The Body of an Iranian Woman in the Culture of Acid Attacks (4)

Reza Kazemzadeh, a psychologist and researcher residing in Belgium, has examined the culture of acid attacks in Iran in five articles. The third part of this article was published last week. The psychology of the acid attacker within the framework of the subculture of hatred: When an individual or individuals commit a horrific crime such as acid attacks without prior acquaintance or personal hostility towards the victim, they either follow a higher power (culture of obedience) or act spontaneously based on a belief and faith (culture of hatred). Individuals belonging to the second group are chosen from among the impulsive and easily provoked individuals. However, members of this group, like those in the first group, must also be trained both mentally and practically in advance. Ideological training, which is mostly instilled in individuals through collective ceremonies and rituals, gradually compels them to view their opponents not as living beings like themselves but as symbols of something general and abstract (such as: 'hypocrite', 'corrupt on earth', 'tyrant', 'enemy of God', etc.). This phenomenon in psychology is referred to as the process of 'dehumanization' of the victim, a process that transforms a real human being into an inhuman entity and an abstract symbol of evil. The continuous humiliation of the victim in the media, various accusations in sham courts, the display of forced confessions, etc., all contribute to shaping and reinforcing the process of 'dehumanization'. For the ideological training to effectively lead to the 'dehumanization' of the victim, special conditions are required. A complete severing of all ties and even personal communications from all individuals who are considered potential victims of the regime is one of these conditions. When an individual is placed in training courses (both for training intelligence agents and for entering pressure groups like the Ansar Hezbollah), their relationship with their natural living environment is abruptly severed. Simultaneously with the reduction or complete severance of previous relationships, communication with new group members (under various titles and through various rituals) is increased. The main goal of severing previous relationships is to influence social identity, and the aim of intensifying relationships with new group members is to change central and personal identity. In fact, by eliminating previous social roles, the sense of belonging to social groups (and consequently social identity) is gradually weakened, thus increasing the individual's readiness to join the new group. While reinforcing dependence on the new group ('the unknown soldiers of Imam Zaman' or 'Ansar Hezbollah'), efforts are also made to influence the individual's personal and central identity. The ultimate goal is to further reduce the scope of personal identity. Thus, as the individual moves away from the influence of their previous social groups, they come under the direct control of the new group. In fact, the creation of the 'new Islamic human' occurs through processes aimed primarily at dissolving personal identity into the new social identity. Islamists themselves refer to the final result of such a process as 'those melted in the guardianship'. In reality, 'those melted in the guardianship' (who in the culture of obedience are called 'the unknown soldiers of Imam Zaman' and in the culture of hatred are referred to as 'Ansar Hezbollah') are the latest version of the new Islamic human, a new human whose creation has been one of the ideal, modern, and central projects of Iranian Islamists since at least the 1940s. It is within such a process that the 'new Islamic human' is prepared to participate in the public sphere of the Islamic Republic. We mentioned participation in the public sphere because such an entity is created solely for the purpose of manifesting in this sphere, and for this reason, it fundamentally devalues anything related to the private sphere. From the very beginning of the emergence of the concept of the new Islamic human in the works of revolutionary Islamists, the private sphere has been depicted as a potential refuge for 'sin' and 'alienation from one's true self'. A significant part of the 'greater jihad' of the superior Islamic human must be devoted to acquiring the ability to sacrifice personal matters and issues related to the private sphere in order to achieve the ideals belonging to the public sphere. In fact, their greatest and most important sacrifice in this jihad is the devaluation of private life compared to the public sphere on one hand and the sacrifice of personal identity in the presence of social identity on the other. By choosing this special type of 'sacrifice', the volume of frustration and deprivation in the psychological economy significantly increases. In such a situation, when the new Islamic human encounters a 'badly veiled' woman, they are actually confronted with an individual who thinks, feels, and acts exactly opposite to them: the 'badly veiled' woman not only cares about her personal taste and style in makeup and clothing but also brings her private and individual matters into the public sphere. Thus, the new Islamic human finds their negative or inverted image in the 'badly veiled' woman: a woman who values her individual identity and private life more than her social identity ('Muslim woman') and public life. This issue causes the moment of their confrontation with the 'badly veiled' woman to be perceived not as a moment of two individuals meeting but as a confrontation between 'the unknown soldier of Imam Zaman' and the embodiment of corruption and 'the enemy of religion and revolution'. If the encounter with the 'badly veiled' woman were defined and experienced as an interaction between 'self' and 'other', due to the increased likelihood of identification between the executioner and the victim, the 'religious duty' would not be easily