediately moved t­ oward the empty boxes to rip them apart. They wanted to arm themselves with half-­meter wooden sticks salvageable from the boxes. Reza paid no attention. He kept looking through the flames to see how many guards he could count. He then looked back again t­ oward the crowd. He saw the reflection of the fire on hundreds of thick sticks, held high in the air, swinging from side to side. Reza froze. Never had he witnessed an image so majestic.

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Reza walked ­toward the blaze with a sudden surge in confidence. Saeed moved with him, shoulder to shoulder. With their sticks held up high, the crowd followed. Four shots ­were fired. ­People ­were accustomed to ­these; guards routinely fired shots into the air to scare and disperse crowds. Reza pushed forward. The crowd followed. Shoulder to shoulder. Saeed stumbled. Reza paused. He held back against the horde. He tilted to touch Saeed’s shoulder. “Get up, boy,” he said. A large protestor stepped up to Reza, shoved him to the side, and picked Saeed up. Blood dripped from Saeed’s left sleeve. Then blood gushed out of that same sleeve. His eyes w ­ ere motionless. Two bullets right through his chest. He had not tripped. He had been shot. Saeed was gone. Reza stood ­there as the large protestor carried Saeed away in the opposite direction. The crowd dispersed. More ­people ­were shot. Reza watched the large protestor walk away with Saeed in his arms. ­People screamed as they ran in all directions. Th ­ ere ­were more gunshots. Reza watched the large protestor dis­appear with Saeed in his arms. Reza staggered ­toward his ­house. He changed clothes and listened to the radio. He ate dinner. He brushed his teeth. He went to bed and looked at the ceiling all night. All told, nine ­others ­were killed along with Saeed (Institute for Po­liti­cal Research 2013). The Shi’ite ritual of commemorating the seventh day a­ fter a person’s passing meant that the following Friday, September 8, 1978, was to be a crucial day. The military had already declared martial law. And the Shah seemed determined to put out the flames once and for all. Reza woke up early on that day ­because his ­mother insisted that he leave the ­house to buy bread. She asked him to take his six-­year-­old ­brother with him. Reza scurried out of the ­house for the first time since Saeed’s death. He could hear a massive rally assembling about six blocks away at Zhaleh Square. Soon a dozen or so demonstrators rushed onto Reza’s block. Then dozens more. Tear gas had pushed them onto the streets surrounding the square, including Reza’s. On the block, demonstrators quickly reor­ga­nized, with w ­ omen positioning themselves in the front, believing that the guards would refuse to shoot them down. Protestors then scurried back ­toward the square with ­women in the lead. Reza trailed along holding his ­brother’s hand. They walked u ­ ntil Zhaleh Square came into full view. Then came gunshots. Machine guns. The crowd dispersed and guards with anti-­riot gear emerged. One of them ran ­toward Reza, who had, once again, completely frozen. The guard pointed his gun at Reza’s face and roared, “You son of a whore, get lost!” Reza turned around, holding his ­brother’s hand tightly, and took what seemed like one g­ iant step from the square back to his block. But t­ here was a moment between the guard pointing his gun at Reza and Reza taking that seemingly ­giant step, just a brief, passing moment, enough for a quick peek, during which Reza saw the ground covered with dozens of bleeding ­women.

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And so the rituals began. As Reza stood by his h ­ ouse, with the door slightly ajar, he watched men carry the dead from street to street and display them before shocked spectators. One w ­ oman was shot right through her head. Four protestors carried her in a large chador (long black fabric/hijab). They rubbed a piece of cloth on the w ­ oman’s head, raised the cloth as it dripped with blood, squeezed the blood out for every­one to see, rubbed the cloth again on the w ­ oman’s head, and repeated this over and over again. Onlookers ­were stunned. One person yelled, “They are killing our ­children!” Another person yelled, “Shahe Jenayatkar!” (The tyrannical Shah!). And ­there it was. Every­one yelled, “Shahe Jenayatkar!” The w ­ hole block yelled, “Shahe Jenayatkar!” With hundreds killed, the Shah had fi­nally, unquestionably, and firmly established himself as the face of Evil. In so d ­ oing, the Shah had fulfilled half of Shariati’s script of the ­battle of Good versus Evil for Reza. Reza saw small puddles filled with blood as he walked around Zhaleh Square the next day. He found a half-­bloodied leaflet by a splash of blood. He picked it up. It contained Khomeini’s statement on the massacre. Th ­ ere was a sentence that deeply moved Reza. It read, “Khomeini only wished to have been among you, and to have died with you.” As though he had fi­nally exhaled that breath of sorrow he had held in since Saeed’s death, Reza wept out loud. He looked up at the sky and said, “Khomeini, please save us. Please save us from this fucking criminal!” But why did Reza say that he looked up at the sky when he said this? It seems that part of the image of Khomeini as a savior was constructed in relation to the corpses that had resulted from the Shah’s massacre. The dead ­women and the bloodied cloth afforded the phrase “Shahe Jenayatkar” (The tyrannical Shah!) for Reza. The objects that invoked the “tyrannical Shah” also consolidated the Shah’s position within Shariati’s topography of Good versus Evil. Thus, on the one hand, the more the Shah became linked to corpses, the more he was consolidated as Evil within Shariati’s universe. On the other hand, the more he was consolidated within the topography of Good versus Evil, the more the Shah himself came to promulgate Shariati’s vocabulary. By becoming the anti-­hero of Shariati’s script, the Shah had rendered his nemesis, Khomeini, a protagonist of sorts. In other words, he had pushed Khomeini ­toward the position of hagh (God). Khomeini was beginning to attain an air of transcendence for some by this time; Reza exhibited this by staring into the sky when he wanted to speak with him. Seeing God On January 13, 1979, Reza was at his neighborhood mosque and heard his peers planning to go onto the rooftops at night to chant “Allah Akbar.” Reza heard the chants shortly ­after dusk. The Shah’s guards ­were on the streets and had

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­ rders to kill (Institute for Po­liti­cal Research 2013:295). When Reza made his o way to the rooftop, he did so with fear. But the chants of “Allah Akbar” up t­ here in the dark kindled something within him. First confidence, then power. The power did not stem merely from what was taking place but from something immea­sur­able about it. “Allah Akbar” had been chanted many times at vari­ous rallies. ­These rallies, however, always took place during daylight, illustrating a crowd’s limits, no ­matter how large it may have been. Up on the rooftops, chants from ­every direction in the dark gave the sense that an infinite number of ­people ­were saying the same ­thing. That Tehran had made up its mind. And when someone yelled from a roof across the street, “Look up t­ here, look at the moon, do you see Imam’s image?” Reza raised his head. He saw an image of Imam on the moon. It vanished as quickly as it had appeared. Reza blinked several times. He did not see it again. He cursed himself for not having purchased the glasses he had been prescribed. Or maybe he did not deserve to see Imam on the moon. Maybe that split second was enough. Reza rejoiced, “Yes, it was t­ here. I saw it. It is t­ here.” On the rooftops, every­one went wild. Khomeini’s image, which the Shah had refused to disseminate on tele­vi­ sion, had moved beyond the walls on which Khomeini’s pictures ­were drawn and had transformed the moon into its primary medium. This was revolutionary media at its finest hour. But the moon had, in turn, consolidated Khomeini as transcendental. “I did not doubt for a second that his image was in the moon,” said Reza. “I did not doubt for a second that what had happened was beyond the realm of comprehension, that it was beyond this world, that it had an air of someplace ­else above and over us” (emphasis added). What emerged the next day was pure hysteria within the military. General Azhari went on tele­vi­sion and said that the chants of “Allah Akbar” w ­ ere tape recordings a few bad apples had blasted above Tehran. “It showed how hurt the Shah was,” says Reza. “So much so,” Reza continues, “that he left Iran three days l­ ater.” The Shah’s departure was dressed up as a short vacation. Imam entered Iran two weeks ­after the Shah’s departure. He arrived on an Air France flight, greeted by millions in the streets. Radio and tele­vi­sion stations ­were taken over by revolutionaries shortly thereafter, as ­were police stations, army bases, and prisons. The military declared its “neutrality” on February 11, 1979. The Shah’s reign had come to an end. Soon ­after landing in Tehran, Imam Khomeini de­cided to take temporary residence at the Refah School, about eight blocks north of Reza’s ­house. This was a transitional phase between the fall of the monarchy and the birth of the new regime. Imam planned to use this time to hold “viewings.” ­Every morning, about three thousand p ­ eople gathered around the Refah School, or­ga­nized in a long wobbly line that stretched a dozen or so blocks, and waited for the school’s gates to open. ­Those guarding the entrance allowed a designated number of ­people into the schoolyard each time the gates opened. Th ­ ere in the yard, ­people

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waited for a few minutes ­until Imam emerged through a curtain by a glassless win­ dow. Some in the crowd then tried to get close to Imam. Some climbed the wall in order to touch him. Some fainted from excitement. ­Others had to be carried out while unconscious. Imam, in turn, raised his hand in acknowl­edgment of ­those ­there, only to vanish b ­ ehind the curtain a­ fter about five minutes. Then one crowd would be pushed out in order to make way for the next group. This continued in twenty-­minute intervals from dawn ­until late after­noon. Reza walked by this crowd ­every day for a week. He knew he would soon join in despite the butterflies in his gut. And once he fi­nally did, it took him about three hours to get from the end to the front of the line. The density increased with ­every step. Shoulders pressed against one another. Reza lost the ability to move his hands. The pressure lifted Reza’s feet off the ground. He was at the mercy of the crowd. The gates opened. The horde moved from left to right to right to straight, sometimes ­toward the door, sometimes ­toward the wall by the door. Reza sailed into the yard amid the crowd. He looked around and searched for a glassless win­dow. He spotted it. Imam emerged. Reza locked eyes with him for a split second and then made the following sound, “Moooooooooooooooo. Mooooooooooooooo. Moooooooooooooo.” Just like a bewildered cow. “Mooooooooooooooo, Mooooooooooo, Moooooooooo.” Over and over again, “Moooooooooooo, Mooooooooooo.” He c­ ouldn’t stop. “Mooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.” Like a mad cow, “Mooooooooooooo. Mooo. Mooooooooooooooo.”4 When the crowd was pushed out of the yard and onto the street, and Reza’s feet touched the ground, he instantly fell into “a deep state of depression.” “What happened?” he asked himself. His despair did nothing but grow with ­every step. Tottering t­ oward his h ­ ouse, Reza became aware of his surroundings in a way he had not before. “The street waterways are so disgusting. . . . ​Why do cars honk their horns for no reason. . . . ​And who the hell is this homeless guy?” Reza wondered. He arrived by a school-­supply shop, which he passed e­ very day. A poster hung in the win­dow. Its backdrop was constituted by an uncanny shade of red, the same red that would replace the blue in the sky at the end of time on Judgment Day. The poster was foregrounded by four elephants in pairs facing each other. Their legs ­were peculiar, nothing but bones, wobbly bones, and as long as a giraffe’s. Reza darted into the shop. “What is this?” he asked. “Salvador Dali,” said the shop­keeper. “How strange,” said Reza. “How fucking strange,” he said again. He hobbled back out and began making his way ­toward his ­house. We see, and we s­ hall see more analytically l­ ater, that objects are themselves complicit in generating meaning. The moon is one such object. I pressed Reza with a question to which we both knew the answer. Of course, the moon had not projected Imam’s image on that night. But I asked Reza if he had, nevertheless, seen that image then. His ambivalence pushed me to press him on this question and to ask if he could take me through that night, step by step. And he

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did just that, providing in the pro­cess a detailed allegory of how he was afraid to stand on his rooftop, of what he was wearing, of how cold it was, of hearing the sound of his neighbor’s words echo as they called attention to the moon. Then Reza said, “I saw the image in a flash. And at any rate,” he continued, “I was sure then that the moon had indeed projected that image.” Hundreds of thousands believed they had seen Imam’s image on that night. This belief had come to be interwoven with the moon. And the moon is something real up ­there that has orbited around Earth since its very genesis. This attribute of the moon as positioned up t­ here, orbiting around us, extended to Khomeini an air of someplace e­ lse so that irrespective of how the moon became a medium, once it did, its own attribute of being situated beyond us, over and above us, merged with the final meaning/use of Khomeini for and among many of his followers. More specifically, it consolidated Khomeini’s transcendence for Reza. But Reza still has no explanation for why he made the sound of a bewildered cow upon seeing Khomeini. By the time that Khomeini took residence at the Refah School, he had become a sign of hagh (God/Good) in Shariati’s script. And Reza had become gradually immersed in Shariati’s discourse. He had already looked up at the sky to ask Khomeini to “save” him from the criminal Shah. And when Reza saw Khomeini’s image in the moon, albeit in a flash, he was at the deepest point of Shariati’s discourse, if we can imagine discourses as having depth. So why sound like a bewildered cow upon seeing Khomeini up close? “I ­don’t know, what do you do when you see God?” Reza responded. I followed this up with another question: “Then why the ensuing depression?” Reza had no answer for this ­either. Gell can provide some insight into Reza’s ensuing depression ­after seeing Khomeini on the moon. Gell explains that certain objects use formal complexity and technical virtuosity to create “a certain cognitive indecipherability” (1998:95), which may tantalize and frustrate the viewer in trying to recognize ­wholes and parts, continuity and discontinuity, synchrony and succession, generating a sense of captivation (Hoskins 2016:76). Gell defines captivation as “the demoralization produced by the spectacle of unimaginable virtuosity” (1988:71). As Hoskins explains, this is an effect created by our being unable to figure out how an object came into being (2006:76). While, for Gell, the conception of captivation is linked to technology and the artist’s skill in producing an incomprehensible object, we can extend his schemata to non-­technical objects like the moon, which have unintelligible competencies that generate similar forms of captivation. In other words, it was the moon’s incomprehensible material competencies that consolidated a transcendental Khomeini once it became associated with his image—an enigma that severely demoralized Reza. What is in­ter­est­ing, nevertheless, is that this demoralization—­animated by an inexplicable object—is the first sign of a profound transformation within

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Reza, that of turning his back on this God, shortly a­ fter having been at the deepest point of a discourse that in part constituted Khomeini as God. As we ­shall see, it is the first sign of Reza moving away from Shariati as well. As such, the “mooing” is a moment worth remembering, as it w ­ ill be repeated in dif­f er­ ent ways and in relation to dif­fer­ent objects over and over throughout Reza’s journey between two referential systems, two discourses, and two concrete-­ abstract worlds. Fi­nally, we are beginning to recognize the centrality of objects to Shariati’s discourse, and to Reza’s transformation into a Shariati subject. The particularities of ­women’s bodies, the posh attire of affluent ­people in Tehran, the dead ­women in the streets, the cloth drenched in their blood, Khomeini’s face, and the moon ­were all objects that became central to the formation of Shariati’s discourse for Reza. In other words, Shariati’s discourse would not have come into formation for Reza had it not spoken of ­those objects and proliferated through them. It was through t­ hese material t­ hings that Reza transformed into a Shariati subject, a pro­cess that Reza himself did not grasp at the time, and which helped instill a sense of depression within him upon seeing Imam as God. The Shifting ­Matter of Good and Evil An in­ter­est­ing conference had taken place in the backroom of the Refah School several hours prior to Reza’s acting like a bewildered cow in the schoolyard. Khomeini had held a meeting with Masood Rajavi, the leader of the notorious revolutionary group, the Mojahedin-­e Khalgh (MEK). ­Things got off to a poor start, as Imam’s security had prevented Rajavi and his confidants from entering the room u ­ nless they disarmed first. This led to a long chaotic spat that was only resolved by Imam’s intervention. Imam raised his hand for it to be kissed upon Rajavi’s arrival. Rajavi politely pushed it away and kissed Imam’s face instead. Rajavi then apologized for the pandemonium he had caused at the entrance, stating, “A revolutionary lives by his weapon,” to which Imam quipped, “A revolutionary’s weapon is the ­people, not his gun” (Institute for Po­liti­cal Research 2013:187). Imam continued, “I have heard a lot about you that I ­don’t like. But all of that is in the past. You are young, and you can reform your outlook. So go on and reform yourself, be a revolutionary. Stay with the ­people, follow Islam, and God ­will protect you” (2013:412). Imam’s son, Ahmad Agha, led Rajavi and his confidants out. Th ­ ere, in the hallways at the Refah School, he articulated Imam’s statement in clearer terms. If Rajavi and his followers wished to play a part in the emerging regime, they needed to accept three conditions: (1) Imam was the absolute leader of the revolution; (2) Rajavi had to distance himself from allied Marxists publicly and then fight against them with arms; and (3) Rajavi had to accept Imam’s

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friends as his friends and Imam’s enemies as his enemies (Institute for Po­liti­cal Research 2013:412–13). Rajavi accepted none of Imam’s terms. The MEK sought to preserve its identity and demanded a significant role in the new power arrangement in return for its contribution to overthrowing the Shah. Khomeini did not see their “contribution” as significant. “They w ­ ere all locked up in the Shah’s prison ­until I came back to Iran,” Khomeini said a­ fter the MEK crew had left the Refah School (Institute for Po­liti­cal Research 2013:414). The tensions between the MEK and Khomeini began prior to the revolution, when the MEK sent a liaison to speak with Imam during his exile in Najaf in the spring of 1972. This is how Imam recalled that meeting: They came to me and said that they wanted to fight the Shah with weapons, and wanted my blessing. They referred to the Qur’an and constantly spoke of God and the Prophet. So I asked to read their manifesto and saw that they had too many deviations. They w ­ ere talking about Marx and the dialectics. I pointed that out. They said, it was just knowledge of society. I said that that was not compatible with Islam. My overall assessment was that this crowd did not r­ eally believe in Islam but understood that if they wanted to get anything done in Iran, they had to do it through Islam. So they had synthesized Islam with Marx. I was not g­ oing to stand for that. (Institute for Po­liti­cal Research 2013:322) In fact, Masood Rajavi had distributed a memo while in the Shah’s prison in which he had set forth Marxism-­Leninism as objective science. The memo read, “It [Marxism-­Leninism] is the science of society and of re­sis­tance. It has nothing to do with religion and Islam. Much like physics. We cannot say cap­i­ tal­ist physics or Islamic physics. Physics is its own science and has its own rules. The same is true with Marxism” (Institute for Po­liti­cal Research 2013:339). It was precisely this claim’s implications that had worried Khomeini. Imam adhered to the same Hobbesian formula that equated knowledge with power. This perspective highlighted the MEK’s threat. Not only had they grounded Islam within Marxism, they had then portrayed the latter as “science” and thus as “objective.” This would have created a profound base of knowledge, which would have translated into a profound base of power. The question for Imam was thus: Where would he stand amid this sort of Islam? From where would he derive his authority? Unlike Hobbes, who compromised with scientist Robert Boyle to split the social from nature (Latour 1991), Khomeini did not back down. He would not split society from God, releasing the former to the MEK and limiting himself to the affairs of the latter. Shi’ite Islam would have one tradition with one spokesperson with authority over every­thing from sexual intercourse to the state’s foreign policy posture. “Be aware,” Khomeini said privately to his pupils

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in Najaf, “the MEK are more dangerous than Marxists” (Institute for Po­liti­cal Research 2013:339). Khomeini, nevertheless, remained publicly ­silent on the MEK. ­Because they had risked their lives to fight the Shah they w ­ ere viewed as heroes; opposing them would have been a po­liti­cal ­mistake. The MEK, too, knew better than to criticize Imam directly and publicly, for he was in a league of his own in terms of all ­things revolutionary. Still, Khomeini had always known that if the Shah w ­ ere to be overthrown, the MEK would have to be dealt with immediately afterward. The MEK too had arrived at a similar conclusion. “Our thinking was that if Khomeini did not compromise on a division of l­abor between God and society,” a former member of the MEK told me, “we would have no choice but to terminate him.” This was the clear math that had emerged between the two primary players in the lead-up to the revolution. Presence in the streets was ever more impor­tant now in light of Imam’s transformation from a revolutionary leader to a head of state. He had taken up the role of a mapmaker tasked with demarcating the state’s new po­liti­cal geography. State-­building was just coming into high gear, a constitution was being drafted, a transitional government was crystallizing, and some networks ­were moving into positions of influence while ­others w ­ ere pushed to the periphery. In the pro­cess, key strategic squabbles ­were ultimately settled in the streets by each faction’s foot soldiers. Imam had a vast army of revolutionaries called Hezbollahies. Hezb means “party”; Allah means “God”; and Hez­bollah means the “Party of God.” Hezbollahies ­were the masses that believed in, and fought for, Khomeini. In turn, when Khomeini spoke of the “­people,” as he often did, he referred primarily to Hezbollahies. Reza was one of ­these Hezbollahie street warriors. When Reza joined his first Hezbollahie rally, it was to crush a group of young ­women protesting against rumors of mandatory hijab. A ­woman I interviewed took part in ­these protests. “When the revolution took place,” she said, “we ­were in the streets trying to get rid of imperialism. But then Khomeini asked us to leave the streets and go back home.” The interlocutor listened to Khomeini at first. “But then,” she continued, “they started to say how the hijab must be mandatory. So we w ­ ere back on the streets saying that if you wanted the hijab you should have said it as we w ­ ere still fighting for the revolution.” Reza was not pleased with t­ hese w ­ omen’s open intransigence against Imam’s wishes. He marched on with the Hezbollahie counterrally, chanting “rosary ya tu sari” (­either put on a scarf or get clocked upside the head). The two groups arrived at the transitional government’s building that had been set up just a few months ­earlier. The ­women had de­cided to conduct a sitin ­there. An official walked out of the building and asked every­one to quiet down so he could address both groups. He then said, “We are in the midst of

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a revolution . . . ​we must not weaken the revolution but supplement it.” No sooner had the official finished his sentence than a young ­woman shouted, “Should we supply the revolution with carrot juice as a supplement?” The ­woman who had yelled had a round face with big cheeks, short, shiny black hair, and thick glasses. “It was a sweet face,” Reza recalled, “she was the spitting image of my cousin, Maryam.” Reza burst into laughter amid the crowd. He walked away from the rally chuckling uncontrollably. “­Really,” Reza quipped, “is carrot juice a good supplement for the revolution or what?” He arrived at the sidewalk, still giggling. “That was ­really funny,” he said to himself as he darted back home to tell his ­brother about the girl who looked just like Maryam. When Reza joined a Hezbollahie rally a few weeks ­later, it was to first interrupt, then crush MEK protestors. Hezbollahies marched ­toward the MEK gathering chanting “Death to Traitors.” Reza was prepared for confrontation with a stick in one hand and a blade in the other. Both crowds arrived at Vali Asr Street, squaring off against one another. What perplexed Reza was a boy, around his own age, sporting the same kind of homemade clothes that Reza’s grand­mother made, standing about six meters away with the rest of his MEK compatriots, crying uncontrollably. Reza looked at the boy’s face for a while, then eyed the crowd on each side, then looked up to his left where the sun had sunk into the horizon to proj­ect a shade of red onto the sky. It was similar to Salvador Dali’s red, the one that reflected the end of time on Judgment Day. Again, Reza felt as though he w ­ ere tuning in with a dif­f er­ent dimension of ­things. Tehran gave way to a surrealistic simulation of itself. The entire city transformed into a sealed-­off chamber where time stood still. Even the wind. A drop of time—­like a fraction of a second—­was let back into this chamber, allowing p ­ eople to move, albeit to an excruciatingly slow beat. Reza noticed saliva traveling in the direction of the crying boy. He traced the spit’s origin, a Hezbollahie’s mouth, his lips stretching into his cheeks on each side to reveal his canine teeth. Reza looked back at the crying boy. The Hezbollahie’s spit had not reached him yet. The further the spit traveled ­toward the boy, the more Reza lost his zeal. “That boy looks just like me,” said Reza to himself. He wobbled back to the sidewalk. It was Reza’s final rally as a supporter of Imam. Something had changed for Reza from within. He could no longer maintain the duality of fear and bravery. Recall that fear is bravery’s very condition of possibility. The zalem (oppressor) Shah had been a source of fear prior to the revolution, which had made an alliance with his nemesis, the mazlum (oppressed) Khomeini, a source of courage and thus plea­sure for Reza. But the shifting material referents of zalem and mazlum had blurred the line between Good and Evil, which had been crystal clear in the lead-up to the revolution. Mazlum had been constructed for Reza, in part, in relation to the materiality

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of the poor p ­ eople on Reza’s block—­boys who sported Ira­nian or homemade attire and cheap football shoes and smelled of body odor or rosewater. In other words, ­people who looked like the MEK boy Reza was supposed to fight, and like his cousin, Maryam. Opposing ­these ­people did not endow Reza with a sense of bravery. This meant that an alliance with Khomeini could no longer provide Reza with any form of courage. This was difficult for Reza to accept, for feeling brave had been a profound source of plea­sure for him, underpinning, to some extent, his desire to be a revolutionary and a follower of Imam. Thus Reza sought to reproduce the fear he had had of the Shah, this time in opposition to Imam. Reza, the same boy who had once seen Imam’s image on the moon, turned his back on Khomeini, and did so radically. Reza’s experience is not unique. Many revolutionaries understood their ­battle in terms of the concrete-­ abstract topography of Good versus Evil. This included po­liti­cal factions that both opposed and supported Khomeini. Reza and the twenty other revolutionaries I interviewed all belonged to dif­f er­ent po­liti­cal groups such as the MEK, Arman, Aksariat, Aghaliat, and Hezbollahies at vari­ous times during Iran’s revolutionary period. A common thread that connected them all was their fidelity to the b ­ attle between Good and Evil. But determining who was Good and who was Evil within this ­battle was susceptible to constant alterations—­a pro­cess that was animated by material objects. For Reza, in par­tic­u­lar, Ira­nian attire, cheap shoes, and Maryam’s face could not function as the repre­sen­ta­ tions of zalem (oppressor). Indeed, zalem had been, in part, constructed for Reza in relation to the posh objects of northern Tehran. Thus, the shifting materiality of zalem and mazlum created a g­ reat deal of confusion for Reza with regard to ­those he deemed Good or Evil. ­Things ­were fluid and a Hezbollahie might face the harsh real­ity that his camp did not represent Good, forcing him to look for it elsewhere, turning his blade against his former allies in the pro­cess. And what justified this blade, what gave it meaning, was the concrete-­abstract ­battle of Good versus Evil. Thus, despite the many po­liti­cal shifts for so many revolutionaries, what remained constant was the radical act itself. The stick. The slander. “History of Class Consciousness by Lukacs!” yelled the Marxist. “Dialectical and Historical Materialism!” shouted an MEK member. Each po­liti­cal group had put a piece of cloth on the pavement on a street adjacent to the University of Tehran, on which it had carefully positioned its primary texts. Marxists had a large pile t­ here ­every day, as did the MEK. But on occasion, and in between the larger pieces of cloth, a ­woman would be seen placing copies of a manifesto she had written herself, and with which she hoped to recruit members and start a new revolutionary organ­ization. It was 1980. Reza walked along this street several times. The first group he came across ­were the Communists. Reza approached their pile and was directed

Kh o m e i n i ’ s Thi n g s 47

to Comrade Kaveh. He was a handsome young man in his early twenties who looked a l­ ittle like Che Guevara with the same haircut, facial hair, and even the hat. “I am considering becoming a Communist,” said Reza. To which Comrade Kaveh replied, “Excellent!” He invited Reza for a cup of tea and they discussed historical materialism, the accumulation of capital, and the dialectics. Moved in part by how decent, respectful, and genuine Comrade Kaveh had been, Reza agreed to join. To Comrade Kaveh’s surprise, Reza then felt the urge to declare right then and t­ here that “God does not exist.” Comrade Kaveh handed him three books and a poster of Che Guevara as gifts before he departed. Reza contacted Comrade Kaveh a week ­later and said that he could no longer be a Communist. “­Because I cannot live without God,” said Reza. Comrade Kaveh responded, “You insisted on renouncing God yourself.” It did not ­matter. Reza wanted something in which he could fully immerse himself. He moved on. Next, Reza stumbled onto a pile with lots of Shariati books. The group was called Arman. Visibly religious and very hospitable, they liked to sit in circles, drink tea, eat sweets, and talk endlessly. This was perfect for Reza. When Reza asked about Arman’s history, he was informed that the organ­ ization had assembled four de­cades before the revolution. Its highest strata had achieved the rank of Imamate (becoming akin to saints). They had, nevertheless, de­cided against g­ oing public, as most ordinary ­people had not yet “awakened from their slumber.” Thus Arman was an organ­ization for the ­future and had permitted a few of its mid-­ranking members, such as Majid and Hussein, to make themselves vis­i­ble in order to recruit righ­teous youth like Reza, only to go under­ground and reappear when the time was right. Arman had a discreet office in southern Tehran, a brick ­house near Reza’s neighborhood. Four knocks in a row, a pause, then two more. That was the entry code. Once inside, Majid, who worked at a kebab shop during the day, was the first person one would encounter. He sat b ­ ehind a desk by the office door similar to the desk ­behind which he sat at the kebab shop. In fact, Majid had or­ga­nized Arman’s office space similar to how his kebab shop was or­ga­nized. ­There ­were even four round ­tables in the office, with four chairs around each. Unlike Majid, who was in charge of the administration of Arman, Hussein oversaw lectures and training. ­Every text he introduced was handwritten by Arman’s top strata still in hiding and labeled “Volume 1 of 23 Volumes.” Reza grew close to Majid and Hussein, along with the thirty to forty new recruits. No sooner had he finished reading Arman’s texts than he was tasked with distributing them on the street adjacent to the University of Tehran. When Reza and his crew placed their cloth on the pavement they noticed that they had situated themselves by the MEK pile. Arman and the MEK had many points of contention. They debated with, argued against, and shouted at each other. But given that both groups w ­ ere

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t­ here ­every day, Reza and the MEK recruiter, who was about the same age, had begun to greet one another. Sometimes they made small talk as well. And when it rained, they even shared the same umbrella. They had become friends. One Friday eve­ning the MEK recruiter ran up to Reza to ask ­whether he would watch over his pile for about twenty minutes. A fight had erupted a few blocks away, and he and his crew needed to squash it. Reza agreed, leaving the Arman pile to his colleagues and standing b ­ ehind the MEK pile u ­ ntil his friend returned. No sooner had he positioned himself ­behind the MEK pile than bystanders began directing their questions at him. “Why is Rajavi anti-­clerical?” asked one. “What is the prob­lem between the MEK and Arman?” asked another. Feeling the burden of the MEK’s entire organ­ization on his shoulders so suddenly, an organ­ization he neither liked nor agreed with, Reza began to answer the questions from the MEK’s perspective. He was not about to betray his friend and remain ­silent in the face of scathing criticism of the MEK. That would have been unethical. He stood ­there and refuted anyone who bad-­mouthed the MEK, and did so fervently. Once his friend fi­nally returned, and Reza went back to the Arman pile, he switched positions. He began defending Arman against the MEK again. And did so fervently. Reza explains: You see what ridicu­lous kids we ­were? How ridicu­lous our situation was? ­Doesn’t it look like we w ­ ere playing an enjoyable game? I had no idea that Khomeini and the MEK had prob­lems g­ oing back a de­cade before the revolution. I had no idea that they intended to destroy each other. I had no idea of the bad blood between them. I thought that they w ­ ere playing the same game as us. G ­ oing from one shop to the next, arguing with this and shouting at that. For me, ­there was no hatred, even against ­those with whom I ­stopped speaking over po­liti­cal divisions. We all understood it as an enjoyable play, like how one might get fouled in a game of football. You see, I hated none of the revolutionaries. So when mass arrests took place. When blood was spilled. When, within the span of two to three years, five thousand ­people ­were executed by the regime. Listen carefully now. When five thousand w ­ ere killed by the regime. When the Kayhan newspaper began publishing a daily column titled “Executions.” Exhibiting ­every day, forty to fifty pictures of ­people executed in the previous twenty-­four hours. When I saw in that column a picture of that MEK boy who had asked me to watch over his shop by the university. When I saw a picture of Comrade Kaveh on that column. Knowing that neither of them had been that dif­fer­ent from me. I could no longer understand what was happening. That is a story I just ­don’t know how to tell.

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ks: Could you please take me step by step through that day when you saw Comrade Kaveh’s picture in the newspaper’s “Executions” column? reza: One second. [His chin drops as he takes off his glasses and wipes away tears with his thumb and index fin­ger.] ks: Would you like a glass of ­water? [I ask him ­after a long minute.] reza: Yes, please. [He rises and walks to the balcony. He remains ­there for ten minutes. That was the end of the discussion on the executions.] Two ­things stand out ­here. First, we see the hybridity of ­things and ­humans through the multifaceted ways in which the two are interwoven. Reza’s biographical vantage point illuminates how material t­ hings expand, or even bring into existence, the subject. ­Things like corpses, the cloth drenched in blood, and the moon w ­ ere central to constituting Khomeini as God for Reza. Enchantment with this material God, however, demoralized Reza upon locking eyes with Khomeini, even if for a short moment. This event paved the way for Reza to turn his back on Khamenei—­a path that was itself animated by objects that unsettled Shariati’s ­battle of Good versus Evil. For Reza, Evil had been generated, in part, in relation to distinct material referents, including posh cars, foreign cologne, ties, and shaved f­ aces. In contrast, the Ira­nian attire sported by the MEK fighter Reza saw on Vali Asr Street, the thick glasses that the young activist ­woman was wearing, and Maryam’s face could not function as the referents of Evil in Reza’s world. Thus Khomeini, whose vast Hezbollahie army had opted to crush the MEK and the ­woman who looked like Maryam, could no longer operate as the repre­sen­ta­tion of Good for Reza. Reza, then, sought to reconstitute the b ­ attle of Good versus Evil anew, this time in opposition to Khomeini. Such was the fluid and material nature of Shariati’s revolutionary discourse. Second, the regime’s mass killings and the MEK’s response both had lasting impacts on Reza and became an integral part of his voice. We ­shall see signs of this in the ensuing chapters. Conclusion In this chapter, I explored how a revolutionary subject was born at the intersection of materiality and language in pre-­revolutionary Iran. In so ­doing, I pursued two parallel inquiries. First, I homed in on the agency of ­things by focusing on what objects do as well as what they mean. Using life history as a vantage point, I showed that certain dazzling objects registered for Reza through his senses, complementing what can be communicated in language rather than duplicating what can be said in words. ­These objects ranged from

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the particularities of ­women’s bodies to the moon—­things that brought a new subject, a dif­fer­ent Reza, into being. In other words, I demonstrated how enchantment with certain objects animated Reza’s shifting subject positions. Second, I illustrated that the same objects afforded distinct words and concepts. Material ­things like Ira­nian rosewater, posh attire, ­women’s bodies, and corpses mobilized Shariati’s key terms such as “Imperialism,” “oppressor,” and “oppressed” for Reza. Indeed, Reza’s transformation into a revolutionary subject occurred at the merger of ­these ­things and terms. Which is to say that Shariati’s key words attained a certain revolutionary fervor through objects about which they spoke and by means of which they proliferated. To be sure, scholars of Iran are correct to say that Shariati’s ideas w ­ ere constitutive of the Ira­nian Revolution. But so too ­were everyday asymmetrical ­things. The revolution was, indeed, messy and the revolutionaries w ­ ere never a homogeneous group. But their differences ­were not simply rooted in their contrasting preimagined ideas about their pre­sent and their dreams of the ­future. Rather, the contingency of everyday objects, in part, generated this messiness, enabling many dif­f er­ent transformations within the revolutionaries. In sum, this chapter showed that everyday objects both afforded and diffused the agencies that traversed the revolution. The next chapter fuses Reza’s life history with the po­liti­cal economy and semiotics analy­sis of ­things and terms to illustrate the assemblage of domination as a form that social relations took at the merger of materiality and language in Tehran between 1981 and 1989, with wide-­ranging po­liti­cal consequences.

