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Apr 4, 2009 BOOK REVIEW Dialogue and debate in the Islamic Republic Iran's Intellectual Revolution by Mehran Kamrava Reviewed by Kaveh L Afrasiabi Few topics in Iran today are as contentious as the connection between Islam and modernity in light of an Islamic populist revolution that heralded the rise of a part-republican part-theocratic political system that, 30 years later, continues to defy neat categorization and thus baffle historians. Contrary to the Western stereotype of Iran as a hermetical and closed nation, post-revolutionary society, in addition to featuring a somewhat vibrant civil society, has also ushered in a tumultuous intellectual environment dominated by ongoing dialogue and debate on the virtues and nuances of various intellectual and political paradigms. In Iran's Intellectual Revolution, Mehran Kamrava furnishes a splendid overview of the burgeoning intellectual discourses in contemporary post-Ruhollah Khomeini Iran. He meticulously examines the works of various Iranian intellectuals and their connections to the diverse religious conservative, Islamic reformist and secular-modernist affiliations, tracing these strains of thought to the earlier, pre-revolutionary intellectual movements dating to the constitutional revolution of the early 20th century. Yet, he sheds light on the important mutations and novelties of the current trends in Iran's "discursive field" hothouse. While mindful of the fair amount of diversity among Iranian intellectuals, Kamrava nevertheless sees fit to identify three main schools of thought, or rather worldviews, labeled as religious conservative, Islamic reformist and secular-modernist, devoting separate chapters to each after a superb introductory chapter that contextualizes the "quiet" and sometimes not so quiet "intellectual revolution" within the broader scope of post-revolutionary changes and transformations in Iran. Readers interested in the ideological underpinnings of today's Islamic Republic are apt to appreciate the chapter on traditional or conservative religious thought that delves into the religio-political perspective of such leading ayatollahs as the supreme spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as well as ayatollahs Mesbah Yazdi, Jannati, Amoli, dissident Ayatollah Montazeri, etc, particularly as it pertains to their rather diverse interpretations of the key institution of religious leadership, velayat-e fagih. According to the author, on the whole conservative religious discourse counts as the official discourse of the regime, although he is careful to add that the political system "lacks ideological and often institutional cohesion". (pg 61) This is followed by an in-depth explication of the discourse of religious reformism which "seeks to fundamentally alter the interpretations on which most Islamic doctrines and notions are based" (pg 214) and which is sometimes benefited by "timid backing" from the theocratic political system (pg 6). Led by such figures as the former moderate president Mohammad Khatami, philosopher Abdul Karim Soroush, thinker Yusofi Eshkevari and reformist theologian Mojtahed Shabestari, this is, according to Kamrava, one of the most promising intellectual trends that has fueled a major political reformist movement from within the Islamic polity. It is distinguishable from its historical antecedents by its singular emphasis on Islamic democracy, thus drawing a close parallel between discourses and social movements. Next, Kamrava focuses on the secularist Iranian thinkers, such as Daryush Shayegan and Ramin Jahanbegloo, whose quests to rethink the modern Iranian identity leads them to a full embrace of the key secularization thesis of separation of church and state - the return of public religion to the private realm and, naturally, Western-style democracy unencumbered by religious norms, values and the like. Although lacking institutional support, this secularist trend has a sympathetic ear within the growing urban middle class and Kamrava is rather optimistic about its rising fortunes, wondering aloud that "time will tell" which of the last two, religious modernism or pure secularism, will gain the upper hand. Implicit in such a prognosis is the author's own intellectual predilections that veer between the religious reformist and secularist. One of this book's main contributions is its critical analysis of the recent setbacks for the reformist movement led by Khatami, identifying its weaknesses in terms of leadership and organization as the main culprits. However, Kamrava's repeated reference to the "demise" of this movement, simply because of some election setbacks, is questionable as is his taxonomic close identification of the fortunes of intellectual discourses with their political impacts or results. Kamrava's over-reliance on a dubious