The Body of an Iranian Woman in the Culture of Acid Attacks (3)

Reza Kazemzadeh, a psychologist and researcher residing in Belgium, has examined the culture of acid attacks in Iran in five articles. The second part of this article was published last week. The second component of the culture of violence in our society is the subculture of hatred. Like the culture of obedience, the culture of hatred is more inspired by the revolutionary spirit of Islamists than derived from its equivalent in traditional Islamic teachings. For years before the revolution, these Islamists, influenced by Marxist theories of violent struggle (which were even prevalent among some non-Marxist Western and Third World intellectuals like Jean-Paul Sartre and Frantz Fanon), transformed religious concepts like 'jihad' and 'martyrdom' into secular and political concepts for fighting and destroying the Pahlavi regime. The culture of violence that thus emerged from the combination of the two subcultures of obedience and hatred, although initially created as a tool for fighting the Shah's regime, explicitly and publicly turned into a hostile and aggressive reaction against Western modernity and especially the impacts that Iranian society had absorbed from modern cultures. Such opposition manifested itself politically before the revolution (under titles like 'anti-imperialist struggle'), yet even during that period, a pessimistic view of Western culture was discernible in the works of Islamists and many intellectuals close to them. Thus, Jalal Al-e Ahmad's theory of 'Westoxification,' which gained many supporters among leftist and radical intellectuals of that time, transformed into the theory of 'cultural alienation' in the theories of Islamists like Shariati and took on much more radical forms. Shariati's call for a 'return to cultural self' was, in fact, an invitation to a radical break from the 'values dominating Western societies,' which Shariati referred to as 'the dominant culture of the West.' The violent struggle of modern and educated Islamists like Shariati was deeply intertwined with the promotion and propagation of political violence (under the guise of secularized concepts like 'jihad' and 'martyrdom') and the promotion of a culture of hatred towards all political ('imperialism' and 'colonialism') and cultural manifestations of the West ('mental colonization' and 'alienation'). In fact, the theoretical foundations of political struggle among revolutionary Islamists turned political violence into the only legitimate tool for confronting 'global imperialism' (primarily the United States and later all democratic Western countries) and its 'puppet in the region' (the Pahlavi regime). If you remove the will directed towards political power from the ideology of Islamism (for example, the ideological system of Dr. Ali Shariati) during this period, you will find that not much remains of its theoretical foundations. Government violence: A combination of the two subcultures of obedience and hatred. Government crimes can be placed on a spectrum regarding the culture of violence imposed on society over the past thirty-three years, with 'culture of obedience' at one end and 'culture of hatred' at the other. For instance, the regime's intelligence agents, who commit crimes in a chain-like, organized, and group manner based on precise and clear orders received from their superiors, fall into the 'culture of obedience' category. In this case, success in carrying out tasks that are meticulously planned depends primarily on a sense of duty and the precise and complete execution of orders. The rules and values related to the culture of obedience play a primary role in the training of such operatives, and for this reason, there is an avoidance of selecting or accepting emotional individuals or excessive reinforcement of hatred within the group, as the dominance or even interference of emotions during task execution can disrupt the complete control of the system and hinder the precise implementation of orders. In the intelligence services of dictatorial and especially totalitarian regimes, there exists a kind of pragmatic calmness and calculating realism. For example, in the Nazi regime in Germany, although spreading hatred was one of its main characteristics, there were individuals like Leopold von Mildenstein who adopted a different approach and policy from Joseph Goebbels and Julius Streicher from the very beginning, avoiding direct propaganda of hatred against Jews, which essentially encouraged violence against them. Mildenstein, a high-ranking SS official, had established the Jewish section in the SS Intelligence Organization (known as SD) under the direct orders of Reinhard Heydrich, who played a primary role in policymaking and executing Nazi policies regarding Jews throughout World War II. Mildenstein's pragmatism led him to conclude that the extremists of the Nazi Party had no logical solution for the 'Jewish question' in Germany. From the perspective of a pragmatist like him, the only logical solution was to force Jews to leave Germany, and in this regard, he did not hesitate to engage in dialogue and cooperation with Zionist organizations to facilitate Jewish emigration to Palestine. According to David Cesarani, an English historian, Mildenstein was not an exceptional figure in the SS intelligence service but rather a clear example of the character of individuals who made up the core of this organization. These individuals, in his words, paid little attention to personal feelings, adhering to a type of 'historical realism' (réalisme historique), and only the actions of individuals mattered to them. Individuals like Mildenstein, for reasons they deemed logical, considered Jews to be the enemies of the German nation and thus believed that they should be destroyed