2 Domination THE STABILIT Y OF ­THINGS AND TERMS

As soon as you believe social aggregates can hold their own being propped up by “social forces,” then objects vanish from view and the magical and tautological force of society is enough to hold ­every ­thing with, literally, no ­thing. — ­B RUNO L ATOUR , R E A S S E M B LI N G T H E S O C I A L

Before I act on anything, before I invest in anyone or any ideal, this “I” is already acted on; in fact, only by being acted on can I emerge as an “I” at all; and so, in this sense, I am inserted into a signifying chain that I never chose. —­J UD IT H B UTLER , “ L ACL AU , M A R X , A ND T H E P OWER O F NEG AT I ON ”

Departing from the canons of the material and cultural turns, this chapter emphasizes the shortcomings that each body of work has shown in addressing po­liti­cal transformations. It argues that shifting relations between materiality and language occasion dif­f er­ent kinds of politics. Specifically, the chapter illustrates how the distinct regularization of public ­things, including dead bodies from the Iran-­Iraq conflict, muffled an alternative liberal referential system in Tehran during the 1980s. In the absence of an alternative referential system, relations between words and material referents became stable at the level of multitudes, suppressing public pro­cesses of performativity and resignification of signs in ways that might have threatened the centrality of the revolutionary leader, Imam Khomeini. As a result, Khomeini never seemed to face the possibility of defeat in politics between 1981 and 1989. 51

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The chapter, then, advances our understanding of strategic po­liti­cal transformations that occurred at the dawn of the Ira­nian Revolution by critically engaging cultural explanations of this epoch. Indeed, a distinct kind of h ­ uman exceptionalism dominates the lit­er­a­ture on revolutionary Iran, whereby the domains of the subject, meaningful action, rational calculations, and social ­will and aggregate take primacy over contingent material objects. The result fails to acknowledge that while everyday material ­things have no intentionality, they have agency and are constitutive of the Islamic Republic. By focusing on the relations between public objects and words, this chapter offers an alternative way of conceptualizing the social field that emerged in Tehran during Khomeini’s leadership. It also illustrates that material ­things knit geopolitics into provincial discourses in Iran. In so d ­ oing, the ensuing sections highlight how reflecting on the relations between materiality and language can help us arrive at a more productive analy­sis of the international and the local. International warfare is one of the key domains of study in international relations (IR). The primary ­things that such conflicts produce are corpses. And yet, as Jessica Auchter (2015:17) notes, dead bodies have remained out of IR’s purview so that while the discipline is built on the backs of dead bodies, it fails to examine ­these corpses in their generative potential as material ­things. This chapter illustrates the po­liti­cal implications of the way the primary m ­ atter of international warfare—­that is, corpses—­came to be woven with an Islamist vocabulary in Iran during the 1980s. This analy­sis sheds light on how a distinctive background of shared meaning was created at the merger of corpses/objects and provincial discourses, illuminating how geopolitics came to be lived and made sense of through t­ hings and terms by everyday Ira­ni­ans. Fi­nally, the chapter rethinks domination from the vantage point of the relationships between materiality and language. Two key gaps persist in the so­cio­ log­i­cal and anthropological canons of domination. First, this lit­er­a­ture does not provide an adequate analy­sis of the unlikely ­things that engender and sustain domination. Second, it fails to offer a satisfactory account of the relations between the objects of domination and the nature of private dissent. This chapter addresses both lacunas by merging Reza’s biography with the semiotics and po­liti­cal economy analy­sis of ­things and terms. It shows that everyday objects can transform into generative agents of domination when their appearance, disappearance, and standardization regularize our public vocabularies, po­liti­ cal discourses, and backgrounds of shared meaning. Moreover, an analy­sis of Reza’s life history account illuminates how even private dissent can be imbued with public objects and constructed in terms of them. The chapter thus theorizes domination by exploring the multifaceted relations between materiality, language, and agency.

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­These arguments develop in several stages. First, I bring the recent interdisciplinary material turn into conversation with the lit­er­a­ture on revolutionary Iran and, specifically, with key works on Khomeini. I then provide an empirical and analytical account of the relations between materiality, language, and politics in Tehran, within an international context, and conclude by theorizing that distinct form that social relations took as domination. The Revolution’s Missing Objects A human-­centric approach pervades most, if not all, of the lit­er­a­ture on the 1979 Ira­nian Revolution and its aftermath. For forty years, scholars who have observed and described revolutionary Iran have offered narratives that hinge on po­liti­cal subjectivities, institutions, and technical media, with vari­ous forms of strategies and levels of interest, ideological immersion, and cultural and religious disposition. The result fails to take into account the material ­drivers that are central to the formation and conceptualization of politics in the Islamic Republic. While my aim h ­ ere is not to offer a comprehensive survey of the lit­er­a­ture on the revolution and its aftermath (a nearly impossible task), I would like to highlight the ideational approaches that pervade our conception of the Islamic Republic by focusing on some of the key works that address Khomeini’s ascendance in revolutionary Iran. Scholars of Iran have provided ample discussion of Khomeini. Guided by the cultural turn’s schemata, the ­earlier conversations on this topic are ­shaped ­either by Max Weber’s notion of the charismatic leader (see, e.g., Kimmel and Tavakol 1986; Arjomand 1988; Ashraf 1994) or by Emile Durkheim’s notion of “anomie” (see, e.g., Benard and Khalilzad 1986; Dabashi 1997).1 More recently, Arshin Adib-­Moghaddam’s edited volume (2014), which brings together some of the leading scholars in the field, has offered a critical reading of Khomeini. This reading, however, is similarly framed by a culturalist scheme, which focuses on Khomeini’s po­liti­cal philosophy and its application to politics in Iran, his stance ­toward the West, and his attitude t­ oward gender. Neither body of work—­ that inspired by Weber and Durkheim nor the more critical examination of Khomeini—­considers how contingent mute objects might have authorized, allowed, afforded, encouraged, permitted, suggested, influenced, blocked, and rendered pos­si­ble Khomeini’s charisma or the relations between his po­liti­cal philosophy and a range of social phenomena in Iran and beyond. In their classic work Small Media, Big Revolution (1994), Annabelle Sreberny and Ali Mohammadi offer a dif­fer­ent explanation of Khomeini’s rise during the revolutionary pro­cess by drawing on the sociology of communication and particularly Jurgen Habermas’s work (1989) on the public sphere. Specifically, they show how embedded cultural modes of communication

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coupled with technical media such as audio and video cassettes mobilized a revolutionary public prior to and during the tumultuous revolution. Sreberny and Mohammadi’s thinking about media is thus s­ haped by a model of communication based on the exchange of meaningful messages from producers to receivers, which is pervaded by the former’s intentionality. To consider media solely in terms of technical media, however, limits our conception of mediated communication. Indeed, many objects that are neither traditionally understood as media nor driven by any specific intentionality, and whose primary message is their own materiality, come to play an equally impor­tant role in constituting publics. The emphasis on technical media from print to electronic ignores a completely dif­f er­ent, and equally significant, register through which a revolutionary public centered on Khomeini was assembled by means of everyday material t­ hings. Even when po­liti­cal economists and economic historians seek to bypass cultural explanations of the Islamic Republic, their work is pervaded by the same idealism that shapes the lit­er­a­ture (see Nomani and Behdad 2006; Karshenas and Moshaver 2012; Maloney 2015). Take, for instance, Farhad Nomani and Sohrab Behdad’s influential study of class structures in Iran during the 1980s. For Nomani and Behdad, a populist-­revolutionary discourse, which began a quest for an “Islamic utopia” and sought to abolish class divisions, laid the groundwork for the material transformations that followed (2006:5). Nomani and Behdad thus presuppose a certain primacy that the domain of ideas holds over ­matter. As we ­shall see, however, the muffling of class distinctions by means of the regularization of public objects, and the proliferation of Islamist ideals, occurred through one another so that t­ hese w ­ ere indeed not two separate pro­cesses but one. Bringing together po­liti­cal economy and interpretive approaches, Asef Bayat has offered one of the most impor­tant works of po­liti­cal sociology dealing with Khomeini’s reign in the Islamic Republic—­one that he calls “Islamism” (2007).2 Yet Bayat’s discussion of Islamism is also embedded within the domain of ideas. “Islamism,” Bayat explains, was a top-­down strategy that the state imposed on the public space, state apparatus, and individual be­hav­ior (2007:50). Workplaces, factories, offices, banks, and hospitals became sites of moral prescription. The sexes ­were segregated and ­women veiled. Bright colors dis­appeared. The black and gray of ­women’s veils and men’s facial hair dominated the urban visual scene and mirrored an aspect of “Islamists’ draconian” control of body, color, and taste (Bayat 2007:54). Th ­ ese transformations, according to Bayat, ­were the manifestations of a strategy of “top-­down” Islamism. But why, we might ask, did this specific vision of Islamism—­draconian control of bodies—­proliferate rather than less draconian, more draconian, or other draconian visions? Surely ­there is diversity in views not only within the

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Shi’ite world but also between Shi’ite seminaries within Iran itself, such that dif­f er­ent sorts of Islamism could have been instituted. Bayat himself acknowledges that “infighting within the Islamic state showed disagreement over such Islamist vision” (2007:54). Even “revolutionary zeal” cannot explain why that specific vision of Islamism prevailed rather than ­others. While Bayat speaks, briefly, of objects of the urban public, along with the dead bodies produced during the eight-­year Iran-­Iraq conflict, he does not seem to view ­these objects as implicated in a two-­way relationship with what he characterizes as Islamism. At least he does not develop their interconnections as such. Rather, we get the sense that Islamism is set forth as an already ­imagined and given content and plays an organ­izing structural role in constituting the nation, the urban public space, and the individual. I would like to suggest that this view is problematic, and, as we ­shall see, the Islamist discourse that emerged during Khomeini’s reign in postrevolutionary Iran did so to the extent that it had public objects it spoke about and proliferated through. Lastly, the few works on revolutionary Iran that emphasize the significance of material ­things do not stipulate objects in ways that push our conception of materiality beyond the insights offered by the cultural turn. Take, for instance, Naghmeh Sohrabi’s essay titled “Books as Revolutionary Objects in Iran” (2016). Sohrabi asks us to consider books not as mere couriers of meaningful content but as meaningful ­things in their own right, as objects around which activism was defined prior to the revolution in Iran. And yet, for Sohrabi, what endows books with meaning is the politico-­discursive milieu during the latter years of the Shah’s reign. Books transform into subversive objects, for instance, ­because the Pahlavi state was highly sensitive to the possession and distribution of them. In other words, a certain po­liti­cal context occasions what use the object—­the book—­will have at a par­tic­u­lar moment. Sohrabi’s approach to objects is thus similar to Arjun Appadurai’s (1986) and Igor Kopytoff ’s (1986) contributions to the cultural turn during the 1980s, which sought to illuminate the social life of ­things, showing how politico-­discursive fields inscribe material ­things with value. The drawback in the culturalist lit­er­a­ture discussed so far is, therefore, the tendency to presuppose notions of power, discourse, and po­liti­cal context and trace their involvement in pro­cesses of the materialization of ­things and how objects are rendered meaningful, without providing any recourse to understanding how the very materiality of ­things generates meaning, constitutes discourse, and occasions po­liti­cal fields. Inspired partially by Science and Technology Studies (STS), the heterogeneous material turn tends to take a dif­f er­ent approach to objects: first, by situating one’s inquiry not within a certain po­liti­cal context ­after it has been brought into being but at the moment of its assemblage, and second, by considering how the very materiality of ­things transforms a prior set of concrete-­abstract relations in order to generate that

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context. Timothy Mitchell offers an exceptional example of this sort of approach to m ­ atter in Carbon Democracy (2011), which focuses on coal (as solid material) and oil (as fluid material) to show how the very material difference between the two fossil fuels helped occasion two distinct po­liti­cal systems in Eu­rope and the ­Middle East, respectively. The point ­here is not to romanticize material objects but to deromanticize the subject and the domain of intentional meaningful action. The material turn canon, however, is not without its flaws. Sociologists and anthropologists inspired by this body of work have often failed to address the specificity of the relations between materiality and language. This shortcoming has also crept into the discipline of international relations. Many IR scholars have argued for starting a conversation with the recent material turn (see Nexon and Pouliot 2013; Squire 2015). The goal is to understand how some of the insights and methodological tools provided by the material turn can help us better conceptualize the international. In the pro­cess, a number of provocative essays have pushed us to consider how certain t­ hings, from passports to garbage to microbes, constitute the international (see Salter 2015, 2016). The strength of this emerging lit­er­a­ture is that it moves our idea of the international beyond the domain of rational calculations and illustrates instead the generative ­matter of IR. The weakness of this body of work, however, is that, similar to their counter­parts within the disciplines of sociology and anthropology, IR scholars interested in the material turn have a tendency to privilege ­things over language.3 This is a prob­lem, especially if we take seriously the cultural turn’s criticism of a strictly object-­oriented approach. “It ­will not be pos­si­ble,” says Butler, “to look at non-­discursive ­things [objects] when it turns out that our very way of delimiting and conceptualizing [them] . . . ​depends on the formative power of a certain conceptual discourse” (Butler and Connolly 2000:27). In other words, ­every time we speak of an object, we are already caught in a chiasmus relation with language. As Latour explains, materiality and language are ontologically connected, so that to speak of one without the other is to offer a half-­sighted perspective (1991). If scholars of the cultural turn have failed, so to speak, to acknowledge the organ­izing structural role that m ­ atter plays in the formation of language, scholars inspired by the material turn must avoid making the same ­mistake in the reverse order—­that is, by failing to acknowledge the organ­izing structural role that language plays in the formation of materiality. This chapter focuses on t­ hings and terms to highlight how reflecting on the relations between the two as generative actors can help us better conceptualize the international and the Islamic Republic. On the one hand, it conceives of objects as distinct types of mediums that are dif­f er­ent from technical media in impor­tant ways. Whereas print, electronic, and digital media often function as ­simple transporters of meaningful content from producers to receivers, and are pervaded by the former’s intentionality, public objects can communicate

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by means of their very materiality. ­These objects can transform into po­liti­cal mediums, which may not permit just any form of signification. A dead body from the Iran-­Iraq conflict, for instance, revealed the ontological indiscernibility of medium and world for many Ira­ni­ans, permitting the invocation and mobilization of distinct sets of signifiers that ­were part of the provincial historical text, even if ­those signifiers had not been extensively used for some time. The more dead bodies as mediums circulated across Iran between 1981 and 1989, the more terms such as “martyr” and “sacrifice” proliferated, occasioning a new referential system with a bias against the body—­one that Bayat calls “Islamism” and the revolutionaries called the “culture of martyrdom.” Far from a top-­down strategy, the institutionalization of “Islamism” or “martyrdom” in Iran thus occurred through the multiplication of corpses from an international conflict. In other words, dead bodies produced during an extrinsic war, along with the provincial terms they mobilized, brought about a new referential system of martyrdom during the 1980s, and this was but one way through which the generative ­matter of the “international” ­shaped a common background of shared meaning within Iran. On the other hand, this chapter recognizes the key role that discourse plays in shaping our material world by showing that just as the language of martyrdom was brought to life by way of material objects in Iran, that language with a bias against the body, in turn, led to the elimination of other material t­ hings that pertained to bodily pleasures. ­Women’s hair, bright attire, luxury items, and so forth—­all discursively relating to bodily pleasures—­were pushed out of the public and into the private domain. Liberal terms such as “freedom” and “plurality” vanished from public use in the pro­cess, for ­these words no longer had material ­things to refer to and circulate through, highlighting the ontological linkages between ­things and terms. The liberal referential system was thus muffled during the 1980s in Iran, with wide-­ranging po­liti­cal consequences. In the absence of an alternative liberal referential system, pro­cesses of resignification and performativity that might have threatened the centrality of the revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, w ­ ere stifled at the level of multitudes. What emerged was a social field in which Khomeini attained dominance. My thesis, as such, is that words primarily entered public vocabularies in Iran by way of the proliferation of objects they signified. The regularization of objects from walls to bodies to food was thus central to the regularization of public vocabularies and po­liti­cal discourses. In what follows, I show that relations between objects and language generated what Bayat calls “Islamism,” or what the revolutionaries called the “culture of martyrdom.” In the pro­cess, I illustrate how a transcendental Khomeini came into being at the merger of material t­ hings and words. This argument develops in three stages. First, I explore the interconnections between Khomeini and the “culture of martyrdom,” and the former’s centrality to the latter, by turning to documentary

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filmmaker Morteza Avini. I then show how the regularization of public objects occasioned the culture of martyrdom as a referential system. Second, I illustrate that the further regularization of public objects muffled the liberal background of shared meaning in Iran during the same epoch. Fi­nally, I discuss the po­liti­cal consequences of the rise of the culture of martyrdom and the elimination of liberalism as referential systems along with the lived experience of that social milieu by focusing on Reza’s life history account. Let us now turn to Avini, whose endless and spectacular raw footage of the Iran-­Iraq ­battle paints a peerless portrait of the culture of martyrdom. Proliferation of Dead Bodies and the Islamist Vocabulary of Martyrdom The geopo­liti­cal conflict that tran­spired between the United States and Iran shortly ­after the revolution culminated in a conflict between Iran and Iraq. While the United States initially supported Iraq during this conflict, Washington soon ­adopted a strategy whereby both states—­Iran and Iraq—­would balance one another without gaining a clear victory (Hiro 1990). This conflict, as such, dragged on for eight years. Documentary filmmaker Morteza Avini followed the journeys of young men as they left their families ­behind to seek martyrdom on the battlefield. The question Avini sought to answer through each documentary was: What ­were ­these men rushing to die for? Avini postulated that the body and the soul w ­ ere clearly demarcated and that Western history had been, by and large, both written on and driven by material ­things such as the body, with each era linked to some sort of new material and technological innovation. But the unwritten history was that of the soul. And the history of the soul, Avini explained, was the history of the prophets and imams (referring to the twelve holy Shi’ite imams). Yet Avini had implicitly elevated Khomeini to that same level in his own work by claiming that he too had arrived to write the next chapter of the soul’s rec­ord. It was a proj­ect of historic significance, spearheaded by a man with revelatory knowledge of the unknown, in need of willing soldiers to help complete this mission. What Avini captured w ­ ere hundreds of thousands of ­these soldiers, driven by the same love as his, rushing to die for their master, time ­after time, in documentary ­after documentary. Hessam appears in one of Avini’s films (1985, Season 2). The footage of him, a seventeen-­year-­old with thin facial hair, has a 1980s feel. He stands outside his ­house on a narrow street. His m ­ other walks out with a full black hijab, a Qur’an, and a bowl of ­water. “Son, if you are martyred, seek God’s forgiveness for us all,” she says. Hessam responds, “I am nothing.” The young man’s ­sister, also in full black hijab, walks out with a two-­year-­old in her arms. Avini asks how she feels

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about Hessam leaving for ­battle. “Honor” and “pride,” she responds. She shows her two-­year-­old to the camera and says, “He ­will follow in his ­uncle’s footsteps.” Avini then asks Hessam why he wants to go to ­battle. “Imam ordered us to rush to the front line,” he says, stating it in such a matter-­of-­fact way that it is as though it needs no further articulation. Hessam is smiling. He is relaxed. The next scene shows a single block of Hezbollahies marching ­toward the Iraqi border. A revolutionary song has been dubbed on this scene. It runs: “Ay lashkare saheb zaman, amadeh bash, amadeh bash” (Lo, The Army of the Master of Time prepare yourselves, prepare yourselves).4 Meanwhile, each soldier has a piece of cloth tied around his head, similar to a headband, emblazoned with dif­f er­ent words such as Allah-­o Akbar (God is ­Great!), Ya Hussein (the third Shiite imam), and Khomeini. The lines between God, Imam Hussein, and Khomeini are thus blurred. The dubbed ­music drops out and we hear the diminished sound of soldiers chanting: “koja mirim? karbala. Ba ki mirim? Ruhollah” (Where do we go? To Karbala. With whom do we go? Ruhollah). Ruhollah is an Arabic word that means “God’s soul.” It is also the first name of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The next scene shows a battalion of about six hundred soldiers preparing for an operation. They are in possession of folded portable bridges to cross the wide trenches the Iraqis had prepared and filled with ­water. A commander speaks among them, stating how difficult the night w ­ ill be. “Every­one is waiting to see what happens with this decisive operation,” he says. “Imam is waiting,” he continues; and no sooner does he utter Imam’s name than soldiers begin to weep. The commander cries as well. He then says, “I want you to know that I am not your commander. Like our beloved Imam said, our only commander is God.” Soldiers initiate a pro­cess of immersing themselves into what is already a blurred conglomeration of Khomeini, Imam Hussein, and God by way of preparing for martyrdom. Hessam is in high spirits. He kisses each of his friends three times. He kisses and then hugs the commander for what seems a minute. None of them are staying ­behind, they only say farewell in preparation for martyrdom. Avini’s camera then zooms onto the river in the background and the following narration begins: The Sun burning the edges of this river reveals a historic message. . . . ​That martyrdom and sacrifice are what keep our revolution alive. Our revolution circulates through the veins of our martyrs. Therein lies the secret of calling Imam Hussein the blood of God. For he is the blood of hagh (Good), which pumped out of the heart of Karbala [where Imam Hussein was martyred in 680]. And if you want the truth, the Sun has not set on Karbala. This caravan before us is the continuation of the caravan of Karbala. (Avini 1983, Season 2; emphasis added)

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The last scene shows a dot emerging in the distance. From the entire battalion that left for the operation, only one remained. Hessam, who was in charge of his commander’s communication system, had ­these final words: Send my Salaam to Imam [Khomeini], tell him we w ­ ill not let him down, tell him, God willing, we w ­ ill try to break their line, we w ­ ill seek martyrdom to­night. (Avini 1983, Season 2) All of this was an outright triumph for Khomeini. However, ­things had not started off this way. Many anti-­Khomeinist groups rushed to the front line when Saddam first invaded southern Iran in 1980. Th ­ ese groups had a number of dif­f er­ent motivations, from “defending the nation” to fighting against “Imperialism,” so that anti-­Khomeinist factions such as the MEK and Marxists, as well as many intellectuals, all fought against Saddam u ­ nder their own banners. The accumulation of dead bodies, however, enabled the public proliferation of the terms “martyrdom” and “sacrifice,” words that came to be interwoven with Khomeini. Soon, anti-­Khomeinist groups w ­ ere purged from the war. They w ­ ere replaced by many Hezbollahies, like Hessam, who saw Khomeini as their guide and martyrdom as their objective. Each martyr’s image helped expand the state’s media cir­cuit in the pro­cess. Tele­vi­sion and radio w ­ ere hardly the media cir­cuit’s only outlets that projected martyrdom. City municipalities began to publicize martyrdom by transforming public walls into massive portraits of ­those killed. As one of my interlocutors recalled, “young ­faces of dead soldiers began to fill the walls on ­every block.” The Ministry of Education took similar steps. The names of younger dead soldiers, usually u ­ nder the age of fourteen, appeared in elementary and m ­ iddle school books. “My son’s fourth grade lit­er­a­ture book,” said another interlocutor, “had several stories about, and a drawing of, a child soldier.” “The most famous of ­these stories,” she continued, “was about a young boy held up as a hero for strapping himself with bombs and detonating them near an Iraqi tank.”5 ­Every day, a new location was renamed ­after a dead soldier. “Mehr was the name of my street,” said a third interlocutor, “which was changed to Shahid Behjati ­after Mr. Behjati’s older son died on the front line.” He added that “when two more boys from the same street w ­ ere martyred, they renamed the block’s tiny alleyways ­after them.” ­Every week, hundreds of corpses arrived back in Tehran; from east to west, north to south, daily public funerals had become the norm. Avini, the f­ uture ideologue of a new generation of Hezbollahies, was more or less unknown at this time ­because his documentaries and tele­vi­sion programs ­were lost amid every­thing ­else that also generated martyrdom. Thus, dead bodies as public objects and their vari­ous signs ­were central to the proliferation of terms such as “martyr” and “sacrifice,” enabling the formation of martyrdom as a referential system (see figures 1 and 2).

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Changes in the number of times the terms “martyr” and “martyrdom” ­ ere found in Kayhan, Etelaat, and Jomhuri-­e Eslami newspapers by way of w purposive sampling (1979–89). FIGURE 1.

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Changes in the number of times the term “sacrifice” was found in Kayhan, Etelaat, and Jomhuri-­e Eslami newspapers by way of purposive sampling (1979–89). FIGURE 2.

It is often noted that the po­liti­cal environment right a­ fter the revolution—­ that is, between 1979 and mid-1980—­was remarkably tolerant. W ­ omen ­were able to protest rumors of mandatory hijab in mass numbers across Tehran, vari­ ous po­liti­cal factions published their newspapers freely, many anti-­Khomeinist groups joined the b ­ attle against Saddam, and t­ here was no decisive sign of the implementation of the sort of draconian prohibitions on the body that would emerge ­later. It was only with the gradual accumulation of dead bodies from the Iran-­Iraq conflict that a par­tic­ul­ar politico-­religious discourse within Islam was ­really mobilized. The daily accumulation and circulation of ­these dead bodies and the signs that referred to them ­were complicit in the proliferation of the

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vocabulary of martyrdom across the public. The claim by many scholars of Iran, like Bayat, that “Islamism” was established in a “top-­down” fashion therefore seems only partially accurate. For what Bayat calls “Islamism” and the revolutionaries called the “culture of martyrdom” to have come into formation still required public objects (dead bodies) to refer to and circulate through. This is all the truer away from the battlefield and across cities such as Tehran. It would be difficult to consider how the vocabulary of martyrdom would have proliferated across the public in Tehran and been institutionalized in the way it was without the dead bodies it came to refer to and circulate through. However, just as a “culture of martyrdom” proliferated as a referential system, it also regularized public objects in a distinct way. Recall that Avini had emphasized that the body and the soul w ­ ere clearly demarcated. From this perspective, the source of all impurity—­the foundation for all earthly pleasures—­was the body. And martyrdom was the ultimate rejection of the body. Thus, while the act of terminating the body was at the apex of the culture of martyrdom, this referential system, on the ­whole, endorsed as many prohibitions on the body as pos­si­ble.6 Let us now turn to how the implementation of prohibitions on the body unfolded and explore the sort of politics this pro­cess occasioned. The Regularization of Public Objects in Iran This section provides an empirical account of how the referential system of martyrdom regularized a series of objects and mass media infrastructures to constitute a media cir­cuit and thus a certain public. By “public,” I mean the space of visibility.7 ­Here, public refers to “open” or “available to a multiplicity” (Thompson 1995:121). What is public is what is vis­i­ble for all or many to see or hear. What is private, by contrast, is what is hidden from view and restricted to a circle of ­people (Thompson 1995:122). Thus, visibility at the level of multitudes is key to publicness. A media cir­cuit is that which enables the public. It includes technical media, from print to electronic to digital. It includes physical space, from expressways to parks. And it includes public objects, from the moon to walls to bodies. While this section shows that technical media, physical space, and public objects worked in tandem to generate a distinct po­liti­cal field, it pays par­tic­ul­ar attention to public objects. Specifically, the ensuing sections show that beyond technical media, public objects played a constitutive role in establishing a new po­liti­cal field in Iran during Khomeini’s leadership. Let us now turn to the regularization of ­these objects and mediums before analyzing their po­liti­cal ramifications. Bodies. Bodies w ­ ere transformed into the regime’s compulsory spokespersons. Unveiled ­women ­were gradually prevented from entering government buildings, then schools, and fi­nally taxis (cab d ­ rivers paid hefty fines for disobedience). Hezbollahies also physically attacked unveiled w ­ omen. With

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the state law making the hijab compulsory, and ­women coerced into veiling themselves, their attire became standardized across most cities in Iran. Two forms of hijab emerged: the chador, a long fabric that covered the entire body except the face; and the manto maghnae, which consisted of a long coat over long trousers, and fabric covering the hair. The only skin vis­i­ble through the latter is the face, from one cheek to another and from the forehead to the chin. Hands are also vis­i­ble from the wrists to the tip of the fin­gers. They came in black, dark brown, dark gray, and shades in between. Thus, on the one hand, ­women’s hair and skin ­were prohibited and pushed to the realm of the private, while, on the other hand, ­women’s bodies ­were transformed into the state’s spokespersons, acting as billboards of the regime’s ideal types. Men’s T-­shirts emblazoned with En­glish words w ­ ere targets of physical attacks. Men with long hair ­were taken into custody by the commit-­e (moral police), only to be released with two shaved lines right through their hair. Soon, two primary hairstyles became standard for youth, which w ­ ere enforced by the schools. Elementary, m ­ iddle, and high school students could not have hair longer than four centimeters. State institutions imposed similar rules on adult men. Men in their early twenties cut their hair to an equal length all over, although ­there was no limit to the length as long as it did not grow to the shoulders. Alternatively, the sides ­were cut slightly shorter than the top. Public Objects. The postrevolutionary decline in international oil prices decreased Iran’s oil revenues from around US$21 billion before the revolution to around US$14 billion in 1984 and to just US$6 billion in 1985 (Nomani and Behdad 2006:39). Decline in all major economic activities followed. As a result, imports of items of mass consumption declined from US$2.9 billion in 1983 to US$1.5 billion in 1988 (Nomani and Behdad 2006:46). Half of ­these imports ­were deployed for the war effort against Saddam. Thus, imported objects ­were severely l­imited and consumption patterns became restricted. This pro­cess, coupled with the referential system of martyrdom, targeted the elimination of certain objects from the public. In what follows, I provide a few examples. No more foreign cars w ­ ere imported. Two primary types of car w ­ ere seen in the streets of Tehran: Patrol, mostly owned by the state and driven by state officials, and Paykan, a modified version of the British Hillman Hunter, which had been assembled in Iran for some time (Hosseinie 2014). The two Paykan models ­were about the same price. The newly formed Islamic state endorsed, and at times even promoted, a wave of takeovers of private property as a means of mass mobilization (Bayat 1998; Nomani and Behdad 2006:38). In the pro­cess, many luxury homes ­were confiscated and turned into “bonyads” (semiprivate charities) and government buildings. The remaining ­houses ­were more or less the same architecturally. New apartments ­were fairly standardized (Bayat 2007).

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The Imam’s picture, martyrs’ portraits, regime propaganda, and revolutionary slogans ­were scrawled on walls across Tehran. Walls and city infrastructure ­were transformed into signs of Khomeini and martyrdom. Two primary brands of choco­late, two primary brands of chewing gum, one brand of sugar, one brand of rice, and two brands of ice cream (all domestically produced) w ­ ere available in the national market (Hosseinie 2014). Coupons ­were distributed among h ­ ouse­holds to purchase foods such as meat, milk, and beans, with the state paying subsidies on ­these items. Thus, class distinctions ­were hardly evident through the consumption of material ­things. Technical Media (Print and Electronic). Many books ­were taken off library shelves. Fearing random ­house searches, numerous families burned books that they i­magined might be viewed as “po­liti­cal.” Alternative publications ­were eliminated, while state-­sanctioned publications ­were wiped clean of their capacity to cross the state’s “red lines” (Bayat 2007; Hosseinie 2014). The state took over tele­vi­sion and radio, and all programs w ­ ere designed to supplement the revolution, the b ­ attle against Saddam, and martyrdom. Th ­ ere ­were two tele­vi­sion channels with l­imited programming, revolving mostly around the conflict with Iraq, martyrdom, Khomeini’s speeches, and other top officials’ propaganda (Hosseinie 2014). Neither the internet nor satellite tele­vi­sion existed at this time. Feature films on VHS did circulate in Iran, but they ­were not widespread. ­Those who owned VCRs shared them with their extended families. Thus, a VCR would be kept in one h ­ ouse for a l­ imited period of time and then passed along to the next h ­ ouse. Like tele­vi­sion and radio, newspapers w ­ ere tasked with supplementing the revolution. In addition, Kayhan, run by Mohammad Khatami, published a daily column including pictures of all the po­liti­cal prisoners executed the previous day. Not only did newspapers not contain alternative opinions, but their daily reports of executions rendered the regime’s threats credible. Spaces. Heavy policing of public spaces was meant to prevent prohibited ­things such as w ­ omen’s hair, alcohol, audio and video cassettes, po­liti­cal pamphlets, po­liti­cal books, alternative images, and so on from entering into, and proliferating throughout, the state’s media cir­cuit. All universities ­were shut down from 1980 to 1983. This mea­sure was meant to eliminate, in part, spaces in which po­liti­cal groups could be formed (Kashi 2010). Men and w ­ omen seen walking together w ­ ere s­ topped and questioned as to the nature of their relationship. If they ­were not siblings or could not provide proof of marriage, they would be arrested on the spot. Hezbollahies roaming the streets on their motorbikes ­were a constant and familiar spectacle of fear during this epoch (Kashi 2010). Cars ­were routinely s­ topped at roadblocks, or by passing Hezbollahies, and searched for po­liti­cal texts, alcohol, ­music cassettes, and unorthodox hijabs. Next, I show how this specific type of regularization of material ­things suppressed the existing liberal referential system.

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Po­liti­cal Implications of the Regularization of Material Objects in Iran We’ve seen how the media cir­cuit, in terms of spaces (parks, streets), technical media (radio, tele­vi­sion), and objects (bodies, cars, foods), became regularized in a certain way. It is essential to note that the elimination of certain objects from the public (such as ­women’s hair) was linked to the disappearance of vari­ous concepts and terms. The term “plurality,” for instance, vanished from public use during this time. This is, in part, ­because “plurality” no longer had public objects to address. The previous regularization of objects (including items of consumption), along with the division of the remaining objects into conscripts in the b ­ attle of “good” versus “evil” (and pushing “evil” objects such as w ­ omen’s skin, alcohol, VHS tapes, and so forth out of the public domain and into the private), meant that the m ­ iddle ground was left with no objects to speak of, so it was not an objective space to begin with. Thus, the term “plurality” had no ground on which to emerge and no objects to speak about (see figure 3). The term “rights” also faded from public use during this time. While the term “­human rights,” for instance, proliferated across Ira­nian media during the Shah’s final years, it was seldom publicly deployed between 1981 and 1989. This is, in part, ­because the ­battle of “good” versus “evil” had transformed into the primary matrix for ethical questions. This matrix did not simply pervade how the regime viewed “anti-­revolutionaries,” it also permeated how dissenters viewed the regime. As I explained in chapter 1, the twenty former revolutionaries I interviewed all belonged to dif­f er­ent factions, such as the MEK, Aksariat, Aghaliat, and Hezbollahies. And yet, the common thread that connected all of them was their fidelity to the ­battle between good and evil. Determining who was good and who was evil within this ­battle, however, was subject to constant alterations. ­Things ­were fluid, and a Hezbollahie could arrive at the harsh conclusion that his camp did not represent “good,” pushing him to look for it elsewhere, turning his blade against his former allies in the pro­cess. What justified this blade, what gave it meaning, was the b ­ attle of good versus evil. Thus, despite the many po­liti­cal shifts for so many revolutionaries, what remained constant was the radical act itself. On the one hand, then, the regime’s secretive courts condemned over eight thousand po­liti­cal prisoners to execution chambers during this time.8 On the other hand, the opposition group MEK killed hundreds of Hezbollahies in hit-­and-­r un operations (Institute for Po­liti­ cal Research 2013:170). The pictures of all executed po­liti­cal prisoners w ­ ere published the following day in a special column in Kayhan. The proliferation of ­these images and the consolidation of the ­battle of “good” versus “evil” through the prior conscription of public objects into each camp suggest that the terms “­human rights” and “rights” had few material referents about which to speak. Both terms vanished during this time (see figure 4).

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Changes in the number of times the term “plurality” was found in Kayhan, Etelaat, and Jomhuri-­e Eslami newspapers by way of purposive sampling (1979–89). FIGURE 3.

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Changes in the number of times the term “rights” was found in Kayhan, Etelaat, and Jomhuri-­e Eslami newspapers by way of purposive sampling (1979–89). FIGURE 4.

