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Chapter 1

Cultural Crimes

There is not a single topic in human life for which Islam has not provided instruction and established norms.

—Ayatollah Khomeini

I start with myself.

One cold night in late autumn 1984 I was arrested by basijis. I was eighteen years old and in the last year of high school. Early that night a friend of mine had called me and asked me if I could take him somewhere in my car. Later on, we were driving with another friend of ours toward Julfa, the Armenian district in Isfahan. He had arranged a party for the weekend and wanted to buy illicit home-made aragh (Iranian vodka) and wine from an Armenian acquaintance, who was known in Isfahan for his good-quality aragh and wine. After the Islamic state prohibited alcoholic beverages, a lucrative underground market for home-made products emerged, particularly in the Armenian minority. I parked the car in Khaghani Street, the main street of Julfa. We waited in silence. It was getting dark. After a long and anxious wait the Armenian man appeared and my friend followed him into a narrow alleyway. After a few minutes my friend jumped into the car with a dark bag in his hand and I put the car in gear. At the end of the street, just as we were leaving the Armenian neighborhood, a basiji patrol on a motorcycle stopped us. They had apparently followed us. We were sent to the nearby mosque and from there to the office of the Central Committee (komiteh markazi). After a night in prison we were sent to the Revolutionary Court, which was located in a several-story luxury house, apparently confiscated by the Islamic state. The three of us sat opposite the judge (qazi), a middle-aged cleric, surrounded by several uniformed young men. He looked at some papers, probably a report on us. He raised his head and looked at us in silence. Then he sentenced us to flogging for “cultural crime,” thirty lashes each. The whole process lasted less than half an hour. For some reason we were not punished publicly (which is usually the case). We were led to a little room on the roof of the building. One at a time we were taken inside the room for the ritual. I was the last. While waiting my turn, I heard the screams and bellows of my friends. In the room I was placed on a metal bed with no mattress. My hands were stretched out and tied to the bars of the bed. The guard asked me kindly if I needed some piece of clothing to put in my mouth in order to prevent damage to my teeth (to avoid grinding the teeth together). I said yes and absurdly thanked him (perhaps for his concern for my teeth!). I was wearing a shirt and jeans. The guard did not insist on stripping me and the ritual began with reciting the phrase “Besm ella ahe rahmaane rahim” (In the name of Allah the beneficent the merciful)—an important phrase each Muslim should say at the beginning of every good work. Only the first five or six strokes hurt. I did not feel the rest. For many years to come red lines remained on my back to testify to how the new social order had been embodied.

* * *

Seventeen years later, in the summer of 2001, I found myself in the most agonizing part of my fieldwork. By then at the stage of choosing a topic for my study, I knew that it would become an ethnography of suffering and anguish. What I witnessed during July and August 2001, however, exceeded the scope of my imagination. More than 200 young people were publicly flogged in Tehran in only a few weeks. As a traditional Islamic punishment, public flogging appeared in the early days of the Revolution but was gradually carried out more discreetly away from the public gaze. At the end of July 2001, however, conservative forces controlling the judiciary started a fresh wave of public flogging, as a response to the reelection of the reform-minded but powerless President Mohammad Khatami the month before. Khatami had enjoyed a triumphant victory based on the support of young followers, but remained ineffective against the powerful conservative forces inside and outside the state. Simon said:

We chose Khatami and they [the conservative judiciary] are punishing us for that.

Public flogging is usually inflicted on young people. The victims are men, and occasionally women, who have been accused of different kinds of “cultural crime.” Common charges are alcohol consumption or extramarital sex. In the recent wave of flogging, the youngest victim was a fourteen-year-old boy charged with “harassing girls” in front of a girls’ high school. He received ten lashes. A young man of nineteen was given ten strokes for playing “illicit music” loudly in his car. For alcohol consumption, the number of lashes goes up to 80. More than 100 lashes may be given in the case of “sexual crimes.” There were young people who got 180 lashes.¹

For me, as an anthropologist, attending the flogging was an ethical dilemma. To watch seemed important to my fieldwork. I decided to attend only some floggings and to follow others indirectly through the media. In Tehran the ceremony of flogging is usually performed in the afternoon and on a main square. All traffic in and around the square is halted. A large number of basijis are present to counter possible protests. At each ceremony, between two and twelve persons are flogged. Before the eyes of some several hundred people, the young people are in turn stripped and fastened standing to a post or sometimes to a pick-up. Their arms are stretched out and tied with ropes. The policemen who carry out the punishment usually use a cable. The mass of spectators, almost all men, watch silently. I was stunned each time I saw the whips waving slowly backward in the air and then flying forward forcefully to hit a teenager’s back, lacerating his skin and injuring the flesh. When the whip hits the back, its top rotates before slapping hard the smooth skin along the side of his body.

