Imam Khomeini: The Islamist Discourse and the Islamic Revolution

Imam Khomeini
Imam Khomeini: The Islamist Discourse and the Islamic Revolution

Leadership is one of the important components of the progress of any collective action, especially revolutions. Leadership, along with the two factors of ideology and organization, can pose serious challenges to the ruling regime by mobilizing people. The social discontent cannot achieve its goal in terms of initiating a revolution unless through the guidance of a leader; otherwise, this discontent will eventually lead to a social uprising.

Imam Khomeini’s presence as a courageous and mobilizing revolutionary leader was one of the strong points of the Islamic Revolution that had not been experienced in other social-political movements in contemporary Iranian society. Most of these movements faced serious challenges in their struggles because they lacked a single and powerful leader. The Constitutional Movement and the Movement to Nationalize the Oil Industry of Iran are the best examples in which the lack of a single leader who is accepted by all was considered as a major flaw. The division of the clergy into the constitutionalist and pro-legitimacy in the Constitutional Movement and the separation of Dr. Mosaddeq and Ayatollah Kashani after the nationalization of the oil industry indicate the weakness of leadership in these processes.

During the fifties and sixties, the rival Islamist discourses also suffered from the problem of the lack of leadership. The National-Liberal Dialogue only gained succession during the time of Mosaddeq and the nationalization of the oil industry but could never repeat it. Since the Leftist discourses movements were also involved in ideological debates, diverged over any differences and hence established new organizations, they did not accept to be under one single leadership and always faced the crisis of leadership. In the meantime, the Islamist discourse movements were more cohesive and harmonious than other groups because of the complete adherence to Imam Khomeini’s views, and therefore they were less likely to be vulnerable when facing crises as well as during the struggles against the prevailing discourse. 

Another privilege of the leadership of the Islamist discourse over other competing discourses is that its leader, while benefiting from being truthful, had a positive historical record in the minds of its followers, and since there had been no sign of betrayal in his record, a positive image of him was portrayed in the minds of Iranians. However, the leaders of some other groups or movements, such as the Tudeh Party, did not enjoy a good track record in serving the nation and the country or in being truthful.

The Network of Clerics 

During its struggles against the Pahlavi regime, the Islamist discourse used the presence of the clergy and religious-political movements as political agents, all of which played an important role in the process of hegemonization of the Islamist discourse led by Imam Khomeini.

Although the leadership of the revolution apparently lacked a coherent party and organization, yet in practice and nationwide, a network of pro-Imam Khomeini clerics, as a powerful and organized organization, was able to move the revolution forward.

Although the pre-revolutionary Islamist discourse did not have a formal organization like other groups and parties, it used a group of clerics that had particular functions after the revolution. The clergy who had been divided into three conservative, opposition moderate, and opposition radical groups during Pahlavi times, stood alongside each other during the revolution demanding the overthrow of the government.

The White Revolution, the invasion of the Feyzieh Seminary in Qom, the demonstrations of June 5, Capitulation, and Imam Khomeini’s exile in the 1960s were among the most important events that put the clergy against the government. These actions led to the confrontation of the clergy with despotism, dependency and anti-religious approaches of the government, and made the clergy to be more steadfast in supporting Imam Khomeini, making them consider the government as “another” against which their forces were mobilized.

Using an extensive network of mosques, husayniyyah, and other Islamic sites and centres by the clergy and the political actors of Islamist discourse, caused them to have direct relations with the society and provided the Iranians with the elements of that discourse; while other discourses were deprived of such a wide opportunity to spread their ideology and principles.

In this way, the clergy, given their independent socio-economic status, under the leadership of Imam Khomeini, were able to play an important role in hegemonizing the Islamist discourse and its elements among the masses through using the tool of propagation.

