Crafting a national identity amidst contentious politics in contemporary Iran

Abstract

It is perhaps no exaggeration to suggest that the crafting and re-crafting of national identity through actions of authorities and/or political mobilization and struggle has been a national preoccupation in modern Iranian history. This is not to imply that Iranians and their political leaders, going through the global process of modernity, have been any more or less creative than others in the world in re-inventing their "national" selves. However, a case can be made that in the past century Iranians2 have been afforded, or have produced, more opportunities to re-create themselves in a bombastic and dualistic fashion, energetically vacillating between extremes of contentious Islamism and secularism, pre-Islamic and Islamic imagination, and avid anti-imperialism and absorption in global trends. The result of these century-long Manichean struggles, some would argue, is tired bodies and souls. Having recently mustered youthful energy, yet again, to attempt the transcendence of these contentious identities, by taking refuge in a constitutionalism that could make cohabitation of these so far conflicting identities not only possible but also mutually reinforcing, many people in Iran seem to have packed their bags after their disappointment with the reform process and are finding solace in their private homes and selves.3 An editorial in Shargh newspaper