“Cultural crime” (jorm-e farhangi) appeared in the post-revolutionary Penal Law as a new term for breaking Islamic rules. Such crimes are seen as violations of the “collective sentiments” of the Muslim community and result in different kinds of sanction, mostly in the form of physical punishment. The Islamic regime underscores the category of age, more than class or ethnicity, as a societal factor which causes differences in participation in crime. In Islam the self is thought of as split in a conflict between reason (aql) and passion (nafs). The former directs one toward God and a harmonious life, while the latter represents Satanic forces (sheytani). Although all individuals possess both, the capacity to develop reason is seen as stronger in adult men, whilst the impulse toward passion is held to be stronger in women and young people. Youth are all passion (nafs) and therefore have an inclination to crime. In the post-revolutionary Islamic order the collective cultural experience that youth represent is seen as a central intersection of culture and crime. The anxieties of the theocracy are expressed through “moral panics,” which have led in practice to the criminalization of a large part of youth culture.

However, the range of what can be included in the notion “cultural crime” has shrunk since the early 1980s. What in the 1980s was punishable as a cultural crime had turned in the late 1990s into a daily scene on the Tehran streets. In the early 1980s, a young man would frequently be warned and “corrected” by the Islamic club or moral police for wearing a short-sleeved shirt or clothes of a “delightful color,” or for talking to a namahram (unrelated) girl. In the late 1990s, the atmosphere was considerably more relaxed, particularly after Mohammad Khatami won the presidential election in 1997. Nevertheless, a new wave of harassment and terror was launched in the summer of 2002, when special black-uniformed police units equipped with black four-wheel-drive vehicles appeared in numerous northern and eastern districts of Tehran. More violent than before, these units have begun a war against such fesad-e akhlaqi (ethical corruption) as aloudegi-ye souti (sound pollution), loud music in cars and “depraved” private parties in Tehran.² The anti-“cultural crimes” policies grew tougher after the victory of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005.

After the Revolution the Iranian clerics embarked on a comprehensive project to desecularize the judicial system, which had been affected by seven decades of Western-inspired modernization. They also had to mold it to fit a centralized theocracy,³ which implied fundamentally transforming the principles of Shiite law. Central legislation by the state replaced the ad hoc legal interpretation carried out by Islamic jurists (see Arjomand 1989). Clerics, however, occupied powerful positions in the legal system. In the Islamic judicial system, ethical and moral regulations replaced the civil code of law in all spheres, including criminal justice. New criminal laws were introduced to enforce Islamic morality and values. The transformation of society into an ummat (Islamic community) was followed by a reduction of the individual’s status from a legal subject as a citizen to a “servant of God.” The new legal system as adjusted for “God’s servants” is based on criminalization of sins. By making an increasing number of moral offenses criminal, legal reform has progressively reduced the autonomy of the individual (see Sanadjian 1996). When shariat (the Persian version of Arabic sharia) was extended to cover public law, the distinction between the illegal, the immoral, and the sinful disappeared. Thus, crime, vice, and sin become synonymous.

The Islamic Penal Code divides punishments into three categories: hodud, qessas, and taazir. Hodud is for crimes that endanger the moral order, such as adultery or drinking alcohol. Punishment of hodud is mandatory and is prescribed by the Qur’an. Qessas is for crimes against the person, for instance, homicide, punishments for which are mentioned in the Qur’an and hadiths. Finally, taazir is for all crimes for which there are no specified penalties in the Qur’an or hadiths. Thus, taazir, the criminalization of acts and the punishment given for them, is left to the discretion of the judge (see Bassiouni 1982). Islam views taazir as subject to rehabilitative and corrective punishment. Public flogging not only punishes the sinner/criminal with severe physical pain, but is also a “tangible preventive measure.”⁴

JUDICIAL VIGNETTE

The 18th Chapter: Crimes Against Chastity and Public Ethics

Article 638: Anybody who demonstrates unlawful [haram] conduct in public places will be sentenced to prison for between ten days and two months or to up to 74 lashes. And if his or her conduct is not punishable but nonetheless harms public chastity s/he is sentenced to prison between ten days and two months or to up to 70 lashes.

(a) Unveiled women who appear in public places and in the public’s sight unveiled will be sentenced to prison for ten days to two months, or a fine.

Article 640: The following persons will be sentenced to prison from three months to one year and to a fine of 1,500,000 Rial to 6,000,000 Rial and to up to 74 lashes:

(1) anybody who trades, distributes, or demonstrates in public paintings, drawings, text, pictures, publications, signs, films, cassettes, or anything else that harms public chastity and ethics.

