Homophobia as a Tool of Statecraft: Iran and Its Queers

Chapter 8 Homophobia as a Tool of Statecraft: Iran and Its Queers Katarzyna Korycki and Abouzar Nasirzadeh Introduction Homophobia as it relates to the politics of the Middle East is seen as a legitimate response, indeed the only one available to region’s governments faced with the concerted ‘incitement to discourse’ of western human rights groups (Massad 2002 and 2007); or a result of the dissemination of homophobic norms from anti‐gay networks in the West (Kaoma, this volume); or as a function of religion, Islam in particular.1 As probable as the first two explanatory factors may be, they overestimate the power of human rights and homophobic networks, and underestimate the reach and agency of Middle Eastern states. We, therefore, want to “let the state back in” (Skocpol 1979). To do this, we treat anti‐gay rhetoric as an analytical category, and examine the content, the productive force and the work it does for the deploying power. As such, we see religious anti‐ homosexual prejudice as a convenient frame to be used by states when it suits their purposes, not as causally independent factor. Tracing the story of last 200 years in Iran, we demonstrate that, far from being the pawn of Western machinations, the Iranian state varied its stance toward homosexuality in pursuit of its 1 The assumption that Islam is anti‐homosexual can be seen in the emergence of politicians such as Greet Wilders in the Netherlands, who view the Islamic Sharia law as a threat to gay rights, and the Western way of life more broadly. Moreover, this assumption is also evident in immigrant orientation videos introduced in Germany and the Netherlands featuring gay couples. There has also been the rise of plethora of websites such as Islam‐Watch.com and Answering‐Islam.org that feature articles on the threat of Sharia to gay people. Korycki & Nasirzadeh objectives – namely modernization, consolidation, and most recently de‐liberalization. In doing so, it refashioned family and gender relations, positioned itself vis‐à‐vis imperial appetites of the West, and most recently centralized and expanded its power. To achieve these objectives, it first borrowed anti‐homosexual stance from the West, only to later claim homosexuality itself was a Western import. To trace how this remarkable twist happened, we anchor our story around three moments in which anti‐homosexual rhetoric and practice are deployed. First is the modernization moment lasting from early 19th century to onset of the Iranian Revolution in 1979. Second is the Islamic nation‐state consolidation moment following the revolution. Third is the conservative backlash (Huntington 1968, 271) following attempted liberalization of 1997, persisting until today. Throughout this chapter we do not use the term ‘gay’ until Iranian homosexuals use it themselves at the turn of this century. In doing so we are guided by sensitivity to the historical meanings attached to term ‘gay’ and we wish to avoid sneaking in meanings and understandings that did not hold when our story takes place (see Blasius; Zeidan, both this volume). This is not to say that we uncritically agree with Foucauldian act/identity distinction. On his account, when self‐ identified gays appear in modern Europe they are produced by medical and criminal systems of classification and control (1990, 43). We want to offer a more historically attentive account; one that recognizes different and more fluid categories of division and identification operating in pre‐ modern Iran, and why and how they were transformed by deliberate elite manipulation. We do not use the term ‘homophobia’ either, until we reach more recent times. The concept is ideationally and semantically attached to the modern term ‘gay’. In the bulk of the paper we therefore use more descriptive terms, like anti‐same‐sex, or anti‐male‐love, when referring to concepts, policies or law which appear homophobic to modern readers. In exploring homosexual desire and practices in Iran, we deal with male desire only. Female homosexuality deserves its own exploration, beyond the scope of this work, especially given its complexity in Iranian history. Furthermore, although we are cognizant that both “Western” and 210 Korycki & Nasirzadeh “Iranian”, or “Oriental”, categories are mutually constitutive (Said 1979), and that Iranian state instantiates itself in the context of the international structures and discourses, we bracket them out in order to analytically map the space of autonomous state action. Finally, we are cognizant of the intersections between gender and sexuality, and signal them throughout the text. However, given our focus, we privilege state and sexuality