I interviewed six journalists who wrote for a range of newspapers, including Kayhan, Etelaat, and Jomhuri-­e Eslami, from 1980 to 1989. I asked about their experiences with top-­down censorship. The interviewees explained that while their hiring involved a rigorous vetting pro­cess based on how pro-­Khomeinist they ­were and ­whether or not other prominent revolutionaries had introduced them to the newspapers’ editorial boards, ­little top-­down control was exerted from then on. I asked if the editors censored content produced by journalists at the level of words. For instance, w ­ ere journalists told to avoid using the term “freedom,” which almost vanished from public circulation between 1981 and 1989? The interviewees explained that words on their own did not m ­ atter so long as they produced an overall content that was in line with

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Changes in the number of times the terms “­free” and “freedom” ­were found in Kayhan, Etelaat, and Jomhuri-­e Eslami newspapers by way of purposive sampling (1979–89). FIGURE 5.

the revolutionary atmosphere at the time. Indeed, one of the interviewees reminded me that estaghlal, azadi, jomhuri-­e eslami (in­de­pen­dence, freedom, the Islamic Republic) was the slogan of the revolution during the 1980s; thus the term “freedom” itself was not subject to censorship or editorial control. Rather, what would have been impor­tant was using the term “freedom” in such a way as to bolster the revolution. And yet, the circulation of the term “freedom” was severely restricted during the 1980s (see figure 5). Thus, the elimination of certain objects, such as w ­ omen’s hair and bright attire, from the public was followed by the elimination of certain terms, including “plurality” and “rights,” from public use. In sum, once a liberal discourse with terms such as “plurality,” “rights,” and “freedom” could no longer speak of material t­ hings that w ­ ere vis­i­ble to the multitudes in Tehran, it dis­appeared from public circulation. On the one hand, then, the proliferation of certain public objects, such as dead bodies and signs that referred to them, enabled the wide circulation of Islamist terms such as “martyrdom,” while on the other hand, the disappearance of other objects such as bright attire and ­women’s hair from the public led to the disappearance of a liberal vocabulary, with terms such as “rights,” from public use. This dual movement consolidated martyrdom as a referential system and suppressed the existing liberal background of shared meaning. This pro­cess had consequences for politics. Take, for instance, the absence of any public debate about ­whether it was appropriate to send ­children to the battlefield to die; thousands of adolescent

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fighters died during the Iran-­Iraq conflict. The lack of any such debate had ­little to do with state censorship. Rather, in the absence of a liberal vocabulary, “­children’s rights” was not an intelligible concept to the public. This does not mean that the phenomenon of child soldiers did not create ethical misgivings. Shahrzad Ahmadi’s examination of biographies during the conflict shows, for instance, how even war recruiters objected to enlisting some of the ­children on the basis of how young or small they ­were (2018). Th ­ ose who insisted on enlisting ­children, however, often suggested that the boys ­were “spiritually ready” or had been trained to use armor, despite their small size. Ahmadi notes that, overall, the biographies she studied crafted a tale that supports the idea that the boys belonged on the war front. The point ­here is that parents’ and recruiters’ misgivings about enlisting ­children to fight ­were not framed by the liberal language of “rights,” in general, and “­children’s rights,” in par­tic­u­lar. Rather, for grief or critique to be framed within the domain of public intelligibility, it had to be constituted in terms of the dominant referential system of the time—­one that was interwoven with Khomeini. The following anecdote illustrates this point vividly. When one of my interlocutors, named Hamid, joined a crowd by his h ­ ouse in 1984 to work out what they w ­ ere staring at, he saw a painting of a young martyr’s face on the wall. The martyr was no older than fourteen. Someone had drawn a body below the face using white chalk. This body had two hands, one holding a toy car and the other an ice cream cone. The drawing perplexed Hamid. He looked at the o ­ thers who had gathered. Most w ­ ere just as puzzled. Hamid found the drawing distasteful. He felt as though someone had belittled the boy. The crowd seemed relieved when an old man wiped the chalk drawing away with a wet cloth. One might speculate that an elusive artist, a raw Banksy before his time, had tried to make the following statement: “We are sending ­children to die.” That was what the toy car and the ice cream cone may have been meant to illustrate. And yet, this specific interpretation escaped the crowd, ­whether or not the artist had actually meant just that and ­whether or not certain individuals within the crowd had understood it as such. For, in the absence of a liberal horizon of intelligibility, “­children’s rights” was not a public concept. The boy was a martyr and was e­ ither loved by revolutionaries or resented by dissenters for that reason. In the absence of an alternative background of shared meaning, t­ here seemed to have been no public resignification. Th ­ ere seemed to have been no public reappropriation. ­There seemed to have been no public audience for a Banksy-­type subversion. I wish to move a step further to contend that the remarkable aspect of Khomeini’s rule from the perspectives of social and critical theory was that a specific arrangement in the state’s media cir­cuit (which involved a unique dispersion of objects across the public) seemed to have impacted private dissent as well. While dissenters had a hidden transcript, as it ­were, that was spoken offstage,

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under­ground, in private, often framed in terms of humor or rage, and forbidden from the luxury of open po­liti­cal activity (Mesdaghi 2006; Talebi 2011; Parvaz 2013), ­these conversations did not seem to portray the slightest conception of how dissenters might systematically push back against the regime in Tehran. What we know now of the vari­ous private conversations about the ­future among dissenters within Tehran between 1981 and 1989 is that they hinged on two negative fantasies: the regime’s implosion or a foreign invasion. And dissenters saw no role for themselves in ­either fantasy. They believed that the regime’s “backwardness” and its “pure evil” would lead to its own demise. Thus, Khomeini’s unraveling seemed inconceivable short of the Islamic Republic’s implosion, and the subject could not play—­and this is key—­any role in bringing about such an outcome. This constituted, to use Derrida’s terminology, Khomeini’s transcendence. For Derrida (1978), the “transcendental” is that which appears to be beyond the reach of freeplay (e.g., resignification, performativity, history). God is an example of this. Despite being constructed within this world by historical pro­ cesses, contingencies, materiality, and performativity, God can still appear as the world’s originator and thus its origin, so that it can appear as beyond this world—as transcendental. Note, however, that a transcendental God does not mean that it is beyond the structure or the totality—it is not—­rather, it means that it appears beyond them. But how is this appearance generated? More specifically, how did Khomeini come to attain this appearance, to seem beyond the Islamic Republic’s structure, becoming dominant from 1981 to 1989? Returning to this chapter’s main thesis, I have shown that the regularization of everyday public objects eliminated an alternative liberal referential system that included terms such as “plurality,” “rights,” and “freedom.” In the absence of a rival public referential system, pro­cesses of resignification and performativity that might have threatened the centrality of Khomeini ­were impeded. Khomeini came to appear as beyond the dissenters’ reach; thus, like God, he came to appear as beyond their world. What developed was a social structure in which Imam Khomeini never seemed to be in jeopardy of po­liti­cal defeat. In sum, Khomeini’s centrality relied on his transcendence. A transcendental center is a m ­ atter of appearance. Appearance is generated by objects vis­i­ble to us; thus Khomeini’s transcendence was linked to the distinct regularization of public objects around us. Reza’s Lived Experience of Domination THE POLICING OF THE MEDIA CIR­CUIT

And so, we arrive back at the moment we already know: of Reza—­the same boy who had once seen Imam’s image on the moon—­turning his back on Khomeini and joining an opposition po­liti­cal faction instead. It was February 1982. Ten men with long beards and machine guns rushed into his h ­ ouse. They beat

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Reza, handcuffed him, and dragged him out onto the street where more armed men awaited him. Studying in Amer­ic­ a, his virtuoso older ­brother was concerned about Reza’s po­liti­cal dispositions. He had de­cided to collect all MEK, Arman, and Marxist articles published in opposition-­linked newspapers abroad, place them in an envelope, and mail them to Reza to highlight the groups’ flaws, thinking that he would change his younger b ­ rother’s mind on politics once and for all. The letter was intercepted at the post office in Tehran, searched, and led to questions about Reza’s exact identity, rank, and po­liti­cal affiliation. The Revolutionary Guards took him directly to the Ghasr Prison.9 No sooner had the interrogator clocked him on the head than Reza acknowledged his affiliation with Arman. This was significant, that he was neither a Marxist nor, and more importantly, a member of the MEK. While in theory Arman was radically opposed to the Islamic Republic, it had never called for armed re­sis­tance. Arman was not a priority to the regime for that reason. In fact, by the end of his second week in prison, Reza learned that Arman was anything but what it claimed to be. The group had not formed four de­cades before the revolution but only six months prior to it. And none of Arman’s top strata had reached the level of Imamate as previously claimed, for t­ here was no top stratum. Majid, who worked at the kebab shop, and Hussein, the person in charge of the lectures, ­were all that Arman consisted of. Plus every­one they managed to recruit, such as Reza. And Arman’s primary text, “Volume 1 of 23 Volumes,” was something that Hussein had written during his master’s course. The regime was not particularly concerned about Arman, nor about nearly one hundred similar groups that had formed in the lead-up to the revolution. Interrogators fi­nally got to Reza’s case file ­after two months, and he was released shortly thereafter. By this time, Arman had been more or less dismantled. The MEK was firmly crushed too. Some of its members had fled abroad; ­others ­were imprisoned and awaiting execution (Talebi 2011). A small remainder of MEK members lived in hiding across Tehran. Having lost their operational ability to attack regime officials, the remaining members targeted ­those that looked like Hezbollahies, distinguishable, primarily, by their facial hair (Institute for Po­liti­cal Research 2013). One of ­those they killed was a young man from Reza’s block. AGAINST INVISIBILITY

When Reza went to the young man’s funeral ser­vice, he stepped into the neighborhood mosque for the first time in a year. This was the same mosque in which Saeed, the revolutionary local lad, had or­ga­nized ideological training courses in the lead-up to the revolution. It was t­ here that Reza had received his first Shariati tape.

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The deceased was twenty-­one years old, about the same age as Reza. MEK members had shot him point-­blank in the head on the suspicion that he was a Hezbollahie, which he was. Reza felt profound grief. Amid a poverty-­stricken block, the young man’s f­ amily was particularly poor. Reza remembered him appearing in school e­ very day with the same shoes, same trousers, and same black jacket, which he zipped all the way up to cover his shirt. He used to dis­ appear during lunchtime too. And his breath had a smell that Reza had recognized as the scent of hunger. Perhaps that was why he never spoke much. Reza, in tears, looked at his former mosque friends seated in the row in front of him. Ever since Reza had s­ topped g­ oing to the mosque, the neighborhood kids had correctly assumed that he had joined one of the goruhaks (anti-­establishment po­liti­cal groups). They had ­stopped speaking with him, which Reza had not taken personally. He understood the front as part of the game. Reza still loved them. With p ­ eople getting shot and killed, however, ­things had taken a turn for the worse. And when Reza looked into the eyes of one of his former friends, he saw him look away, projecting, in the pro­cess, profound guilt. Reza immediately ­rose up, sensing that something was not quite right. He hurried to the deceased’s ­father to express his condolences and left. Two large men grabbed his wrists from each side halfway through, dragged him out, beat him with fists, elbows, and knees, and threw him into the back of a car. The Revolutionary Guards had been tipped off about an “outsider” at the mosque. The neighborhood boys had made the call. Reza spent three months in prison this time, which was how long it took for prison interrogators to even get to his case file. Reza explains: For a de­cade, e­ very time I heard a loud sound in the streets, of tires squealing on the pavement, of a motorbike speeding up, of a door opening in a flash, e­ very time I saw a man cross the road, e­ very time I noticed a shadow on the wall, I did not know ­whether I would be beaten up, arrested, or just assassinated. And the remarkable ­thing was that I was ­doing nothing. That was a de­cade of fear for me. I know it is strange to say this, but the only time I felt safe was in prison, ­because I was no longer a target. I have no doubt that t­ hose years have left a lasting impact on me. I am easily frightened, still. The only exciting t­ hing that happened to me during that entire de­cade was to fall in love. As Reza hurried through the prison’s revolving doors, he noticed a w ­ oman named Negin about three blocks away. Reza sensed that his legs gave out for a long minute. He hurried back to his h ­ ouse and, wishing not to be both­ered, pretended to fall asleep. When his m ­ other summoned him to dinner, Reza did not rise. That he pulled himself together a week l­ ater was in part motivated by his desire to go back to Negin’s block to show himself to her. Negin passed

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him by. And as Reza felt his heart leap through his chest and into his mouth, he realized that he had been more or less invisible to her. Negin’s face was like a bright moon in the night sky. To make a statement, two strands of her hair ­were left hanging out of her other­wise full hijab, moving in the breeze, dancing together, and pushing her beyond classifications of cute and pretty. She was in the category of beautiful. It disheartened Reza to see that she did not notice anything around her, much less him. Reza was right back where he had begun. No money, no social capital, no sense of style, a ­giant void hanging over his head and expanding with each of Negin’s nonchalant steps. He hated that feeling of invisibility above all. He clung to the only ­thing that had once made him unique, the ­thing that he felt might render him vis­i­ble again: Ali Shariati. THE UNRAVELING OF GOD

As far as Shariati was concerned, the ­battle that Saddam had initiated with Iran had cast him as an anti-­hero on a scale not seen in recent history. He had far exceeded the Shah in terms of the repre­sen­ta­tion of Evil. And if Khomeini’s transformation from a revolutionary leader to a head of state had blurred the line between Good and Evil, thus putting him at odds with Shariati, Saddam was to make that demarcation crystal clear once more, pushing Khomeini back into Shariati’s arms in the pro­cess. And yet something about Khomeini had imploded for Reza. Unlike many of his peers, Reza was unable to reconstitute Khomeini as God. For him, Khomeini was merely the person one had to stand with in order to b ­ attle Saddam. Reza had managed to block out Khomeini’s killings of his MEK friends and Comrade Kaveh. He did what at the time seemed like the only available means to achieve some degree of social visibility, a visibility that was at the same time in harmony with an ethical stratum constituted, primarily, by Shariati. Reza went in haste ­toward the ­battle, accepting Khomeini’s leadership—an anomaly to which I ­shall return shortly. On the way to ­battle Saddam in 1984, Reza ­imagined the new front line as intensely as the revolutionary field he had experienced, infused with fear and thus steeped in bravery. Once ­there, he realized that the revolution and the front line ­were worlds apart. Death had been an exception during the revolution. While the threat of being killed was real, it was not expected. Death, however, was the norm on the front line. Reza explains: Look, the filmmaker, Morteza Avini, did not capture every­thing that was taking place in the front line. Some of the soldiers ­were having sex ­there, and enough so that the top generals ordered chefs to mix kafur with meals.

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Kafur is a substance that severely reduces one’s sex drive. It harms the body, and has an awful smell, which made us dizzy ­every day prior to lunch and dinner. So it ­wasn’t like every­body was pious ­there or even Muslim, and constantly thinking of God. At the same time, many of the soldiers w ­ ere nothing but love [for God], fire, and death. And Avini did well capturing them. And good Lord, they ­were remarkable ­people! They had come ­there to die for Khomeini and God. That much conviction, that much selflessness was astonishing. Being alive at the front line was a source of humiliation. If a Hezbollahie returned from an operation, he would say ­things like, “God is not paying attention to me.” I asked one of them who had lost two b ­ rothers and his first cousin in a single operation what he was d ­ oing it all for. He kept s­ ilent for a moment, looked at me with disappointment, and asked, “How long is the Iran-­Iraq border?” I said one thousand and some kilo­meters. He said, “That one thousand and some kilo­meters is our ­temple. I fear the day that God shuts this ­temple down.” You see, for them, it ­wasn’t about fear and bravery or even defending Iran anymore. They had come ­there to die. Reza’s commander gave him permission to visit ­family back in Tehran ­after four months. Reza’s love for Negin had not waned. Having arrived at an age where he was eligible for marriage, something that his f­ amily increasingly pointed out to him, Reza had come to adopt the pose of a man intent on starting a ­family. He asked God to deliver Negin to him. He did not care how. He went to the mosque. He prayed and he begged God to make it pos­si­ble. A motorbike whizzed by Reza shortly a­ fter he left the mosque. A car slowed down a few meters ahead. Then a crowd of men crossed the street t­ oward him. “Do they want to arrest me? Are they g­ oing to assassinate me?” Reza thought to himself as he stepped into a sandwich store a few blocks from the mosque. No sooner had he placed his order than he noticed a few old acquaintances from the Arman group around a t­ able. The boys had changed their ways and become Hezbollahies. They all had a good laugh about it and kissed each other on the face before Reza grabbed his sandwich and dashed out. He had walked no more than four blocks when armed men grabbed him and threw him into the back of their car. The old Arman affiliates had informed on Reza by contacting the Revolutionary Guards immediately, requesting that the former Arman member be checked out for his current po­liti­cal status. Reza considered himself lucky to be rushed to the Ghasr Prison again instead of the notorious Evin Prison. This was Reza’s third time in prison, and it took another two months before interrogators got to his case file, confirming that he had just returned from Khomeini’s war. He was released shortly thereafter. Not wishing to waste another moment, Reza lined up his f­ amily and sent them to Negin for Khastegari (a ceremony in which the ­family of the hopeful

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groom asks the ­family of the potential bride for their ­daughter’s hand). Negin personally rejected this. Not once. Not twice. She rejected it three times. Back at the front line, Reza found out that Negin had agreed to marry another man. Reza faced a crisis. Recall that God had first appeared to Reza in the image of a certain holiness that pervaded his grand­father’s ­house, a place where his grand­father was constantly critical of his be­hav­ior. Yet Reza felt safe ­there. And once Reza had moved in with his ­father in that rough neighborhood, he had found refuge in another safe space interwoven with God, the neighborhood mosque. Thus what God had come to constitute for Reza was a point of reliance, a shelter. When Reza lost confidence in God ­after the latter’s disregard for his love for Negin, not only did God lose His significance as a point of reliance, but He lost all connections with Reza’s everyday life. God was elsewhere. Not relevant to Reza. This was a significant turn for Reza, as he moved ­toward a unique form of secularization. THE UNRAVELING OF LOVE

This cooling off of relations with God set in motion a domino effect that transformed Reza’s perspective on many other ­things he held sacred. Next ­were God’s warriors that Reza had found absolutely remarkable. Operation Karbala 4 had been a debacle. The Iraqi troops had been tipped off about the operation in advance and preemptively dropped several hundred thousand shells on the Hezbollahies as they tried to cross the Arvand waterway to capture Basra. Thousands of Ira­ni­ans ­were killed within a few hours (Hiro 1990). Infuriated, and believing that the Iraqis would least expect it, another battalion of Hezbollahies de­cided to attack shortly thereafter. This time they managed to cross over at night and destroy the Iraqi unit. And when they returned to their base, jubilant soldiers greeted them. Reza was among t­ hose cheering the returning soldiers. He was in awe of the men’s extraordinary bravery. With his eyes wide open, one of the Hezbollahies explained that they had caught a number of Iraqis alive during the operation. They had tied them together in five groups of four and placed a grenade in the shirt of one person from each group. “They blew up,” said the Hezbollahie with a smile. Reza froze. He explained: I understand the logic, when you are moving forward in an operation and happen to take prisoners on the way, knowing you still have some way to go, you might kill t­ hose prisoners b ­ ecause you c­ an’t let them slow you down. Still, when the Hezbollahie said that he had put grenades in their shirts with such excitement, he appeared as a criminal to me. I understood the logic, but I could not come to terms with that crime. You basically killed twenty

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­ eople just like that. Your hands are bloodied. What an ugly world is this. p I ­don’t want you. And I d ­ on’t want your holy war with its holy objectives. For the next two months I both worshiped their bravery and loathed their criminality. I did not stay in the front line for longer than three months a­ fter that. It was the end of my time in ­battle. It was 1986. The desert sand floated around the Jeep. Reza noticed several lizards decomposing along the road. He poured a b ­ ottle of ­water over his head and pushed his seat back as far as pos­si­ble. He spotted a black dot in the distance. It grew in size as the Jeep whizzed along. Reza caught a glimpse of her in passing. She was an Arab w ­ oman in a full black hijab walking along the highway. A neqab and a chador covered her entire face and body. “Ahhhhhhhhh,” said Reza. As though he had just stepped u ­ nder a cool shower that washed all of his anx­i­ eties away, “Ahhhhhhhhh” was the only sound he could utter. “I just needed to see a ­woman,” Reza recalls. “That many men at the battlefield with that much masculinity had driven me to the ground.” No sooner had he arrived back in Tehran than he received a message from Negin. The plan to marry another man had, for what­ever reason, not worked out. She had wanted Reza to know this. He lined up his f­ amily anew and sent them to her ­house. And once an agreement had been reached between the two sides and accepted by Negin, Reza and she had a chat, alone, in a room. Reza raised his gaze slightly to get a glimpse of her while her eyes focused upon the plate of fruit before her. He noticed a tiny vein across her forehead. “She was the most beautiful ­woman I had ever seen,” says Reza. Negin turned to Reza and asked him questions: “So what exactly is your job?” “How much money do you make?” How much have you got saved up?” “Do you have an apartment?” “A car?” Irrespective of how she felt at that moment—­ something that remains a mystery to Reza to this day—­she did not exhibit any desire for or interest in him. Reza was crushed. It seemed as though she had settled for Reza only ­because t­ hings had not worked out with the other man. Or that she was just trying to get married. Reza had ­adopted the pose of a man intent on starting a ­family. They tied the knot shortly thereafter. But love was wiped clean of its passion. Romantic love, too, lost its meaning for Reza. Thus, on the one hand, Reza lost God as his point of reliance. On the other hand, he had become disillusioned with love, both within a span of six months. Could Reza remain a Shariatist in light of this? Without God and love, what does the clash of Good versus Evil mean? Which is the battlefield? And why must they be called martyrs? ­These w ­ ere the questions Reza asked himself. Reza had arrived at the end of romanticism. He had lost his orientation ­toward Khomeini. ­Today, Reza is Shariati’s most prominent critic in Iran.

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SYMBOLIC DOMINATION AND ROMANTIC LOVE

One of the peculiar aspects of Reza’s many twists and turns is his decision to join the ­battle against Saddam. Why did Reza return to Khomeini ­after rejecting him so vehemently? Turning to a key theorist of domination, Pierre Bourdieu, helps us address this question. Bourdieu develops his concept of “symbolic domination” by focusing on the interconnections between language, institutional mechanisms, and the habitus. He explains that the promotion of the dialect of the Ile de France to official language in France, and subsequently to the national language from the ­fourteenth ­century onward, gave the French bourgeois class a de facto mono­poly of the po­liti­cal apparatus and a privileged path of communication with the epicenter of power (1991). This pro­cess unfolded through the newfound linkages between the official language, the educational system, and the ­labor market. With the establishment of a system of educational qualifications endowed with a standardized value, and with the unification of the l­ abor market in which administrative positions depended upon educational qualifications, the school came to be seen as a principal means of access to the ­labor markets (Thompson 1991). Thus by the combined effect of vari­ous institutions and institutional mechanisms, p ­ eople who spoke local dialects w ­ ere encouraged, if not compelled, to collaborate in the destruction of their instruments of expression. As John B. Thompson explains, “symbolic domination” thus speaks of a kind of complicity, which is neither a passive submission to external constraints nor a ­free adoption of dominant values (1991:46). Rather, the recognition of the legitimacy of the official language, for instance, is inscribed in dispositions that are constituted over time through, to use Bourdieu’s well-­known term, the habitus. Let us now return to Reza. Reza’s sudden decision to join the b ­ attle against Saddam seemed contentious b ­ ecause it was a choice he made a­ fter he had distanced himself from Khomeini and ­after his friends ­were executed by a regime that Khomeini led.10 I pressed him on this issue to no avail, as Reza did not offer any explanations that ­were satisfactory even to him. Soon, however, another ave­nue presented itself to us, which revolved around the issue of romantic love. Reza had fallen in love with Negin prior to joining the b ­ attle. But Reza had no real form of capital through which to pre­ sent himself as a potentially suitable partner to Negin. Both Reza and I then began to won­der what sorts of capital ­were attainable for a person like Reza during this time. Reza said that he was never particularly “good-­looking.” And the time during which he would have had to pro­gress to a university mapped onto the time during which the regime shut down all universities across Iran, thereby

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closing off an impor­tant path to the accumulation of status, prestige, or, to use Bourdieu’s term, “symbolic” capital for underprivileged young men like Reza. At the same time, martyrdom was the official discourse of this era. This discourse was constituted in part in relation to public objects about which it spoke but also through the linkages and plug-­ins of vari­ous state institutions and official institutional mechanisms. Th ­ ese institutions (the Revolutionary Guards, state ministries, city municipalities, tele­vi­sion and radio, ­etc.) w ­ ere sources of vari­ous forms of capital so that attaining status, prestige, and thus visibility required some access to them, access that, in turn, necessitated a degree of immersion into the predominant discourse that pervaded all such institutions, that is, martyrdom. In other words, in the absence of an alternative referential system, martyrdom was, in part, a concrete-­abstract domain in and through which one could attain capital. When Reza volunteered to go to the front line, accepting Shariati’s b ­ attle of Good versus Evil and Khomeini’s leadership in the pro­cess, he was in some sense already immersed, and further immersing himself, in the only available public discourse and thus a key source of “symbolic” capital. Reza’s complicity with the Khomeinist regime was thus neither a passive submission nor a ­free adoption of the “culture of martyrdom.” It was in part the result of a slow inscription through interactions with public objects and vari­ous state institutions and assisted by unforeseen events such as Negin. Such was the tragic terrain of domination. Fi­nally, I wish to address the changes in Reza’s subject position, which vacillated between deep immersion in Shariati’s discourse and a strong orientation ­toward Khomeini, and turning his back on Khomeini and eventually on Shariati. As we have seen, Reza’s romantic love for Negin was key to ­these transformations. On the one hand, his desire for Negin seems to have played a role in his push to attain some form of “symbolic” capital (status, prestige, and so on). Joining the ­battle permitted the acquisition of status but also occasioned renewed immersion in Shariati’s concrete-­abstract world, enabling Reza to accept Khomeini’s leadership anew. On the other hand, Negin’s rejection of his romantic love cooled Reza’s relations with God, which in turn laid the foundation for his rejection of Shariati’s concrete-­abstract world of Good versus Evil and his disillusionment with Khomeini. Thus, while by no means the only ­factor in the changes to Reza’s subject position, his romantic love for Negin was nevertheless key to ­these transformations. But what was this romantic love? When I ask Reza about this, he finds that to provide an answer beyond clichés he has no choice but to refer back to Negin. For Reza, the very idea of love is inseparable from the scent of Negin’s sweat, the tiny vein that runs across her forehead, and the tone of her voice when she is excited. In other words, the very specificity of Negin’s corporeality, in part, animated his immersion in, and conception of, love. A body with which Reza, to use Gell’s terminology, became enchanted—­one that brought a new subject into being, a dif­fer­ent Reza.

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­Toward the End of Domination By 1988 Saddam had used chemical weapons against Iran’s border towns and threatened to deploy them against larger cities like Tehran if Khomeini did not cease advancing into Iraq (Institute for Po­liti­cal Research 2013:479). At the same time, the U.S. Navy shot down an Ira­nian civilian passenger plane en route to Dubai in July 1988, killing all 290 onboard, including 66 c­ hildren. The United States claimed that they had incorrectly identified the Ira­nian Airbus A300 as a fighter jet (Institute for Po­liti­cal Research 2013:480). Khomeini never accepted this explanation. For him, the American action was a message that ­there would be no clear winner between Iran and Iraq (Institute for Po­liti­cal Research 2013). Khomeini believed that Washington wanted both states preserved to balance one another, and the downed airliner was a sign that Washington would not hesitate to intervene should Tehran continue to press into Iraq. Moreover, Khomeini was sick, and he had asked his se­nior officials to prepare for what would occur ­after his death. In light of all of this, Khomeini did something he had never done in his po­liti­cal life. He backed down. This is his statement, which was broadcast on the radio: Happy are ­those who have departed through martyrdom. Happy are t­ hose who have lost their lives in this caravan of light. Unhappy am I that I have survived and have drunk from the poisoned chalice. (1988) The “poisoned chalice” referred to Saddam’s request for a ceasefire, one that Khomeini had fi­nally accepted, coming to terms with the fact that ­after eight years of ­battle and with hundreds of thousands dead, his nemesis would live. Khomeini immediately shifted his attention to thousands of MEK prisoners in Iran who had been spared during the 1981–82 mass executions. Most of ­these prisoners ­were nearing the end of their prison terms. Khomeini ordered prison interrogators to execute them if they maintained their opposition to the Islamic Republic. Several clarifications ­were requested from within the regime’s chain of command. Khomeini responded more resolutely each time (Institute for Po­liti­cal Research 2013:490). Subsequently, an estimated three thousand MEK prisoners ­were executed within a week and buried in mass graves.11 Reza was among friends when he first heard about ­these executions. He explained: I had gained admission to the University of Tehran’s Politics and Law Department, in light of the reopening of universities ­after a three-­year hiatus. So I had practical responsibilities with regard to school. I also had some practical responsibilities ­toward Negin, to whom I was married. Moreover, I was no longer a Shariatist, which is to say that I no longer saw the world in terms of Good and Evil. In light of all of this, I wanted the sort

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of routine life that Shariati despised. And to live a routine life meant that I needed a m ­ iddle ground between the supposed Good and the alleged Evil. What do I mean when I say a ­middle ground? Carving out a ­middle ground is to say that I am not with the regime ­because I ­don’t love it. But I cannot hate this regime ­either for I must live with it, attend its universities, partake in its markets, and abide by its laws. At best, I ­will call myself a critic of the regime, setting forth criticism that maintains some distance from both love and hate. This is what I mean by a ­middle ground. But then I heard that over three thousand imprisoned MEK members had been rounded up and killed. And that most of them w ­ ere close to completing their prison terms. This confronted me with a crisis in carving out a ­middle ground. A crisis ­because how could I not turn to the regime and say, “You are a bunch of criminals!” How could I not rise up and scream, “You are all fucking criminals!” But I ­didn’t. I did not have the courage to stare them in their eyes and say this. So I cried. I cried for two, maybe three days. It felt as though an earthquake had struck, destroying every­thing around me. Where do I go now? How do I justify this supposed m ­ iddle ground that I had sought to carve out for myself? It was a moment of absolute impotence. In June 1989 the revolution was struck by a remarkable intervention. A call was made from the Jamaran Hospital to the Head of Parliament, Hashemi Rafsanjani, informing him to appear before Imam promptly. A clot of calcium, fat, and fibrin had grown into a decisive mass in Khomeini’s arteries. His cells had multiplied in response, which aggravated his already clogged vein. Khomeini strug­gled, his blood bursting in search of alternative routes to his heart. His vessels hardened, and by the time Rafsanjani arrived at Jamaran, Khomeini’s entire body was in pain. He gasped for air. Rafsanjani took a step ­toward him. Khomeini gasped for air again as his heart tissue began to die off. Half of the live material in his head suffocated within three minutes. Rafsanjani turned to the doctor. “Do something,” he said. The doctor remained motionless. Khomeini’s entire brain shut off a minute ­later. Imam no longer had a choice but to die. Three ranking officials huddled outside of the Jamaran Hospital a few minutes ­after Imam’s death to determine how to proceed. ­These men ­were Hashemi Rafsanjani, the Head of Parliament (and soon to be the president of Iran), Seyed Ali Khamenei, the president (and soon to be the Leader of the Revolution), and Mir Hossein Musavi, the prime minister (and the ­future leader of the Green Movement uprising). The three men de­cided to announce Khomeini’s death only ­after a successor was chosen. The constitutional body of the “Assembly of Experts” tasked with appointing the revolution’s next

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leader convened the next day. By a vote of 60 to 14, they selected Seyed Ali Khamenei as the next revolutionary leader. We s­ hall return to this moment in the next chapter. Rethinking Domination through T ­ hings and Terms Theories reproduce the world in terms of abstractions and generalizations, says Christopher Tilley (2006b:10). They are also characterized by their absences—­ that which they push to one side and ignore. Theories, as such, function as mediums of power, orienting us in a par­tic­u­lar direction and showing us where to go and what to look for. For Tilley, however, abandoning theory, rather than working with it, is a naive response to the realization that no one position could ever provide a comprehensive understanding of materiality. “Our vari­ ous theories of materiality and material culture,” says Tilley, “may inevitably be rather rusty and blunt tools . . . ​[ but] without them . . . ​the most innocent and unreflective empirical research would be well nigh impossible” (2006b:11). Assemblage is a cipher through which the relational character of agency is discussed, debated, and theorized by Latour and the scholars of ANT. Notions of the field and structuration are maps that illuminate the diffused nature of agency for Bourdieu, Giddens, DiMaggio, and the scholar of structural analy­ sis. While the former speaks of objects as actants and mediators, it does not tell us much about po­liti­cal fields. And though the latter speaks of fields and structures, it underplays their material actants. As a result, we do not quite understand how agentive objects are linked to domination. Indeed, the slate of domination is wiped clean of its generative ­things in the ­human and social sciences. For Max Weber, it is authority that is central to, and constitutive of, domination. This is why, in explaining domination as an “established order,” Weber focuses on some of the dif­fer­ent grounds upon which authority is constructed, including rationality, tradition, and charisma (1978). While this perspective is key to our understanding of the ways in which domination operates as strategy, culture, and practice, ­little is said about how everyday objects permeate the ongoing structuration of ­these phenomena. Bourdieu’s peerless work on doxa takes a dif­fer­ent approach to domination by focusing on how it is generated and lived (1977). He explains that t­ here are no competing discourses or options u ­ nder domination. Doxa makes an asymmetrical social milieu appear inevitable and timeless or part of the order of “nature” rather than culture. Such a world “goes without saying ­because it comes without saying” (1977:167). Domination, Bourdieu contends, establishes our very notions of common sense, which we embody with time. And yet, despite stressing that the social world is objectified and manifested through material forms, and highlighting how the body becomes the site of incorporated history, Bourdieu’s schemata does not work out the relations between

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generative objects—­things that act based on their materiality—­and his key concepts of doxa and symbolic domination (for more on this critique of Bourdieu, see Giddens 1979:40–60; Latour 1991:13–46). Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky’s well-­known thesis, Manufacturing Consent (1988), constructs an altogether dif­fer­ent prism through which to view domination. Specifically, it provides a po­liti­cal economy perspective on the formation of a distinct kind of public that goes hand in hand with domination. In so d ­ oing, it seeks to explain how the epicenter of power manages to deploy the media in such a way so as to block dissent at the level of multitudes. Herman and Chomsky argue that more than how the media frames social phenomena through vari­ous pro­cesses of filtering, what is significant is that which the media does not portray at all. In other words, the center maintains its centrality by preventing freeplay from emerging into, or proliferating across, or constituting a rebellious public. While ­there is much to be learned from this argument, Herman and Chomsky’s formulations on the nature of publicness ­under domination are centered on technical media. Publics, however, are not merely constituted through print, electronic, and digital platforms. Rather, publicness is formed at the intersection of technical media, physical space, and material objects. Indeed, everyday objects can transform into generative agents of domination as their appearance, disappearance, and standardization come to regularize our vocabularies, po­liti­cal discourses, and backgrounds of shared meaning, constituting distinct publics in the pro­cess. Thus, by ignoring the specificity of relations between everyday objects and publicness, Herman and Chomsky fall short of providing an adequate explanation of domination. James C. Scott’s seminal work on re­sis­tance (1990) offers an anthropological perspective on domination by illuminating the private nature of dissent within this context. For Scott, the regulatory law generates an acceptable public transcript that is exhibited in the face of direct surveillance and a hidden transcript that, while subversive, is spoken offstage, under­ground, and in private, forbidding it from the luxury of open po­liti­cal activity. For Scott, then, a power­ful center manages to keep the state of freeplay (e.g., subversive humor) localized by denying it the amenity of open po­liti­cal activity. And yet, Scott disregards the relations between the objects of domination and the private domain. One might ask, for instance, how does an asymmetrical order of objects shape the nature of private dissent? Fi­nally, while Saba Mahmood’s (2005) conception of po­liti­cal action u ­ nder domination takes account of materiality, that discussion is centered almost entirely on bodily practices. Hoping to move the notion of agency beyond the liberal binary model of repression/re­sis­tance, Mahmood argues that agency must also be conceived as the willing embrace of the regulatory law whereby individuals deliberately submerge themselves in the operations

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of power. In other words, agency can also be conceived as the inclination to orient oneself ­toward the center. H ­ ere, agency is no longer i­magined as a threat to the center but rather as a force that consolidates its centrality. While this conception of agency enables a non-­liberal understanding of subject formation, Mahmood falls short of explaining how objects may have generated the center about which she speaks, that is, the Islamic Revival Movement in Egypt. Indeed, Mahmood’s discussion of materiality never moves beyond the notion of embodiment that takes place in relation to “operations of power” (2005:164), for which ­there is no material account. The shortcomings in ­these discussions of domination are thus twofold. They do not provide an adequate analy­sis of the unlikely ­things that engender and sustain domination. In addition, they fail to offer a satisfactory account of how the objects of domination can shape dissent and re­sis­tance. This chapter has sought to address both gaps by rethinking domination through the relations between materiality and language. In so ­doing, it has demonstrated how the material disaffordances of words and concepts are central to domination. It has shown that the elimination of some objects from, and the regularization of other objects across, the public disafforded an alternative liberal referential system in Tehran during Khomeini’s reign. In the absence of an alternative referential system, relations between words and material referents became stable at the level of multitudes. This blocked a unique kind of agency, that is, public pro­cesses of performativity and resignification of signs in ways that might have threatened the centrality of Imam Khomeini. What developed was a qualitatively unique structurality akin to domination in which Khomeini never seemed to face the possibility of po­liti­cal defeat. While the suppression of seditious resignification is offered as one characterization of domination, this does not mean that other forms of agency are not deployed within this context. Indeed, domination can be linked to three dif­f er­ent kinds of agencies, which are, nevertheless, all imbued with public objects. First, dissenters practice private rebellion. That this sort of dissent did not generate a public that might have unraveled Khomeini during the 1980s was linked to the state’s suppressive vio­lence, which was most vis­i­ble through mass executions. It was also linked to the policing of technical media, which sought to manufacture consent primarily by means of suppressing alternative meaningful content. But—­and this is key—­the regularization and policing of objects had also generated a distinct domain of intelligibility that disafforded alternative forms of collective thinking. We saw, for instance, how the suppression of a liberal vocabulary, by eliminating certain objects from the public, did not easily afford public elaborations of ­children in terms of their “rights.” At the same time, the distinct regularization of objects that had stifled an alternative public vocabulary came to shape private discord. As mentioned ­earlier, interviews with dozens of dissenters who lived in Iran u ­ nder Khomeini’s

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rule suggest that their conceptions of the end of the Islamic Republic hinged on two broad fantasies: the regime’s implosion or a foreign invasion. What is critical is that many of the same dissidents saw no role for themselves in ­either fantasy. In other words, the distinctive order of ­things that was linked to Khomeini’s transcendence had come to imbue private dissent. Second, the regularization of everyday objects generated a unique mode of agency that was neither a passive submission to nor a ­free adoption of the dominant referential system. When Reza volunteered to go to the front line, accepting Khomeini’s leadership in the pro­cess, he was in some sense already immersed, and further immersing himself, in the only available public discourse, and thus the only source of “symbolic” capital. While institutional mechanisms w ­ ere key to the formation of the language of martyrdom, the regularization of everyday objects also engendered and sustained an Islamist discourse of martyrdom in which Reza became immersed. Reza’s complicity with the Khomeinist regime was thus neither a docile compliance nor a spontaneous ac­cep­tance of the “culture of martyrdom.” Rather, it was, in part, the result of a slow immersion into that discourse through interactions with vari­ous state institutions and everyday objects. Fi­nally, just as the regularization of objects had endowed Khomeini with transcendental status, many began to willingly embrace him and deliberately submerge themselves in the Islamist discourse of martyrdom. Avini’s warriors ­were one such group. ­Here, agency is defined as the inclination to orient oneself ­toward a power­ful center—­Khomeini/culture of martyrdom. Agency, in this context, is no longer i­ magined as a threat to the established order but as a force that consolidates an already transcendental, and materially constituted, center. In sum, this chapter sought to rethink domination from the vantage point of the linkages between materiality and language. It argued that domination emerges as a distinct kind of structurality when relations between words and their material referents become fixed at the level of multitudes, disaffording alternative referential systems and stifling public pro­cesses of resignification and performativity for that reason. At the same time, domination affords other kinds of agencies, including private dissent imbued with everyday objects, the embodiment of incorporated history, and the willing embrace of a concrete-­abstract transcendental center.