Anybody who personally or through somebody else imports or exports, rents, or is the intermediary in the trading of the above-mentioned goods.⁵

OCCIDENTOPHOBIA

Since popular culture is seen as a manifestation of “Weststruckness,” it has been regarded as the main source of cultural crimes. Mojtaba Navab-Safavi, a radical Islamist operating in the 1940s and 1950s, identified Western imports such as the cinema and romantic novels and music as a “melting furnace, which melts away all the wholesome values and virtues of a Muslim society. . . . Moviehouses, theaters, novels, and popular songs must be completely removed and their middlemen punished” (Navab-Safavi 1357/1987: 4, 11, quoted in Naficy 1992: 179–80). After the Revolution, all forms of modern popular culture were banned and the entire industry of popular culture went underground or into exile. Los Angeles, with a huge concentration of Iranian pop artists, has been turned into a site for the production of the Iranian popular culture (see Kelley and Friedlander 1993; Naficy 1993). Irangelesi is the common term used to refer to this culture.

During the Revolution all emblems of Western popular culture were attacked as symptoms of impurity. Cinemas, nightclubs, discos, luxury restaurants, liquor stores, bars, music studios, malls were burned down or closed. In the opinion of Ayatollah Khomeini, the Pahlavis had tyrannized people by corrupting their minds: “Spreading the means of pleasure, and preoccupying people with unveiling, European clothes, cinema, theater, music, and dance” (Khomeini 1323/1944, quoted in Paidar 1995: 121). The first major event of symbolic importance to the Islamic Revolution happened when Cinema Rex in Abadan was burned down on August 10, 1978, and over 300 persons were killed inside it. Less than a year later as many as 180 cinemas had been burned, demolished, or shut down (Naficy 1992: 183).⁶

It was even worse in the case of music. All popular music, foreign or Iranian, was banned. At first, only military and revolutionary songs were allowed, but later on the clergy began to tolerate classic Western and Iranian. Classic Persian music is usually associated with spirituality and Sufism and is even referred to as “authentic music” (musiqi-ye asil). Popular Iranian music, in contrast, is seen as a “light” (sabouk) and “superficial” (sathi) imitation of Western pop music. Popular music is seen as harmful primarily for its hybridity and inauthenticity, and second for its relation to sexuality and immodesty. In the late 1990s a so-called Islamic popular music (mosiqi-ye pop-e eslami) was introduced to combat influences from Irangelesi culture.

A prevalent opinion among young Tehranis is that after the end of the war the authorities needed a new enemy. This enemy has been found in what the Islamic state has labeled the project of “cultural invasion” (tahajom-e farhangi). The invasion is perceived to be conducted by the Great Satan, that is, the U.S., and its “indigenous agents,” in order to demoralize young Iranians. Although “cultural invasion” has been a key term in the revolutionary discourse since the early 1980s, the political significance of the notion increased considerably after the war. Later, in the second half of the 1990s, it became the main political tool of the conservative forces. The propaganda of the state claims that a “cultural invasion” is more dangerous than military ones are. Mesbah Yazdi, the spokesman of the hard-liners, sees continuity between the military war and the cultural war:

We should believe that the previous war [Iran-Iraq war] is taking place today in the cultural sphere. If we had been defeated in that war, we might have lost territory, but if we are defeated in this war, it will mean the loss of our religion and faith and domination by the enemy’s corrupted culture.⁷

The youth are believed to be the main target of the invasion, the weak point of the ummat. The minister of education, Mohammad Ali Najafi, claimed, “It is our duty to combat the invasion of our culture that threatens the juvenile population. We should create a safety shield to protect our youth from all evil plots and conspiracies.”⁸

The authorities see a link between the strategy for “cultural invasion” and the strategy the Christians used in Andalusia in the late fifteenth century. In summer 2002, deputy commander of the basij, Brigadier-General Gholam Hossein Kolouli Dezfuli, declared in relation to this:

Christians were consistently defeated in their campaign to avoid the infiltration of Islam into Europe. Later on, they thought of a remedy and concluded that they had to make soldiers forget their beliefs. Therefore, they distributed plenty of alcoholic beverages among the people, free of charge. On the other hand, they had the Muslims entrapped by beautiful Western women to corrupt the combatants of Islam and stop the spread of Islam into Europe. I think our Islamic Revolution was a similar case. Since the triumph of the Revolution in 1979, they have undertaken ceaseless efforts to avoid infiltration of our Revolution but they failed. Now, they are in the process of repeating the Andalusian experience in our country.⁹

The genealogy of the notion of “cultural invasion” (tahajom-e farhangi) in the Iranian context led to a discourse of authenticity, which dominated the political culture of the 1960s and 1970s and emphasized authenticity and the idea of “returning to our roots.” This discourse was promoted by several influential intellectuals, such as Ahmad Fardid, Ali Shariati, Jalal Al-e Ahmad, Daryush Shayegan, and Ehsan Naraghi. It mobilized an ideology of nativism (see Boroujerdi 1996), a yearning for a “purity,” which supposedly had been demolished by Westernization.