Religious Currents

The most important political factors influencing the hegemony of Islamist discourse were the religious-political movements supporting the leadership as well as the movement of Imam Khomeini. The Islamic Coalition Parties, the Combatant Clergy Association, the Seven Groups, and many smaller pre-revolutionary groups played an important role in spreading the Islamist discourse and rejecting other rival discourses, through distributing leaflets and cassette tapes of Imam Khomeini’s speech as well using methods such as strikes and armed struggles. With the victory of the revolution, on the recommendation of Imam Khomeini, the Islamic Coalition parties joined the Islamic Republic Party, and the Seven Groups, which before the revolution had believed in carrying out an armed struggle against the government, yet with the emphasis of Imam Khomeini and Ayatollah Motahhari, after the revolution, changed into a single organization called the Mojahedin of the Islamic Revolution and declared its existence. The Islamic Republic Party, the Combatant Clergy Association, the Qom Seminary, the Islamic Coalition Party, the Mojahedin of the Islamic Revolution, and so on were among the leading movements during the revolution that played a special role in othering the Islamist discourse, making it accessible, and giving it credibility. Imam Khomeini, while having a relationship with a wide network of clergy and religious-political movements, gave a particular discipline to the Islamist discourse, thereby the actors of such a discourse were present in various parts of the country, and even abroad, among all classes of people whereas the other discourses did not have such a level of social influence.

The Function of Leadership in Transcending the Islamist Discourse

This research seeks to reconsider and elaborate on the role of leaders as political actors involved in the realization and formation of discourses and their hegemonization, from the perspective of Laclau and Mouffe whom in their reflections on the discussion of the agent-structure relationship the roles of social agents are considered. In fact, it is the leaders who determine the goals of the movement, the method of dealing with the government and the image of the ideal society, and thus the most important task of the leader is to organize and create unity. Thus, to illustrate the roles that the agents and social actors can play in discourse developments, the role of agents in the dissonance of discourses will be explored. According to this view, as far as a dissonant discourse is concerned, leaders play an essential role in introducing an alternative discourse for replacing the declining one, and in particular, transcending the new discourse is seen as one of the most important functions of revolutionary leaders. 

Highlighting and Isolating

As mentioned, the “process of othering” leads to the creation of two distinct fronts: “us” and “other.” According to this dual mentality, all the behaviours of the subject are shaped in such a way that he or she sees all phenomena through the framework of the dual mentality of us and them, which would be reflected in his or her behaviour in the form of highlighting and disregarding. Thus, identity is formed through othering, and othering is occurred via highlighting and disregarding. The mechanism of highlighting and disregarding is a strategy that on the one hand weakens the dominant discourse and on the other hand, leads to the preservation and continuity of power. through such a process, discourses try to highlight their own saving grace and privileges and weaknesses of the competing discourse, while disregarding their own weaknesses as well as the other discourses; this would be achieved through two verbal and other types of tools which were explained.

Availability 

The availability means the possibility for people to have access to a discourse in the community as an alternative to the existing one. When a ruling discourse is in crisis, a discourse that is accessible has a particular opportunity to replace the ruling one. But this is possible only if there is no other hegemonic rival discourse. The availability of discourse requires a number of tools such as leadership, production and distribution networks so that the hegemonization of the discourse becomes possible.

The available discourses are either a part of the previously suppressed discourses or new ones that were not active in the political scene of the time yet entered the society and have made themselves available to the political actors and agents.

The Pahlavi discourse as the dominant discourse, along with three left, national-liberal and Islamist discourses as its rivals in political conflict, were at odds with one another.

The emergence of the crisis in the Pahlavi discourse allowed its rivals to evaluate the level of availability, in which the Islamist discourse was able to achieve substantial success.

The clergy’s access to political Islam inside the country caused the clerical institution with a network of about 80,000 mosques and 180,000 to experience tremendous progress and flourishment such that the existing rival public and private organizations could not move along. In fact, the Islamist discourse, under the leadership of Imam Khomeini and while enjoying a wide network of clerics and religious sites and ceremonies, especially Tasu’a and Ashura as two factors of the formation and distribution of this discourse, has managed to provide people from all walks of life, especially the suburban, with its principles and doctrines.

Accreditation and Generalism

Acceptance and superiority of discourse have another condition that is the possibility of gaining credibility. Typically, there are many discourses in society, and as a result, the mere existence of one discourse is not enough to make it superior. That is why one has to add credibility to explain how and why a discourse dominates; that is, the proposed elements of discourse must not be incompatible with the underlying principles of its target audience.

Given these interpretations, the Islamist discourse was more in conformity with the value system of Iranian society because it is intertwined with the history, values, and beliefs of Iranians. In fact, by looking at the intellectual foundations of other competing discourses in the field of revolution, it can be concluded that they were all rooted in a non-indigenous system of knowledge and did not have even the lowest level of conformity with the value system of the Iranian Muslim nation and therefore, in the face of other discourses, failed to gain significance and prevalence in society. The modernist discourses, by adopting some elements which had not credibility and acceptance within the society, lowered their level of credibility. The Pahlavi discourse also by following the radical and anti-religious Western policies undermined its credibility in society.