3 Rupture THE SUBSTITUTION OF ­ THINGS AND TERMS

The world of the objects of old seems like a theatre of cruelty and instinctual drives in comparison with the formal neutrality and prophylactic “whiteness” of our perfect functional objects. —­J E A N B AUDR I LL A RD, T H E S Y S T E M O F O B J E C T S

In his Friday Prayer sermon in the spring of 1993, President Hashemi Rafsanjani proclaimed, “The conflict [with Iraq] had many costs, of which our martyrs ­were one.”1 With that declaration, Rafsanjani did what would have been somewhat unthinkable a de­cade ­earlier. He detached martyrdom from its transcendental connotations and released it into a general economy of cost and benefit. This slide pointed to a fundamental po­liti­cal shift in Iran. It was as though the immobility and reassuring certitude of the seemingly transcendental culture of martyrdom, with Khomeini as its epicenter, had begun to be questioned openly. From then on, it became not only pos­si­ble but necessary for the multitudes to think the Islamic Republic as a decentered phenomenon. But how did this decentering take place? And what role did global objects play ­here? This chapter reconceptualizes social and po­liti­cal transformations in Tehran during the 1990s. In d ­ oing so, it critically engages with culturalist explanations of this era that are centered on power­ful men/authors (and their deaths), ideological doctrines (and their dissolution), and the kind of economic history that wipes its slate clean of the very material t­ hings of which it is largely made. ­These analytical and historiographical forms fail to incorporate material t­ hings in Iran without reducing them to mere liaisons ready to be appropriated by 84

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more “impor­tant” ideational proj­ects. The result ignores how the globalization of objects during the 1990s afforded new po­liti­cal vocabularies and backgrounds of shared meaning that enabled many Ira­ni­ans to rethink the Islamic Republic. This chapter, therefore, illustrates how the physicality of Tehran was interwoven with what became po­liti­cally thinkable ­there. It demonstrates that the “post-­Islamist” liberal discourse of the reforms was partially created in relation to the newly imported ­things to which it referred and by means of which it spread. Conversely, the “Islamist” vocabulary of the second-­generation Hezbollahies was reconfigured in relation to the same imported asymmetrical objects to which key segments of the impoverished population had no access. Thus, reformist and Hezbollahie discourses, along with the material ­things that afforded them, occasioned the rise of two unique modes of life that ­were not simply distinguished by dif­fer­ent ideas but w ­ ere also distinguished by asymmetrical global objects. What ensued was a profound rupture with the past, such that the rapid multiplication of international ­things destabilized the prior relations between words and their material referents. The result was twofold: the disintegration of “martyrdom” as the dominant referential system and the possibility of thinking alternatives to, and within, the Islamic Republic. The chapter, then, brings the insights it provides on the instability of relations between materiality and language in Tehran to bear on the question of rupture. The theoretical discussion on rupture tends to conceptualize the phenomenon as a sudden and dramatic passage from one structure to another (see Machiavelli 2014; Althusser 2006). Consequently, the distinct structurality of rupture often remains unexamined. Where rupture is considered as a unique and durable social structure by Derrida (1978), l­ittle attention is paid to the objects that help engender and sustain it. This par­tic­u­lar blind spot impedes an adequate analy­sis of the material and linguistic dynamics that generate decentered forms that social relations take. It also fails to consider how such relations are produced through the constant substitutions of words and their ever-­changing material referents in an increasingly globalized world. The chapter addresses this lacuna by theorizing rupture at the intersection of ­things and terms within an international context. ­These arguments develop in several stages. The following section traces the limits of the culturalist analyses of postwar Iran by reading that lit­er­a­ture against the backdrop of the material turn. Next is an empirical and analytical account of the standardization of objects and words in Tehran between 1989 and 1997 that pairs the po­liti­cal economy analy­sis of public objects with a longitudinal study of language. The chapter then draws on interviews and life history accounts to illustrate how that new order of ­things and terms afforded the reformist and second-­generation Hezbollahie modes of life. It concludes by theorizing the distinct concrete-­abstract form that the social took in Tehran as rupture.

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The Reforms’ and the Hezbollahies’ Missing Objects “By giving attention to the agency of ­things and the capacities they afford or foreclose,” says Geneviève Zubrzycki (2017b:1), an increasing number of scholars are challenging “methodological orthodoxies” of culturalist approaches. Zubrzycki’s own edited volume (2017a), which brings together some of the leading scholars in the field of cultural sociology, offers a critical reading of the notion of nationalism by inquiring about its mundane objects. This perspective largely seeks to impede archetypal so­cio­log­i­cal concepts, such as “nationalism,” from carry­ing the main burden of explaining social phenomena. It is a perspective that is consonant with a broader, albeit recent, movement in the ­human and social sciences that is partly ­shaped by Science and Technology Studies (STS). Beginning in the 1990s, and inspired by STS, Latour and his colleagues (see Stengers 1997a, 1997b; Braidotti 2013; Callon 2021) initiated a radical deconstruction of sorts—­a reassembling of the social, as it ­were—by turning their blade against the vocabulary that the cultural turn held dear. Power, regulatory law, social imaginary, social force, social structure, po­liti­cal field, nationalism, discourse, and ideology ­were no longer to be presupposed or deployed as resources with which to explain social pro­cesses. Rather, t­ hese phenomena ­were themselves to be interrogated by exploring the ­things that help engender and sustain them. The point was to show that everyday objects are not subordinate to power, ideology, and so on but constitutive of them. The broader point was that h ­ umans do not have a mono­poly on e­ ither oppressive or emancipatory agency. This deconstructionist oeuvre, however, has failed to incorporate the field of Ira­nian studies. Indeed, a peculiar conception of materiality permeates the lit­er­a­ture on postwar Iran whereby, to use Latour’s lexicon, objects can express power relations, symbolize social hierarchies, reinforce social inequalities, transport social power, objectify in­equality, and reify gender relations, but they can never be at the origin of social activity itself.2 While my aim ­here is not to offer a comprehensive survey of the lit­er­a­ture on postwar Iran, I do wish to address some of the key works that seek to explain the politics of this epoch in order to highlight the conceptual consequences that stem from excluding agentive objects from their analyses. Based at the University of Tehran, the im­mensely influential Ira­nian sociologists Yousef Abazari and Arman Zakeri have recently published a provocative article in Persian titled “Three De­cades of Camaraderie between Religion and Neoliberalism” (2019). The article, which exhibits a strong alliance with the critical lit­er­a­ture on the advent of neoliberalism, seeks to explain social and po­liti­cal changes in the aftermath of the Iran-­Iraq conflict. For Abazari and Zakeri, neoliberalism finds its unity internationally as a distinct “prism”

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or “ideology” by means of which one views the world and oneself, and which transforms all “ele­ments” in existence, material or not, into potential stocks of consumption (2019:4). Abazari and Zakeri’s innovation, however, is to highlight the camaraderie of religion and the state, manifested in an Islamic theocracy, in establishing neoliberalism as the dominant ideology across Iran. Henceforth, they focus on two simultaneous pro­cesses. Abazari and Zakeri argue that the end of the Iran-­Iraq conflict, the passing of Khomeini, and the implosion of the global Left at the dawn of the 1990s enabled “neoliberal economists” to swarm into official and informal positions at all levels of the state. Endowed with massive data banks and a set of misconstrued economic “facts” that w ­ ere, nonetheless, said to “speak for themselves,” ­these economists encouraged and helped implement neoliberal policies that rolled back social ser­vices, introduced temporary contracts for workers, instigated corrupt privatization, and oversaw the deregulation of markets (2019:20). The result was not only, to use Ebrahim Tofigh’s (2021) Hobbesian terminology, “a war of all against all in Iran” but also, and as Abazari and Zakeri contend, the formation of neoliberal subjects that are individualistic, narcissistic, for-­profit, and moved by the continuous desire to appropriate increasingly more items of consumption. What is key for Abazari and Zakeri is the religious orthodoxy’s complicity in this pro­cess. Indeed, Abazari and Zakeri argue that while it may appear as though the harbingers of religious orthodoxy are opposed to many of the ideals and values associated with neoliberalism, their anti-­democratic disposition, which led to the closure and suppression of popu­lar newspapers and alternative voices, along with the imprisonment of activists, curbed any serious criticism of neoliberal policies, particularly by the Left in Iran. Further, by forcing religion onto all domains of the public (e.g., the multiplication of religious holidays, the quadrupling of mosques across Iran, the constant display of Islam on national tele­vi­sion, and the forced hijab), the Islamic theocracy helped erode religious value systems: where “every­thing is sacred, nothing is sacred” (Abazari and Zakeri 2019:20–30). Thus, the more the religious orthodoxy (a key signifier of authoritarianism for Abazari and Zakeri) sought to clamp down on individualism, hedonism, and the common for-­profit worldview, the more it legitimated ­those kinds of dispositions as pseudo-­subversion against official politics. As such, neoliberal economists and the religious orthodoxy ­were both complicit in generating and consolidating neoliberalism in Iran. While t­ here is much to be learned from this argument, a number of critical flaws pervade Abazari and Zakeri’s work, stemming from its attempt to always point to h ­ umans and social aggregates as the main source of agency. Take, for instance, Abazari and Zakeri’s conception of ideology. Both scholars are astute enough to acknowledge that ideology is not the driver of our lived experiences but the product of them. Indeed, our ideological commitments are the result

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of incessant and repeated interaction with the object world. To ignore the specificity of that world, therefore, is to ignore the very unlikely ­things that constitute our ideology. The inadequate attention bestowed upon ­things in Abazari and Zakeri’s work, as such, prevents it from considering the implication of the specificity of public objects for the genesis of the “Ira­nian neoliberalism” about which it speaks. This is why Abazari and Zakeri presume that ordinary Ira­ni­ans “appropriated” material commodities without asking: How did t­ hose goods afford, by means of their immanent properties, distinct kinds of appropriation to harness unique kinds of “neoliberal subjects” in postwar Iran? Coining “post-­Islamism” as a highly productive term in ­Middle East studies, Asef Bayat provides a dif­fer­ent explanation of postwar changes in Iran. And yet Bayat, too, adopts a culturalist approach to materiality. “Post-­Islamism,” Bayat explains, was marked by two major social transformations. First, President Rafsanjani’s postwar reconstruction policies transformed Tehran, its public space, aesthetic, spatial configuration, symbolism, and so on (2007:31). Massive highways, huge commercial billboards, shopping malls, and foreign cars began to occupy the urban space and “gave impressions of Madrid or even Los Angeles rather than the Islamic cities of Karbala or Qom” (2007:32). Second, and si­mul­ta­neously, a number of demo­cratic movements emerged centered on a group of religious intellectuals who inaugurated the “discourse of the reforms” (Bayat 2007:45). Inspired by “Eu­ro­pean thought,” says Bayat, Ira­nian intellectuals navigated through theology, jurisprudence, and the fusion of religion and state to offer alternative interpretations of the sacred text, embracing “modernity,” “plurality,” “­human rights,” and “freedom” in the pro­cess (2007:87). Th ­ ese ideas and concepts, according to Bayat, helped form a novel liberal discourse that resonated with the “youthfulness” of Ira­nian society at the time. The drawback in Bayat’s analy­sis, as such, is the lack of an adequate explanation of how the material and linguistic worlds became mutually constitutive of one another in postwar Iran. Instead, Bayat seems to frame the emerging highways, billboards, and foreign cars as mere reflections of President Rafsanjani’s liberalization policies. Similarly, Bayat centers the development of the reforms’ liberal discourse on Ira­nian intellectuals’ engagement with the ideas of Eu­ro­pean thinkers. Hence, consonant with Abazari and Zakeri’s conception of neoliberalism, Bayat’s notion of “post-­Islamism” falls short of addressing the linkages between public objects, on the one hand, and discourses and ideas, on the other. To illuminate that gap, one might ask: What ­were the relationships between the emergence of the huge commercial billboards, shopping malls, and foreign cars to which Bayat refers and the reformists’ embrace of “­human rights,” “freedom,” and “plurality”? Anthropologists have provided refreshing exceptions to the scholarly discussion on discursive and po­liti­cal transformations in postwar Iran (see

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Osanloo 2009; Behrouzan 2016; Doostdar 2018). Take, for example, Arzoo Osanloo’s The Politics of ­Women’s Rights in Iran (2009), which weaves dif­fer­ ent historical pro­cesses through personal narratives to provide a beautifully written ethnographic account of how Ira­nian ­women made sense of “­human rights” in general and their “rights” in par­tic­u­lar. Specifically, Osanloo argues that the in­ter­est­ing mélange of a theocracy and a republic inscribed in the Ira­ nian constitution and vari­ous state institutions “allowed for new expressions of individuated rights . . . ​particularly ­after Mohammad Khatami’s presidency in 1997” (2009:28). This insight, however, begs a question, which is raised by Osanloo herself: Why did the same constitution and institutions not permit the language of rights to materialize in Iran ­earlier? While Osanloo discusses a range of material ­things such as ­legal paraphernalia in addressing this question, the thrust of her analy­sis is, similar to that of Abazari and Zakeri and Bayat, embedded within a culturalist scheme. Specifically, Osanloo’s argument privileges the memory of the grisly Iran-­Iraq conflict, new aspirations of the youth, and the accession of reformists to the presidency in 1997 as the key ­factors that ­shaped the liberal language of rights in postwar Tehran. To be sure, t­ hese realities, along with the hybrid Islamist/ republican nature of the Ira­nian constitution, w ­ ere all impor­tant sources of agency. And yet, the period a­ fter Khomeini’s death was also distinct b ­ ecause of the emergence of another key locus of agency: newly imported objects. As we ­shall see, ­these objects acted as the material referents through which a liberal vocabulary came into formation. One now had the “right” to choose “freely” between vari­ous soft drinks, attire, and foreign cars within the emerging “plural” markets. The more international objects ­were imported, the more liberal terms circulated through them, and the more t­ hese terms w ­ ere disseminated, the more demand they generated for the import of foreign t­ hings. In other words, while Osanloo is correct to say that the hybrid constitution of Iran along with vari­ous social aggregates ­were impor­tant sources of agency for the proliferation of the vocabulary of rights, to move from the potentiality of such sources to their actuality necessitated a material path that was paved by, among other ­things, Italian furniture, silk scarves, and Jello. Which is to say that the global flow of objects was central to bringing the constitution’s republican dimension to life, enabling Ira­ni­ans to think systematically about their rights in the pro­cess. The inadequate analy­sis of objects in the canon of postwar Iran has also skewed the discussion on the second-­generation Hezbollahies that crystallized in Tehran between 1989 and 1997. Take, for instance, Said Amir Arjomand’s other­wise peerless account of con­temporary politics in Iran. Arjomand argues that “the hardliners [Hezbollahies] w ­ ere distinguished by loyalism [to the Islamic Republic] and group solidarity stemming from revolutionary fellowship” (2009:66). This view, shared by many in the field, presupposes

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Hezbollahies as a “group.” Yet groups need to be constantly reconstituted. And to do so, more and more objects are required to act as accomplices and co-­producers. Indeed, “no group, only group formation” has transformed into an axiom of the new material turn ­because of its commitment to avoiding not only human-­centric but also static accounts of social relations. By disregarding everyday objects, then, what do we imagine the source of the Hezbollahies’ agency to be? “Ideology,” says Arjomand, which “served a purpose [for Hezbollahies] . . . ​ to cudgel [reformist] opponents” (2009:66). In advancing this argument, Arjomand thus points to two dif­fer­ent phenomena without clarifying their linkages: an ideology centered on Islamism and its conversion into the kind of social force that both sustained the Hezbollahies and directed their wrath against the reformists. To move from an Islamist ideology to a social force that propagated the Hezbollahies, however, is an inference that does not follow from the premise. As noted e­ arlier, ideology, social force, and power are the final result of a pro­cess and not a reservoir, a stockpile, or a capital that provides an explanation for how a group is assembled or how it conducts itself. Put differently, an Islamist ideological disposition does not provide a framework for assuming a social force that engendered the Hezbollahies since it raises the question: How and through which material ­things did this ideology manifest? Indeed, the lit­er­a­ture on revolutionary Iran tends to overlook the reconfiguration of Hezbollahies between 1989 and 1997. If discussed at all, they are often depicted as mere instruments of state power and coercion so that their status as inert remains intact. With Bayat, for instance, one gets the sense that, although the reforms ­were built from scratch through institutional and demo­cratic pro­cesses, the Hezbollahie thread continued uninterrupted. To be sure, the Hezbollahie vocabulary remained in constant use throughout the postrevolutionary period. However, its terms came to refer to totally dif­fer­ ent objects in postwar Tehran. Whereas the Hezbollahie term “justice,” for instance, had been deployed in relation to vengeance against Saddam during the Iran-­Iraq conflict, it referred to closing the gap in the public distribution of asymmetrical foreign ­things in postwar Tehran. Or whereas “Good” and “Evil” partly signified Khomeini and Saddam during the 1980s, they l­ ater came to depict ­women wearing the affordable orthodox Iranian-­made hijab and ­women wearing expensive tight Italian jeans, respectively. The politico-­Islamic vocabulary of the Hezbollahies was thus mobilized in a new way in relation to the dispersion of the same international objects that key segments of the impoverished population had no access to. In other words, the globalization of objects had changed the material referents of the Hezbollahie vocabulary such that the second-­generation Hezbollahies w ­ ere as much a novel concrete-­ abstract construction as ­were the reformists.

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The shortcoming in the culturalist lit­er­a­ture discussed thus far, therefore, is the tendency to dematerialize the materiality of the reforms and the second-­ generation Hezbollahies by finding their ultimate locus, their source of agency, in some kind of ­will or agentive proj­ect—­ideology, religious intellectualism, republicanism, economic liberalization, neoliberalism—­for which itself ­there is no material account. The result is that we do not understand how the appearance, standardization, and regularization of global t­ hings may have engendered and sustained reformism and Islamism in postwar Tehran. My argument is that the globalization of objects s­ haped the two concrete-­ abstract referential systems of the reforms and the second-­generation Hezbollahies during the 1990s. ­These global objects ­were not neutral. Rather, their material properties helped not only produce t­ hese two distinct modes of life but also disintegrate the discourse of martyrdom that had developed ­under Khomeini. This argument is presented in three stages. First, I explore the transformations in the state’s media cir­cuit between 1989 and 1997, with a par­tic­u­lar emphasis on the distinct regularization of public objects. Second, I illustrate how that new order of ­things afforded a liberal discourse and mode of life, generating a reformist core in the pro­cess. Reza makes another appearance in this chapter to provide a front-­row seat to po­liti­cal events as they unfolded and in which he was involved. Fi­nally, I show how the same arrangement of public objects afforded the reconfiguration of an Islamist vocabulary, thereby shaping the second-­generation Hezbollahie way of life. Let us now turn to the regularization of public objects and mediums in Tehran ­after the Iran-­Iraq conflict before analyzing their po­liti­cal ramifications. The Regularization of Public Objects in Postwar Tehran This section provides an empirical account of the media cir­cuit’s transformation in Tehran during the 1990s. This includes technical media from books to satellite tele­vi­sion; physical spaces from expressways to parks; and public objects, including bodies, cars, and foods. While this section shows that technical media, physical space, and public objects merged together to transform politics in Tehran, it pays par­tic­u­lar attention to public objects as the key d ­ rivers of this shift. Bodies. Bodies that had transformed into the regime’s compulsory representatives through the standardization of the hijab and attire u ­ nder Khomeini’s reign in the 1980s began to appear in unorthodox ways ­after 1990. While the chador and mant-­o maghna-­e (a three-­piece item covering the entire body except the face and the hands from wrists to fingertips) ­were still worn, more relaxed forms of hijab became widely disseminated, namely the rusari (scarf ). The rusari is a thin square cloth, normally about a half meter in length and folded in the shape of a triangle. Two tips of the triangle are tied together

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below the chin, while the third tip falls over the ­woman’s back. Some tie their scarves tightly while ­others do not. ­Because this cloth is generally slippery, most w ­ omen must adjust their scarves while walking or driving. This constant readjustment (sometimes real and other times performed), in part, distorts the norm for wearing them. “When I was younger,” said one of my interlocutors, “I would allow my scarf to fall on my shoulders.” Another interlocutor stated, “It is ­really easy to make it [scarf ] fall, especially the ones made out of silk . . . ​you just have to push your chest forward a bit, tilt your chin slightly upwards, and the slipperiness of the scarf takes care of the rest.” Over time, the scarf has slipped further and further back, in some cases uncovering half of a ­woman’s hair. ­Women ­were seen without a scarf in Tehran, even if for a moment. Moreover, mantos (long coats) w ­ ere transformed. During the 1980s, they covered every­thing from the shoulders down to the lower shins. They ­were now shortened to first, just below the knees, and l­ater, to the knees for some. Mantos too come in vari­ous forms and colors. W ­ omen also began wearing Turkish and Italian jeans and trousers in dif­f er­ent colors ­under their mantos. “Tight jeans and Vans shoes was mod [in fashion] back then,” said a w ­ oman interlocutor who was sixteen in 1994. “My friends and I bought many pairs of jeans and Vans shoes at the passaj kovaiti,” she continued. Men’s appearance changed as well. Short sleeves, shirts with En­glish slogans, baseball caps, designer sunglasses, and jeans became the norm for many men. Elementary, m ­ iddle, and high school boys ­were no longer required to keep their hair as short. Men sporting ponytails w ­ ere seen on the streets on occasion. And a par­tic­u­lar hairstyle became popu­lar among affluent boys whereby the hair on one side of the head was much longer than the other side. “Oddly,” said an interlocutor who was twenty-­one in 1993, “this style came to be called Rap.” Vans shoes became popu­lar among young men from affluent parts of northern Tehran as well. Other Imported Objects. Disruptions in the production of oil by Iraq and Kuwait, which w ­ ere at war with one another, caused oil prices to rise. Iran’s oil production increased from 2.2 million barrels a day in 1986 to 3.2 million barrels a day in 1990. Iran’s oil revenues increased to US$18 billion in 1990 (Nomani and Behdad 2006:48). This, in addition to borrowing up to US$28 billion from the World Bank and other foreign institutions beginning in 1990, led to an increase in imports from US$11 billion in 1988 to US$24 billion in 1991 (Nomani and Behdad 2006:49). New foreign objects proliferated across the public in Iran. While two primary types of cars, the Iranian-­assembled Paykan and Patrol, w ­ ere seen in the streets of Tehran during the 1980s, numerous foreign cars ­were imported ­after the 1990s. Peugeot, Nissan, ­Toyota, Renault, Mitsubishi, Daewoo, and Hyundai began to roam the streets of Tehran. “I think our lives transformed ­after my ­father bought a black Mitsubishi Lancer [in 1993],” said an interlocutor who

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was fourteen at the time. “My ­sister,” she continued, “began to decide on whom to befriend based on what car their f­ ather drove.” The status that t­ hese cars projected publicly was simply inconceivable ­under Khomeini’s reign. Further, Italian furniture, foreign kitchen appliances, and Western-­style toilets became the markers for distinction between families in Tehran. Food coupons w ­ ere pushed out of circulation by 1988. Foreign choco­late, ice cream, chewing gum, and many other items proliferated ­after 1990. It seemed as though local stores had new imported products e­ very month. Expensive fruits such as kiwis became available, and gourmet restaurants multiplied across Tehran. “I remember the first time I saw a kiwi [in the early 1990s],” said another interlocutor, “it was like an egg that was covered with carpet.” Jello became a popu­lar dessert in average ­house­holds. Technical Media. New books of philosophy and lit­er­a­ture ­were translated into Farsi and distributed in the market. The daily Hamshahri, owned by the Tehran municipality, was the first major paper to print in color. It contained mainly soft content on “everyday life” (Bayat 2007). Images of the material I mentioned ­earlier, like Korean cars, appeared in the ­family section of Hamshahri. Within two years, Hamshahri’s daily circulation reached half a million (Bayat 2007). The Kayhan Farhangi was the weekly in which the religious intellectual Abdol Karim Soroush published his critique of the Islamic Republic, targeting the regime’s very foundations. Soroush continued with his critique through a range of other papers, including the widely read daily Salam, in which he set forth his key terms “freedom,” “­free ­will,” “­free choice,” and “plurality.” The Ministry of Culture granted permits for films that would not have passed censors during the 1980s. Such films reflected the changes that ­were taking place in Iran in showing luxury cars, gourmet foods, posh haircuts for men, and lavish lifestyles. Moreover, tele­vi­sion programming focused on promoting Rafsanjani’s “reconstruction” policies. E ­ very day a new industrial proj­ ect was initiated, a dam completed, or a tunnel finalized, while specialists and technocrats w ­ ere the main guests on talk shows (Hosseinie 2014). Satellite dishes entered Iran illegally in 1990. The technical know-­how required to install satellites on rooftops became widespread by mid-1991 (Hosseinie 2014). Forty p ­ ercent of Ira­ni­ans owned the newer and smaller satellite dishes by the end of Rafsanjani’s term in 1996 (Hosseinie 2014). Satellite channels broadcast foreign tele­vi­sion shows, primarily American, Turkish, and Arabic (Dubai-­based), with every­thing from Baywatch to Turkish soap operas, cooking programs, home improvement programs, golf tournaments, and Formula 1 racing. T ­ oward the end of the Rafsanjani era, Persian-­language satellite programs ­were also inaugurated abroad (mostly in the United States). For the first time, many Ira­ni­ans discovered that “opposition” groups such as the pro-­monarchists in Los Angeles and the MEK in France still existed.

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Public Spaces. Walls ­were no longer monopolized by the language and images of martyrdom as they had been during the 1980s. Many of the martyrs’ portraits w ­ ere replaced by commercial advertisements. Large billboards advertising vari­ous imports could be spotted on ­every main street (Bayat 2007). The stratum that benefited from material transformation built and renovated ­houses in Tehran’s northern hills. Expensive and rare materials w ­ ere used in building ­these architecturally sophisticated h ­ ouses. At the same time, the near doubling of the population within a de­cade meant that Tehran had to expand horizontally and vertically. Apartment lifestyles became the norm. Massive expressways w ­ ere built across Tehran, linking north to south and east to west. Furthermore, Tehran municipality enforced color codes on businesses. All stores w ­ ere required to paint their metal security doors (pulled down and locked ­after hours) in red and yellow or white and blue. “Karbaschi [the mayor of Tehran at the time] administered hefty fines if we did not paint over our metal doors,” said an interlocutor who owns a shop on Vali Asr Street. Th ­ ese bright colors stood in sharp contrast to the dim colors of urban spaces ­under Khomeini’s reign. Next, I show how the transformation of the media cir­cuit, including the distinct regularization of material ­things, corresponded with the post-­Islamist liberal discourse that emerged in Tehran, with broad po­liti­cal implications. Assemblage of the Reformist Core In 1991, Reza and Negin ­were living in a small apartment in Tehran. They ­were ­under enormous pressure to improve their material conditions. Faced with financial hardship, Reza, who was hailed for his writing style by peers, de­cided to try to make a living as an intellectual. This was but one of Reza’s plans that Negin accepted. Neither of them, however, could come up with a scheme to accomplish this. Abdol Karim Soroush’s rise as a public intellectual, changed that. Reza explained: Soroush had seemed perfect to me. The first t­ hing that attracted me to him as an intellectual was the way he spoke. So dry, so impersonal, so unlike Shariati. I saw that he was opposed to Shariati in content too. He had de­cided to set up his ground right in between the Good and the Evil. He did not disrespect the sacred text (Qur’an) but said that ­there are dif­f er­ent views of it. He did not wish to overthrow the regime ­either but said that it could be reformed. That was the definition of a critic. Unlike a radical, who recognizes nothing but black and white, a critic dwells in the gray zone. In the ­middle area. I immediately gravitated t­ oward him. Along with a dozen ­others, I became one of his disciples. Reza was part of the group that crystallized around Soroush and came to be known as halghe kian (the Kian Chain). They printed their own magazine,

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the Kian Monthly, and began to debate Soroush’s perspectives relentlessly. By 1995, Kian had over 100,000 readers (Bayat 2007). Bayat notes that the Kian Monthly had such an impact that it even attracted a substantial following among theology students (2007:9). Many of ­these young clerics led debates, contributing to what the Kian Chain had already spearheaded, including “a republican theology, or a theology that embraced demo­cratic ideals, religious pluralism, critical rationality, and rights” (Bayat 2007:91; emphasis added). The so­cio­log­i­cal lit­er­a­ture on postwar Iran tends to take this as evidence of Soroush’s and the Kian Chain’s centrality to the proj­ect of the reforms. This is not an entirely accurate claim, however, as it fails to take note of how terms such as “plurality,” “freedom,” and “rights” proliferated beyond the Kian’s direct readership. I argue that public objects ­were just as central to the formation of a “demo­cratic language” in postwar Iran. Recall that during the 1980s, everyday objects had been regularized so as to prevent the demonstration of alternative consumption patterns and thus the exhibition of alternative modes of being, and the remaining objects that w ­ ere not oriented ­toward “Good” in the ­battle of “Good versus Evil,” such as ­women’s hair, skin, alcohol, and VHS tapes, w ­ ere pushed out of the sphere of visibility and into the private domain. The mass inflow of foreign objects across Tehran ­after 1989, however, meant that many ­things emerged without clear ethical, moral, or po­liti­cal identifications. New luxury and leisure imports, like Italian furniture, could not easily fit into existing categories of regularized objects that had been intended to prevent the rise of alternative modes of life. Nor could ­these items be immediately demarcated as ­either “Good” or “Evil.” Thus, neither good nor evil, nor previously regularized for specific ends, ­these objects ­were situated somewhere in the ­middle; the term “plurality” acquired a grounding for the first time since the revolution by referring to and circulating through ­these objects. One of my interlocutors noted that he was seventeen when he first bought foreign shoes at the passaj kovaiti. “The shop­keeper,” he said, “turned around and quipped, ‘Well, do you want this kind or this kind or this kind or this kind or this kind and so on,’ he just went on and on pointing to the shoes ­behind him.” I asked him what was unique about that experience. “The diversity and plurality of what he was offering,” he responded (emphasis added). While a pair of Nike shoes may have reflected American grandeur at the time given the technological virtuosity they exhibited, a variety of American and other foreign shoes afforded the term “plurality” (see figure 6). Soroush and the intellectuals of the reforms w ­ ere not solely responsible for constructing a ­middle ground between “Good” and “Evil” by deciphering philosophical ideas. Nor did the concept of “plurality” circulate through their articles and books alone. Rather, what the intellectuals spoke of through their deciphering of philosophical ideas also came to proliferate by means of the dispersion of global objects of consumption across Tehran ­after 1989.

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Changes in the number of times the term “plurality” was found in the most popu­lar newspapers, including in the commercial and advertisement pages, by way of purposive sampling (1981–97). FIGURE 6.

Similarly, Soroush and the Kian intellectuals may have formulated the notion of freedom in reference to choosing how to practice one’s faith, but the term “freedom” was also used in relation to the diversification of the market. One reformist interviewee recounted the following: I remember we w ­ ere listening to Ace of Base while driving on a [newly built] highway and in parallel to a car driven by a ­woman whose scarf had fallen off. It was a Chanel scarf, the ­really slippery one. I had my eyes on her for like fifteen minutes . . . ​her scarf was off the entire time we w ­ ere driving. I thought to myself that this is what it must feel like to live in Eu­rope. This is prob­ably what freedom is. (emphasis added) The Chanel scarf, however, was not a passive cloth that did nothing but enable its own appropriation. Rather, its material property as slippery acted, co-­producing a situation of ambivalence for the moral police. “A fallen scarf did not necessarily mean protest against the nezam [Islamic Republic],” said a former member of the moral police who was occasionally tasked with enforcing the mandatory hijab rule in vari­ous locations in Tehran. “If we de­cided to,” he continued, “we could pretend as if the scarf had accidentally fallen off.” This created much leeway for the moral police, justifying a situation in which they could potentially ignore the lack of hijab. Over time, the mandatory hijab was pushed further back—­a pro­cess in which the materiality of the scarf was itself implicated, and which afforded the term “freedom” for some. Indeed, the terms “­free” and “freedom” that w ­ ere suppressed between 1981 and 1989 began to circulate widely ­after 1989 (see figure 7).

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Changes in the number of times the terms “­free” and “freedom” ­were found, including in the commercial and advertisement pages, in the most popu­lar newspapers by way of purposive sampling (1981–97). FIGURE 7.

The term “rights,” which had all but vanished from broad circulation during the 1980s, also proliferated widely a­ fter 1989 (see figure 8). Recall that during the 1980s, the b ­ attle of “Good” versus “Evil” had transformed into the primary matrix for ethical questions so that the terms “­human rights” and “rights” had few material referents. However, the dissemination of asymmetrical foreign ­things ­after 1989 meant that a distinct stratum of the Ira­nian citizenry could strive to carve out a new status for itself and generate a new public by means of its high-­end material objects. My interview with a third interlocutor—­a reformist ­woman named Maryam—­demonstrates how the term “rights” came to register for her in relation to material ­things. I used to hate every­one that was affiliated with the regime. I even dreamed once that I had blown myself up in a suicide mission next to a Hezbollahie ­after I had been harassed and threatened by the moral police [in 1985] for wearing a manto (mandatory coat for ­women) that was yellow. But then I began to like Gholamhossein Karbaschi [the mayor of Tehran during the 1990s] ­because he had brought color to the city . . . ​he had planted dif­f er­ent colors of flowers in parks and constructed colorful shopping malls that sold mantos in green, yellow, and even red . . . ​it was as if he had recognized our right to be a happier ­people. (emphasis added) Furthermore, the revolutionary dream of a socialist utopia or a just Islamic society had been replaced for many by the dream of wearing a certain brand of shoes, driving Mitsubishi cars, and living in luxury apartments in northern

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Changes in the number of times the term “rights” was found in the most popu­lar newspapers, including in the commercial and advertisement pages, by way of purposive sampling (1981–97). FIGURE 8.