The most prominent and influential work in this tradition was undoubtedly Jalal Al-e Ahmad’s Gharbzadegi. Published in the early 1960s, Gharbzadegi has been praised as a pioneering work in defense of cultural authenticity (esalat-e farhangi), and has deeply affected the cultural debate and politics in Iran. In this polemical essay, Al-e Ahmad rigorously criticized the Shah’s policy of modernization (Westernization) and the tendency for mimicry among Iranians. Gharbzadegi as a notion is still used as a political tool by the Islamic authorities to oppress opposition. Al-e Ahmad borrowed it from another Iranian intellectual, Ahmad Fardid, who had translated the term as dysiplexia (Gheissari 1998: 89). In Greek “dysis” means “West” and “plexia” means to be afflicted, as in “apoplexy.” The concept has been translated into English as “Westoxication,” “Weststruckness,” or being “plagued by the West” (the title used in the English translation). However, Al-e Ahmad defines gharbzadegi as an illness. Gharbzadegi is a metaphor for “cultural disease.”

I speak of being afflicted with “westitis” the way I would speak of being afflicted with cholera. If this is not palatable, let us say it is akin to being stricken by heat or by cold. But it is not that either. It is something more on the order of being attacked by tongue worm. Have you ever seen how wheat rots? From within? . . . In any case we are dealing with a sickness, a disease imported from abroad and developed in an environment receptive to it. (Al-e Ahmad 1982: 3)

The medical aspect of the gharbzadegi discourse is not exceptional. Since the early twentieth century, the state of Westernization has been seen as a syndrome, and addressed with medical terminology, such as “cultural schizophrenia” (Shaygan 1992), “mental confusion” (ashoftegie fekri) (Shadman 1326/1947), or “indigestion” (sou-e hazemeh).¹⁰ Such arguments are not necessarily made only by Islamists. Many secular intellectuals—usually educated in the West—use the same approach. For instance, Daryoush Ashuri compares the Westernization of Iran with the historical invasions by Alexander the Great, the Arabs, and the Moguls. He claims that Westernization is the latest invasion of Iran. Unlike previous invasions, which were military, this one has “gradually penetrated our skin” (Ashuri 1376/1997: 145–47). Since the Revolution, the authorities have utilized such medical jargon to legitimate their occidentophobia. Conflating the language of health programs with cultural politics, the Islamic regime has depicted the way the nation’s purity and health are demolished by “cultural microbes” (mikrobha-ye farhangi), which penetrate the nation’s body and cause “cultural injuries” (asibha-ye farhangi). Accordingly, to immunize the nation, the regime emphasizes the necessity of a “cultural vaccination” (vaksan-e farhangi).

Since the youth are all seen as passion (nafs) and particularly vulnerable to “cultural threats,” the focus of the Islamic regime has been on how to “protect” young people from moral hazards and prevent them from becoming the gateways of “cultural invasion.” Uncontrollable mass communication from abroad, through radio, satellite TV channels, videos, and finally the Internet, have been identified as primary threats “broadcasting pollution.” In December 1999, the Valy-e faqih, Ayatollah Khomeini, expressed his anxiety in this way:

Audio and visual waves that are worse than warships and warplanes are being used to disseminate a rogue culture aimed at reasserting the domination of the enemies of Islam. They have paved the way for the imposition of unethical values and Westernized ideas in order to captivate and humiliate Muslims.¹¹

Mohammad Javad Larijani, then director of Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), believes that the influences of these foreign sounds and images will subvert the process of constructing the Muslim subject:

Can we believe that the highly motivated youth of the country will continue to be true patriots, correct in their way of thinking, and observant of religious duties while they are exposed to these destructive programs and watching them incessantly? Will they not dwindle into day-dreaming, humiliated, misled and self-deceived individuals?¹²

