Mute-ability of the past and the culture of martyrdom in Iran: remembering the Iran–Iraq war and civic piety amongst the revolutionaries of postwar generations

Abstract

ABSTRACT Narratives, stories and memories of pasts mutate through times, politics and sociocultural practices. The mute-ability of past is a visible trend in post-war societies like Iran, where the state apparatus operates incessantly as a memory machine. However, muting the past cannot be limited to the state as a political actor. I have explored the role of social actors in sociocultural processes that mute the pasts. I draw from my ethnographic encounters and fieldwork among Iranian revolutionary youth who display commitment to political Islam and armed resistance to explain how social actors consume memories of past conflicts and contribute to muting/mutating histories. I argue the mute-ability of a past is not about changes and transformation of the past but about what social actors do with the past and how they render it mute to manage the present era. An exploration of mute-ability and how pasts are rendered silent is required, via an anthropology of history/past to show agency in compliance and agentive capacities of people in shaping the past from the present era. This article explores how remembering works when forgetting is not an option and the remembrance of martyrdom is the standard of civic piety in Iran.