to the last person without harboring hatred for any specific Jew. As German historian Ulrich Herbert noted, 'The struggle against Jews was seen as an effort to serve the interests of the German people, and in many cases, the proponents of such policies were even unaware that they were 'anti-Jewish.' According to Dieter Wisliceny, another leader of the SD, a key member of the Hitler regime, was neither an emotional person nor overly intellectual or 'theoretical,' but rather someone 'skilled and active in carrying out practical and technical tasks while being clear-eyed and aware in his approach to these tasks.' The same pragmatic rationality can be found in Lavrenti Beria, head of Stalin's intelligence organization (NKVD, later renamed KGB). After the collapse of the Soviet Union, documents obtained from state archives showed that Beria believed the way to save the Soviet Union from the economic bankruptcy and disastrous policies of its former leader was through rapprochement with the West and even establishing free economic relations. From this perspective, Beria appears much more radical than proponents of détente like Nikita Khrushchev. In the Islamic Republic, one can mention Saeed Imami as one of the prominent and well-known examples of such professional operatives nurtured within the Islamic Republic system. A person who, while possessing the necessary ruthlessness to carry out difficult missions, was also capable of engaging in negotiations and discussions with opponents of the regime. In interrogation documents attributed to Saeed Imami, which were published on some reformist websites after his suspicious death in prison (June 1999), he describes his position within the regime's intelligence system as follows: 'From the beginning of the revolution until today, I have been a soldier obedient to the sacred Islamic regime and the position of the Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist, and I have never acted without permission or without the orders of the regime's high-ranking officials. The death sentences for Dariush Forouhar and Parvaneh Eskandari were given to me in the usual manner by Hojjatoleslam Ali Fallahian. The death sentences for other opponents had been issued earlier during Fallahian's ministry. For a long time, it had been decided that influential cultural agents who were implementing the cultural invasion conspiracy in Iran, totaling one hundred individuals, would be executed. In the ideology of these groups, the world is divided into two major camps: the camp of the insiders and the camp of the enemies; there exists an unwavering obsession towards the insiders and especially towards their representatives and symbols (especially the leader), and towards the enemies and particularly their manifestations in society, there is an insatiable feeling of hatred and revenge. The order to eliminate 29 writers had been determined long ago, and the sentences had been issued previously, with the sentences for 7 of those individuals executed during Ali Fallahian's ministry. When the death sentence for Forouhar was communicated to us, we asked what would happen to the pending sentences for the members of the Writers' Association, to which Hojjatoleslam Ghorbanali Daryanajafabadi also said that it would be better to act as soon as possible, and this time, like before, it was carried out, with the difference that instead of being communicated by Fallahian, the matters were coordinated through Daryanajafabadi. Although Fallahian himself was a religious judge, he usually did not personally issue the sentences for the elimination of opponents in sensitive cases. He received these sentences from Ayatollah Khusheh, Ayatollah Mesbah, Ayatollah Khazali, Ayatollah Jannati, and sometimes from Hojjatoleslam Mohseni Ejei and handed them to us. We only provided the gentlemen with news and information and then waited for orders. Currently, the current President of Iran, Hassan Rouhani, is one of the politicians who has emerged from the security apparatus. In this regard, there is a significant difference between Rouhani and a politician like Mohammad Khatami. For Rouhani, unlike Khatami, détente and establishing relations with the West and even reducing security pressures, especially ideological ones on society, have more practical and realistic reasons than value-based and ideological ones. The priority for such individuals is primarily 'finding practical solutions to specific problems.' At the other end of the spectrum of the culture of government violence in Iranian society (the 'culture of hatred'), pressure forces like Ansar Hezbollah and some plainclothes agents are positioned, who have much more independence and freedom of action compared to security forces and have occasionally posed problems for the government by going beyond direct control. One of the most important characteristics of these forces, which also distinguishes them from the first category, is that their intra-group dynamics are based on constantly stimulating emotions, which is accompanied by the continuous reinforcement of fanatical beliefs. In the ideology of these groups, the world is divided into two major camps: the camp of the insiders and the camp of the enemies; there exists an unwavering obsession towards the insiders and especially towards their representatives and symbols (especially the leader), and towards the enemies and particularly their manifestations in society, there is an insatiable feeling of hatred and revenge. In such groups, periodic ceremonies and rituals are essential for maintaining and strengthening the bond among members on one hand and between members and the leader on the other, to stimulate emotions (ranging from mourning recitations and holding collective religious ceremonies to fiery and provocative political speeches).