Tehran. So if the religious intellectuals’ notions of “individuality” and “rationality” proliferated, it was also, in part, ­because they aligned with the realpolitik of wealth accumulation, which had become pos­si­ble for the first time since the revolution. One now had the “right” to be “­free” in choosing from “plural” markets. Returning to Asef Bayat’s work, which refrains from exploring the relations between the reformists’ embrace of “freedom,” “plurality,” and “rights,” on the one hand, and the emergence of commercial billboards, shopping malls, and foreign cars, on the other, it is impor­tant to note that ­these w ­ ere not two separate pro­cesses. In other words, the reforms ­were not merely constituted by the proliferation of philosophical perspectives and a “demo­cratic” vocabulary. Nor was economic liberalization merely a set of material transformations. Rather, “demo­cratic” terms and “liberalized” objects proliferated through one another such that the two movements w ­ ere indiscernible. The transformation of the media cir­cuit in Tehran and, specifically, the distinct regularization of international objects thus afforded a new concrete-­abstract mode of being. This new concrete-­abstract, this novel mode of being, is what I take the “reforms” to refer to. The reforms, however, w ­ ere not only relevant to politics. Th ­ ose who had transformed into elite reformists through ­these concrete-­abstract changes had aspirations of entering the domain of realpolitik as well—­that is, of moving

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their mode of life into the center of state media, state economy, and state policymaking. Reza explained the genesis of this undertaking: Now, we all played a role in both the debates during the Kian meetings and especially in diffusing ­these ideas through our articles in Kian Monthly. But we primarily saw ourselves as Soroush’s students. We brainstormed over his arguments, debated them, and criticized them while Soroush remained the central figure in each meeting. What I had not realized then was that a few ­people from Kian, namely, Said Hajjarian, had far greater ambitions than merely learning from Soroush. Hajjarian, who is about my age, had been one of the found­ers of Iran’s intelligence ministry ­after the revolution. But he was pushed out of the ministry ­after about a de­cade and had come to the University of Tehran to get a PhD in politics. He was in the same cohort as me. Hajjarian wanted to create a po­liti­cal machine out of Soroush’s ideas. Soroush was not inclined ­toward politics. He just did not have the personality. Nor was he very po­liti­cal in general. So what was needed was a spokesperson for t­ hese new ideas. Soon the Halghe Kian, and Hajjarian in par­tic­u­lar, began to see Mohammad Khatami as the person to bring the reforms to the center of official politics. Mohammad Khatami was appointed minister of culture during Hashemi Rafsanjani’s first term as president in 1989. Throughout his tenure, Khatami permitted film directors, artists, writers, and poets to work on proj­ects that had nothing to do with revolutionary ideals, thereby creating a safe space for them to pursue their own creative interests. All the while, Khatami endured pressure from Hezbollahies to rein in this “unorthodox cultural” material. Rather than suspending directors, artists, and journalists, however, Khatami chose to resign in late 1992. He wrote an open letter explaining why he had resigned. Reza recalled the letter and the ensuing events: I ­really could not believe what he had written. He had laid out his vision for Iran, for the revolution, and said that he could not work u ­ nless he was able to stay true to that vision. It was remarkable b ­ ecause he had given up his desire to remain a top official while exhibiting his fidelity to a vision. A vision that was in line with what Soroush had theorized. In fact, what was remarkable was the extent to which his vocabulary had changed a­ fter Soroush. Khatami’s key terms ­were also “­free choice,” “rights,” and “plurality.” Artists and journalists and intellectuals already loved him. They began to re­spect him in a dif­fer­ent way ­after that letter. So they de­cided to thank him by hosting an event in Tehran’s main theater a few months ­after his resignation. I was ­there. And every­one that was anyone [artists, musicians, intellectuals, academics, directors, literary figures, poets, actors,

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journalists, and so on] attended. When Khatami gave his speech, he offered a poetic and yet po­liti­cal rendition of Soroush’s terms and vocabulary. I think so many of us who w ­ ere t­ here believed that a leader was born. I certainly did. And when I looked at Hajjarian, his eyes radiated excitement. When Khatami ran for president a few years l­ ater, ­those artists and filmmakers and cultural figures transformed into the primary thrust of his campaign. The Kian Chain contributed enormously to Khatami’s presidency as well. And Hajjarian . . . ​ well, he became the single most impor­tant strategist of the reforms. What Reza fails to mention, however, is that Khatami did not merely utter Soroush’s terms and vocabulary during his speech. He also sported the latest designer eyewear, matching clerical attire in new colors (as opposed to the orthodox dark brown that clerics such as Hashemi Rafsanjani wore), tailored Italian slacks, Clarks shoes, and short, trimmed facial hair (unlike orthodox clerics). Which is to say that Khatami exhibited as much the pluralism of emerging material markets as the pluralism of emerging “demo­cratic” terms and concepts. The new “mode of being,” the new concrete-­abstract world for which Khatami hoped to become a spokesperson, was one in which he was also already immersed. With Khatami on the rise, the reforms began to vie for po­liti­cal influence. Next, I show how the same arrangement of the media cir­cuit, including the distinct regularization of material objects, enabled the reconfiguration of an Islamist discourse, with broad po­liti­cal consequences.

Assemblage of the Second-­Generation Hezbollahie Core The concrete-­abstract transformations that began during the 1990s had consequences beyond laying the groundwork for the formation of the reformist mode of life. ­These included the alienation and disintegration of a number of impor­tant prior assemblages in Tehran. First among them w ­ ere many Hezbollahies who had been orphaned, as it w ­ ere, by Imam’s death in 1989 and w ­ ere searching for a new master with revelatory knowledge of the unknown into whose hands they could release themselves. Added to this w ­ ere t­ hose involved with the Iran-­Iraq conflict, including many ranking Revolutionary Guards who had been replaced by technocrats and professionals as the revolution’s primary thrust. The families of martyrs who had witnessed their “sacrifices” dissolve beneath the weight of the new zendegi-­e ashrafi (luxurious lifestyle) ­were also excluded. Another group consisted of the traditional bazaar merchants who saw their influence wane in the face of the municipality’s newly constructed shopping malls. And last but not least, the masses that had found themselves on the wrong side of economic liberalization ­were also alienated, particularly in the impoverished neighborhoods of southern Tehran.

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Replacing Imam Khomeini ­after his death, Ayatollah Khamenei was quick to recognize this diverse conglomeration as a potential base and a springboard into the center of politics. But while he had already cultivated strong alliances with vari­ous groups within this evolving domain, he had not worked out the link that would connect him to its very core. Documentary filmmaker Morteza Avini would come to partly facilitate this link. Recall that Avini was a Hezbollahie tele­vi­sion producer, a self-­described “soldier of Imam Khomeini’s who was willing to die for him” (Hosseinie 2014).3 He had put together hundreds of hours of footage from the conflict against Saddam. National tele­vi­sion broadcast the footage on a regular basis during the revolution’s first de­cade. Then came a t­ riple shock for Avini—­the end of the conflict with Saddam, Khomeini’s death, and Rafsanjani’s liberalization. Avini continued to produce work, providing scathing criticism of a changed Tehran that seemed like an offense against the ideals of selflessness, sacrifice, and all that went with martyrdom (1989, 1990, 1991). And yet, despite his prolific documentary work and dozens of impor­tant articles, Avini was not a ­house­hold name, not even among Hezbollahies. “My friends and I,” said a Hezbollahie interlocutor from Mashhad, “received instructions for our po­liti­cal activity from the head of the basij [­people’s militia] in our neighborhood. We did not know Avini during that time.” As part of his desperate bid to resuscitate something of the past, Avini traveled to southwestern Iran by the Iraqi border in 1993 to film scenes for a new documentary. Once t­ here, he searched for an ideal long shot, found it, and set up his camera. Looking through his lens, he took a step back and placed his right foot on a land mine that had not been cleared since the end of the conflict with Saddam. The mine killed him instantly (Hosseinie 2014). He was granted the title of “martyr” immediately, which was not unusual since Saddam’s forces had placed the mine ­there eight years ­earlier. ­After Avini’s body arrived in Tehran, his funeral was broadcast on national tele­vi­sion, which was not unusual ­either ­because the funerals of martyrs received national attention. What was unusual, however, was that as the cameras rolled, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appeared amid the crowd before Avini’s body and cried for him. Khamenei handed Avini’s ­family a Qu’ran at the end of the ceremony. In it, he had written: “taghdim be seyed-­e shohaday-­e ahl-­e ghalam” (To the Literati Seyed of Martyrs). As though waiting for their cue, the base that had been alienated by Rafsanjani’s policies, along with institutions attached to Khamenei, turned their focus onto Avini and his “literary” work, their question being “Who is Avini?” ­Every single conservative publishing h ­ ouse, bazaar financiers interested in “cultural” work, ­every cultural center, production crew, Basij center, Hezbollahie production team, mosque, clergy organ­ization, and newspaper attached

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to Khamenei, along with the Revolutionary Guards’ media outlets, national tele­v i­s ion channels, and national radio programs, began to disseminate Avini’s work. His film narrations ­were transcribed into text, recorded as audiotapes, and packaged as CDs. His articles and quotes w ­ ere published. When they ran out of material, they transcribed his f­ amily’s accounts of him, then his friends’. Soon, anyone with a passing memory of Avini was interviewed and published. “By the end of my time in high school,” said another interlocutor from Semnan, “all the Hezbollahies I saw knew of Avini.” It is impor­tant to note, however, that the mere fact that technical media invested in Avini’s work cannot fully account for Avini’s transformation into a key public figure. ­These very media networks had paid enormous subsidies to generate the works of Ayatollah Motahari, Shahid Beheshti, and even Mezbah Yazdi, with very ­little success. Which is to say that, while the works of ­these Hezbollahies w ­ ere mass-­produced, they never circulated beyond very specific localities. Avini, on the other hand, was transformed into a national Hezbollahie spectacle. This was, in part, ­because Avini’s vocabulary proliferated in relation to existing objects. One of my Hezbollahie interlocutors named Mahdi, who was immersed in Avini’s work at the time, helps establish this link brilliantly. Mahdi was in high school when the reformist Mohammad Khatami ran for president in March 1997. Mahdi recalled: Why did I hate Khatami? B ­ ecause non-­Muslims supported him. When I say “non-­Muslims,” I mean p ­ eople who listened to CDs [­music]. Or p ­ eople who did not pay Zakat [religious tax], or did not believe in the Islamic Republic. I hated Khatami when I saw so many of his female supporters sporting [expensive foreign-­made] tight jeans and rolled-up sleeves, showcasing so much skin in their posh cars. I hated Khatami b ­ ecause so many of his supporters had under­gone [expensive] plastic surgery [nose jobs]. I hated Khatami b ­ ecause even the religious p ­ eople who liked him ­were the intellectual types who w ­ ere always at coffee shops [drinking quality imported coffee] talking about “freedom.” And that term drove me mad ­because at the time it was obvious to me that “freedom” was just a ploy, a Trojan h ­ orse, for Takhrib-­e Din [sabotage of religion]. (emphasis added) What is in­ter­est­ing about this passage is that the term “non-­Muslims” has a specific set of material referents, including CDs, new expensive noses, tight Italian jeans, posh foreign cars, imported coffee, and so on. If we focus on the material referents of Mahdi’s Hezbollahie vocabulary, it becomes difficult to distinguish between “non-­Muslims” and affluent Ira­ni­ans. In other words, for Mahdi, Khatami and Soroush came to be synonymous with a set

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of asymmetrical objects. ­These asymmetrical ­things laid the groundwork for the proliferation of Avini’s vocabulary. Many of Avini’s widely read articles, now printed as books, took issue with the unequal distribution of resources across Iran (see Avini 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992b). Avini and his allies, including journalist Mehdi Nasiri, began to vehemently attack the increasingly vis­i­ble material inequalities in Tehran. Avini focused on films produced during the Rafsanjani era—­films that exhibited luxurious homes, posh cars, coffee shops, expensive noses, and foreign attire (see Avini 1989, 1993). “Unlike the books by Ayatollah Motahari, Shahid Beheshti, and even Mezbah Yazdi with which we could not connect,” said a Hezbollahie interlocutor from southern Tehran, “Avini spoke of films we had seen.” Another Hezbollahie interlocutor from southern Tehran explained, “I knew that I was not supposed to like the reformist film director Bahram Baezaee, but I did not know why I was not supposed to like them.” “Avini,” said the same interlocutor, “Avini explained why—­because Baezaee was promoting the Western-­style good life.” Indeed, sacrifice, justice, and duty ­were the terms that Avini deployed in his writings as a way to rebuke t­ hose who pursued that “good life.” More specifically, ­these terms came to register in relation to the asymmetries between public objects: foreign cars with air conditioning versus poor-­quality Ira­nian cars, foreign clothes versus poor-­quality Ira­nian clothes, meat-­based dishes versus potato-­based dishes, and dining t­ ables versus the traditional sofreh on the floor. Avini’s key term, edalat (justice), for instance, was partly used in reference to rectifying the disparities between t­ hese asymmetrical public objects. Isar (sacrifice) was also redeployed, in part, through the asymmetry of objects, such that a Hezbollahie was duty-­bound to sacrifice by remaining a revolutionary and a soldier for Khamenei, despite the fact that the revolution had been infiltrated by “outsiders” and asymmetrical material goods (see Avini 1991, 1992a, 1992b). Thus, while ­under Khomeini’s reign terms such as isar (sacrifice) referred to ­dying on the battlefield against Saddam, they now came to also refer to enduring the expense of asymmetrical objects of consumption. Or if during Khomeini’s rule the term edalat (justice) proliferated in relation to vengeance against Saddam, it now also pointed to closing the gap in the distribution of asymmetrical objects. Or if during the 1980s, hagh (Good) and batel (Evil) referred to Khomeini and Saddam, respectively, they now also came to denote ­women wearing the orthodox hijab and ­women wearing tight Italian jeans, respectively. Old Hezbollahie terms had found novel objects about which to speak and through which to proliferate. In addition to the reconfiguration of ­these terms, Avini’s style (his haircut, attire, manner of speaking and writing, and so on) also came to generate a distinct Hezbollahie public. Avini’s attire consisted of inexpensive Ira­nian trousers, poor-­quality “nakhi” shirts, cheap Iranian-­made shoes, the Palestinian

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Keffiyeh, and a s­ imple haircut. Thus if images of Avini proliferated across, and found currency within, Hezbollahie networks, it was in part b ­ ecause they exhibited consumption patterns already prevalent among most impoverished Hezbollahies in the southern neighborhoods of Tehran. Once Avini’s images proliferated, however, they further standardized Hezbollahie stylistics. “The communist students had pictures of Che Guevara and some even sported his well-­known hat,” said a Hezbollahie ­woman interlocutor who was a student at the University of Tehran during the 1990s. “The reformists,” she continued, “sported trimmed beards and Polo button-up shirts and sweaters.” “However,” she went on, “the Hezbollahie boys had a large picture of Avini hanging on their office wall, all walked around with the Palestinian Keffiyeh, and most sported Avini’s brown jacket in the wintertime.” A new generation of Hezbollahies born ­after the revolution began to fashion themselves ­after Avini. They dressed exactly as he did (e.g., wearing Iranian-­made buttonup shirts over their trousers) and they sported the Palestinian Keffiyeh in the same way that he did—­while the Keffiyeh was popu­lar at the front line during the Iran-­Iraq conflict, it r­ eally proliferated across Tehran a­ fter Avini’s death. Even Ayatollah Khamenei began to wear the Keffiyeh shortly ­after Avini’s death and has not been seen without one since. This new mode of being, this new concrete-­abstract world for which Avini become a spokesperson, is what I take the second-­generation Hezbollahies to refer to. Thus, t­ here are three key points to be made ­here. First, the globalization of objects afforded the assemblage of reformist and second-­generation Hezbollahie modes of life in Tehran in the 1990s. Which is to say that t­ hese ­were two emerging po­liti­cal cores traversed by contesting referential systems and asymmetrical ­things. Interestingly, what Virag Molnár (2016) calls “domesticating power,” that is, the po­liti­cal use of material culture as ground-up activism, became widespread during this time. Indeed, no sooner had the liberal and Hezbollahie vocabularies formed largely through the objects about which they spoke and through which they proliferated than the same material objects w ­ ere deployed from the ground up to normalize distinct kinds of po­liti­cal ideas. We saw this with the reformist director Bahram Baezaee, who commoditized a certain “good life” by means of the asymmetrical Western objects he displayed in his films, as well as the Hezbollahies, who commoditized a symbol of re­sis­tance and war—­the Palestinian Keffiyeh—as a fashion statement. Both reformists and Hezbollahies ­were, therefore, not only tightly linked to the state and its po­liti­cal stratum but also involved in ground-up pro­cesses of commoditization. Said differently, they used po­liti­cal commoditization to normalize their own, at times, contested ideas. Second, ­these transformations enabled Khamenei to secure a base and transform into the privileged signified of a new Hezbollahie mode of life. But

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as I have shown, this was not entirely the result of Khamenei’s opportunism or his top-­down control over vari­ous institutions. Rather, the camaraderie of asymmetrical objects was central to, and constitutive of, the second-­generation Hezbollahies with Khamenei at its epicenter. A two-­way link was thus formed between politics and realpolitik mediated by asymmetrical material t­ hings. The more Khamenei’s influence multiplied within his concrete-­abstract Hezbollahie base, the more he was able to legitimize his official position of velayat-e faqih. Likewise, the more he was consolidated as the velayat-e faqih and tightened his grip on institutions over which he presided, such as national tele­v i­sion and the Revolutionary Guards, the better he was able to maneuver within his emerging concrete-­abstract Hezbollahie base. With Khamenei at the helm of the new mode of being, the Hezbollahie core began to vie for further influence. Fi­nally, recall that the stability of relations between words and their material referents had sustained the “culture of martyrdom” as the dominant referential system in Iran during the 1980s. Neither Khomeini’s sudden death nor the abrupt end to the conflict with Iraq directly displaced martyrdom as the dominant referential system. Rather, the inflow of asymmetrical global objects mediated the gradual dissolution of that system in the 1990s. Italian furniture, silk scarves, baseball caps, designer sunglasses, Korean and Japa­ nese cars, attire in red, yellow, and blue, and new eatables from Jello to kiwi could not be neatly incorporated within the prior categories of regularized objects that had sustained martyrdom’s matrix of good versus evil. Neither good nor evil, the imported objects came to be situated somewhere in the ­middle, occasioning a range of possibilities for the signification of new corresponding terms. The word “freedom,” for instance, could now signify a fallen silk scarf, speeding along a highway, or choosing one’s religious faith. The term “rights” could now be deployed in relation to claims to the good material life, being happy, or ­women’s ­legal status within Islamic law. The same reordering of public objects also destabilized relations between Hezbollahie terms such as “sacrifice,” “justice,” and “duty,” on the one hand, and their prior referents, including d ­ ying on the battlefield and vengeance against Saddam, on the other. Hezbollahie terms now registered in relation to new material referents from cheap “nakhi” shirts to the Palestinian Keffiyeh. Said differently, the freeplay and multiplication of objects had extended the domain and interplay of signification ad infinitum. Thus, the constant and rapid multiplication of words and their ever-­changing material referents in Tehran created a fundamental break with the past by helping to unravel the “culture of martyrdom” as the dominant referential system. The result was a decentered form that social relations took that I call rupture. But what is rupture?

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Rethinking Rupture through ­Things and Terms The canon of social theory tends to advance two interwoven conceptions of rupture. The first may be seen as related to the Rousseauian model of catastrophe, whereby an unpredictable and sudden encounter interrupts a prior sequence. Take, for instance, Niccolò Machiavelli’s (2014) thinking about fortune within the context of fifteenth-­century Italy and in light of the tedious prospects for establishing an Italian national state. Machiavelli’s wish was that, in an atomized Italy s­ haped by decaying Papal States and their feudal mode of production, a dramatic encounter should take place. “Yes,” said Machiavelli, “a person of nothing” who has “started out from nothing” and “no assignable place” can rise to unify Italy should he have virtue (2014:55). But this virtue does nothing, is nothing, without fortune (a contingent encounter). Read in this way, the unification of fifteenth-­century Italy was in the order of a game of dice for Machiavelli. This thinking is tied to a second and more prominent conception of rupture, wherein catastrophe figures as an origin of sorts, functioning as a key passage from one structure to another. Take, as another example, Louis Althusser’s “materialism of encounter” (2006), which pre­sents rupture as a clinamen. ­Here, rupture takes the form of a dramatic swerve that no one knows how or from where it comes about. This swerve, nonetheless, c­ auses an encounter, and from encounter to encounter, a pile-up and the birth of a world, “our world” (Althusser 2006:169–70). Before this world, says Althusser, ­there is only a “void,” a “non-­accomplishment of the fact,” an Epicurean “non-­world” that is the “unreal existence” of the atoms moving parallel to one another, never coming into contact and thus never establishing the “accomplished fact” (2006:170–71). Althusser, therefore, postulates rupture as a swerve—­the origin—­that moves us from one structure to another, that is, from the parallelism of the void to a pile-up and the social world as such. Insofar as t­ hese two dominant perspectives are concerned, the result fails to acknowledge rupture, the swerve itself, as a structure in its own right with a distinct kind of structurality that can endure as long as any other structure. Partly immersed in the question of rupture, Derrida’s work (1978) occasions but one key exception to the lit­er­a­ture. This is due to the emphasis it places on two concepts that are always already interwoven with one another, that is, the center and freeplay. Derrida posits the center and freeplay as the generative ele­ments of any structure so that the distinct forms of relationships between them differentiate one structure from another. The linkage between the specificity of relations between the center and freeplay, on the one hand, and structurality, on the other, renders the Derridean schematic productive for our understanding of rupture as a unique structure, provided that we extend Derrida’s abstract concepts to the domain of contingent objects. Thus, while

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I deploy Derrida’s insights in the rest of this section, I do so not as a deconstructionist but as a sociologist and an anthropologist interested in understanding how everyday objects can engender and sustain the center and freeplay as embodied forms, and what kind of relationship between them generates rupture as a qualitatively unique structurality. To what, then, do the center and freeplay refer? For Derrida, the terms “­free” and “play” appear as the compound “freeplay.” The play is ­free, and what is ­free is ­free of something. That t­ hing is the center (1978:1). The center is an immobile locus that anchors the entire structure. More specifically, it “orients,” “balances,” and “organizes” the structure so that what is generated is a “total form” (1978:1–2). This center also has a direct relationship with freeplay. In fact, the two define one another. The center’s function is to consolidate its centrality by preventing freeplay from proliferating in ways that are detrimental to it, which is to say that the relationship between the center and freeplay might be viewed as adversarial. This antagonism is rooted in freeplay as an operation of substitutions of signs (meaning) in ways that may not consolidate the center’s centrality. A center that loses its centrality ceases to be a center altogether. Indeed, the center has a paradoxical nature. On the one hand, it has a relationship with freeplay so that it is always already within the structure. On the other hand, the center is seen as the structure’s originator and thus its origin so that it is always situated outside the structure. This paradox pre­sents a prob­lem. If, as Derrida puts it, “the concept of centered structure is in fact the concept of a freeplay based on a fundamental ground, a fundamental immobility and reassuring certitude which is itself beyond the reach of freeplay” (1978:1), then the center must not be seen as exposed to freeplay. For if the center comes to be seen as itself subject to the rules of the structure and implicated in a precarious relation with freeplay, its presumed “immobility” vanishes. The center loses its centrality and unravels for that reason. In other words, the center must preserve its centrality to obtain transcendence, and to appear as transcendental it must be viewed as beyond the reach of freeplay. That some centers achieve transcendence, that is, they appear as beyond the reach of freeplay while o ­ thers do not, partly suggests that the center’s ability to generate itself has a scale. Derrida implies this with the following passage: “Qua center, it is the point at which the substitution of contents, ele­ments, or terms is no longer pos­si­ble” (1978:1). This infers that freeplay is not achievable within the center, only away from it. In other words, the center is similar to a sunlike core within which nothing external, including freeplay, survives. Thus, freeplay comes to take place within a geography that is external to the center but internal to the structure. And the precise location of freeplay within this geography seems to be linked to how combustible the center—­the sunlike core—is. Said differently, the center’s scale as a generative mechanism in part

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regularizes freeplay’s dispersion within the structure so that freeplay always has a par­tic­u­lar topography. Following Derrida, we might conceive of a number of topographies of freeplay that enable us to distinguish between vari­ous structures. Chapter 2, for instance, sketched a conceptual map of domination in Tehran during the 1980s characterized by a power­f ul concrete-­abstract center that was assembled through the regularization of the media cir­cuit in general and public objects in par­tic­u­lar. As I have shown, this pro­cess stabilized relations between words and their material referents, suppressing freeplay (e.g., performativity, resignification, substitutions of meaning) across the public. This does not mean that freeplay vanished altogether but that it was privatized/localized and pushed to the structure’s margins in Tehran. As such, freeplay was not seen as having a direct relationship with the center, that is, the culture of martyrdom with Khomeini at its core. In other words, the culture of martyrdom/Khomeini came to appear as beyond the reach of freeplay and attained a certain transcendence in the pro­cess. I used the term “domination” to refer to that distinct concrete-­abstract structurality, in part, ­because the culture of martyrdom as the dominant referential system—­and Khomeini as its privileged signified—­ never appeared to face the possibility of unraveling. Which is to say that the structure was never decentered during that time. This chapter, however, illuminated a dif­f er­ent topography of freeplay, and thus a dif­f er­ent structure characterized by a weak center in Tehran during the 1990s. Specifically, the transformation of the media cir­cuit and, more explic­itly, the rearrangement of public objects unleashed unlimited freeplay and substitutions of signs. Take, for instance, words such as “freedom,” “plurality,” and “rights” that circulated widely through the inflow of global objects, including Italian furniture, silk scarves, and Korean cars. Or take, as another example, terms such as “sacrifice,” “justice,” and “duty” that proliferated in an entirely new way by means of the novel material t­ hings they spoke about, including affordable Iranian-­made shoes and the Palestinian Keffiyeh. The constant substitutions of signs did not mean that the structure had dis­appeared but that it had transformed. Indeed, this was a new structure generated, in part, by the very deployment of ­these available terms and their ever-­changing material referents. This pro­cess of multiplication, substitution, and dispersion of ­things and terms destabilized the prior relations between words and their material referents that had sustained martyrdom/Khomeini as center during the 1980s. The culture of martyrdom’s direct relationship with freeplay, therefore, became apparent within the public. We saw this, for instance, in how President Hashemi Rafsanjani publicly detached martyrdom from its transcendental connotations and released it into a general economy of cost and benefit during his Friday Prayer sermon in 1993. The implication was that the language of

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martyrdom could no longer sustain its centrality and transcendental connotations. Nor could the privileged signified of martyrdom—­Imam Khomeini—­ appear as e­ ither beyond the reach of freeplay or interchangeable with the Islamic Republic. In other words, the Islamic Republic had been decentered. In sum, the transformation of the media cir­cuit, itself propelled by the new regularization of global objects, had made it pos­si­ble for the multitudes to call into question the immobility and reassuring certitude of a centered structure. In time, the reformist and second-­generation Hezbollahie modes of life tran­ spired at the intersection of the emerging object world and the vocabularies to which that world corresponded. Which is to say that the physicality of Tehran and what was publicly thinkable ­there ­were interwoven. I have used the term “rupture” to refer to this distinct form that social relations took at the merger of materiality and language in light of the correlation I have shown between the substitutions and interplay of ­things and terms ad infinitum, on the one hand, and the unraveling of martyrdom/Khomeini as center/dominant referential system, on the other. I thus theorize rupture as a form that the social takes by means of the rapid substitutions and multiplications of (material) signs, which destabilize relations between words and their material referents and unravel the dominant referential system for that reason.

4 War THE RESIGNIFICATION OF ­THINGS AND TERMS

­ ere is no such t­ hing as a neutral subject. We are all inevitably someone’s Th adversary. — ­M I C H EL FOUC AULT, S O C I E T Y M U S T B E D E F E N D E D

Millions of protestors took to the streets in Tehran. Some chanted “death to the dictator.” The Revolutionary Guards used live ammunition against the demonstrators. Yet the upheaval spread rapidly. Leading the protest with the backing of many elite politicians, Mir Hossein Musavi had directly challenged Ayatollah Khamenei in the largest street demonstrations seen since the 1979 Revolution. It was 2009 and the uprising known as the Green Movement was at its apex. The upheaval had rattled Khamenei. He quickly rounded up his closest confidants and ordered them to appear on national tele­vi­sion. Khamenei instructed them to undertake two specific tasks: renew their allegiance to him and reject the Green Movement in the strongest terms pos­si­ble. One of ­those summoned to the meeting was a former Revolutionary Guard commander whose rise as a po­liti­cal star was largely facilitated by Khamenei. The man was the mayor of Tehran, Mohammad Baghir Ghalibaf. It was somewhat strange, then, that Ghalibaf would call for a clandestine meeting of his own the night before he was to deliver his pledge on tele­vi­sion. Mahdi, one of Ghalibaf ’s po­liti­cal con­sul­tants at the time, a fervent Hezbollahie, and this chapter’s primary interlocutor, was among three advisors who attended the meeting. “Ghalibaf wanted to know,” Mahdi leaned forward and

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whispered, “he wanted to know who would win, Musavi [the leader of the Green Movement] or Agha [Khamenei].” Mahdi continued: I was dumbfounded and kept looking in his eyes. He was genuinely asking us who is ­going to win. ­Here was Ghalibaf, a Revolutionary Guard security type person with an enormous intelligence network u ­ nder his thumb, and none of the intelligence summaries had provided any clear indication as to who might win—­Musavi or Khamenei. Ghalibaf wanted a po­liti­cal analy­sis from me as a last resort. But Mahdi was as clueless as the rest. “­There are three million angry protesters in the streets right now,” Mahdi told Ghalibaf. “How could I predict,” he continued, “how could anyone predict who wins, and what happens a­ fter that?” The meeting reflected a remarkable situation. No one could confidently foresee how the uprising might end. Nor could anyone accurately envisage what would happen to the side that lost. It seemed as though all factions, including Khamenei and his supporters, w ­ ere facing the possibility of strategic defeat, that is, elimination from state politics, state media, and the state economy. This was an extraordinary po­liti­cal shift in the short history of revolutionary Iran, pointing to a new form that the Islamic Republic had taken. But how did this social milieu come about? This chapter addresses this question by linking a distinct kind of relationship between materiality and language to radical contingency. It shows that the same asymmetrical objects and contesting referential systems that had harnessed the reformist and Hezbollahie modes of life in Tehran helped change the public nature of freeplay ­after 1997. Indeed, no sooner had reformists and Hezbollahies vied for centrality than the substitution of signs gave way to the resignification of them. Specifically, whereas the freeplay that occasioned rupture as a social field between 1989 and 1997 was characterized by the multiplication of signs (meaning) in ways that gradually unraveled martyrdom as the dominant referential system, the freeplay that proliferated between 1997 and 2009 took the form of the resignification of signs, deployed by reformists and Hezbollahies against one another. This pro­cess transformed ­every sign into a potential site of contestation, including the phrase “Allah-­o Akbar,” the color green, the Azadi (freedom) Square, a rooftop, the Ira­nian flag, and, as we ­shall see, Ahmadinejad’s “massive” nose. The development of this battlefield in Tehran, which came to include ­every public object and term, meant that new agencies could be mobilized at any moment, rendering radical contingency the norm and occasioning a situation in which all factions seemed to face the possibility of strategic defeat. This does not mean that military paraphernalia, counterriot strategies, brute vio­lence, and so on ­were not interwoven with the formation of this po­liti­cal matrix. But

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all such paraphernalia and strategies existed before. What had changed was the gradual materialization of two distinct modes of life with the capacity to vie for centrality by means of seeking to eliminate the other. The 2009 Green Movement uprising was the culmination of this feud. The chapter, then, brings its analy­sis of the relations between materiality, language, and radical contingency to bear on the question of war. Its contribution to the canon of critical war studies is twofold. First, rather than exploring war in relation to “society” and thus extrinsic to it, the chapter conceives of war as a form that social relations take. Second, it shows that linking war to “fighting” without paying adequate attention to the qualitative nature of the fight impedes the lit­er­a­ture from distinguishing war from other forms of social relations. To be sure, critical war theorists often explain war as not only an “antagonistic exchange” but one that is “generative” and endowed with an “inherent potential for differentiation” (Nordin and Öberg 2015:397). One might ask, however, what are the distinct variations in the differentiation about which scholars of war speak? Are domination, rupture, and war not all the result of “generative” and “antagonistic” exchanges that produce “differentiation”? So what is unique about the antagonistic fighting that occasions war? This chapter argues that pro­cesses of resignification are interwoven with war. It illustrates how the reappropriation and resignification of ­things and terms mobilized new agencies in Tehran that conditioned not only the possibility of radical contingency but also the possibility of strategic defeat for all factions. This very possibility is what distinguishes war from domination and rupture. The chapter, therefore, theorizes war as a qualitatively unique structurality by analyzing the multifaceted relationships between materiality, language, and resignification/radical contingency. ­These arguments develop through the exploration of three key themes. First, the chapter shows the transformation of the reformist and Hezbollahie cores into centers vying for centrality. This pro­cess marks the genesis of a new social field and is illustrated through a brief overview of the media cir­cuit’s further expansion and polarization, including the continued regularization of public objects during Mohammad Khatami’s and Mahmood Ahmadinejad’s presidencies. Second, it shows how the confrontation between t­ hese two centers generated not only a series of public ­battles such as attempted assassinations and killings but, and just as significantly, the proliferation of pro­cesses of resignification across the public. Third, the chapter sheds light on how po­liti­cal objects and terms—­and their radical contingency—­operated through the vantage point of life history accounts. It provides a par­tic­u­lar insight into the mechanism through which po­liti­cal defeat and the terror of failure took hold in Tehran by continuing to focus on Reza’s and, more prominently ­here, Mahdi’s voices. Indeed, Reza’s and Mahdi’s life histories link m ­ atters of radical contingency to social structure, materiality, personal belief, prayer, God, and the Green Movement uprising

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in 2009. The chapter concludes by theorizing the social field that afforded the Green Movement as war. Let us now turn to the transformations that the media cir­cuit underwent during the Khatami and Ahmadinejad administrations, before analyzing their po­liti­cal ramifications. The Expansion of the Media Cir­cuit The Hezbollahie Resalat newspaper announced Nategh Nuri’s candidacy for president and introduced him as zob dar velyat (someone immersed in the guardianship [of Ayatollah Khamenei]) in November 1997. The same paper stated that Nategh Nuri had joined the race owing to his sense of taklif (duty). Nuri was quoted as saying, “To become an official in a state which is holy one must first accept what is in essence a holy duty” (Kashi 2002:181). A month ­later, the reformist Salam daily announced Mohammad Khatami’s candidacy and introduced him as a roshanfekr (intellectual) (Kashi 2002:181). The same paper further stated that Khatami had entered the race to “bring plural perspectives to the ­table” (Kashi 2002:187; emphasis added). Khatami was quoted as saying, “Some of my constituency have opinions that o ­ thers [Hezbollahies] may not like. I see no reason, however, to shove diversity to the periphery” (Kashi 2002:187; emphasis added). Mohammad Khatami won the presidency in May  1997 by capturing 70 ­percent of the vote, that is, over 20 million against Nategh Nuri’s approximately 7 million. With this, reformists seized the executive branch, which included the impor­tant Ministry of Culture responsible for issuing permits for newspapers and films. Reformists eventually took control of the Parliament for an extended period as well. At the same time, the Hezbollahies controlled other impor­tant—­mostly non-­elected—­organ­izations such as the judiciary, national tele­vi­sion and radio, and the Revolutionary Guards (the heads of which ­were all appointed by Khamenei) (Adelkhah 2012). The trends that had begun during rupture did nothing but accelerate with ­every passing month during the new era. The proliferation of unorthodox symbols and objects across Tehran, especially during Mohammad Khatami’s term, and Hezbollahie signs and objects, especially during Mahmood Ahmadinejad’s term, only increased ­after 1997. As far as technical media was concerned, the reformist Ministry of Culture permitted the production of many films, magazines, and dailies. In terms of spaces, not only had coffee shops and leisure hubs multiplied across cities but the population had also grown almost exponentially, reaching 64 million in 2000. This made policing the cities extremely difficult. To monitor the hijab, for instance, the “moral police” had no choice but to limit itself to impor­tant intersections and main streets, leaving a variety of other routes along which alternative and unorthodox appearances

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proliferated. As far as objects ­were concerned, the steady and relatively high price of oil during this time enabled the continued flow of foreign objects of consumption into the public. On the other hand, the Hezbollahies consolidated their hold over hundreds of thousands of religious hubs and networks. They controlled Friday Prayers, national tele­vi­sion, and dozens of dailies and weeklies attached to the “cultural” wings of institutions such as the Revolutionary Guards, the judiciary, and so on. In addition, the flow of (lower-­quality) objects of consumption along with Iranian-­made products had, in part, enabled the Hezbollahies to further regularize their public aesthetics. In what follows, I take a closer look at some of ­these pro­cesses. However, whereas in the previous chapters I described what sorts of cars, apartments/houses, and foods had proliferated during both domination and rupture, I s­ hall limit my focus on objects h ­ ere to attire, which provides an illustrative account of the media cir­cuit’s continued transformation ­after 1997. Suffice it to say that all imported ­things (foods, cars, ­etc.) became increasingly diversified. Bodies. Bodies exhibited and generated two dif­fer­ent concrete-­abstract worlds of the “reforms” and the “Hezbollahies.” This is not to say that each ­woman who sported an orthodox or unorthodox hijab intended to exhibit or contribute to a specific “mode of being.” Nevertheless, and irrespective of individual intentions, each form of hijab did refer to a specific concrete-­abstract world at the level of the public, further generating that world in the pro­cess. The Islamic hijab evolved in two directions. The unorthodox forms of hijab that emerged during rupture w ­ ere rendered even more unorthodox. The rusari was in many instances shortened to cover even less hair. The manto, which covered the body from the shoulders down to the lower part of the shins ­under domination, and from the shoulders down to the knees during rupture, came in many instances to cover from the shoulders to above the knees a­ fter 1997. Many affluent young ­women of northern Tehran began to sport long buttonup shirts rather than mantos during the summer months. And facial makeup intensified. Soon, the term daaf emerged, which in certain contexts referred to the profile of a young ­woman who often sported the short rusari and manto, blond hair, and heavy makeup; many times such ­women also showed signs of having had cosmetic surgery. At the same time, the Hezbollahie hijab became standardized as well. While the cloth of the chador and maghnae improved (now also made with quality fabric), they often remained black. In addition, the black chador, which covers the entire body except the face, was modified to include sleeves so that ­women could freely use their hands. The ideal-­type Hezbollahie ­woman kept her facial makeup to the absolute minimum. The male appearance drifted in two directions as well. Whereas many men had begun to wear short sleeves, shirts with En­glish slogans, baseball caps,

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and designer sunglasses during rupture, Western models ­were emulated more closely a­ fter 1997. For instance, many “rappers” from Tehran to Mashhad to Isfahan and their networks sported baggy clothes characteristic of hip-­hop fashion of the time. And many rock musicians and youths affiliated with them sported long hair with unorthodox sideburns. The very affluent youth of northern Tehran even began to fashion themselves a­ fter American preppies, wearing sweaters on their shoulders with the sleeves tied over their chests. At the same time, Hezbollahie fashion also became regularized. Avini’s stylistics proliferated among Hezbollahies. ­Simple and short haircuts, facial hair, button-up shirts (sometimes with no Western collars), worn over Ira­ nian trousers (absolutely no jeans), and ­simple jackets ranging from gray to dark brown (no bright colors) ­were widely seen among Hezbollahies. Mahmood Ahmadinejad, whom I ­shall discuss ­later, and who came to power ­after Khatami, clearly exhibited Hezbollahie aesthetics during his presidency. Technical Media. Within a year of Khatami’s presidency, 880 new publications appeared, pushing circulation of the dailies to three million, an annual increase of 100 ­percent. By April 1998, 1,000 publications, including 21 major dailies, filled the newsstands, and total daily readership swelled to more than 12 million (Bayat 2007:109). W ­ omen and students initiated their own specialized press. At the first-­ever student publication fair in 1998, students from 60 colleges exhibited more than 200 titles, and two years ­later ­there ­were 286. The number of ­women’s publications reached 40 by 2002. The DTV student movement expanded its national network, publishing a student newspaper (Azar) and 700 local student magazines and establishing the Ira­nian Students News Agency (ISNA) (Bayat 2007:108).1 One hundred seventy-­four dailies circulated during the reform era (2007:110). As far as content was concerned, reformist op-ed pieces began to routinely target the Islamic Republic’s core foundations. Such attacks operated on two levels. First, and following Soroush’s prior formulations, he and his disciples continued to take aim at the Islamic Republic’s theoretical foundations. They “sparked debate on taboo subjects such as the legitimacy of the velayat-­e faqih [Ayatollah Khamenei], the separation of religion and state, and religious pluralism” (Bayat 2007:110). Second, they went a­ fter high-­ranking officials. The firebrand journalist Akbar Ganji spearheaded the latter initiative. On the other hand, hundreds of Hezbollahie cultural groups associated with the Ansar-­e Hez­bollah and the Basij (­people’s militia) spearheaded the production and distribution of hundreds of weeklies, dailies, and pamphlets. The Hez­bollah Cultural Front, the Shalamcheh Cultural Group, the Avini Cultural Group, and the Mawud Cultural Front w ­ ere just a few. Many operated in conjunction with the Front for Islamist Re­sis­tance led by Masud Dehnamaki, the out­spoken editor of the weeklies Shalamcheh and Jabhih, who had cordial relations with the Revolutionary Guards. In addition, the national dailies

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Kayhan, Harim, Partaw, Fayziyyih, and Yalitharat built up networks of Hezbollahie contributors across the nation, and their articles ­were ­either included in the dailies or used in local hubs such as universities and mosques. As far as content was concerned, Hezbollahies had both defensive and offensive strategies. In terms of defense, they operated ­under the rubric of shobahat (mischaracterizations), meaning that Hezbollahie writers routinely sought to refute reformists’ attacks against, and “mischaracterizations” of, the Islamic Republic. And part of the offensive strategy was to pre­sent reformists as anti-­Islamic and anti-­revolutionary for that reason while also claiming that many top-­ranking reformists ­were linked to foreign intelligence agencies. Kayhan spearheaded the latter strategy. Hundreds of quality news and networking websites and an estimated 100,000 blogs had sprung up by 2002. Student organ­izations, w ­ omen’s groups, NGOs, po­liti­cal parties, and private individuals supplied uncensored news, analy­sis, and poor-­quality po­liti­cal satire to a domestic internet audience that had grown to more than three million by 2003 (Bayat 2007:120). By the end of Khatami’s second term, around 70 ­percent of the urban population owned satellite dishes (Hosseinie 2014). In addition to foreign-­language channels, over a dozen Farsi-­language channels based in ­either Dubai or Los Angeles ­were available to viewers in Iran. ­These channels included round-­the-­ clock m ­ usic shows featuring Ira­nian pop singers or exiled po­liti­cal groups such as pro-­Shah networks in California. Public Spaces. On the one hand, coffee shops, parks, leisure hubs, massive expressways, and so on had multiplied across cities. On the other hand, by the end of Khatami’s first term, Hezbollahies controlled 59,000 mosques, 6,000 shrines, and 15,000 other religious spaces (Bayat 2007; Hosseinie 2014). In addition, the Foundation of the Mustazafin and its gigantic industrial and financial conglomerate controlled major segments of the economy and thus major segments of the workforce. With an annual bud­get of US$10 billion, it employed hundreds of thousands of employees in vari­ous layered structures (Hosseinie 2014). It seems, then, that the pro­cesses that began during rupture intensified a­ fter 1997. The public had transformed into a space of contestation in the pro­cess, a space through which each side sought a path ­toward centrality. Every­thing from parks to walls to bodies became a potential site of this feud. The ensuing sections w ­ ill focus on the development of this feud by relying on Mahdi’s life history account.2 Mahdi is one of the most influential Hezbollahie po­liti­cal players of his generation. His story ­will be deployed as a touchstone that sheds light on not only the consecutive ­battles between the reformist and Hezbollahie modes of life but also Mahdi’s relations with Khamenei, God, materiality, and the Green Movement uprising.