Conducting a war against nondomestic media has been the main task of the regime since the Revolution. Throughout the 1980s video recorders were illicit in Iran. Possessing, renting, selling, or buying them was punishable. In the early 1990s, the Majlis passed a law to legalize “owning and using a video cassette recorder.” While the Iranian authorities were busy discussing whether or not to legalize videos, a more powerful threat arrived, namely satellite television, which has ever since presented the authorities with a problem. They are no longer able to control the flow, and a steady stream of TV programs is entering the country. While the Majlis were still confused about what to do, 500,000 satellite dishes were installed on roofs in Tehran.¹³ The use of such dishes was the most controversial cultural issue in Iran throughout the 1990s. The conservatives began a rigorous propaganda campaign against satellite TV. The satellites were called an “enemy device for eliminating Islam,”¹⁴ and seen as to signifying “hooliganism and social corruption.”¹⁵ The director of IRIB used a “purity and danger” discourse in his statements against the satellite:

It infatuates [people] by unhealthy information. . . . The contamination caused by satellites is far more dangerous than the pollution of the living environment. Now that sensitivity to pollution of the environment has reached such a state that smoking is forbidden in public places and even in apartments and large buildings, how can we remain indifferent to broadcasting pollution?¹⁶

The moral police conduct sporadic hunts for receiver dishes on roofs or in courtyards. People are encouraged to check if their neighbors have receivers. Helicopter hunts to identify houses with satellite dishes have also been conducted. A wave of attacks on satellite dishes was launched in late October 2001, on the order of the authorities. The police impounded more than 5,000 satellite dishes in Tehran and some 150,000 nationwide in less than two weeks.¹⁷

Engineering Goodness

Another modus operandi of the war against cultural crimes has been the reshaping of morals. The “salvation-oriented” mission of the Islamic government has been directed to helping the country achieve an “inner piety” (safa-ye baten). This requires cleansing the nation from “internal impurities” caused by “satanic temptations” and warding off the external threats of “cultural invasion” and “Weststruckness.” This was conducted first through a Cultural Revolution (Enqelab-e Farhangi) and then by establishing the Ministry of Islamic Culture and Guidance in 1986 in order to orchestrate the national culture and control over cultural activities and productions.

The Islamic Republic then converted the media, the education system, art and film production into vessels for promoting Islamic and revolutionary values (see Benard and Khalilzad 1984: 117). The IRIB became an ideological apparatus for legitimating the clergy. The content gradually became dominated by religious seminars. Programs such as Akhlaq dar khanevadeh (Ethics in the Family) or Mr. Gherra‘ti’s lectures on Islamic ethics and rules supported and reinforced Islamic values and lifestyles. Through its numerous soap operas, TV serials, programs on martyrs and their families, documentaries or feature films on the war, and mythologizations of clerics and personalities of the Revolution, IRIB attempts to (re)produce images of the ideal Muslim revolutionary man and woman. Soap operas of historical personalities are usual, such as Emam Ali (biography of Imam Ali), Maryam-e Moghadas (life story of Saint Mary), Amir Kabir (biography of a reformist prime minister in the mid-nineteenth century), and Bu-Ali Sina (biography of the tenth-century philosopher called Avicenna in the West). Programs about the “cultural invasion” and its “domestic agents” also occupy a large part of IRIB’s broadcasting. Hoviat (Identity) and Sarab (Mirage) were two controversial programs that attempted to defame Westernized Iranians.¹⁸

IRIB usually puts youths into two categories, either as zealous revolutionaries and faithful Muslims who, through heroic efforts, will save the country and build a decent future, or as deceived and bidard hedonists. It creates an image of an army of young people ready to execute their leaders’ directives (ummat-e hamishe dar sahneh). They forge the ideal image of an “Iranian Muslim youth,” a conscious (agah) warrior (mobarez), ready for self-sacrifice (isargar) and a “guardian of values.” For instance, the soap opera Khaneyi Misazim (We Build Our House) is a melodrama that attempts to offer “proper models” for building a life based on “correct social and economic relationships.” Work, endeavor, humanity, correct relationships, and economic discipline are central themes. The stereotype of bidard youth is also a recurrent theme in soap operas. For instance, Khat-e Ghermez (The Red Line) is about the “identity-lessness” (bihoviyati) of two young men. Free from “family ties and norms” (gheyd va bandhay-e khanevadegi), the two embark on an aimless journey.¹⁹ Anti-bidard youth propaganda is also a central theme in state-run youth magazines, such as Iran-e Javan, Omid-e Javan (Hope of Youth), Javanan-e Roosta (Village Youth), Javan-e Khanvadeh (Family Youth), Donya-ye Javanan (World of Youth), Roshd-e Javan (Youth’s Growth), Javanan-e Emrooz (Today’s Youth), Fazilat-e Javanan (Youth’s Virtue), and Mo’oud-e Javan (The Promise of the Young).