fulfilled. However, when the individual reduces the other to a symbol of evil instead of seeing them as 'the self in the other', the moment of acid attack becomes a confrontation between representatives of two camps of good and evil that bear no resemblance to each other. Thus, after completing the process of 'dehumanization' through ideological training, it is this mechanism of 'depersonalization' of the situation and moment of confrontation between the perpetrator and the victim that prepares the final conditions for committing the crime. Nevertheless, in most cases, severing the individual's ties with their social groups is not easily achievable. For this reason, targeting individuals who are already more prepared is of great importance. Often, volunteers are selected from among those who already have vulnerabilities and weaknesses in their social ties: marginalized individuals (whose population, according to Nariman Mostafai, the director of the Office of 'Empowerment and Organization of Informal Settlements', currently reaches eleven million) and recent migrants to large cities who have separated from traditional segments of society but have not yet settled into the different and modern urban system. The weaker an individual's social ties are for various reasons, the greater their initial readiness to break away and then join totalitarian groups. Since non-political opponents of the regime (such as a significant portion of the 'badly veiled') often come from the middle and affluent classes of society, selecting volunteers from among the impoverished and marginalized ('the oppressed') simultaneously reduces the likelihood of previous ties between the 'executioner' and their 'victim'. Thus, among the marginalized layers who, while distancing themselves from their natural living environment, still hold fanatical beliefs, the possibility of finding suitable volunteers for committing crimes such as acid attacks is higher. Of course, such a profile especially applies to individuals who directly confront the victim and does not include the planners and decision-makers of these crimes at higher levels of intelligence organizations. Individuals in this last group often belong to the traditional middle or affluent classes of society and in some cases even have higher education. Another important point for understanding the motivations and better recognizing the character of acid attackers is that the perpetrator and victim belong to different genders: the 'badly veiled' is female, and the 'unknown soldier of Imam Zaman' is, according to existing evidence, male. Belonging to different genders means that among various deprivations, sexual deprivation plays a significant role in reinforcing hatred and consequently increases the personal motivation for committing the crime. In fact, the perpetrator throws acid on the face of a young and beautiful woman who, undoubtedly due to her 'bad hijab', has become even more beautiful, a face with whom they see no chance of possessing or even associating in real life. In the world of such individuals, 'bad hijab' is one of the significant signs of 'licentiousness' (i.e., greater ease and freedom in relation to the opposite sex); however, this ease and freedom in relationships never translates into greater chances for them, who come from impoverished and marginalized classes of society. Thus, merely showcasing the beautiful face adorned with 'bad hijab' in the public sphere, due to the repeated reminders and associations of sexual failure, transforms feelings of frustration into anger. Typically, the anger stemming from sexual frustration either returns to the individual or is directed toward the reminder and repetition of the frustrating experience. In the first case, gradually, feelings of inferiority and ultimately 'self-hatred' (hatred of life conditions and even of one's family and social groups) are reinforced. In the second case, however, the individual, using the mechanism of projection, perceives the reminder of their failures as the direct cause and main reason for their unbearable frustrations. In such circumstances, ideology, utilizing the social backgrounds and the psychological economy of such individuals, reinforces the subculture of hatred among them. Ideology, within the framework of reinforcing the culture of hatred, seeks to transform the painful and difficult experience of sexual frustration into the virtue of 'self-restraint' in the conscious realm, thereby creating a sense of self-esteem and power from feelings of inferiority. However, since such 'self-esteem' and sense of power are built on the unconscious mechanisms of 'displacement' and 'reaction formation', they are very fragile and vulnerable in the face of reality. In this case, the presence of the 'badly veiled' woman in the public sphere effectively represents the 'return of the repressed' to the scene of self-awareness in the individual's psyche. In the official discourse of the government ('overt content'), the presence of the 'badly veiled' woman in the public sphere challenges the religious and ideological values of the faithful, while in reality, it is this fragile structure and economy of the psyche of sexually frustrated believers that faces the risk of collapsing defense mechanisms due to the presence of the 'badly veiled' woman. In such a situation, acts of violence in the public sphere against the 'badly veiled' woman simultaneously serve as a means of repressing the unconscious sexual desire in the fragile psyche of the believers. In the structure and economy of the psyche of these individuals, the painful and difficult repression of sexual desires gradually cultivates resentment and ultimately leads to an unconscious sadistic desire to destroy the beautiful face. Contrary to common perceptions, it is not these religious beliefs that create sexual frustration; rather, this frustration and severe sexual deprivation provide a suitable ground for the growth of extremist religious tendencies and political violence.