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Mahdi: Coming to Terms with a Feud THE RISE OF A PO­LITI­CAL STAR

“Frail.” “Scared.” “Indecisive.” This is how Mahdi explains himself. “You remember how confident I used to be?” he asks. “­Because I believed it all,” he continues. “Now?” A pause. “Well,” he goes on, “I suggest you write your story on my transformation from a believer to what­ever it is that I have become.” Mahdi rarely travels anywhere without e­ ither of his two d ­ rivers. Once, when he wandered off alone into a dark alley in southern Tehran, the boys ­there had a field day with him. They took his expensive watch, his thick wallet, and his designer shoes, roughed him up, and sent him on his way. Mahdi, the spineless Mahdi, did not resist. He simulates a hunchback and performs a quasi-­limp in a bid to disguise his young age. Mahdi’s generation are called “The ­Children of the Revolution.” Born in 1979, Mahdi was delivered three weeks ­after the Islamic Republic’s inauguration. “Keep him waiting,” says Mahdi to his secretary, who has just informed him that his 3:00 appointment has arrived. Mahdi presides over a ten-­story building in the center of Tehran, the top floor of which is his personal office. Soundproof doors separate his two-­hundred-­square-­meter internal space from where his secretaries work so that nothing inside is heard beyond his walls. His office’s back door opens to a conference room, which has a back door that opens to a prayer room, which has a bed and a back door that opens to Mahdi’s personal shower. A flat-­screen TV, a satellite receiver, a DVD player, a large Apple computer, and a massive desk anchoring a portrait of Imam Khomeini and a portrait of Ayatollah Khamenei are some of the items in his office. The wall adjacent to the desk has a single framed picture hanging on it. It is an official title, one of many given to Mahdi by the mayor of Tehran. In it, the mayor has appointed Mahdi as his po­liti­cal con­sul­tant and wished him success. Mahdi employs four secretaries; one deals with his and another with his wife’s private m ­ atters, and two deal with official m ­ atters. Two cooks, three kitchen staff, and a range of administrators are some of his other employees. His “con­sul­tants” often fight Mahdi’s ­battles for him. One of them is an influential tele­vi­sion producer who occupies an office on the seventh floor. His job is to promote the mayor on tele­vi­sion, ­whether directly or by showcasing the municipality’s glitzy proj­ects. The other is the son of a power­ful Revolutionary Guard commander and has an office on the eighth floor. His job is to maintain cordial relations with vari­ous intelligence networks. Officials and guests need to accommodate Mahdi’s secretaries in order to be granted an appointment. And on the day of the appointment, visitors are buzzed in through a metal door and must walk along a medium-­sized yard to arrive by the elevator, for which t­ here is usually a five-­minute wait given

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that it is constantly in use. And the trip to the top is interrupted by stops on just about e­ very floor. “­There is a general correlation,” says Mahdi’s personal secretary, “between what floor guests get off on and where they stand in the po­liti­cal hierarchy out ­there.” Only a few reach the tenth floor. They are called into the lobby to sit with ­others, some of whom have waited longer than they had anticipated. The amount of the potential time spent with Mahdi decreases with each passing moment. And when guests fi­nally enter Mahdi’s office, they are ready to listen, not speak. That is how Mahdi wants it. “This document,” says Mahdi to his secretary, “this document” he repeats, “needs to be marked confidential and sent to doctor immediately.” By “doctor,” Mahdi is referring to the mayor of Tehran, Mohammad Baghir Ghalibaf. “When I was sixteen in our village of Torghabeh,” Ghalibaf recounts to Mahdi with excitement, “my ­father did not even trust me enough to have me look ­after our donkey. Two years ­later Imam Khomeini made me the commander of three thousand troops in the [Iran-­Iraq] conflict.” Ghalibaf narrates this story so often to illustrate what potential the revolutionary Imam released in ordinary ­people like him. And that is precisely how Mahdi used to read it back when he believed what­ever he says he believed. Now Mahdi cringes when Ghalibaf speaks of the Iran-­Iraq conflict. “That conflict,” says Mahdi, “was driven by sending waves of p ­ eople to the front to die.” Th ­ ere is a pause. “The job of a commander,” he continues, “the job of a commander was to take three thousand troops forward and return with none. Khomeini did not need a Sun Tzu strategist for that.” Mahdi then drops his chin a ­little and whispers, “He needed a Ghalibaf.” By the time the b ­ attle with Saddam had ended in 1988, Ghalibaf was the commander of the impor­tant Nasr Troops of the Revolutionary Guards. And when Khamenei succeeded Khomeini as the leader of the revolution and took charge of the Revolutionary Guards, he facilitated Ghalibaf ’s gradual rise through the ranks, both directly and indirectly—­directly ­because Ayatollah Khamenei personally appoints all of the Revolutionary Guards’ top commanders. Thus, while the Guards have a chain of command, the entire top echelon is handpicked by, and therefore connected to, Khamenei. Ayatollah Khamenei placed Ghalibaf on the fast track to the top by appointing him a major general in the Revolutionary Guards in 1996, the Commander of the Air Force in 1998, and the chief of Iran’s entire police force a year ­later. Once Ghalibaf left the Revolutionary Guards to enter politics, he operated more or less as Khamenei’s agent. He was made the mayor of Tehran in the pro­cess, a position he held from 2005 to 2017.3 The fact that Ghalibaf presided over the massive city of Tehran (which has approximately 10 million residents, 15 million in the metropolitan area) is just one of his sources of influence. The other impor­tant source is the network that

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Ghalibaf hails from. This consists of a web of ­things and ­people that is generated, in part, by domestically manufactured Shahab missiles with a range of up to 900 kilo­meters that place all American bases in the Persian Gulf within Tehran’s reach, as well as the domestically mass-­produced Sajjil missiles that run on solid fuel and have a reach of up to 2,000 kilo­meters, which place Tel Aviv within reach (Elleman 2013). “­These missiles,” says U.S. general Kenneth Mc­Ken­zie, “can strike effectively across the breadth and depth of the ­Middle East. They could strike with accuracy, and they could strike with volume” (Wright 2021). This network also includes an ensemble of assets that constitute a security thread spanning from the Palestinian territories to Lebanon to Syria to Iraq to Yemen to Af­ghan­i­stan to Pakistan, that is, from the shores of the Mediterranean to the borders of India. The person that oversaw this grid operationally ­until 2020 was General Ghasem Solaymani. He presided over Iran’s covert dealings in Af­ghan­i­stan beginning in 2001, Iran’s proxy war with the United States in Iraq in 2003 (which Solaymani believed he had won), and the strategic cover that was provided to Hez­bollah in the Lebanon war of 2006 during which the Israeli army was unable to defeat the Iran-­backed Lebanese militia. More recently, he guided the ground operation to keep Bashar Assad in power in Syria against an international co­ali­tion that included Washington, Paris, Ankara, Riyadh, Doha, and Amman. According to most Western accounts, Solaymani was the most influential field operative in the entire ­Middle East during the past two de­cades (Filkins 2013). To be sure, the Ira­nian state had also built up Solaymani as the charismatic symbol of “re­sis­tance” against American “interference” in the region (Adib-­ Moghaddam 2021). Indeed, Solaymani’s increasing media presence, particularly in American and Eu­ro­pean platforms, partly s­ haped Donald Trump’s decision to assassinate the Ira­nian general in January 2020. According to t­ hose who served u ­ nder him (see Esper 2022), Trump saw the assassination as an opportunity to attain some level of electoral advantage in the lead-up to the U.S. presidential election. Five days ­after the assassination, the Ira­nian state retaliated by firing a dozen ballistic missiles—­each carry­ing a thousand-­pound warhead—at the Al Asad Airbase in Iraq. It was the largest ballistic-­missile attack by a nation on American troops (Wright 2021). Solaymani, a symbol of re­sis­tance for many Ira­ni­ans whose assassination brought the United States and Iran to the brink of war, had been Ghalibaf ’s closest friend and confidant over the previous three de­cades, ­going back to when they ­were teen­agers in the Iran-­Iraq conflict. This is the network that Ghalibaf hails from. “Mahmood [Ahmadinejad] can spread his butter wherever he wants,” Ghalibaf tells Mahdi. “Tehran,” Ghalibaf quips, “Tehran belongs to us [me].” If Mahdi is so sought ­after yet feared it is ­because he can whisper in Ghalibaf ’s ear and create a world of trou­ble for anyone, or move astronomical sums

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of money from one account to another, or get permission for a firm to construct a massive building right in the heart of Tehran. Ghalibaf ’s unequivocal trust in Mahdi is the source of the latter’s influence. Mahdi, however, knows that he has reached the apex of his power. “It is downhill from h ­ ere,” he says. He is intelligent enough to understand that faith in God is also a historical construct that, once demolished, can never be reconstituted in the same way. This is what makes him so upset—­and fearful. THE CONSTRUCTION OF GOD’S NETWORK

Mahdi was born in Mashhad, the city that hosts the shrine of the eighth Shi’ite imam. Growing up during the 1980s in Iran, the era of domination, meant that Mahdi was unfamiliar with theaters, exhibitions, and theme parks. All of his toys w ­ ere assembled from what his extended f­ amily had bought before the revolution. This amounted to a few toy cars and a broken toy gun. So Mahdi mostly played with what kids on his block played with: mud. Mahdi’s m ­ other, a ­house­keeper, was accustomed to cleaning dirt from Mahdi’s shoes. And Mahdi’s ­father, a ­middle school teacher, paid close attention to Mahdi’s schoolwork. Mahdi was only seven when his f­ ather arrived home from work on that incomprehensibly tense day. Mahdi, his two siblings, and his m ­ other had been anxious since breakfast. Recognizing the jittery mood immediately upon entering the ­house, Mahdi’s ­father took off his coat, looked directly into Mahdi’s eyes, and began to walk t­ oward Mahdi’s m ­ other. “Now, now,” said Mahdi’s f­ ather to Mahdi, “I know how tired your m ­ other must be. I know how much she needs rest,” he continued as he arrived by her side and g­ ently took from her the plate she was washing. “But you know what, Mahdi? I think your ­mother would prob­ably not mind this right now.” He tilted his head a bit and kissed her on the cheek. She burst into deep laughter, making Mahdi laugh so much that tears trickled down his cheeks. This turn of events had created a truly joyful moment for the ­house. Mahdi felt blessed as he then watched his loving parents stand together, side by side, and pray to God. Th ­ ere they all w ­ ere, together, his ­mother, ­father, and God. Mahdi did not merely rely upon God; he loved God. So he did every­thing with God. He bustled through his homework while talking it through with God. He played soccer with the help of God. And when he succeeded—as he often did—in street games and at school, he knew that God had wanted it. The more Mahdi listened to God, the more triumphant he was, which in turn pushed him closer to God. And what prevented fifteen-­year-­old Mahdi from throwing himself into his ­father’s grave ­after he died from a heart attack was, no doubt, God. Mahdi witnessed a sudden flash of light in the sky as he stood by his bedroom win­dow a week ­after his ­father’s burial. He kissed the glass win­dow, said goodnight to God, and smiled as he switched off the lights.

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This God was by no means a mere product of Mahdi’s imagination but was constituted for him through a variety of ­things such as the picture of his u ­ ncle. When Mahdi thought God was upset with him for having bullied his friend in first grade, he scurried to his living room where a picture of his martyred ­uncle hung on the wall. He gazed at the picture and said, “­Uncle Hessam, ­will you tell God that I am sorry?” Hessam, who had been killed in the early years of the Iran-­Iraq conflict, was a legendary figure in Mahdi’s ­house. When Mahdi prayed too quickly, his ­mother would ask, “Would your ­Uncle Hessam approve of the way you rushed through your prayer?” When Mahdi asked for the exotic Adidas shoes that his cousin was sporting, his aunt would respond, “Your ­uncle sacrificed himself for God, for Islam, for the revolution; that is the selflessness he expects of you” (emphasis added). And when Mahdi complained about another potato-­based meal, his grand­mother would say, “Your U ­ ncle Hessam gave his life for Imam Khomeini and justice not for you to complain about food.” ­Things and terms ­were all tied together. God, potato-­based dishes, Islam, the revolution, Imam Khomeini, sacrifice, the Islamic Republic, affordable Ira­nian shoes, justice, and ­Uncle Hessam ­were all part of the same concrete-­abstract package such that an attack against one was an attack against all. Years ­later, when reformists began to attack the Islamic Republic, Mahdi had no choice but to view it as an attack against God, Islam, Imam Khomeini, and, thus, his own ­family. “Vaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyy!” said Mahdi’s ­mother in a visceral reaction to a neighborhood teen who had chatted up young girls on the block. She framed the boy as a criminal beyond remorse. Mahdi’s ­mother regularly passed such judgments. She would start by passively complaining that Mahdi and his siblings had rushed through their morning prayers. This often led to what Mahdi insisted was an “innocent critique of every­one and their m ­ others.” She complained about her friend who was so reckless in raising her son that he had come to own “cassette tapes” and presumably listened to ­music. In another instance, at a dinner party, a friend mentioned that her husband liked the reformist intellectual Abdol Karim Soroush, which so upset Mahdi’s m ­ other that she could not finish her meal. This was b ­ ecause she doubted w ­ hether anyone with sympathies ­toward Soroush even paid Zakat (compulsory religious tax) for that meal to be halal. “And you know what,” said Mahdi, “my ­mother d ­ idn’t even know why Soroush was supposed to be bad!” But what ­really made Mahdi’s ­mother fume was when her beloved niece opted to wear the rusari (scarf ) instead of the orthodox chador. That his m ­ other, who raised her niece and loved her so much, was able to cut off all ties with her so coldly ­because of that “damn rusari” is something that Mahdi cannot grasp t­ oday. But he clearly understood this then. In fact, Mahdi too had begun to exhibit visceral reactions to such “crimes” including the unorthodox hijab. “If Khatami and Soroush [the reformists] win, what ­will happen to Islam, to the revolution, to

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Ayatollah Khamenei, to hijab, to my f­ amily, to me? Th ­ ese w ­ ere my concerns at the time,” said Mahdi. Six months a­ fter Khatami’s accession to the presidency in 1997, Mahdi placed twenty-­third in the National University Exam. He chose to study politics at the University of Tehran. A lean Mahdi arrived at the university sporting a short haircut with full facial hair, wearing a button-up white shirt over his nakhi Ira­nian black trousers. He wore the cheap Ira­nian shoes, kafsh-­e chini, with a Palestinian Keffiyeh wrapped around his neck. Mahdi soon realized how popu­lar Khatami was beyond the ballot box. “I entered a severely asymmetrical war zone at the university,” he said. “More accurately,” he continued, “it was the war of fil-­o fenjoon [David and Goliath], with reformists operating as the hegemonic force.” The pressure was such that Mahdi ­stopped wearing the Keffiyeh within a month and ­stopped admitting that he had voted for the Hezbollahie Nategh Nuri against the reformist Khatami. Three Hezbollahie lecturers w ­ ere forced out of their jobs during Mahdi’s first six months at the university. It seemed as though Hezbollahies had been reduced to second-­class citizens at the university. Dazed and confused, Mahdi returned home to Mashhad during his first-­term break. “Are your grand­mother and ­mother all home?” asked an official on the phone. “Yes,” answered Mahdi. “­Great!” the official continued. “I am calling from the Bonyand-­e Shahid [Institution of Martyrs], and the head of the institution would like to stop by within an hour or so for a visit. Would that be alright?” This was not an unusual request. Mahdi’s ­uncle Hessam was a martyr. Officials from the Institution of Martyrs or the Basij militia or the municipality often visited Mahdi’s ­house to pay their re­spects. No sooner had Mahdi’s ­family prepared for the visit than they heard a knock at the door. When Mahdi opened the door, the head of the Institution of Martyrs walked in and shook his hand. Then in walked the leader of the revolution, Ayatollah Khamenei. Mahdi froze and forgot to say “Hello.” Ayatollah Khamenei kissed Mahdi’s forehead and strolled into the living room. Mahdi’s grand­mother froze too, then dropped down and attempted to kiss Khamenei’s feet. He stepped back. “My Hessam gave his life for the revolution!” she screamed before loudly weeping. Mahdi’s m ­ other began to cry as well. Khamenei was quite relaxed and seemed used to ­people crying before him. He had stood by a chair, waiting for someone to seat him. But no one had the presence of mind to do so. A bodyguard whispered to Mahdi’s m ­ other, saying something like, “Could you please seat him?” Mahdi’s ­mother fi­nally collected herself and asked Khamenei to take a seat. Khamenei sat, placed a sugar cube in his mouth and drank half a cup of tea. His attempts to start a conversation went nowhere since every­one was still crying. Mahdi fi­nally spoke and said, “Agha, our situation is very bad at the university.” Khamenei looked at Mahdi with an intense gaze and signaled, “Go on.”

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“They are putting us ­under enormous pressure. They have kicked out three Hezbollahie instructors, and are about to dismiss another one,” said Mahdi. Khamenei interrupted him and asked, “Whom do they want to kick out?” Mahdi said, “Musa Najafi.” Khamenei replied, “They w ­ ill not kick him out.” To which Mahdi responded, “I heard they have plans.” Khamenei looked at Mahdi directly and raised both of his eyebrows slightly, by which he communicated something like, “­Don’t worry, they cannot kick him out.” Khamenei then signed the back of a Qur’an and handed it to Mahdi’s grand­ mother. Mahdi followed Khamenei out. Khamenei turned to Mahdi at the door, looked at him, and asked, “What book are you reading?” “Morteza Avini,” Mahdi responded. Khamenei grabbed Mahdi’s shoulder and brought him close, kissed his forehead again, then squeezed Mahdi’s hand in a sign of tacit approval. He then asked Mahdi to begin working for the revolution right away. His bodyguards prevented Mahdi from following Khamenei onto the street. They did not want Mahdi to see into which direction Khamenei would vanish. Mahdi found his ­family in a state of restlessness once he re­entered the living room. His ­mother called a taxi to take her ­family to the shrine of the eighth Shi’ite imam in the city. They ­were in such a rush that they forgot to take Mahdi. He walked all the way, crying the entire time. Once t­ here, they prayed and cried together. They all felt as though they w ­ ere God’s favored c­ hildren to have been granted the opportunity to experience such a joyous occasion. Mahdi explains: Khamenei had created a profoundly spiritual moment for us all. A moment in which we could feel connected to God, cry, and rejuvenate ourselves. We went back home from the shrine quite late. And once asleep, I dreamed that the person who had visited us was in fact not Khamenei but Imam Zaman [the twelfth Shi’ite imam hidden since 680 AD]. I mean when I woke up, I was sure that Khamenei was not just Khamenei. I knew that he was the extension of Imam Zaman. I had sensed this in my dream. ­ ese types of dreams are not uncommon among second-­generation HezTh bollahies who are immersed in Avini’s world. Many Hezbollahies speak of their “sense” that Khamenei often meets with the hidden imam. ­These Hezbollahies do not refer to Khamenei as valiy-­e fagih, which is a position based on something similar to a hermeneutic reading of Shi’ite text. Rather, like prominent Hezbollahie cleric Hojatol Islam Panahian, most second-­generation Hezbollahies use the term velayat, derived from the term vali, an Arabic word that in one sense means a friend for whom one has profound love. It is a term deployed in Islamic mysticism that sometimes refers to a master with revelatory knowledge of the unknown into whose hands willing students release themselves. And that is precisely how Ira­nian national tele­vi­sion portrays him, as a master with revelatory knowledge. Khamenei is never seen receiving consultations but is

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always in a position of revealing ­things as ­others take notes, ­whether they are teachers, nurses, military personnel, or engineers. And when Khamenei arrives among firebrand Hezbollahies, some throw themselves at his feet, some cry, and some try to touch him. If in the past Ayatollah Khamenei was for Mahdi a source of religious emulation (his Marja) and a source of po­liti­cal leadership (his Rahbar), he was now also a source of spirituality and love (his Agha). So when Mahdi returned to Tehran, he did so with a po­liti­cal, religious, and spiritual mandate to work for the revolution. A TRANSFORMATION

No sooner had Mahdi returned to Tehran than the Hezbollahie instructor Musa Najafi—­the very person Khamenei was sure could not be expelled—­was dismissed by the University of Tehran. For Mahdi, this meant that even Khamenei had not anticipated just how power­ful reformists had become. Reformists appeared to capture one Hezbollahie fortification ­after another. And elite reformists had come to gain prominence as mega-­celebrities in the pro­cess. Some, like Hajjarian, had joined Khatami’s inner po­liti­cal circle, while o ­ thers, like Reza, had become some of the most impor­tant intellectuals of the reforms, with their pictures appearing in popu­lar magazines and newspapers on a daily basis. ­These elite reformists had managed to turn their po­liti­cal links into financial benefit as well. For instance, just as the Hezbollahie Musa Najafi was pushed out of the University of Tehran, Reza attained a tenure-­track teaching position ­there shortly a­ fter receiving his PhD. Reza and his wife, Negin, w ­ ere then able to buy a ­house. Like many among reformist elites who ­were directly integrated into the vast executive state bud­get upon Khatami’s accession to power, Reza’s standard of living improved considerably. Th ­ ese financial benefits, along with the excitement of the reforms, open po­liti­cal debates, newspapers ­going ­after the Islamic Republic, and terms like “freedom,” generated a jubilant atmosphere among elite reformists like Reza. They also produced a ­great deal of anxiety for Hezbollahies. Vio­lence was one of the first major Hezbollahie reactions to the expansion of the reforms. As Asef Bayat notes, the brutal murders of Daryush Furuhar, an ex-­minister, and his wife in their home in 1998 shocked the nation. Soon a­ fter, the writers Mohammad Mukhtari and Mohammad Puyandeh dis­appeared; their lynched bodies ­were eventually found in a desolate neighborhood on the city’s outskirts. ­These murders ­were perceived to be aimed at stifling the reforms. Investigations revealed the involvement of intelligence ministry agents (Bayat 2007:117).

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Public outrage enabled the reformist press to pursue the ­matter relentlessly. A few intelligence officials ­were arrested, but ­little was revealed about any larger network of co-­conspirators. The Hezbollahie ringleader was found dead u ­ nder mysterious circumstances in prison, fueling public speculation that hardliners had killed him to prevent any damaging information from leaking out during interrogations. The identities of the ultimate perpetrators remained unknown. President Khatami, who was also shocked that his own intelligence ministry had attempted to circumvent him, went ahead with “cleansing the ministry” of such “cancerous tumors” by appointing a new minister (Bayat 2007:117). But a broader b ­ attle had begun, spearheaded by Halghe Kian members, particularly Akbar Ganji, who accused the state’s highest officials (Rafsanjani and Khamenei) of having been complicit in the crime. This was a serious charge. Reza had begun to worry about the Halghe Kian’s continued daily attacks on high-­ranking officials. To him, it seemed as though some Kian members hoped to use the murders to bring down the top state officials, and even to topple the regime. Daily articles on the nature of the murders, particularly ­those written by Ganji, generated a context in which many ­people had, in Reza’s words, “become even more hateful ­toward each other.” “In a sense,” Reza said, “we seemed to have ­adopted the same strategy as our rivals. Just as they aimed to topple us completely, we aimed to topple them completely.” Reza found himself in the minority when he called for an end to the attacks at the next Kian meeting. I pressed on with my main point, which was that we had become anything but reformers. The term “reforms” means two t­ hings. First, that the foundation is fine, and second, the way t­ hings are done needs to be corrected. By targeting the state’s core foundations, the Halghe Kian had transformed from a reformist core into essentially a force for barandazi [toppling the state]. ­Behind the language of reforms, the Halghe Kian seemed to have ­adopted a radical revolutionary agenda. This, I believed, was dangerous. The majority of Kian members ignored Reza’s warning outright and Akbar Ganji continued with his public criticism of top regime officials. On the w ­ hole, the Halghe Kian continued to speak of reforms while targeting the state’s very foundations. The second Hezbollahie reaction came from Ayatollah Khamenei himself, who stepped in directly to declare in a speech in 2000 that pro-­reform journalism was “a grave danger to us all,” giving the green light to the judiciary (aided by the Revolutionary Guards’ coercive arm) to shut down fourteen reformist newspapers and magazines, including all the Kian dailies, weeklies, and monthlies (Bayat 2007:119). Between 1999 and 2002, the courts banned 108 other

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major dailies and periodicals, placing thousands of journalists, publishers, editors, and writers in detention or out of work. While Reza had anticipated this, the closure of the papers shocked Mahdi. He explained: “No, No, No, No,” w ­ ere the first words that came to my mind. I never thought that Agha [Khamenei] would shut down the press. I was hurt for two reasons. First, ­because I did not believe we should have tried to coerce what was an enormous wave of p ­ eople [reformists]. The fact was that reformists had legitimacy due to their superiority in numbers. To me, the way to b ­ attle them was to promote our own perspectives, to answer their suspicions, to convince them that we ­were right, and to gradually bring them to our side. To have eliminated them would have been like getting rid of the majority of the population. Second, I was distraught b ­ ecause I believed that closing their papers marked our defeat. It felt as though we ­were unable to defend our ideas, so we threw the t­ able away altogether. We could not persuade p ­ eople to think like us, to be like us. Closing their papers meant that we had essentially accepted defeat. It meant that our arguments had seemed irrelevant to the majority of p ­ eople. And that was our death. Mahdi, nevertheless, believed that he had no choice but to defend Khamenei’s action the next day at the university, saying to his peers, “We could not let a few journalists destroy what thousands of martyrs built through their sacrifices.” The reformists did not retreat. Rumors began to spread of their planned mass resignations from Parliament (Adelkhah 2012). This had the potential to plunge the Islamic Republic into a crisis. In a third Hezbollahie reaction, a gunman named Saeed Askar shot down the main reformist strategist and Kian member Said Hajjarian. A bullet traveled right through his face. He survived, but he was para­lyzed from the waist down. Mahdi was immediately confronted with waves of reformist students who attacked him verbally, accusing Khamenei of having a hand in the attempted assassination. Mahdi rejected this outright: It was simply impossible for me to think that Khamenei, a man that was the extension of Imam Zaman [the missing twelfth Shi’ite imam], would be implicated in an assassination attempt. The very idea seemed nonsensical and any such accusation made me both angry and sad. I was relieved when they arrested the assassin Saeed Askar. I was thrilled. Mahdi went to the University of Tehran the next day and confronted every­ one who had accused Khamenei of having a hand in the attempted assassination. “­Here you go,” he said, “if the state had planned the assassination, it would not arrest the assassin.” But then something bizarre took place. Mahdi explained:

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They released the assassin. He was released a month ­later. Just like that. He was ­free to go. He was f­ ree to walk in the streets. Well! That destroyed me. I imploded. The same kids that I had confronted came back, and said Khamenei was involved not only in the assassination but also in the chain murders a few years back. I locked myself in a room. Depression. Severe depression. That is what I recall from ­those days. Two threads that weave through this section are worth highlighting. First, we saw the dynamic of the feud between the reformist and Hezbollahie centers. On the one hand, reformists attempted to exclude Hezbollahies, such as Musa Najafi, from the media spaces they controlled. They also targeted the state’s doctrinal foundations while attacking high-­ranking Hezbollahie officials in an attempt to bring them down. On the other hand, Hezbollahies sought to exclude reformists from the official media spaces by preventing them from entering institutions u ­ nder their control, such as the Revolutionary Guards’ network, or by shutting down hundreds of reformist papers and magazines. They even attempted (and sometimes committed) numerous assassinations. As we s­ hall see, ­these successive ­battles continued from Khatami’s to Ahmadinejad’s presidency. Both centers vied for centrality by means of seeking to eliminate the other. Second, Mahdi underwent fundamental transformations during each ensuing b ­ attle between the two centers. He did not believe that Khamenei or “true” Hezbollahies ­were in any way implicated in the chain murders carried out by intelligence ministry agents. He saw ­these killings as having been perpetrated by self-­styled Ansar-­e Hez­bollah vigilantes that ­were in fact detrimental to the real Hezbollahies and the revolution. But Khamenei’s open implication in the closure of reformist newspapers shocked Mahdi in light of his conviction that the decision was an outright ­mistake. How could Khamenei, Imam Zaman’s very extension, make m ­ istakes? So Mahdi searched for e­ very type of explanation and was convinced by none. “Doubt,” said Mahdi, “doubt about Khamenei spread through me like cancer.” The attempted assassination of Hajjarian, however, was the real death blow to Mahdi’s faith in Khamenei. “If the closure of the papers had planted the seeds of doubt within me,” said Mahdi, “the Hajjarian event and the release of his assassin finished ­things off.” Mahdi continued, “I was no longer sure about,” he raised his gaze, pointed his index fin­ger at a picture on the wall, and whispered, “that.” The frame contained a portrait of Khamenei. “Of course,” continued Mahdi, “this had profound consequences for me.” He gradually turned into a pragmatist. “I understood,” said Mahdi, “that this is a game with its own rules and even Khamenei plays by ­these rules. I no longer thought that Khamenei was connected to the hidden imam, b ­ ecause we know that the latter does not allow the ends to justify the means. So yes, you could say that I transformed into a cold and calculating pragmatist ­after that.”