Articulation 

The concept of articulation plays an important role in Laclau and Mouffe’s theory of discourse. The signifiers and symbols absorbed in a discourse form an articulation.

When the different elements, that perhaps are separately meaningless, come together in discourse, they would acquire a new identity. To relate these elements together, Laclau and Mouffe use the concept of articulation. In other words, articulation is about collecting different elements and combining them into a new identity. For them, articulation is any action that results in establishing a relationship between the elements so that their identity is modified and defined as a result of the articulation.

Imam Khomeini played a significant role in creating a metaphorical atmosphere within the Islamic Revolution by putting together and articulating the signs such as freedom, law, people, guardianship, clergy and jurisprudence. By criticizing the Pahlavi discourse and emphasizing its negative points, Imam Khomeini, in his remarks and writings, presented his ideal and idealistic society, which greatly contributed to the success of the Islamic discourse, comparing to other competing discourses, in creating a social notion.

Imam Khomeini rejects the Pahlavi’s regime because of creating an atmosphere of oppression, supporting Israel, misleading the young generation, promoting corruption, opposing the constitution, destroying human liberty, executing the land reforms, creating economic instability, establishing American sovereignty, plundering the bayt al-mal or (public treasury), and promoting the notion of ego death. After criticizing the government and separating the signs used in its discourse, he generates meaning from his discursive signs.

In expressing the characteristics of the Islamist discourse, Imam Khomeini refers to political signs such as freedom and prosperity, human rights, women’s rights and religious minorities, the votes of the public, resolving the problems of the deprived and the oppressed, and rejecting any dictatorship. In the economic realm of the proposed discourse, he speaks of signs such as self-sufficiency, economic growth and the expansion of basic industries and oil revenues to eradicate poverty and inequality, the main role of Iranians in the progress and prosperity of the country and social justice.

The features of the articulation of the Islamist discourse led to the inclination of rival discourses towards it and the creation of a network, which caused the government to be discouraged from weakening these discourses through creating rivalries, and lose its social base. 

By reviving and redefining the political symbols of Islam, the Islamist discourse was able to highlight its revolutionary aspect. Concepts such as awaiting the reappearance of the Last Imam, martyrdom, salvation, imamate, justice, jihad, etc. have been redefined in the sense that they no longer meant hope for the establishment of justice and gaining salvation in the future through divine helps, rather they indicated a spiritual and practical preparation to stand up and make reforms and changes in the world.

Finally, it must be said that the Islamist discourse, through the power of its internal elements and the leadership of Imam Khomeini, has managed to change its myth into a social notion in the stage of generalism, and articulate its essential elements making them accessible to the Iranian public by highlighting the negative elements of the dominant discourse.

Conclusion

The result of discourse analysis as an interdisciplinary approach originating from linguistics, over the past few decades, has been able to make serious influences in the field of humanities and create a new opportunity to analyze issues in this field. Among the various theories of discourse, the reading of Laclau and Mouffe of discourse analysis in the field of politics and political sociology is very rich and effective allowing the audience to analyze political events on this basis.

The Islamist discourse became the hegemonic discourse during the Islamic Revolution under the leadership of Imam Khomeini and through having the power of highlighting and isolating as well as enjoying having the availability and credibility among people as well as creating a metaphorical atmosphere. The clergy and political-religious movements, as other political agents of the Islamist discourse, have played a key role in highlighting and making available the elements of this discourse, bringing credibility to it and making it known to the public. Since they were both aware of the needs and desires of people and understood their language and had a special place among them, during the revolutionary struggles people supported the leadership of Imam Khomeini and his Islamist discourse.

The Islamist discourse, by articulating some of the modern and traditional signs and not completely belonging to any of them, sought to present a new attitude and, while isolating the rival discourses, achieve dominance.

In the meantime, Imam Khomeini played a pivotal role in the accomplishment of the dominance of the Islamist discourse and, based on Laclau and Mouffe’s theory of discourse, provided the grounds for the realization of this discourse by articulating it in a manner that it would be adjusted to and accepted by the Iranian society.

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