The “principle of mutual discipline” is a central component of the strategy of engineering goodness. In post-revolutionary Iran, the practice of mutual discipline, amr-e be m‘arouf va nahi az monkar (the promotion of virtue and the rejection of vice) became a guiding principle of domestic politics. The expression stands for an obligation on the part of every Muslim to guide others toward goodness and save them from evil, a duty that operates both at the interpersonal level and in relation to hierarchical governance and subjection. In accordance with the Qur’anic verse (9: 71), the Iranian Constitution declares:

In the Islamic Republic of Iran, amr-e be m‘arouf va nahi az monkar is a universal and reciprocal duty that must be fulfilled by the people with respect to one another, by the government with respect to the people, and by the people with respect to the government. The conditions, limits, and nature of this duty will be specified by law.²⁰

However, in post-revolutionary Iran, “the principle of mutual discipline” has been used by Islamists to justify the violent oppression of young people.

Hierarchical relations in Iran, whether teacher/pupil, father/child, or master/disciple, are often based on a common paradigm, in which the role of the senior partner is to encourage, exercise, and inculcate appropriate practices in order to stimulate reason and to constrain the space for passion, the two contradictory forces. The youth have to be led toward aql by tutelage and discipline (Rosen 1989: 12). The mutual discipline of amr-e be m‘arouf va nahi az monkar is a crucial feature in the process of learning:

The individual’s acquisition of appropriate agency and its exercise are articulated by responsibility, a responsibility not merely of the agent but of the entire community of Muslims severally and collectively. In this tradition, the body-and-its-capacities is not owned solely by the individual but is subject to a variety of rights and duties held by others. (Asad 2000: 50)

To understand the context in which notions of “cultural crime” are mobilized, we have to look at the genealogy of the “principle of mutual discipline” and its roots in the history of political Islam. As a “collective duty,” a Muslim who lives under an Islamic regime should struggle for the survival of the regime. One who lives under a regime hostile to Islam should struggle for its overthrow (Enayat 1982: 2). Thus the principle of mutual discipline is not only an ethical issue but a political one as well. Ali Shariati, one of the ideologues behind the Islamic Revolution, interpreted “prevention of vice” (nahi az monkar) as a revolutionary act directed against social injustice and against “cultural imperialism,” “Weststruckness,” and dictatorship (Rahnema 1998: 307). Morteza Motahari, another key figure in the formation of the Islamic revolutionary movement in Iran, delivered a series of lectures in 1969 in Tehran under the title “Amr-e be ma´rouf va nahi az monkar in Imam Hossein’s movement.” In these lectures he declared that “the prevention of vice” was the principal aim in Imam Hossein’s battle against the despot Yazid and his injustice. Thereby he linked “the prevention of vice” to the contemporary social issues in Iran and made a political agenda of it (see Motahari 1379/2000).

The essence of the “principle of mutual discipline” is not to preach to individuals, but to apply moral order in society in order to achieve a state of equilibrium. Neglect of such order is seen as a vice that harms not just the individual sinner alone, but also the entire community (ummat), which is why the sinner is also a criminal in post-revolutionary Iran. To assert the significance of the principle and to promote it in society, a squad (Setad-e Ehya-ye Amr-e be m‘arouf va nahi az monkar) has been established, devoted particularly to this purpose. Furthermore, the first week of the holy month of Ramadan is assigned as the “Week of the principle of mutual discipline.”²¹ The motto amr-e be m‘arouf va nahi az monkar combines two different techniques of power: oppressive surveillance and Foucaudian salvation-oriented “pastoral power.” The former is wielded by the moral police through the constant checking of bodies and spaces. Pastoral power, in its original sense, is a form of power whose ultimate aim is to assure individual salvation in the next life and which takes the shape of paternalistic care.

Father’s Shadow

A child who does not grow up under the protective “shadow of parents” (zir-e say-ye pedar va madar) is supposedly heading for delinquency. Only the shadow of an elder (say-ye yek bozorgtar) can guarantee one’s well-being. Tarbiyat kardan in Persian is used for both educating and punishing. Iranian schools are not very different from military bases imposing harsh discipline and punishment. Disobedient children are called nakhalaf (deviant). Young people are thus exposed to torment and discipline by teachers, masters, and fathers who “want the best for them” (khobeshan ra khastan). Delsozi (empathy) is a term frequently heard in political discourses. The severe ways teachers or officials treat youth are legitimated by claiming that they are delsoz, they care. In public debates the authorities defend their violent guidance by claiming they are expressing care and concern (delsozi kardan). The art of government is characterized by the continuity of the individual’s self-government and its connection with morality, from the father’s government of the family to the science of ruling the state. There is continuity and transmission running from the family to the state. The art of government is thus the extension of the “pastoral power” of the father over his household and wealth into the organizing technicalities of the state (Foucault 2000).