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In the next section, I explore the rise of Ahmadinejad, the exacerbation of the feud between the reformists and the Hezbollahies, and its impact on Mahdi’s subject position. The Rise of the Hezbollahies and Mahdi’s Secularization The collective resignation of 122 reformist parliamentary deputies in January 2004 in protest against Khamenei’s heavy-­handed approach was the reform’s turning point (Adelkhah 2012). It captured a sense of despair among reformists. Many of them “braced for reprisal, a few w ­ ere jailed, some settled for exile, ­others found solace in their private lives” (Bayat 2007:131). At the same time, many elite reformists ­were infuriated with Khatami, who, they believed, had led the reforms astray by failing to confront Ayatollah Khamenei directly. Nothing exhibited this mood better than Khatami’s last speech at the University of Tehran in December 2004, when the very student body that once adored him booed him. In conjunction with this perceived po­liti­cal impotence, reformist candidates ­were increasingly losing in elections at all levels. This, in part, facilitated the rise of a new generation of Hezbollahies onto official platforms. Mahmood Ahmadinejad was a mid-­ranking state official in Tehran. He was part of a co­ali­tion that ran for the city municipality elections in 2003. The Hezbollahie co­ali­tion won ­every seat but one, giving it the power to appoint Ahmadinejad as the mayor of Tehran during Khatami’s last two years as president. A Hezbollahie triangle formed: Mahmood Ahmadinejad as the mayor of Tehran, Ali Larijani as the head of the national tele­vi­sion, and Mohammad Baghir Ghalibaf as the head of the police force (the latter two ­were appointed directly by Ayatollah Khamenei). Ahmadinejad directed a large portion of the municipality’s cash flow to the bulk of existing Hezbollahie networks to both expand and strengthen them. Ali Larijani promoted Ahmadinejad and Ghalibaf on national tele­vi­sion. And Ghalibaf transformed the national police from an unprofessional and unaccountable force into a highly professional one which, in many instances, managed to take back the streets from Hezbollahie vigilantes. Ghalibaf presented a pragmatic image of a Hezbollahie in the pro­cess, which even appealed to many who w ­ ere not Hezbollahies (Hosseinie 2014:37–55). Mahdi, now a first-­year PhD student at the University of Tehran, gravitated ­toward Ghalibaf. The chain murders, the closure of reformist papers, and the assassination attempt on Hajjarian had facilitated fundamental transformations within Mahdi. Realizing that even Khamenei a­ dopted questionable means for certain po­liti­cal goals turned Mahdi into what he calls a “pragmatist.” And his attraction to Ghalibaf was underpinned by the latter’s perceived pragmatism. Ghalibaf was “a Hezbollahie,” said Mahdi, “who was quite dif­fer­ent from the

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Ansar-­e Hez­bollah type vigilantes who had destroyed the image of Hezbollahies.” Nothing exhibited Ghalibaf ’s pragmatism for Mahdi more than his ability to have cordial working relations with Khatami and top reformists. So when Ghalibaf went to the University of Tehran for a seminar he found a young Mahdi beaming with enthusiasm to chat with him. Ghalibaf granted Mahdi’s request for an appointment. One meeting led to another and soon Ghalibaf invited Mahdi to a consultation, which perplexed the latter since the topic of discussion was centered on the upcoming election. Mahdi realized that Ghalibaf had ambitions to run for the approaching 2005 presidential election. His team, however, consisted of administrators. Mahdi was asked to join the team, where his tasks evolved quickly from writing speeches to devising campaign strategy. And the plan Mahdi devised stemmed from the combination of his disdain for radical Hezbollahies who had used force against reformists and for radical reformists who, in the words of Mahdi, “had aimed to destroy the revolution.” So Mahdi’s hybrid was a Hezbollahie who was also a reformist. This translated into an osulgaraye-­eslahtalab (principalist [Hezbollahi]—­reformist), so that for Mahdi, Ghalibaf had to be promoted as a Hezbollahie and thus loyal to Khamenei while also presented as a reformist to exhibit his disdain for radical Hezbollahies. As such, Mahdi advised Ghalibaf not to wear purely Hezbollahie garb. Soon, Ghalibaf began to appear in pictures wearing foreign designer eyewear and shoes. He even sported the now famous white suit, which was photographed and diffused widely. What topped it all, however, was a widely distributed black-­and-­white photo­graph of Ghalibaf. The only color in the portrait was the green of Ghalibaf ’s eyes. It was an uncanny image for someone in Khamenei’s inner circle. Mahdi did not stop ­there. He devised slogans to, in his own words, “gain not religious but pragmatic legitimacy” so as to appeal to reformists as well. The main slogan was: “zendegi khoob barazande Irani” (the good life for deserving Ira­ni­ans; emphasis added). This slogan was printed on massive banners and distributed at key locations across Tehran. Mahdi oversaw Ghalibaf ’s participation in dozens of tele­vi­sion programs. He also presided over the creation of a media campaign that included news articles, op-­eds, and promotional video clips. The Ghalibaf campaign conducted a secret poll a few days a­ fter their media blitz, asking p ­ eople whom they would vote for in the upcoming election. Former president Hashemi Rafsanjani had 35 ­percent of the vote, Ghalibaf had 27 ­percent of the vote, and the rest ­were piled together at the bottom. Moeen (a reformist) had 5 ­percent, Karubi (a reformist) had 5 ­percent, Larijani (a Hezbollahie) had 4 ­percent, and Tavakili (a Hezbollahie) had 4 ­percent. Mahmood Ahmadinejad stood at barely 2 ­percent. Ahmadinejad, however, was as confident of his chances as Ghalibaf given the massive electoral base that he was in the pro­cess of creating. First, as the

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new mayor of Tehran, Ahmadinejad began to dot the urban landscape with signs attributed to paeen-­shahr (referring to the vocabulary and stylistics of improvised southern Tehran). For instance, he installed a massive banner on Tajrish Street that read “agha jan nokaretim.” “Agha” refers to the hidden twelfth Shi’ite imam, but it also refers to Ayatollah Khamenei. “Nokaretim” means “we are your servants,” but it is also part of a classic vocabulary of the impoverished neighborhoods of southern Tehran, deployed as a social script that implies friendship. Thus, unlike Ghalibaf, who had sought to target moderate reformists with his foreign attire and slogans that highlighted the “good life,” Ahmadinejad was targeting the impoverished residents of southern Tehran and rural areas across Iran. At the same time, Ahmadinejad invested directly in religious and impoverished networks by drawing upon the municipality’s enormous bud­get. First he created a center called Atr-­e Sib. Vari­ous Hezbollahie groups or individuals, often from impoverished neighborhoods, received grants with very ­little difficulty. Ahmadinejad then began contributing to the Hezbollahie Hayats (religious hubs with membership of up to five thousand). Ahmadinejad gave US$2 million, for instance, to Haj Mansur Arzi’s Hayat. He gave a large piece of land to Mohammad Taheri’s Hayat, and ­free lunch and dinner ser­vices to Saeed Hadadian’s Hayat. At the higher end of his dealings, Ahmadinejad contracted the Revolutionary Guards’ engineering and construction firms for Tehran’s most lucrative municipality proj­ects. All of this was beginning to, in part, constitute a power­ful base for Ahmadinejad. That Ahmadinejad spent state funds freely for po­liti­cal gain infuriated Mahdi. First, Mahdi believed that Ahmadinejad was resuscitating the very ­things that had led to the Hezbollahies’ defeat. Ahmadinejad was financially supporting Hayats tightly connected to radical Hezbollahie groups such as Ansar-­e Hez­bollah. This made Mahdi fume ­because he believed the Ansar-­e Hez­bollah was partly to blame for the chain murders in 1998 and Hajjarian’s assassination. “If they had not deployed force,” said Mahdi, “and instead let ­people like me use persuasion and education, we could have deradicalized the reformists in the long term. But the Ansar-­e Hez­bollah destroyed that opportunity. And ­here was Ahmadinejad again, pushing them to the fore.” Second, Mahdi saw that Ahmadinejad was using both the baytol-­mal (common wealth) and religious signs for po­liti­cal ends. “While at the same time,” said Mahdi, “Ahmadinejad acted like he was the one battling corruption, or that he was the most pious Muslim. That type of charlatanism made him a repulsive figure for me.” Ghalibaf, however, asked Mahdi to concentrate his efforts on the man he perceived to be his main rival, Hashemi Rafsanjani. By the time the first round of the election was over, Hashemi Rafsanjani stood at the top. However, Ahmadinejad, not Ghalibaf, came in second. The final round of the presidential

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election was conducted between the two top candidates on August 3, 2005. Ahmadinejad defeated Rafsanjani by taking 61 ­percent of the vote. This devastated Ghalibaf and Mahdi. “­Those ­were dark days,” said Mahdi. “Ghalibaf had given me hope that we could reconstruct Hezbollahies by presenting ourselves as pragmatists loyal to the revolution, but the image of a Hezbollahie that Ahmadinejad offered was that of the firebrand zealot that I had deplored for some years.” Mahdi continued, “So I imploded when Ahmadinejad won and Ayatollah Khamenei backed him enthusiastically. It was a blow to every­thing I believed in.” This included God. Recall how Ayatollah Khamenei, Ira­nian shoes, potato-­based meals, sacrifice, ­Uncle Hessam, and justice ­were all constitutive of God for Mahdi. Mahdi was so certain that Ahmadinejad was wicked that Khamenei’s support for him tarnished Mahdi’s belief in God’s entire network. In other words, Khamenei was so central to the constitution of God for Mahdi that Mahdi’s severe disappointment in Khamenei resulted in the transformation of his relationship with God. “God is elsewhere,” said Mahdi, “not relevant at all to my life ­here and now.” Mahdi had under­gone a unique form of secularization. War and Resignification Ayatollah Khamenei summoned Ghalibaf two weeks a­ fter he had been defeated in the presidential election. Khamenei handed Ghalibaf a personal check and asked him to take his f­ amily to Mecca with the money. Khamenei asked Ghalibaf to return “revived” as ­there was “lots of work to be done.” No sooner did Ghalibaf arrive in Mecca, however, than he received a phone call from Khamenei’s confidant. Ghalibaf was asked to return to Tehran immediately to participate in Tehran’s 2005 municipality election, the result of which had already been settled ­behind closed doors. With Ahmadinejad as the president and Ghalibaf as the mayor of Tehran, Khamenei now controlled the majority of major institutions in Iran. While Ghalibaf was satisfied with the status quo and ­adopted a policy of containment against reformists, Ahmadinejad preferred rollback against the reforms. Elite reformists had accumulated significant economic and po­liti­cal interests while they had been integrated with state institutions such as the executive branch during Rafsanjani’s and Khatami’s presidencies. Moreover, with the expansion of the state’s media cir­cuit the reformist concrete-­abstract mode of life had been institutionalized. Reformists had diverse assets from po­liti­ cal institutions, to financial resources, to mono­poly over certain imports, to varying social bases. As part of his policy of aggressive rollback, Ahmadinejad went ­after each of ­these assets. He destroyed reformist po­liti­cal and economic hubs, put activists u ­ nder renewed pressure, and pushed many reformist professionals out of state

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institutions and cut them off from the state economy. Reza, for instance, was suspended at the University of Tehran and his classes w ­ ere canceled. Which is to say that Ahmadinejad’s hold over the executive exacerbated the feud between the two modes of life to the extent that former Kian members believed that four more years of Ahmadinejad would deliver a final blow. Reza explained: We had always fought to expand our freedoms, to gain rights, to multiply our links with the international community, and to consolidate our connection to the global market. But ­after Ahmadinejad’s first term, we realized that the new b ­ attle was no longer about our expansion but over our very preservation. As the next election cycle neared, t­ hose oriented t­ oward the reformist center stood ­behind Mir Hossein Musavi, a former top-­ranking official and one of three men who huddled outside of Jamaran Hospital right ­after Imam Khomeini’s death in 1989 to plan the ensuing transitional phase. Musavi had opted out of politics ­after Imam’s death and had chosen a c­ areer as an artist and a university instructor instead. “Musavi believed that Ahmadinejad had created such an upheaval,” recalled Reza from his conversation with Musavi right before the latter announced his candidacy, “that he felt he no longer had a choice but to return to politics and confront the situation.” Reformists saw Musavi as a candidate capable of defeating Ahmadinejad in the upcoming presidential election in 2009. They mobilized around him. The election was held on June 12. Both sides ­were confident that they had the majority. Ahmadinejad, however, was declared the winner by the state media six hours ­after the polls closed. The reformist base immediately questioned the validity of the official results. This led to semi-­organized demonstrations across all major cities, including Tehran. Millions took to the streets in Tehran at the height of ­these protests, which came to be known as the Green Movement. Pro­cesses of resignification intensified. Protesters began to chant “Allah-­o Akbar” on their rooftops at night. Allah­o Akbar had normally been a Hezbollahie chant within the context of politics in the Islamic Republic. When Khamenei delivered a punch line during his Friday Prayer sermons, for instance, attendees erupted into jubilation (performed or not) and chanted the following: “Allah-­o Akbar, Allah-­o Akbar, Khamenei rahbar” (God is ­Great, God is ­Great, Khamenei is our leader), “Marg bar zed-­e velayat-e faqih!” (Down with opponents of the velayat-e faqih!), “Marg bar Amrika!” (Down with Amer­i­ca!), “Marg bar Engelis!” (Down with ­England!), “Marg bar monafeghin!” (Down with the MEK!), “Marg bar Israel!” (Down with Israel!). The chant, however, was reappropriated and deployed against Hezbollahies by protestors on rooftops across Tehran at the height of the mass protest in

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2009; that is, “Allah-­o Akbar” was used to show solidarity in protest against Khamenei. This was a remarkable event, as a central feature of the Hezbollahie vocabulary was resignified against them publicly. This resignification, however, was the culmination of a pro­cess that had begun ­after 1997, whereby the public had become a space of contestation and ­every ­thing and term a potential site of this feud. Take, for instance, the Hezbollahies’ reaction to a group of adolescent girls and boys caught playing ­water games in a park in the affluent part of Tehran in 2007. The Hezbollahies claimed that the w ­ ater game had been planned and mobilized by a Western-­led intelligence agency to spread un-­Islamic values. ­These Hezbollahies managed to transform a w ­ ater game among teen­agers into a national security issue. On the other hand, reformists took Ahmadinejad’s stylistics (from his jacket to his hair to his “massive” nose) as a sign of fundamentalist Ansar-­e Hez­bollah type “backwardness.” Reformists managed to transform Ahmadinejad’s attire and his physical features into a sign of national catastrophe. Constant public resignifications thus mobilized new agencies, which resulted in the further expansion of the feud between the reformist and Hezbollahie centers. Th ­ ese contestations played out on all levels, reaching its climax during the Green Movement uprising. Security forces failed to contain crowds time and time again. Some of the protests caused deaths on both sides. And protestors began to chant “death to the dictator [Khamenei]” in the pro­cess. In the meantime, the newly inaugurated BBC Persian broadcast footage of the protests at night. World leaders ­were beginning to speak against the use of vio­lence to suppress the protests. All in all, the situation had become wholly unpredictable. So when Ghalibaf summoned his con­sul­tants to seek advice on how to carry out Khamenei’s o ­ rders to appear on national tele­vi­sion and pledge allegiance to him, Mahdi’s advice was clear: “Given that we d ­ on’t know who might win, we must avoid strong statements.” Mahdi proceeded to write the text that Ghalibaf read on tele­vi­sion the next day. The text did none of what Khamenei had asked. It neither pledged strong allegiance to him nor rejected the Green Movement in the strongest terms. This infuriated Khamenei, who had almost singlehandedly facilitated Ghalibaf ’s rise as a po­liti­cal star. And from then on, Hezbollahies closest to Khamenei would come to refer to Ghalibaf as part of a group that they called saketin-­e fetneh (­those who stayed ­silent during the sedition [uprising]). Ghalibaf ’s secret meeting with Mahdi and the text of the speech that emerged, however, reflected a remarkable situation. No one could accurately envisage which side might win, nor what would happen to the side that lost. It was a war by definition, that is, a new form that the social had taken in which all sides—­including Khamenei—­seemed to face the possibility of strategic defeat in politics.

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Reza, Mahdi, and Allah-­o Akbar I darted to my rooftop the moment I heard the chants of “Allah-­o Akbar.” It seemed like all of Tehran had come together. I screamed too. I said “Allah-­o Akbar,” and the louder I said it the more I felt relieved. My chants ­were only partly directed against Khamenei and his regime. I was primarily screaming at myself. I was jeering at who I was. The 1987 mass executions had generated hatred within me. I wish I had merely stayed ­silent about it. But my desire for some semblance of normality, of buying a home, of being seen, pushed me to not only ignore this regime’s crime but become part of it. I was one of the intellectuals of the reforms and helped legitimize Khatami who was, at the end of the day, the president of the Islamic Republic. And I benefited im­mensely in the pro­cess, with a job, with a h ­ ouse, with social capital. But who w ­ ere ­these so-­called “intellectuals of the reforms” that I had joined? Was Said Hajjarian not one of the found­ers of the Intelligence Ministry and presided over it when the mass executions of the early 1980s took place? It is true that Hajjarian had repented and had even risked his life by playing a key role in the reforms, for which he was shot. But like so many ­others in the Halghe Kian, his hands ­were bloodied. And ­here I was, a close friend of Hajjarian’s. I liked him, and still do. I respected him, and still do. But to like and re­spect him meant that I had been dishonest with myself, ignoring that he was implicated in a horrendous crime that killed kids who w ­ ere just like me. Kids like Comrade Kaveh. So when I screamed at the rooftop, I screamed at myself. I said “Fuck you!” to myself, for having been dishonest for thirty years. And the louder I screamed the more I felt relieved. The last time I saw Reza was when we walked on Vali Asr Street in 2012. The Green Movement had been defeated and the overall po­liti­cal mood had plunged Reza into what he called a “severe depression.” He was still not allowed to teach his classes at the University of Tehran, so he was essentially without a job. Reza s­ topped halfway through our walk to check his bank account balance via the cash machine. “Having to guess each month ­whether or not the university pays my minimum salary is mostly just humiliating,” he said. Mahdi testified: Khamenei backed the result of the election during his Friday Prayer sermon, and said that if the street demonstrations continue Musavi would be responsible for its consequences. I turned down the lights at dusk on that day, and sat on a chair. I felt pain in my heart. I mean this literally. I was in a state of paralysis when I heard noise from outside, of what appeared to be a fight in the streets. The noise did nothing but augment with e­ very second, to the point where I could make out what was being said: “Allah-­o

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Akbar.” I hobbled ­toward the kitchen and opened the win­dow. The ­whole city was chanting “Allah-­o Akbar.” The pain left me instantly. I ­really think I dodged an impending heart attack. It was as though the dark cloud hovering above me was punctured with beams of light. So I screamed as loud as I could. I said, “Allah-­o Akbar!” I went back to my chair and felt warmth. It was a special night. I could not believe that ­people would do this. They ­were saying this is not over. It took about a year for Ayatollah Khamenei’s coercive forces to regain full control over the streets. Musavi was placed u ­ nder ­house arrest. Top reformists w ­ ere imprisoned. The bulk of the “reforms” ­were pushed out of the state media, the state economy, and state politics. Khamenei aligned his forces anew. He began to micromanage lieutenants like Ghalibaf. The pressure was so severe that Ghalibaf was forced to purge his po­liti­cal team of ­those who seemed to have strong sympathies with the Green Movement. Mahdi was one of ­those he eliminated. Mahdi no longer has his massive office or a team of con­sul­tants, secretaries, and ­drivers. He is now a midlevel municipality man­ag­er with a small workspace on the city’s periphery. Nor does he have the same faith in God and Khamenei. Mahdi had already foreseen this outcome. He knew he had reached the peak of his power when God and Khamenei lost their relevance to his daily life. He knew this ­because “­whether you act like you support Khamenei or truly believe in him,” says Mahdi, “produces dif­fer­ent results in Ira­nian politics.” It was his uncompromising belief in Khamenei that enabled the latter’s lieutenant, Ghalibaf, to trust Mahdi in the first place. Which is to say that Mahdi’s belief in Khamenei had in part facilitated his rise within a concrete-­abstract world of which Khamenei was the center. If Khamenei’s p ­ eople could no longer count on Mahdi, neither could Ghalibaf. Gone was the source of Mahdi’s power—­Ghalibaf ’s trust. The same boy who had once seen Khamenei in his dreams as the twelfth imam’s extension, who had entered the University of Tehran with black Iranian-­made trousers and a Keffiyeh around his neck, had turned his back on Hezbollahies. The last time I saw Mahdi we w ­ ere in a coffee shop. He ordered a latte. He was wearing a short-­sleeved shirt with jeans. Rethinking War through ­Things and Terms While war has been formulated in a number of dif­f er­ent ways, it is with Michel Foucault that we begin to understand the phenomenon as a distinct social field. Indeed, one of Foucault’s key innovations in Society Must Be Defended (2003) is to explore war not in relation to “society” and thus extrinsic to it but as a form that social relations take. This reconceptualization of war is centered

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on how the domains of military strategy and civil society collapse into one another in western Eu­rope from the nineteenth ­century onward. Specifically, Foucault demonstrates that, on the one hand, the military-­strategic domain, previously understood in terms of its efficacy in waging external wars, comes to be deployed as a resource for the ordering of civil society. As such, militarized disciplinary techniques (e.g., enclosure, partitioning, ranking, and serialization), which are dispersed over time across a range of institutions from schools to hospitals (2003:140), begin to mediate relations between power and individuals, rendering bodies “docile” in the pro­cess (2003:161). On the other hand, civil society, distinct ­because of its very demarcation from the military-­state apparatus, provides fundamental mobilizing resources for war by means of biopolitics. This is ­because the biopo­liti­cal strategy invokes a “population,” deploying already docile bodies for war with other “species,” where the stakes are presented as the survival or annihilation of an entire ­people that share the same “genesis” and “mode of life” (Foucault 2003:161). ­Were we to formulate this Foucauldian insight into a tentative mathematical equation, the following would seem plausible. Civil society, which is the basis for the mobilization of war, is equal to warring apparatuses, which pacify bodies/subjects in civil society. Thus, by the time Foucault delivered his lectures at the College de France (1976), he presented war first as more or less interchangeable with politics (1990:93), and ­later as a constitutive relation of force in and of itself, such that war is not in relation to society but a form that social relations take (2003). Yet given his strong genealogical intuition of not presenting definitions of concepts with histories, Foucault is more interested in reminding us of the contingent relations between disciplinary techniques and biopower, and of the differences between wars prior to and a­ fter the nineteenth ­century. So that, while offering an innovative insight into war, Foucault is disinterested in addressing the following question: What is war? This, however, is precisely the question that critical war theorists Tarak Barkawi and Shane Brighton address by drawing on Carl von Clausewitz (2011). In the pro­cess, the insight that Barkawi and Brighton offer is that fighting is at the heart of war, and more critically, this fighting is pervaded by “radical contingency” (2011:126). Foucault, Barkawi, and Brighton, therefore, offer us two key insights for understanding war. In the first instance, war is itself a form that social relations take, and what generates this social field is, in the second instance, a strug­gle pervaded by radical contingency.4 Thus, we might say that war is a social field in which all sides (centers) face the possibility of strategic defeat (unraveling). But how exactly does radical contingency emerge? The body of work developed u ­ nder the rubric of hegemony is one of the most rigorous attempts at dealing with this question. “A par­tic­u­lar sector,”

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Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe explain, “is the one that is able to bring about the downfall of an Estate . . . ​that is why other sectors align with them” (1985:53). What Laclau and Mouffe refer to as the “Estate” can be understood as the epicenter of power. And what they mean by “a par­tic­u­lar sector” with which “other sectors align” is the rise of a (­counter)hegemonic force, that is, a rival center. The rise of, at the minimum, two centers is thus but one condition for a radically contingent social field. And yet, a center is a center insofar as it can challenge its rival. As Laclau and Mouffe explain, if the Estate is seen by many as the notorious crime of “the ­whole society,” liberation from it appears as general self-­liberation (1985:60). ­Here, the “par­tic­u­lar” sector’s indispensability for (­counter)hegemony is rooted in the common perception that it can defeat the Estate, which is why other sectors align with them, forming a rival center. Further, the par ­tic­u­lar sector takes on a representative form performatively. That performativity is critical ­here has to do with the superfluousness and replaceability of the name ­under which what­ever (­counter)hegemony emerges. This is ­because the name is not found in the body of ­those who gather u ­ nder it. It is only retroactively, and performatively, that the name gains the power to unify individuals into a (­counter)hegemonic movement and thus a rival center seen as capable of defeating the Estate. Performativity is thus constitutive of, and constituted by, (­counter)hegemony. Judith Butler (2022) further develops the performative aspect of (­counter) hegemony, albeit with a Hegelian twist. Indeed, Butler’s rejoinder to Laclau’s dislike for Hegel is that ­those who assem­ble to form (­counter)hegemony come to embody a princi­ple of negation given that they have been variously negated in some way. As such, (­counter)hegemony converts the negation that performatively forms it, into a negation of the conditions of the Estate’s continuity. In other words, the rival center is now animated by a negating power (2022), enabling pro­cess of resignification between the two centers to proliferate in ways that can negate both. Take, for instance, Butler’s own example of the orthodox phallogocentric heterosexual matrix, which has previously oriented sex and gender, and the liberal horizon, which enables the very success of parody as resignification. To be sure, the presence of two referential systems—­and thus two centers—­partly permits pro­cesses of resignification of signs and norms, such as parody, to take place. Hence, the “re” in the term “resignification.” However, since the orthodox phallogocentric heterosexual matrix has formed a partial (collective) subject, this subject is animated by a negating power. This is why the partial (collective) subject’s parody as resignification can expose, dispute, and negate the imitative structure by which hegemonic gender is produced. Thus, in both cases—­that of Laclau and Mouffe along with that of Butler—­contesting centers

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and resignification are interwoven with radical contingency, that is, the possibility of po­liti­cal defeat/exclusion for all centers and modes of life. An analy­sis of politics in Tehran between 1997 and 2009 adjudicates key aspects of Laclau and Mouffe’s and Butler’s postulations on the formation of a radically contingent social field. To be sure, heterogeneity was distilled in the lead-up to the Green Movement uprising in Tehran: dif­fer­ent factions temporarily externalized their differences to performatively form the Green Movement. In the pro­cess, many Leftists, nationalists, anti-­regime dissenters, and even former Hezbollahies such as Mahdi gathered ­behind reformists to assem­ble the Green Movement. This was in light of the perception that reformists ­were capable of defeating Ahmadinejad’s network. Further, pro­cesses of performativity and resignification, which became widespread between 1997 and 2009, ­were central to not only the assemblage of the Green Movement but also its increasing clout. Indeed, the resignification of “Allah-­o Akbar” was a direct challenge to Ayatollah Khamenei. This challenge was itself prefigured by the formation of a partial collective Islamic subject, whose praxis of religion had been regulated by the Islamic Republic. That chants of “Allah-­o Akbar” could negate Khamenei and the Islamic Republic was thus rooted in its contestation of that law. With time, a situation began to transpire in which both reformist and Hezbollahie centers faced the possibility of total negation, that is, elimination from state politics, state media, and the state economy. Ghalibaf ’s dumbfounded speculation about the outcome of the feud is but one reminder of the radically contingent social field that emerged in Tehran. And yet, Laclau and Mouffe’s and Butler’s inadequate analy­sis of relations between agentive objects and hegemony offers l­ ittle insight into how a par­tic­u­ lar order of ­things comes to be interwoven with war as a social field. This book has sought to address this shortcoming by showing that the regularization of objects occasioned two contesting referential systems of the reforms and the second-­generation Hezbollahies in Tehran, enabling widespread pro­cesses of resignification that could negate both sides. Specifically, it illustrated that the expansion of the media cir­cuit, including the regularization of public objects between 1989 and 2009, had afforded two distinct, to use Derrida’s and Foucault’s lexicon, “centers” and “modes of life,” respectively. The result was the partial negation of each mode of life by the other so that both centers came to be endowed with the power of negation and resignification. Indeed, no sooner had reformist and Hezbollahie centers competed for centrality than the substitution of signs gave way to their resignification of them, mobilizing new agencies and rendering radical contingency the norm. What emerged was a unique concrete-­abstract structurality that I call war. Thus, war has a distinct structurality that differs from both domination and rupture. What distinguishes war from domination is that while the former enables extensive freeplay, the latter does not. And what separates war from

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rupture are the qualitative differences between the natures of their respective freeplays. Whereas the freeplay of rupture is constituted by multiple substitutions of available signs that may have no specific orientation, the freeplay of war involves resignification. Therefore, I theorize war as a radically contingent concrete-­ abstract structurality engendered and sustained by pro­cesses of resignification, which impose the possibility of strategic defeat on all centers (modes of life) involved.

​Conclusion I set out to rethink the place of materiality and language in politics by reconstructing the po­liti­cal history of revolutionary Iran at the intersection of objects and words. In so ­doing, I asked: What are the po­liti­cal implications of the dif­f er­ent ways in which materiality and language are interwoven? I then pursued two parallel inquires. First, I explored how t­ hings and terms cut across po­liti­cal subjectivities by focusing on life history accounts, including that of a key revolutionary actor named Reza. In the pro­cess, I demonstrated that material t­ hings s­ haped Reza’s shifting subject positions not only by means of their affect but also by affording distinct sets of words and concepts for him. Indeed, the asymmetry between everyday material ­things endowed the vocabulary of an ideologue of the Ira­nian Revolution, Ali Shariati, with revolutionary fervor for Reza. Foreign cars, Ira­nian rosewater, ­women’s bodies, and corpses came to act as the material referents for Shariati’s key terms such as “Imperialism,” “oppressor,” and “oppressed” so that asymmetrical objects and Shariati’s lexicon together occasioned a radical discourse for numerous revolutionaries, including Reza. Thus, Shariati’s vocabulary metamorphosed, rather contingently, into a revolutionary discourse through the asymmetrical objects to which it came to refer and by means of which it came to proliferate. That the confluence of ­things and terms permeated Reza’s shifting subject positions suggests that materiality, language, and subjectivity are connected in such a way that the reduction of one is always already the reduction of the other two. To be sure, the Ira­nian Revolution was messy and the revolutionaries ­were never a homogeneous group. But their differences ­were not simply rooted in their contrasting preimagined ideas about their pre­sent and their ­future. Rather, the contingency and the very materiality of everyday objects, in part, generated this messiness, enabling many dif­fer­ent transformations 140

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within revolutionaries such as Reza. In other words, to suggest that ­there was something inherently radical about Shariati’s text is to ignore how that text came to life by means of material mediators in the lead-up to the revolution. Chapter 1, thus, highlighted how everyday objects both afforded and diffused the vocabularies and agencies that harnessed the Ira­nian Revolution and its subjects. This analy­sis led to a second inquiry on the specificity of relations between objects, words, and politics. H ­ ere, I constructed a dynamism between materiality and language to better understand how their merger permeates politics. In the pro­cess, I showed that shifting relations between t­ hings and terms in postrevolutionary Tehran afforded some modes of action while foreclosing ­others. Chapter 2 homed in on this point by demonstrating that the stability of relations between materiality and language in Tehran during the 1980s stifled a distinct kind of agency within the public domain. Specifically, the proliferation of dead bodies from the Iran-­Iraq conflict and signs that referred to them enabled the wide circulation of Islamist terms such as “sacrifice” and “martyrdom.” At the same time, the disappearance of a ­great many t­ hings from the public, including bright attire and ­women’s hair, suppressed a liberal vocabulary that included terms such as “freedom” and “rights,” for t­ hese words no longer had material t­ hings to refer to and circulate through. This dual movement consolidated the vocabulary of martyrdom as the dominant referential system and muffled the existing liberal background of shared meaning. In the absence of a rival referential system, relations between words and their material referents became stable at the level of multitudes, impeding distinctive modes of re­sis­tance, including the public pro­cess of resignification. This insight explains why Imam Khomeini never seemed to face the possibility of po­liti­cal defeat between 1981 and 1989—­because ­things and terms failed to be resignified and reappropriated in ways that might have threatened his centrality. I called this form of structurality domination. More specifically, I theorized domination as a unique structurality that emerges when relations between words and their material referents become stable at the level of multitudes, foreclosing alternative referential systems and disaffording public pro­cesses of resignification for that reason. This analy­sis highlighted the limitations of top-­down approaches to understanding po­liti­cal transformations in Iran during the 1980s. Inspired by the cultural schemata, scholars of revolutionary Iran tend to presuppose notions of “Islamism” and the “culture of martyrdom” as preimagined content that the “charismatic” leader, Imam Khomeini, imposed on the public space and individuals as a top-­down strategy. However, by reconsidering this history from the vantage point of relations between materiality and language, I highlighted the key role that everyday ­things and terms played in not only bringing about “Islamism” and the “culture of martyrdom” as referential systems but

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also endowing Khomeini with transcendental status. The result enabled us to better understand the ways in which the physicality of Tehran was interwoven with what was po­liti­cally pos­si­ble and thinkable ­there. I advanced this analy­sis further in chapter 3 by demonstrating that changing relations between materiality and language harnessed a new po­liti­cal milieu in Tehran ­after 1989. I centered my exploration of po­liti­cal transformations in Iran on how the globalization of objects came to merge with provincial vocabularies. Specifically, I demonstrated that the “post-­Islamist” liberal discourse of the reforms came into being in relation to the newly imported objects to which it referred and through which it proliferated. One now had the “freedom” to “choose” between vari­ous soft drinks, attire, and foreign cars within the emerging “plural” markets. The more objects w ­ ere imported, the more liberal terms, such as “freedom,” circulated through them, and the more ­these terms ­were disseminated, the more demand they generated for the import of foreign t­ hings so that the appearance and the subsequent regularization of global objects w ­ ere central to the formation of a liberal vocabulary in Tehran during the 1990s. Conversely, the “Islamist” vocabulary of the second-­generation Hezbollahies was reconfigured in relation to the same imported asymmetrical objects to which key segments of the impoverished population had no access. Whereas the term “justice,” for instance, had been deployed in relation to vengeance against Saddam during the Iran-­Iraq conflict, it now referred to closing the gap in the public distribution of resources. Or whereas “Good” and “Evil” referred, in part, to Khomeini and Saddam during the 1980s, they now depicted ­women wearing the affordable orthodox Iranian-­made hijab and w ­ omen wearing expensive tight Italian jeans, respectively. In other words, although old Hezbollahie terms remained constant from the dawn of the revolution, the referents for ­these terms had changed so that the regularization of global objects in Tehran was also central to the reconfiguration of the Hezbollahie vocabulary. Consequently, pro­cesses of multiplication, substitution, and dispersion of ­things and terms destabilized the prior relations between words and their material referents that had sustained martyrdom as the dominant referential system during the 1980s. The unceasing substitutions of signs did not mean that the structure of politics had dis­appeared but that it had transformed. Indeed, this was a new po­liti­cal milieu generated, in part, by the very deployment of available words and their ever-­changing material referents. I used the term “rupture” to refer to this distinct form that politics took at the merger of materiality and language in light of the correlation I showed between the substitutions of signs ad infinitum and the unraveling of the “culture of martyrdom” as the dominant referential system. I thus theorized rupture as a unique structurality that emerges by means of the rapid substitutions and multiplications of signs, which destabilize relations between words and their material referents and unravel the dominant referential system.

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This analy­sis highlighted the shortcomings in culturalist approaches to politics in postrevolutionary Tehran. The canon of Ira­nian studies tends to dematerialize the materiality of the reforms and the second-­generation Hezbollahies by finding their sources of agency in some kind of ­will or ideational proj­ect for which t­ here is no material account. By paying attention to how international objects came to be interwoven with provincial vocabularies, this chapter demonstrated that the appearance, standardization, and regularization of global t­ hings engendered and sustained reformism and Islamism in postwar Tehran, transforming the structurality of politics in the pro­cess. Fi­nally, I linked a distinct kind of relationship between language and materiality to radical contingency in chapter 4. In so ­doing, I demonstrated that the media cir­cuit’s further expansion and polarization, including the continued regularization of public objects during Mohammad Khatami’s and Mahmood Ahmadinejad’s presidencies, helped transform reformist and Hezbollahie modes of being into centers vying for centrality, that is, bringing their mode of life to the center of state politics, state media, and the state economy. This pro­cess transformed the substitutions of signs to their resignification, thereby conditioning the possibility of strategic po­liti­cal defeat for all factions. That two modes of life had begun to vie for centrality, however, was but one condition that afforded widespread pro­cesses of resignification, including the reappropriation of the color green and the phrase “Allah-­o Akbar” at the apex of the Green Movement uprising in 2009. Another condition was linked to the way in which each concrete-­abstract mode of life had developed as a partial (collective) subject and endowed with the power of negation for that reason. This was shown by focusing on Reza’s and Mahdi’s life histories as illustrative accounts of reformist and Hezbollahie modes of being and their constitution as partial (collective) subjects endowed with the power of negation. Thus, the formation of two concrete-­abstract modes of life along with their ability to negate the conditions for their rival’s continuity afforded widespread pro­cesses of resignification that could negate both sides. What developed was a new radically contingent social milieu, which imposed the possibility of strategic defeat on all factions, including Ayatollah Khamenei. Nothing illustrated the possibility of defeat for Khamenei more than the Green Movement uprising, during which the Ayatollah’s most se­nior security officials could not predict the outcome. This was a remarkable event in the short history of the Islamic Republic, whereby social relations had taken the structurality of a war that cut across all social relations, from the private h ­ ouse­hold to the state. Therefore, I theorized war as a radically contingent concrete-­abstract structurality that is engendered and sustained by pro­cesses of resignification, which impose the possibility of strategic defeat on all centers (modes of life) involved.