in our analysis. Religion as explanation The most pervasive view locates homophobic sentiment in Islam itself. We claim instead that all three Abrahamic religions display ambivalent stance toward homosexuality. On one hand, their holy texts and laws contain strong formal prohibitions against same sex desire or practice; on the other hand, enforcement of the said prohibition has been historically uneven. Indeed, there are more similarities between the religions, both in formal stance and weak enforcement, than differences in severity of practical sanction within each religion over time. Judaism and Islam approve of sex, but confine it to the reproductive sphere of marriage between a man and a woman. Both religions contain strong formal injunctions against same‐sex‐ sexuality, and weak and uneven practical sanctions (Afary and Anderson 2005, 155; Eron 1993; Duran 1993). The holy texts of both rely on the story of Lot to condemn homosexuality, with an additional Old Testament reference to homosexuality as deviant and abhorrent contained in the Leviticus (18:22). The Quran includes references to the demise of Sodom, which Islamic scholarship interprets as an allusion to a punishment for the sin of homosexuality (15: 73‐74 and 26:165‐166).2 More direct injunctions may be found in tafsir and hadith (respectively, explanation of the holy text and reports of Prophet’s deeds), which equate homosexual and extramarital sex and punish them with death (Najmabadi 2005, 18). Judaism prescribes banishment (Leviticus 18:29) or death 2 Scholars of Judaism and Christianity challenge this interpretation, and locate Sodom’s sin in denial of hospitality or rape. Islamist thinkers disagree (Duran 1993, Eron 1993, Carmody and Carmody 1993). 211 Korycki & Nasirzadeh (20:13, 20: 33). Harsh direct or indirect penalties notwithstanding, neither tradition enforces them consistently, or easily. Talmud requires two witnesses and Sharia Law four to establish that a transgression took place (Eron 1993, 117; Duran 1993, 183; Afary and Anderson 2005, 156). Each allows for repentance and cleansing rituals to reestablish offenders’ good standing vis‐à‐vis the Divine and the community (Eron 1993, 184; Afary and Anderson 2005). Christianity is less overtly hostile to homosexuality, but when it is, it imposes sanctions more consistently. It borrows the strict injunctions from the Old Testament, and adds its own not entirely univalent condemnations, voiced by St. Paul (never Jesus himself) in Romans 1:26‐27; 1 Corinthians 6:9; and 1 Timothy 1:10. The statements are ambiguous enough to warrant ongoing contestation of their meaning.3 That being said, until 12th century, Christianity, influenced by Hellenic philosophy4 and Muslim tolerance, was quite permissive to homosexual practice. This lenient stance changed with Thomas Aquinas, whose conceptions of nature, actions befitting human beings, and injunctions against those acting ‘against nature’ prevail to present day (in Roman Catholicism) (Carmody and Carmody 1993, 142). The disjunctures between scripture and practice and changes in attitudes over time are evident in all Abrahamic religions. We therefore claim, and use 200 years of Iranian history to demonstrate, that reasons for variance in how homosexual desire is regulated need to be located in politics. To put it in provocative terms, if Khomeini were Catholic or Jewish, presiding over a revolution in a Catholic or Jewish state, he would find ample justification in the holy texts of either religion to implement his anti‐homosexual policies. 3 For full exploration see Carmody and Carmody 1993, 137. 4 In ancient Greece, male love between citizens and young men was condoned and practiced; in Platonic and Socratic dialogues it came to designate the ultimate love (Afary and Anderson 2005; Carmody and Carmody 1993, 141). 212 Korycki & Nasirzadeh Context: Pre­modern Iran Pre‐modern Iran did not organize sexuality along life‐long patterns of sexual orientation, nor along the lines of hetero or homosexual desire (Najmabadi 2005, 20). This is not to say that individuals did not experience lasting preferences towards same categories of people; nor does it mean that they did not self‐ and other‐ identify based on those desires. Rather, we suggest that the available categories were different than those with which modern Iranians orient themselves. At risk of fixing that which was fluid, we propose that sexuality was organized according to three intersecting principles. They operated in a society in which love, friendship, desire and pleasure were not naturally connected to marriage. Heteronormativity5, underpinning a connection between a heterosexual love and marriage, had not taken hold. Indeed, later