Iranian law legitimates the father’s total authority over his child. In the process of tutoring punishment is justifiable even if it results in the death of the child (Bahnassi 1982: 183).²² Backed up by shariat, Iranian Civil Law allows fathers’ endorsement to punish their children physically. Article 1179 in the Civil Law says: “Parents are permitted to penalize their children but not outside the restriction of punishment.” There is, however, no definition of restriction. Article 220 in the Penal Law goes even further: “Father or father’s father who kills his child will not be punished afterward (qessas). He would be sentenced to pay dieh [blood money] to the murdered person’s heirs” (quoted in Kar 1378/1999: 117). Within families a harsh system of control is applied to youths in order to protect them from “social and ethical delinquency” (enherafat-e ejtemai va akhlaqi) (Rejali 1994: 86–89).

Pastoral power is a supplement to discipline-oriented power. It is imposed not only by states or religious institutions but also by parents and teachers. It concerns the care of young people: the moralization of their bodies, welfare, and salvation. This is best expressed by a former member of the Supreme Judicial Council, Ayatollah Bojnourdi, who declared that “Penalty in Islam is correction rather than punishment.”²³ While disciplining attempts to achieve normalization by drilling individuals, salvation-oriented tutelage does it by engaging in dialogue. In his study of torture in modern Iran, Rejali observes,

Individuals are treated not as objects that require training, but as subjects of questioning and guidance. Tutelage alters self-understanding and so behavior. In this respect, it assumes that individuals possess within themselves a deeper self that is realized through speech. In practicing tutelary techniques, individuals realize themselves as normal members of a moral speech community. (Rejali 1994: 84)

To understand the mechanisms of pastoral power in Iran, and in particular the ways power and hierarchy legitimate themselves, we need to study the institution of the morad/morid relationship and the way it is expressed in Sufism, family life, the bazaar, and the educational system. Originally coming from Sufism, the morad/morid relationship is a generational hierarchy that allocates power to the elders, a system that schools youngsters into total obedience to the patriarch. Morad is the master and morid the disciple. The master is also called pir (old) in Sufism. To find the right path in life, one needs a master, a pir. A person without a pir is “like a wild tree that bears no fruit.”²⁴ The Sufi master not only is a teacher, but is himself the goal (morad literally means goal), a beloved role model for living. The disciple loves his master and devotes a large part of his life to serving him.²⁵ The master/disciple relationship is not very different from that between father and son. During education the master replaces the disciple’s father. Total obedience to one’s father is transformed into total obedience to one’s master. While this pattern of obedience and loyalty (morad/morid relationship) originally had religious underpinnings, very similar forms can be found in secular political movements. Analogous patterns of interaction also mark the relationship between a master and his apprentice in the bazaar. Humiliation is perhaps the primary aim in the power system.

Contemporary pastoral power has been reshaped in new and mundane forms. Worldly salvation in terms of health, security, and welfare replace (Foucault 1983: 215) or supplement religious salvation (see also Ong 1999). The “caring power” in Iran emphasizes that sin is a violation not only of divine rule, but also of the sinner’s well-being. The metaphors used in political discourse condemning the “cultural invasion” are often related to the body and health—“injection,” “rape,” “dissipating youth’s energies,” “poison,” and “drugs.”

The Cultural Foundation of Islamic Messages (Bounyad-e Farhangi Payam-e Islam) has published a series of handbooks on how to discover and clear out moral corruption in society. One of its publications, entitled Javanan, Chera? (Youth, Why?) is concerned with masturbation; how to prevent it and how to cure it. The book regards masturbation as a form of addiction that damages the eyesight, weakens the body, reduces the sexual drive, causes loss of memory or even madness, increases agitation, and finally damages the institution of the family (Zamani 1379/2000). In a similar way, gambling is seen as a sin and immoral because it damages the gambler’s household economy (see Sanadjian 1996). It is by demanding “physical and spiritual hygiene” (pakizegi-ye rouhi va jesmi) that the forces of Islamic pastoral power authorize themselves to impose discipline and tutelage upon young people.