and restrictive notion of discourse by Robert Wuthnow, who overlooks the relative autonomy of intellectual phenomena from societal institutions and instead emphasizes the importance of the "institutionalization" of discourses, is responsible for these lacunae throughout the book. Another flaw is that the author ultimately does not do justice to the complex, perpetually self-reforming, intellectual dynamism of the Islamic Republic and pigeonholes the proponents of the system under the "conservative" rubric, even though such terminology is highly problematic, partly due to the revolutionary self-understanding of the system's leaders who envision a Edmund Husserlian mission for their movement on a global scale. This is with respect to challenging the global hierarchy and Western-centric status quo, as part and parcel of their weltanschauung. The fact is, the Islamic Republic is a historical work in progress and the tall wall drawn between the religious modernists and the supposedly conservative leaders of the regime is by and large untenable. Conspicuously missing in the book is a close examination of how contemporary Iranian Islamists have embraced, reworked or repelled the elements of Iranian nationalism. Case in point, Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani's pre-revolutionary discourse on Iranian nationalist struggles is highly instructive on the Islamic regime's unique blending of nationalism and Islamism. Yet this somehow evades Kamrava's radar and, unfortunately, the author opts to endorse the views of certain expatriate Iranian intellectuals, such as Abbas Milani, who has decried Iran's founding of an Islamic Republic as symptomatic of an incomplete project of modernism, or rather "pseduo-modernism". Such dubious assumptions, operating from a binary tradition versus modernity dualism and assuming a universal model of modernism, when in fact reference to alternative modernity makes more sense, tend to obfuscate rather than illuminate the intellectual landscape in today's Iran, particularly when Kamrava accepts at face value the stinging criticisms of such towering past intellectuals as Ali Shariati and Jalal Al-e Ahmad by the likes of Shayegan. Relatively speaking, today's Iran is not blessed by a fair crop of intellectual heavyweights as it was in the past, hence talk of the "poverty of Iranian intellectualism", particularly as it pertains to the input of some third-rate intellectuals living abroad, is hardly an exaggeration. Another problem is that, as Kamrava's own discussion of the Heideggerian thinker Reza Davari clearly shows, sometimes there is a lack of cohesion between the political and philosophical stance of a particular intellectual, making it doubly difficult to assign them to this or that intellectual movement. Unfortunately, Kamrava papers over his own insight and lets his descriptive taxonomy chip away at his book's value. In addition to a missing discussion of nationalism, Kamrava is equally silent on the contribution of feminist discourses, both religious and secularist, and evinces a male-centered subjectivity that, as a result, omits the role and input of feminist authors, male and female. His claims that the Islamic reformist thinkers "tend to be eerily silent on the question of women" (pg 219) or that in this movement "discourse on women is not even implicitly apparent" are factually untenable. This is in light of Khatami's numerous references to the increased participation of women under his administration, Shabestari's critique of "male-centered subjectivities", and, prior to that, direct discourses by Ayatollah Muttahari, Shariati, Bazargan, etc which have as of late been subjected to certain Islamist feminist critique within Iran. Finally, Kamrava is simply not critical enough of the secularist thinkers and his narrative lacks a critical assessment of the applicability of their secularist paradigm to contemporary Iran, where political religion on the whole has catapulted Iran onto the world stage (for better or worse). In conclusion, despite its shortcomings mentioned, this is a highly informative book that sheds much light on the hot furnace of intellectual discursive debates in today's Islamic Republic, making it a must-read for those interested in the subject of modern Iran. Iran's Intellectual Revolution by Mehran Kamrava. Cambridge University Press; 1 edition (October 27, 2008). ISBN-10: 0521725186. Price US$29.99, 288 pages. Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After Khomeini: New Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) . For his Wikipedia entry, click here. His latest book, Reading In Iran Foreign Policy After September 11 (BookSurge Publishing , October 23, 2008) is now available. (Copyright 2009 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing )
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