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๐ง๐ต๐ฒ ๐ฐ๐ผ๐ต๐ฒ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐ป๐ฐ๐ฒ ๐ผ๐ณ ๐๐ต๐ฒ ๐ถ๐ป๐ฐ๐ผ๐ต๐ฒ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐ป๐: ๐ป๐ผ๐๐ฒ๐ ๐ผ๐ป #๐ญ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ถ๐ณโ๐ ๐น๐ฒ๐ฎ๐ธ๐ฒ๐ฑ ๐ถ๐ป๐๐ฒ๐ฟ๐๐ถ๐ฒ๐
Many commentaries on #Zarifโs interview tend to read it as the definitive confirmation of a #dual_power situation in the Islamic Republic of Iran ( #IRI). /1
Many commentaries on #Zarifโs interview tend to read it as the definitive confirmation of a #dual_power situation in the Islamic Republic of Iran ( #IRI). /1
They see two ultimately opposed liberal-progressive & illiberal-reactionary political tendencies embodied in #reformist movement & #IRGC + supreme leader, respectively, that are locked into in a zero-sum struggle for power & Iran& #39;s future. /2
This viewโs logical implication is that progressive and democratic forces inside & outside #Iran ought to support the reformists (represented by the likes of #Zarif, #Khatami & #Rohani) as the best way to democratise Iran. /3
#IRIโs media & academic lobby in the west has been relentlessly advancing this argument which many Western #leftists & liberal forces have uncritically bought. But this assumption of reformists & IRGC representating mutually exclusive projects is fundamentally flawed. /4
#IRI is a political-ideological whole of which #IRGC & reformists are key constitutive parts. Their frictional interaction reproduces IRI. Their concrete political power & actual consequentiality are uneven & shifting but their interrelation is one of mutual constitution. /5
Misreadings of IRIโs Janusian character is rooted in a socio-historical ๐๐ฆ๐ญ๐ต๐ข๐ฏ๐ด๐ค๐ฉ๐ข๐ถ๐ถ๐ฏ๐จ that takes developmental sameness/linearity as the (ultimately prevailing) โnormโ derived from a supposedly universal #European experience. /6
This outlook has been effectively challenged by a wealth of #postcolonial, #decolonial & heterodox #Marxist scholarship over past few decades but it remains dominant in mainstream media and public discourse. In western leftis discourse it is imbued with reversed #orientalism. /7
The Islamic Republic is a coherent incoherency. Itโs a unity of contradictions. It combines divine & popular sovereignties whose fundamental tension underlies its historical identity. The identity which #Zarif declares must change before IRI can reconcile with the #West. /8
Just as Labour & Tories are constitutive of UK as a capitalist-racist state, reformists & #IRGC are also integral to Islamic Republic of #Iran as a semi-fascist state based on hierarchies of gender, ethnicity & class. IRI holding preengineered elections shouldn& #39;t obscure this. /9
โThe marriage of iron and ryeโ is the seminal sociological conceptualisation of the industrial-feudal amalgamation that historically underlay #Nazism. The Islamic republic of IRan can be politically conceptualised as โthe marriage of bayonet and ballot box& #39;. /10
Those investing hope in Iranian reformists for building a democratic #Iran will remain disappointed. Only a revolution of women, workers & oppressed nationalities, supported by international leftist & progressive forces can bring radical democracy & social juistice to Iran. /end