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In sum, I demonstrated that shifting relations between materiality and language afforded unique social fields in postrevolutionary Tehran that w ­ ere sequentially connected, with the movement from domination to rupture to war. In the pro­cess, I contributed to the canon of Ira­nian studies by mapping out postrevolutionary Tehran’s successive social fields and illuminating how each field’s structurality afforded distinct modes of public action while foreclosing ­others. In light of ­these insights, numerous theoretical positions advanced by post-­structuralist theory, so­cio­log­i­cal theory, and media studies need to be revisited. Insofar as post-­structuralist conceptions of re­sis­tance are concerned, they have largely failed to cope with the object world and are formulated on the basis of the subversion of existing referential systems instead. Indeed, the notion that relations between words and their referents are essentially unstable is central to post-­structuralist thought (Derrida 1978). Scholars of the cultural turn inspired by post-­structuralist theory, therefore, often view systems of signification as subject to public contestation and assume an endless notion of agency whereby one seems to always be able to resignify ideas and objects in alternative ways. I highlighted two prob­lems that traverse this model of thinking in chapters 1 and 2. In the first instance, only symbolic references (signs that stand in for other signs) function primarily on the bases of the deferral of meaning (differance)—­a basis that is also the very condition for performativity and resignification. Conversely, signs that ­either stand in for themselves or have a causal relationship with their material referents are seldom contractual for they occasion unexpected openings to the world. I drove this point home in chapter 2 by shedding light on how the dead bodies of Ira­nian soldiers killed during the Iran-­Iraq conflict revealed the ontological indiscernibility of medium and world for many Ira­ni­ans. ­These bodies referred to all that was “positively in itself,” as Charles Peirce would say (1992:306). In other words, the post-­structuralist notion that signifiers can, and often do, fail their referents disregards icons and indexes as signs by presupposing a world that is restricted to symbolic references. In the second instance, I provided an analy­sis of a period in the history of postrevolutionary Iran when, in the absence of an alternative referential system, relations between words and their material referents became stable within the public domain. Consequently, the multitudes failed, time and time again, to resignify t­ hings and terms in ways that might have threatened the center. This insight illuminated the limits of Butler’s formulations of resignification and parody, particularly in relation to a social milieu engendered and sustained by the lack of an alternative referential system—­a milieu that I called domination. Indeed, I highlighted the fact that when Butler speaks of parody, she speaks of not one but two backgrounds of shared meaning, that is, the orthodox

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phallogocentric heterosexual matrix, which traverses sex and gender, and the liberal horizon, which enables the success of parody as resignification. Scholars interested in post-­structuralist theory, therefore, need to be mindful of the concrete-­abstract assemblages in relation to which they deploy their ideas about re­sis­tance, resignification, and parody. This is ­because relations between signifiers and their material referents are not a priori unstable, and pro­cesses of resignification take place not within systems of repre­sen­ta­tion but at the intersection of ­those systems and the object world. Said differently, the specificity of the relations between language and materiality shapes the very par­ameters for public modes of agency, including re­sis­tance. This analy­sis laid the groundwork for revisiting the standing debate on structurality. To be sure, the notion of “structure” is increasingly seen as passé across the ­human and social sciences. This has partly to do with anthropology’s reaction to its own past when “structures” w ­ ere interwoven with the quest to uncover the “laws” that govern culture. More broadly, however, the terms “structure” and “social structure” are often linked to Theory. This connection fails to bode well within the current politico-­academic climate that is entrenched in the free-­market economy and renders anti-­intellectualism a salient feature of our times. Within this context, theory seems to have lost status and is often dismissed as a form of self-­indulgence. Instead, what has tran­spired as the methodological norm are cursory modes of new empiricism and data mining. Along with theory, structure and social structure have been victims of this slide. The result is a lack of adequate critical schemes with which to scrutinize the pre­sent. In an effort to provide parts of that critical schema, I sought to reinvigorate the debate on structurality by bringing it into conversation with Science and Technology Studies (STS). ­Here, I emphasized that the point of the new materialism is not to construct endless networks that connect ­humans to increasingly more nonhumans at the expense of the critical analyses of power, domination, rupture, social field, structure, temporality, and so on. Rather, the critical goal of materialist approaches inspired by STS is to understand how power, domination, and so forth are formed by exploring the generative actors, including material ones, that help engender and sustain them. I demonstrated that this kind of analy­sis helps us better grasp the linkages between the global flow of material t­ hings and the formation of a range of social phenomena in Iran, including “Islamism” and “democ­ratization.” More importantly, however, I demonstrated that the sublimation of the kinds of politics a certain structurality affords and stifles distinguishes one form that social relations take from another. And shifting relations between materiality and language are at the center of ­these vari­ous social structures, w ­ hether domination, rupture, or war. This analy­sis, in turn, helped expand our conceptions of publicness. Whereas ­earlier scholarship on the public sphere argued that technical media—­print,

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electronic, and digital—­are constitutive of publics and publics are generative of politics, more recent works in the field of media studies have rightly placed publicness at the intersection of technical media, physical space, and materiality. And yet, ­these works have largely failed to bring the full implications of the new materialism to bear on the study of publicness. This is b ­ ecause this lit­er­a­ture tends to emphasize objects to the extent that they carry meaningful messages (e.g., an offline mobile phone that has pictures stored, a T-­shirt emblazoned with dif­f er­ent words, a color that is marked with po­liti­cal connotations). Meaning, however, captures neither what objects do nor what they afford and foreclose. Indeed, I illustrated that many objects that are seldom understood as media or driven by any specific intentionality, and whose “message” is their very materiality, come to play an equally impor­tant role in constituting publics. For if publicness refers to what is open or available to a multiplicity, then its constituting ele­ments need not act as projection screens for “meaningful” or “intentional” content. Rather, a certain order of objects is also vis­i­ble for all or many to see, occasioning a public by means of its very materiality and what that materiality does, affords, and forecloses. As such, I theorized the media cir­cuit in chapters 2 and 3 as all that enables the public. This includes technical media, from print to electronic to digital. It includes physical spaces, from expressways to parks. And it includes agentive objects, from the moon to walls to bodies. In d ­ oing so, I showed how technical media, physical spaces, and public objects worked in tandem to generate dif­fer­ent structuralities in revolutionary Tehran. Specifically, I demonstrated that for domination to emerge as a social field in Tehran during the 1980s, Khomeini had to partly appear as a transcendental figure. The media cir­cuit, including the distinct regularization of objects, was precisely what enabled that appearance. Similarly, I showed that for rupture to materialize as a structurality during the 1990s, the freeplay of signs had to expose Khomeini’s lack of transcendence so as to decenter the structure. And the media cir­cuit, now increasingly extended by the multiplication of global objects, was precisely the space of such exposition since it was the space of visibility. Thus, the media cir­cuit determines relationships between centers and freeplay and is constitutive of the structuralities of domination, rupture, and war for that reason. So what does all this say about Tehran ­today? Mapping out consecutive social fields in the Islamic Republic is also helpful if we wish to critically consider the pre­sent. Indeed, the structurality of war continued to situate politics for some time a­ fter 2009. The Hezbollahies had crushed the uprising by 2010, that is, a year ­after it had begun. The Green Movement leadership was imprisoned and reformists w ­ ere pushed out of key and midlevel managerial positions throughout the state bureaucracy. They w ­ ere largely replaced by the extended security network that had suppressed the uprising.

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In 2012, speculation emerged that former reformist president Mohammad Khatami would run for president again in the upcoming election. A liaison of the Guardian Council, an assembly largely appointed by Ayatollah Khamenei to vet candidates, privately informed Khatami that he would not be permitted to participate in the election. Khatami announced that Hashemi Rafsanjani should take the lead instead. Rafsanjani, a g­ iant of Ira­nian politics and a former president (during the era that I called rupture), had taken a m ­ iddle position during the Green Movement uprising. This had infuriated Ayatollah Khamenei while making Rafsanjani a po­liti­cal asset to reformists. Reformists gathered ­behind him. The Hezbollahies ­were so afraid that Rafsanjani would overwhelmingly win the election that they did something unpre­ce­dented: they publicly disqualified the regime’s most decorated revolutionary, saying he was “too old.” Many reformists, including Reza, sank deeper into what he called a “po­liti­ cal depression.” They saw Rafsanjani’s disqualification as a sign that Khamenei intended to eliminate them from state politics altogether. ­These reformists announced that they would boycott the election. Then came Hassan Rohani, who had been Khamenei’s representative in the National Security Council responsible for security coordination at the highest level for a de­cade. He had always tried to pre­sent himself as neither Hezbollahie nor reformist. Rohani announced his candidacy and ran for president, competing against six o ­ thers. ­Running for a second time, Mohammad Baghir Ghalibaf led in the polls. Rohani presented himself as a critic of the status quo. This, by implication, meant that he was a critic of the Hezbollahies and Ahmadinejad since they ­were the ones in power. And soon Rohani showed himself as immersed in the reformist lifestyle. Whereas Ghalibaf ’s promotional videos w ­ ere filled with Hezbollahie aesthetics and terms, Rohani was shown riding in a luxury foreign car in which he even took off his clerical turban. Young reformist men and ­women showcasing international consumer goods and uttering liberal terms ­were also presented in his campaign films. Rafsanjani and Khatami endorsed him as the candidate of the reforms even though Rohani never actually referred to himself as such. The bulk of reformists, including many who had previously intended to boycott the election, stood ­behind him. Rohani was elected president in August 2013. Thus, even when the reformist leadership was prevented from ­r unning for the presidency, the reformist mode of life intervened in politics in a major way. Soon ­after Rohani’s election, he was absorbed in a war of words with Khamenei, where they indirectly attacked each other’s views publicly on monthly basis. Furthermore, while institutions ­under Khamenei’s control encroached on institutions ­under Rohani’s control, such as the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Intelligence, the Rohani administration tried to rein in institutions u ­ nder Khamenei’s control, including the national tele­vi­sion

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and the bonyands. Each of their seemingly contradictory economic outlooks is also telling. Whereas Khamenei’s “Re­sis­tance Economy” claimed to be statist and against linking the “domestic economy” to international trade, Rohani’s economic team consisted of liberals who sought global integration and increasingly more privatization. But then came a double shock. First, the Trump administration pursued a self-­declared policy of “maximum pressure” on Iran, which included devastating economic sanctions (a policy that the Biden administration has continued). Second, the coronavirus pandemic hit Iran especially hard. Both events seem to have fundamentally altered the flow of objects into Iran, reshuffling the order of ­things in Tehran. What we are beginning to see is that pro­cesses of resignification are increasingly giving way to the substitutions and multiplications of signs. This suggests that the structurality of politics is beginning to change once again, possibly from war to rupture. Indeed, the reshuffling of the prior order of ­things has begun to unravel the reformist and Hezbollahie modes of life. Millions who w ­ ere formerly entrenched within the ­middle class have now been debased. They no longer have access to the objects they once did. At the same time, many second-­ generation Hezbollahies who ­were brought into prosperous economic networks during Ahmadinejad’s second term between 2009 and 2013 are now in positions of power and firmly entrenched within the state bureaucracy. They are no longer as attentive to Hezbollahie terms such as “justice” and “sacrifice,” even in the face of harsh economic realities. The disintegration of the two modes of life was brought into plain view when, in January 2017 and November 2019, street protests erupted nationally with chants such as “eslahtalab, osulgara, dige tamum-­e majara” (reformists and principalists/Hezbollahies, it’s over for the both of you). ­These national riots demonstrate the shift in politics in Iran. To be sure, both ­were largely propelled by the worsening economic conditions, including skyrocketing levels of inflation and the rial’s shocking loss of value. What I find in­ter­est­ing, however, are the multiplications of signs and substitutions of meaning that are proliferating in parallel to t­ hese transformations. “Reza Shah Rohat Shad” (Reza Shah, may your soul rest in peace and joy) was chanted publicly for the first time by some of the protestors across Iran. This is a bizarre slogan for it praises the Pahlavi dynasty that was overthrown by a popu­lar social revolution some forty years ago. Among its many meanings, the slogan seems to suggest a desire to terminate the Islamic Republic. Yet in January 2020, many of the same protestors who chanted that slogan participated in the funeral of Ghasem Solaymani, a key general in the Revolutionary Guard Corps, responsible for augmenting the Islamic Republic’s influence across the region. How can one wish for the demise of the Islamic Republic and mourn the passing of one of its most adamant supporters at the same time?

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Perhaps the reshuffling of the prior order of objects, which helped unravel the reformist and Hezbollahie modes of life, has yet to abate. Which is to say that the multiplications of objects have yet to take a distinct order that might afford—­and merge with—­corresponding vocabularies so as to occasion new modes of being. The result is that ordinary Ira­ni­ans can oscillate between discourses that exist in the strict Bourdieusian sense, that is, to the extent that they are backed by vari­ous state institutions, including the pro-­Pahlavi Imperial/liberal and the pro-­Solaymani native/national-­security repre­sen­ta­ tions. As such, in 2020, many Ira­ni­ans found themselves seesawing between the pro-­Pahlavi and the pro-­Solaymani repre­sen­ta­tions sponsored by Saudi money and the Islamic Republic, respectively. Indeed, t­ hese realities point to, and I say this speculatively, the formation of a distinct structurality that I theorized as rupture in chapter 3. Should ­f uture researchers adjudicate this conjecture, it would be erroneous to think that the current po­liti­cal matrix w ­ ill necessarily have to change. This is b ­ ecause rupture does not automatically lead to new po­liti­cal contexts. As I have pointed out, rupture can endure as long as any other structure in the face of the rapid substitutions and multiplications of signs. And yet, rupture can also lead to domination or war. In time, public objects can undergo pro­cesses of regularization in such a way to afford, and merge with, a unique vocabulary to the detriment of other potential referential systems. H ­ ere, the result is likely to be akin to the structurality of domination. Alternatively, the regularization of public objects can take place in such a way so as to bring about two or more contesting referential systems and modes of life, assembling war as a social field in the pro­ cess. Much ­will depend on pro­cesses such as the specificity of the global flow of objects and the mechanisms that help regulate that flow into Iran, including the fate of economic sanctions. Likewise, the fight over the compulsory hijab for ­women is critical, since it could lead to the reentry of ­women’s hair and skin into the public, occasioning a range of possibilities for the signification, and the broad circulation, of new corresponding terms, including “freedom” and “life.” ­Future scholars of Iran who wish to better understand the pre­sent by using the approach that I have developed may want to undertake a po­liti­cal economy analy­sis of public objects and pair that with a longitudinal study of language. This would enable them to establish correlations between the frequency of the appearances and disappearances of ­things and terms. Ethnography and life history accounts ­will be central to any such analy­sis given the need to elucidate what sets of words refer to which group of material referents during a par­tic­u­lar time frame, and how their merger affords and disaffords distinct modes of po­liti­cal action. This kind of analy­sis ­will produce a more thoughtful and critical view of the sort of politics that is at play now, and the kind we can expect in the ­future. I wish to conclude this book by stating what is by now a familiar point. Thinking about the notion of citizenship, Aristotle is said to have drawn a circle

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on the ground. ­Those whom he placed within the circle w ­ ere called citizens, and ­those whom he left out ­were called the disenfranchised. He then set forth the following postulation. Derived from the term politika, meaning, “relating to citizens,” politics is the feud that begins with the drawing of this circle. Thus, unlike oikonomia (economics), which is similar to domination and deals with the management of a preimagined polity, politics, like war, involves a feud over the constant reimagination of that polity. This book has been directed at illustrating how the appearance, disappearance, and regularization of everyday material objects from walls to w ­ omen’s hair are constitutive of any such imagination. What it provided in the pro­cess was the story of the revolution of ­things in Tehran.

NOTES

Introduction 1. Following Bruno Latour (2005), I take the social to refer not merely to interactions between ­humans but also ­those between ­humans and material ­things. 2. Webb Keane (2018) has helped bring affordances back within the purview of anthropology ­after a thirty-­year hiatus. The wide reception of the concept this time around may be linked to its having arrived against the backdrop of the new materialism, even if Keane’s goals are somewhat dif­fer­ent from ­those of many of his materialist peers. Indeed, whereas some of the champions of the new materialism have sought to break out of the dualisms of Western metaphysics, Keane moves in the opposite direction by following in the footsteps of Hegel, albeit implicitly. Specifically, Keane intends to mediate between the idealism of the Aristotelian Right and the realism of the Aristotelian Left. As such, and posed in a more modest language, he reintroduces affordances as an alternative to the stronger versions of social constructivism, on the one hand, and the more reductive version of determinism, on the other hand. Said differently, his goal is to deploy the notion of affordances to reconcile the two opposing sides of an old debate—­one that Hegel underscored, in a typically Hegelian fashion, as a contradiction deep within consciousness between subjectivism and objectivism. ­There are, says Hegel, necessarily two opposing points of view in our ordinary understanding of ourselves and the world (1997). In the first instance, we see ourselves “subjectively” from the inside when we think of ourselves only in first-­person terms as having a point of view on the world around us. So ­doing, we view ourselves in terms of what we ­ought to believe as freely subject to norms (Hegel 1997:40). Keane believes that this vantage point corresponds most with interpretation and is driven by an interest in an object of study insofar as it relates to us. In the second instance, however, we see ourselves “objectively” from the “outside” when we think of ourselves as objects in a world of other objects (Hegel 1997:41). Which is to say that we regard ourselves as bodies in space and time subject to the same causal laws as other bodies. For Keane, this vantage point goes hand in hand with a certain curiosity about causality, whereby something becomes an object of study to the extent that it can point to a more general law that, by definition, is not ­limited to a par­tic­u­lar context. So, says Keane, whereas a geographer, motivated primarily by interpretation, is interested in the ­Grand Canyon as a singular phenomenon, the physicist, who is concerned with causality, is interested in canyons (2018:29). What Keane sees in affordances is the merger of subjectivism and objectivism, of interpretation and causality, and of geography and physics. A chair, by virtue of its objective features—­a stationary ­thing, a rigid surface, correct height—­affords sitting on. Yet, the chair is realized relationally and thus interpretively in that one, particularly a child, may not sit on it. The chair, therefore, “exists as affordances relative to the other properties of some other perceiving entity and relative to that entity’s activity” (Keane 2018:31). 3. For more on Mahdi and his immersion in Ira­nian politics, see Sefat 2019. 4. Many reformist professors ­were suspended during Ahmadinejad’s tenure.

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Chapter 1. Khomeini’s ­Things: A Revolutionary Discourse of Stuff 1. Ali Shariati produced a number of publications and sermons in Iran before his exile from Iran in 1977. He died in E ­ ngland three weeks l­ater. His influence, nevertheless, did nothing but grow during each subsequent year leading up to the 1979 Revolution. He is generally viewed as one of the key ideologues of the Ira­nian Revolution. 2. “Modern” and “traditional” are terms that are prevalent in Iran and are generally used differently than in the West (although they are not detached from it). “Traditional” often refers to t­ hings that are deemed to be Ira­nian (like the chador, a par­tic­u­lar form of hijab, or religious orthodoxy, and so on), no m ­ atter how they have been reconstituted by modernity. And the term “modern” is generally deployed by Reza and his peers in a general way to refer to t­ hings that are deemed to be imported from the West, such as skirts for w ­ omen, certain architectural designs, pop ­music, and so forth, no ­matter how local costumes have reconfigured all of ­these. 3. See the translation of Shariati’s “Our Expectation from Muslim W ­ omen,” in Laleh Bakhtiar, Shariati on Shariati and the Muslim ­Woman (Chicago: Kazi Publications, 1996). 4. In Persian, Mooo is assigned to the sound that a cow makes.

Chapter 2. Domination: The Stability of T ­ hings and Terms 1. The scholars mentioned are some of the pioneers of the canon of postrevolutionary Iran; their work appeared well before the material turn. 2. Asef Bayat is interested in comparative work between politics in Egypt and in Iran. To do justice to his scholarship—to which I owe a g­ reat debt—­one must view it within that comparative context. This is, of course, out of the scope of my proj­ect, and I limit my focus to his argument on the po­liti­cal field in Iran, and do so in a reductive manner, given space limitations. 3. While ­these scholars suggest that they do not intend to ignore or deprioritize discourse (Salter 2016:xvii), their work ultimately falls short of illustrating the centrality of the relations between ­matter and language to the very po­liti­cal assemblages they speak of. 4. The missing twelfth Shiite imam can reappear at any moment to inaugurate the just government. For this reason, one of his titles is “The Master of Time.” 5. Scholars disagree over the death toll from the Iran-­Iraq conflict. However, the scholarly data set, the Correlates of War Proj­ect, estimates that 750,000 died on the Ira­nian side. 6. For more on the culture of martyrdom, see Varzi 2006 and the Avini Collection at the University of St.  Andrews: https://­www​.­st​-­andrews​.­ac​.­uk​/­l ibrary​/­resources​/­c ollections​ /­namedmoderncollections​/­avini​/­. 7. The terms “public” and “private” have been articulated in two predominant senses since at least the medieval to early modern periods. In the first instance, “the domain of institutionalized po­liti­cal power . . . ​increasingly vested in the hands of a sovereign state and . . . ​the domains of economic activity and personal relations which fell outside of direct po­liti­cal control” (Thompson 1995, 121) came to constitute the dichotomy between the public and the private. From the mid-­ sixteenth c­ entury on, then, the “public” has referred to the domain of the state and the “private” to the sphere of life excluded or separated from it. This definition of the public, however, is not relevant to critical theory for reasons that I do not wish to explore ­here. The more relevant and useful definition revolves around a second sense in which the public-­private dichotomy emerges. 8. The following study provides a breakdown of ­those killed by their city: Council of ­Human Rights in Sweden, n.d. 9. The Revolutionary Guards ­were formed shortly ­after the revolution in 1979, through the fusion of several paramilitary revolutionary forces loyal to Khomeini. They took a leading role

N ote s to Chap te r 4 153

in suppressing anti-­revolutionary dissent and in the conflict with Iraq, and have expanded their domestic and regional influence in the course of the past three de­cades. They answer directly to the leader of the revolution: first Imam Khomeini and now his successor, Ayatollah Khamenei. For more on the Revolutionary Guards, see Bajoghli 2019. 10. Like many of his peers, Reza could have avoided ­going to war. The war effort was, at least initially, and up to the point that Reza joined the b ­ attle, also a volunteer-­based effort. That is how the Basij and the war organ­ization Jahad operated. 11. The following study provides a breakdown of ­those killed by their city: Council of H ­ uman Rights in Sweden, n.d.

Chapter 3. Rupture: The Substitution of T ­ hings and Terms 1. Hashemi Rafsanjani was the fourth president of Iran (1989–97). He was the first president a­ fter Imam Khomeini’s passing. Rafsanjani’s term coincided with Ayatollah Khamenei’s leadership of the revolution. The latter was, and remains, the highest ­legal authority in Iran. 2. For more on this critique of the h ­ uman and social sciences, see Latour 2005. 3. See chapter 2 for a fuller account of Avini.

Chapter 4. War: The Resignification of T ­ hings and Terms 1. DTV refers to the Office of Consolidation and Unity of Islamic Student Association. 2. See the book’s introduction, and the “Methods and Sources” section, for more on how Mahdi’s life history account was recorded and written. 3. Ghalibaf became the head of the Ira­nian Parliament in 2020. 4. Indeed, Jean Baudrillard’s (1995) provocative thesis on war may be seen as advancing a similar argument. To be sure, Baudrillard’s failure to fully develop his thesis is linked to its widespread misreading, which mistakenly assumes the disappearance of war beneath the weight of technological forms of simulation (see Nordin and Öberg 2015). This is while the thrust of Baudrillard’s argument is centered on the question of radical contingency. As I have argued elsewhere, The Gulf War Did Not Take Place (1995) does not suggest that nothing took place in Iraq in 1991 but that what took place was not war (Sefat 2011). This is b ­ ecause the outcome of the confrontation was determined in advance. “It was as though,” says Baudrillard, “the Iraqis ­were electrocuted and lobotomized” (1995:67). The disparity between U.S. and Iraqi forces with regard to method and military technology was so g­ reat that direct engagement never took place, and one side seemed to never face the possibility of defeat. Baudrillard’s key point, it seems, is that war emerges when antagonistic social relations become endowed with radical contingency, which imposes the possibility of defeat on all. More recently Barkawi and Brighton (2011) make a similar point, although they make no reference to Baudrillard.

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INDEX

actant, 14, 80 Actor-­Network Theory (ANT), 14. See also Latour aesthetics: of Hezbollahies, 17, 115, 147; public, 113; of reformists, 17 affordances, 4, 5, 6, 82, 151, 158. See disaffordances agency: emancipatory, 86; of Hezbollahies, 90; locus of, 89; of martyrdom, 83; of objects, 2, 14, 24, 26; oppressive, 86; of persons, 25; relational character of, 80; and re­s is­tance, 6, 9; source of, 2–3, 87, 89, 91, 143; of ­t hings, 25, 49, 86. See also Hezbollahie; objects; ­things Ahmadinejad, Mahmood, 11, 17–18, 111–13, 115, 119, 127–33, 138, 143, 147–48 anthropology, 1, 4, 8, 11, 25, 56, 145. See also Ira­nian studies; sociology anthropomorphizing, 25. See also biography, of ­things Avini, Morteza, 16–17, 58–60, 62, 72–73, 83, 101–4, 115, 123 Ayatollah Khamenei, 10, 11, 22, 101, 102, 103, 104, 110, 113, 115, 117, 118, 122, 124, 125, 130. See Khamenei, Seyed Ali Bad/Evil. See batel batel, 23, 35, 103 Bhabha, Homi, 7 binary, 81 biographical narrative interpretive method, (BNIM), 17 biography: of objects, 25; of terms, 21; of ­things, 21, 25. See also anthropology; anthropomorphizing body, 2, 5, 16, 18, 21, 25–31, 36, 42, 46, 50–52, 54, 57–58, 60–63, 65, 67–68, 73, 75, 77, 79–80, 91, 101, 114, 116, 124, 128, 136–37, 140–41, 144, 146; and soul, 2, 58–59, 62. See also materiality; objects; ­things

center, 106–9, 112, 127, 135–37, 143–45. See also freeplay; modes of life centrality, 10, 21–22, 42, 51, 57, 69, 81–82, 95, 107, 109, 111–12, 116, 127, 138, 141, 143. See also center commoditization, 104 Dali, Salvador, 40, 45 decolonization, 7, 31 Dehnamaki, Masud, 115 disaffordances, 4, 6; material, 82. See also affordances; materiality discourse: as domain of repre­sen­ta­tion, 8; Islamist, 55, 83; materiality of, 8; of martyrdom, 5, 17, 83, 91; post-­Islamist, 3, 6, 85, 94; of reformists/reforms, 16, 22, 85, 88, 142; revolutionary/radical, 4, 23–24, 26, 49, 54; of Shariati, 41–42, 49, 77, 140 domination, 6, 12, 15, 20–22, 50–53, 69, 76–78, 80–83, 108, 112, 114, 120, 138, 141, 144–46, 150. See also rupture; war duality, 32, 45. See also binary emancipation, 8 estaghlal, azadi, jomhuri-­e eslami, 67 Etelaat (newspaper), 16, 61, 66–67 freedom, 6, 8, 16, 19, 57, 66–67, 69, 88, 93, 95–98, 102, 105, 108, 111, 124, 132, 141–42, 149 freeplay, 69, 81, 105–9, 111, 138–39, 146. See also center; transcendence Ganji, Akbar, 115, 125 Gholamreza Kashi, Mohammad Javad, 16, 31, 64, 113 Good/God. See hagh Green Movement, 4, 11, 19, 22, 79, 110–13, 116, 132–35, 138, 143, 146–47. See also Musavi, Mir Hossein

163

164 I NDE X

hagh, 23, 35, 38, 41, 59, 103 Hajjarian, Said, 99–100, 124, 126–28, 130, 134 Halghe Kian, 18, 94–96, 99–100, 125–26 Hamshahri (newspaper), 16, 67, 93 Hashemi Rafsanjani. See Rafsanjani hermeneutics, 15, 123; in-­depth, 17 Hezbollahie, 15–18, 20, 22, 44–46, 49, 59, 60, 62, 64–65, 70–71, 73, 74, 85–86, 89–91, 97, 99–105, 109–16, 122–33, 135, 138, 142–43, 146–49; reconfiguration of, 90 hierarchy of value. See pairs of opposites higher love, 27–28, 30–31. See also transcendence ideologue: of Hezbollahies, 60; of Revolution, 21, 23, 140 Imam Khomeini, 6, 10–14, 17, 21–27, 29, 31–34, 38–39, 41–46, 48–49, 51, 55, 57–61, 64, 66, 68–69, 72–73, 75–79, 82–84, 87, 89–91, 93–94, 101, 103, 105, 108–9, 117–18, 121, 132, 141–42, 146 imperialism, 13, 21, 26, 30, 32, 44, 50, 60, 140, 149 infinitum, 105, 109, 142. See also multiplicity Ira­nian studies, 2, 14, 22, 81, 86, 143–44. See also anthropology; sociology Jomhuri-­e Eslami (newspaper), 16, 61, 66–67 justice, 16, 19, 31, 90, 103, 105, 108, 121, 131, 142, 148 Kashi. See Gholamreza Kashi, Mohammad Javad Kayhan (newspaper), 16, 48, 61, 64–67, 93, 116 Keffiyeh, 104–5, 108, 122, 135 Khamenei, Seyed Ali, 10–11, 22, 49, 79–80, 101–5, 110–11, 113, 115–18, 122–36, 138, 143, 147–48 Khatami, Mohammad, 19, 64, 89, 99–100, 102, 112–13, 115–16, 121–22, 124–25, 127–29, 131, 134, 143, 147. See also reforms Khomeini. See Imam Khomeini Kian Chain. See Halghe Kian language: demo­cratic, 95; disaffordances of, 4; dynamism between materiality and, 3; as form of power, 3; as integral to social life, 1; and materiality, 1, 9, 13, 21–22, 49–52, 56, 82–83, 85, 109, 111, 140–45; and material objects, 1, 57; revolutionary, 29; of rights, 68, 89; subordination to, 1; and text, 8; and ­things, 24, 56; as tool of

power, 3. See also materiality; objects; re­sis­tance; repre­sen­ta­tion; ­things Latour, 1, 3–4, 14, 80, 86. See also Actor-­ Network Theory liberalization, 14, 58, 64, 67–69, 82, 85, 88–89, 91, 98, 100–101, 137, 141–42, 145, 147–48 lived experience, 4, 8, 12, 17–18, 21, 58, 69, 87. See also objects, everyday logocentric tradition/approach, 2. See also repre­sen­ta­tion martyr, 5, 14, 16–17, 22, 24, 34–35, 57–64, 67–68, 75, 77–78, 83–85, 91, 94, 100–101, 105, 108–9, 111–12, 121–22, 126, 141–42 martyrdom. See martyr material. See materiality materiality, 2–9, 13, 15, 21–22, 24, 26, 45–46, 49–57, 69, 80–83, 85–86, 88, 91, 96, 109, 111–16, 140–46; dematerialization of, 2, 91, 143; language and, 1, 8, 143, 145; phenomenological studies of, 2; po­liti­cal impact of, 1; in politics, 1; social life integrality of, 1; of ­things, 3, 5–6, 15, 55. See also language; objects; re­sis­tance; ­things materialization, 7, 55, 112 material objects, 1–3, 5, 9, 11, 21, 46, 52, 56–57, 65, 81, 97, 100, 104, 150 material referent. See referent material turns, 1, 3, 9, 14, 24, 53, 55–56, 85, 90, 152; interdisciplinarity of, 1, 53 ­matter, 1–2, 7, 13–14, 17–18, 29, 35, 39, 42, 47, 52, 54, 56–57, 59, 66, 69, 112, 117, 125, 152 mazlum, 35–36, 45–46 mimicry, 7 modes of life, 85, 91, 95, 112, 132, 136, 138–39, 143; disintegration of, 148; Hezbollahie, 22, 104, 109, 111, 116, 143, 148–49; liberal, 91; materialization of, 112; reformist, 99–100, 111, 131, 147. See also center Mojahedin-­e Khalgh (MEK), 15, 30, 35, 36, 42–49, 60, 65, 70–72, 78–79, 93, 132 moral police, 63, 96, 113 multiplication: of corpses, 57; of objects, 105, 146, 149; of religious holidays, 87; of signs, 109, 111, 142, 148–49; of ­things, 85; of ­things and terms, 108, 142; of words, 105. See also multiplicity multiplicity, 12, 62, 146. See also multiplication Musavi, Mir Hossein, 19, 79, 110–11, 132, 134–35. See also Green Movement Nasiri, Mehdi, 103 neoliberalism, 86–88, 91

I NDE X 165

objects: asymmetrical, 26, 36; discursive, 8; everyday, 2–4, 16, 26; as extensions, 2; globalization of, 21, 85, 90–91, 104, 142; material, 1–3, 5, 9, 11, 13, 21, 46; po­liti­cal, 22; public, 9–10, 16–18, 21, 30, 52, 54–56, 58, 60, 62–63, 65, 67, 69, 77, 82, 85–86, 88, 91, 95, 103, 105, 108, 112, 138, 143, 146, 149; regularization of, 51, 54, 57–58, 62, 64–65, 69, 82–83, 91, 94, 98, 100, 108–9, 112, 138, 142–43, 146, 149–50; social, 8; as subject, 3, 25; world of, 2–3, 5, 9, 21, 29. See also language; materiality; ­things oppressed. See mazlum Orientalism, 7 pairs of opposites, 2. See also binary patriarchy: modes of repre­sen­ta­tion, 7 performativity. See resignification phallogocentric repre­sen­ta­tion, 7, 137, 145. See also logocentric tradition plurality, 6, 16, 57, 65–67, 69, 88, 93, 95–96, 98–99, 108 postcolonialism, 7, 31. See also decolonization proliferation: of dead bodies, 5, 58, 141; of images, 65; of Islamic ideals, 54; of objects, 16, 57, 67, 113; of resignification pro­cesses, 112; of terms/vocabulary, 60–62, 89, 98, 103 radical contingency, 6, 22, 111–12, 136, 138, 143. See also resignification; re­sis­tance Rafsanjani, 14, 79, 84, 88, 93, 99–101, 103, 108, 125, 129–31, 147; liberalization program of, 101. See also reconstruction realpolitik, 10, 32–33, 98, 105 reconstruction, 88, 93. See also Rafsanjani referent, 10; material, 17, 21–22, 45, 49, 51, 65, 82–83, 85, 89, 90, 97, 102, 105, 108–9, 140–45, 149. See also language; referential systems referential systems, 3, 6, 7, 10, 42, 58, 83, 91, 104, 111, 137–38, 141, 144, 149. See also language reforms, 12, 16–20, 22, 42, 85–86, 88–91, 94–100, 102–4, 109, 111–16, 121–22, 124–38, 142–43, 146–49. See also Khatami, Mohammad repre­sen­ta­tion, 6; phallogocentric, 7; symbolic, 7; systems of, 7, 145 resignification, 4, 22, 68, 82, 111–12, 131–34, 137–38, 139, 141, 145, 148, 153; and performativity, 10, 21, 51, 57, 69, 82–83, 108, 138, 144. See also language; radical contingency; re­sis­tance; war

re­sis­tance: and agency, 2, 6, 8–9; material decolonization of, 7; models of, 3, 10, 141; and subjectivity, 3, 8. See also resignification revolution: as falling in love, 32; narratives of, 13; of 1979, 4, 12, 21, 23–24, 26, 32, 50, 52–53, 141 Revolutionary Guards, 71, 73, 77, 79, 100–101, 105, 110–11, 113–15, 117–18, 125, 127, 130, 140, 148 rights, 6, 16, 65–69, 82, 88–89, 95, 97–99, 105, 108, 132, 141 rupture, 22, 84–85, 87, 105–7, 109, 111–16, 138–39, 142, 144–49. See also domination; war sacrifice, 16, 57, 59, 60–61, 100–101, 103, 105, 108, 121, 126, 131 sagha-­khaneh movement, 31 Said, Edward, 7 Salam (newspaper), 16, 93, 113 semiotics, 5, 8, 15, 17, 21, 50, 52. See also language shah, 23–24, 28, 30–31, 33, 36–39, 41, 43–46, 55, 65, 72, 116, 148 Shalamcheh (newspaper), 16, 115 Shariati, Ali, 21, 23–24, 26–27, 29–32, 35–36, 38, 41–42, 47, 49–50, 70, 72, 75, 77–79, 94, 140–41 sign, 5, 7, 21–22, 41, 42, 51, 60–61, 64, 67, 107–8, 133, 138–39, 141–42, 146, 148–49; attributed to paeen-­shahr, 130; Hezbollahie, 113; resignification of, 82, 111, 137, 143–44, 148; transcendental, 24. See also language; signified; signifier; signifying chain signified, 5, 57, 104, 108–9, 111. See also language signifier, 3, 5, 14, 16, 24, 57, 87, 145. See also language signifying chain, 5, 51. See also language sociology, 4, 8, 11, 29, 56; of communication, 53; cultural, 25, 86; po­liti­cal, 54. See also anthropology; Ira­nian studies Solaymani, Ghasem, 119, 148–49. See also war Soroush, Abdol Karim, 93–96, 99–100, 102, 115, 121 subject, 3, 5, 77, 128, 137; formation of, 3, 5, 8, 25–26, 82; Islamic, 138; and materiality, 8; neoliberal, 87–88; revolutionary, 21, 27, 49–50; of Shariati, 26, 32, 35, 42. See also agency, of objects subjectivity, 3, 8, 20, 25–26, 53, 140. See also agency

166 I NDE X

substitution, 22, 85, 107–9, 111, 138–39, 142–43, 148–49. See also resignification; rupture surrealism. See Dali, Salvador the symbolic, 7 temporality, 11, 145 ­things, 5, 13–14, 19, 24–25, 29–30, 32, 35–36, 44–46, 51, 56, 60, 65, 71, 74–75, 80–83, 86, 88–91, 95, 114, 119, 121, 124–25, 127, 130, 138, 140–43, 148; asymmetrical, 31, 50, 103–4; economy of, 21; material, 2–4, 6, 13, 16, 17, 26, 31, 42, 49–50, 52, 54–55, 57–58, 64, 67, 84–85, 89, 90, 94, 97, 105, 108, 140–41, 145; materiality of, 55; materialization of, 55; presence and absence of, 3, 6; revolution of, 3–4, 9, 150; social life of, 2, 55; and terms, 1, 3–4, 6, 8, 10, 21, 26,

28, 50, 52, 56–57, 80, 84–85, 106, 109, 112, 121, 135, 140–42, 144, 149; world of, 2. See also materiality; language; objects transcendence, 21, 24, 26, 32, 36, 38, 39, 41, 57, 69, 83–84, 107–9, 142, 146. See also materiality; material turns tripartite approach, 15, 20 tyrant. See zalem war, 22, 35, 57, 60, 63, 68, 73, 75, 87, 92, 104, 110, 112–13, 119–22, 131, 133, 135–36, 138–39, 143–50. See also domination; rupture Yalasarat (newspaper), 16 zalem, 35–36, 45–46

A NOTE ON THE T YPE

This book has been composed in Adobe Text and Gotham. Adobe Text, designed by Robert Slimbach for Adobe, bridges the gap between fifteenth-­and sixteenth-­century calligraphic and eighteenth-­century Modern styles. Gotham, inspired by New York street signs, was designed by Tobias Frere-­Jones for Hoefler & Co.