Defining Iran: Politics of Resistance.

• Author: Smith, Anthony
• Position: Book review

DEFINING IRAN: Politics of Resistance

Author: Shabnam J. Holliday

Published by: Ashgate, Farnham, Surrey, 2011, 180pp, 55 [pounds sterling].

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In 2007 Iranian President Ahmadinejad criticised the West for its portrayal of Persian history. Ahmadinejad's cultural advisor went on specifically to reference the movie '300', adapted from a historical fantasy comic book and loosely based on events of Thermopylae in 480 BC, when a large army of the Achaemenid Persian Empire under King Xerxes was kept at bay for a time by a much smaller Spartan force (the supposed '300' of the title). The advisor claimed that the movie was 'psychological warfare' against Iranian culture (perhaps over-estimating the ability of many of that movie's fans to draw any kind of connection). That the Ahmadinejad presidency would leap to a defence of Iran's pre-Islamic past is revealing. It is this question of Iranian identity that Defining Iran is principally concerned with.

In noting what 'fuels contestation of Iranian identity', Holliday highlights three well-springs: Iran's pre-Islamic heritage (Iraniyat); the Islamic heritage (Islamiyat); and external, chiefly Western, influences. This is not just a matter of academic interest; in the course of Iran's modern history, leading political actors have openly navigated and even merged these strands. Holliday accesses this by a close analysis of the statements and writings of, inter alia, Muhammad Reza Shah ('the Shah'), Prime Minister (1951-53) Mossadeq (or Musadddiq), leader of the Iranian revolution and supreme leader Ayatollah Khomeini (1979-89), Khamenei (who succeeded as supreme leader in 1989), President (1997-2005) Khatami, and 'green movement' (pro-reform) candidate for the presidency Mousavi. Ahmadinejad himself does not get a lot of attention in this particular volume.

The struggles between these key figures reveal the competing visions of Iran's debate about its history and its future. The Shah, following the lead of his father, Reza Khan, in attempting to identify his Pahlavi dynasty with the Achaemenid past, perceived that Iran's decline was in large part the consequence of Islamic/Arabic influences. Mossadeq, by contrast, represented a different kind of nationalism, albeit still secular--and thus ultimately seen as a threat by some in the religious establishment. The left-leaning Mossadeq, seeking to check Western influence, attempted to nationalise Iranian oil production only to be ousted...