Revolution, the State, Islam, and Women: Gender Politics in Iran and Afghanistan

Abstract

1989 marks the tenth anniversary of the Iranian Revolution. If the current Afghan government stays in power, it may or may not commemorate the eleventh anniversary of what it calls the Saur Revolution. Political and social changes in both Iran and Afghanistan since the late 1970s compel us to rethink the meaning of revolution and reflect on the term resistance-the latter referring to both the Afghan armed opposition and the anti-Khomeini Mujahideen organization of Iran. Sexual politics are at the center of movements in the Middle East, and are especially salient in the cases of Iran and Afghanistan. In both countries, revolutionary change and the reorganization of state power rearticulated gender rules and gender power. These two examples offer an interesting contrast of the strategic role of women's rights in revolutionary situations and in political contests. In any discussion of the Third World, and especially of the Middle East, the problem of ethnocentrism or West-centeredness is raised and must be addressed. In both Iran and Afghanistan, Islamists (and in the case of Afghanistan, their western supporters) argue that to promote anything other than an order, or to raise questions about male-female relations, is to be arrogantly Eurocentric. This theme is frequently found in Islamist and nationalistic critiques of the Iranian Left and the socialist project, but it is especially common in the literature on Afghanistan, notably that written by active supporters of the Mujahideen. It is an argument that I do not accept. In the first instance, Islamic societies are not uniformly but unevenly developed and internally differentiated, characterized by hierarchies and stratification which result in domestic conflicts over political and economic strategies and cultural identity(ies). Secondly, the critique of Eurocentrism need not lapse into a militant cultural relativism, or a protective denial (to borrow a term from Hanna Papanek) of oppressive relations, institutions, and practices. For these reasons, I would argue that the discourse of equality, whether it refers to regional, class, ethnic, or gender disparities, is not only appropriate but sensible and pragmatic, given domestic inequalities and conflicts.