When the exiled Ayatollah Khomeini received Western media in a small French village in 1978, he sat cross-legged in his robes and black turban under an apple tree in the garden. They described him as âon another planet,â with âeyes of steel,â and compared him to an Eastern sage or ascetic guru.
French philosopher Michel Foucault, most famous for his penetrating analysis of power, knowledge (and punitive coercion) was there as well. He called the holy man âan old saint in exileâ who had no personal political ambitions. Visiting Iran during the revolution, the philosopher was captivated by what he called a new form of âspiritual politicsâ that he saw as âadvancing toward a luminous and distant point.â Foucault dismissed Iranian feminists who warned of the true dangers of an Islamic state being established once the autocratic kingâthe Shahâhad been overthrown.
Today, as the reckless and destructive American and Israeli war against the Iranian regime continues, Julian revisits the political history of Iran and the complex regional power struggles between nationalists, monarchists, communists, and Islamists that played out on the Cold War stage. He examines the connections between the controversial 1953 CIA coup dâetat and the hugely popular 1979 Islamic Revolution, which led to the one-party totalitarian theocracy that dominates the Iranian people to this day.
How did so many within Iran and in the West, including the most influential radical philosopher of his time, misperceive Khomeini and his ruthless intentions?
Show Notes
Foucault: What Are The Iranianâs Dreaming About
Did Foucault Disregard Iranian Feminists?
Dr. Taimur Rahmanâs Red Star Lectures
The CIA Coup That Never Was
Iranâs Decade of Assassinations
Bayandor: Iran and The CIA
Foucaultâs Iranian Folly
Foucault and the Question of Orientalism
The Shah, by Abbas Milani
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