Ways of talking about morality and its relation to health are extended metaphorically to the level of the collective health of the Iranian nation or society by the notion of “Weststruckness.” The Parent-Teacher Association (Anjoman-e Ulia va Murabian), a government organization with a “caring mission,” publishes books for parents on how youth should be disciplined and how to counter “Weststruckness.” These handbooks provide good illustrations of how pastoral power stimulates individuals to internalize discipline. In one of these handbooks, which is about the regulation of relations between boys and girls, we read:

We should note that we do not make our child faithful and restrained. She or he alone finds faith and control her/himself. We are just her/his guides. We do not direct our youth away from misdeeds: she/he does it herself/himself. We merely inform them, remind them of values, and explain the strength of willpower. (Ahmadi 1380/2001: 70)

Responsibility for proper self-government, alongside the collective duty of conducting amr-e be m‘arouf va nahi az monkar, draws individuals into the power relations. As Rose and Miller put it, “Power is not so much a matter of imposing constraints on citizens as of “making up” citizens capable of bearing a kind of regulating freedom. . . . [M]ost individuals are not merely the subjects of power but play a part in its operation” (1992: 174, see also Foucault 1997).

The Eye of Power

As an effect of Islamic rule, social space has been partly transformed through attempts to strengthen moral control. Public places are turned into arenas for preventive demonstrations of punishment and are constantly scanned by the agents of the regime for transgressions and cultural crimes. This section deals with the various organizations mobilized for surveillance.

Revolutionary Committees (komiteh) were established in order to maintain Islamic order inside society. When in 1991 the komiteh were amalgamated with the police organization, the basijis became the major guardians of moral order on the streets.

The term basij (mobilization) refers to the militia of volunteers who provided the teenage “human wave” in the war against Iraq. In the early stages of that war Ayatollah Khomeini called upon young men to join the basij, which he called the “army of 20 million,” referring to the 20 million young men in Iran; basijis, however, fought at the various fronts, joining the army and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (Abrahamian 1989: 70). Today, the basijis stand close to the hard-liners of the government. The basiji is the ideal young person (man). As Ayatollah Khamenei described the basiji, he is one

who cares for Islamic values, who is humble before God, who wants to be righteous and pure, who keeps away from moral evils, who struggles diligently for the development of his country and the emancipation of humankind from injustice.²⁶

The last week of November each year (according to the Iranian calendar) is Basij Week, when special ceremonies and activities are organized in order to commemorate the establishment of the basij. Many basijis have military ranks conferred on them during these celebrations, and military manoeuvers are held. There are also sporting contests, a nationwide display of basijis. Among the programs scheduled for the week, basij Youth Clubs offer activities in various areas of interest such as Islamic teaching, as well as art, film, photography, theater, and competitions. The authorities claim that, during the 1990s, the basij has been expanding, and now controls 300,000 full-time men. During the same period its annual budget has increased by a factor of four (Zahedi 2001: 163).

In 1994, some 180,000 members of the basij forces went through ideological and religious courses in order to become better prepared to carry on their tasks of controlling corrupt practices and moral laxness. During Basij Week, basiji teams supervise public places and give guidance (ershad) and correction (eslah). An annual report delivered during the 1995 week claims that the basijis have “managed to give oral guidance to about 1,889,000 people whose families have expressed satisfaction with the constructive move by the basij.”²⁷ In official speeches basijis are thanked on behalf of families whose “immoral youth” have been guided and corrected by them.

TABLE 2. SCHEDULE OF DEMONSTRATIONS AND MANEUVERS, AMR-E BE M’AROUF VA NAHI AZ MONKAR (1999)

The basiji play prominent parts in the maintenance of public Islamic order. Alongside these groups, the police devote a large part of their forces to dealing with “moral issues.” I use the term “moral police” to refer to this part of the police. “Cultural crime” is not very precisely defined in Iranian law but is constituted by any act deemed to be against the cultural principles of the country. Due to this lack of precision, the application of the law regarding “cultural crimes” is left to the discretion of the moral police on the streets. Alongside the permanently patrolling moral police, the basijis sporadically take over the streets and public places to fight against “cultural corruption,” as illustrated in Table 2, which I found on a notice-board in a mosque.

The Islamic Revolution has constructed its “art of government” by engineering a new social order based on Islamic family ethics and values. The social order in post-revolutionary Iran is indeed a juxtaposition of the patriarchal family structure, the morad/morid hierarchical ethos, and the police. Claiming to guard the “health and purity” of the nation as a “protecting” father guards his household, the Islamic governmentality arranged its “caring” politics by conducting its own “normalization” of the Muslim subject. This politics is based on modes of disciplining—e.g., the “panopticon” and punishment—and through the “pastoral modality of power,” guidance (ershad) and correction (eslah). Despite the surface of its politics—referring to “early Islam” and striving after the ideal ummat—the Islamic Republic has had to adapt its social order to the logic of a nation-state: a juristic system with strong elements of centralization and codification, a centrally controlled mass media and education system. The next chapter deals with how this social order has been embodied in individuals in their everyday lives.