sections of this chapter show how this heteronormativity is constitutive of modernity itself, and how it is inscribed by the erasure of homosociability6 and eroticism of pre‐modern era. Two examples of 11th and 15th century ethics manuals make clear that the most valued relationships – friendship and love – as well as sexual desire were experienced among men (‘Unsur al‐Ma’ali 1999 and Shuja’ 1971).7 Relations between men and woman were based on obligation, upkeep and procreation. It is in this context that the three principles organizing the field of sexuality in pre‐modern Iran have to be read. The first principle was age. Young beardless males – amrad or ghulam – constituted a separate sexual category. They were desired, depicted and described as “the beloved” (Shamisa 2002, 10 – author’s translation). The earliest expressions of this veneration may be found in Sufi 5 We use the term to refer to a variety of social rules and norms that make the existence of two categories of sexual beings – male and female – appear normal and universal. 6 We use the term to refer to the way in which social spaces are organized and experienced. Men interacting with other men in most aspects of their social and intimate life will be seen as existing in homosocial space. 7 Quoted in Najmabadi 2005, 158. 213 Korycki & Nasirzadeh writing. It reflected the belief that the greatness of God manifested itself in the beauty of a young man, here referred to as shahed, literally translated as a witness to God’s beauty. Later classical Persian poetry of Attar (d. 1220), Rumi (d.1273), Sa’di (d. 1291), Hafez (d.1389), Jami (d.1492), and Iraj Mirza (d. 1926) all evoke homoerotic ideals, as well as make explicit references to the beauty of young men (Afary and Anderson 2005, 156; Duran 1993, 185; Schimmel 1975, 289). One of the most prominent scholars of Persian poetry, Cyrus Shamisa, claims that “it was essentially a homoerotic oeuvre” (2002, 10 – author’s translation). The second principle distinguishes between those who gave pleasure and those who submitted to pleasure (Afary 2005, 156). It intersects with age in that once a young man became an adult, and grew a beard, he moved from being an object to subject of desire. But not all adult males made the transition. Some, called mukhannas in early Persian texts, amradnuma in 19th century Iran, and ‘ubnah in medical literature, shaved their beards, appearing amrad‐like, and by doing so declared their intention to be the objects of desire (Najmabadi 2005, 17). They may have been subjected to derision, but more often than not, they were accommodated thorough cross‐dressing and incorporation into artistic professions, such as music, dancing and recitation (Najmabadi 2005, 17). This distinction pits bearded adult males – the givers of pleasure – versus the beloved amrads; women, with whom one had reproductive sex in the context of conjugal relations; and amradnuma of different class and social positions (including slaves and servants) – as receivers of pleasure. The most prevalent homoerotic and sexual practices, as given by classic poets, include relationships between kings and slaves. Outside the courts, homosexual practices were accommodated in public spaces in male houses of prostitution (amradkhane), bathhouses, and military and clerical schools (Afary 2005, 157). The third principle concerns private and public nature of morality. Although Islam contains strong anti‐homoerotic prohibition, its implementation in pre‐modern Iran concerned the public 214 Korycki & Nasirzadeh 8 sphere only. Adult males were expected to marry. Once they did, the realm of desire and private pleasure were discretely shrouded. As long as man fulfilled his procreative obligation, and did not appear to indulge excessively, he was free to love and seek pleasure as he pleased (Najmabadi 2005, 23). The three principles organizing sexual space, concern men. Women were assigned a procreative, private role (Najmabadi 2005).9 The sexual preferences of men varied according to their age and social status, but it would be a mistake not to recognize that general preferences of individuals did not go unnoticed, or that heterosexual desire was taken for granted. On the contrary, general expectation to marry was accompanied by general acceptance of other sexual encounters, some of which may have involved exclusively male partners. The many examples of this undermine Foucauldian contention that homosexual, as a category of identity does not emerge until modernity. The absence of fixity, generated by modern classificatory systems does not preclude a possibility of self‐ or other‐ identification based on the object of one’s desire. Thus Shah Tahmasb II (r. 1736‐47) “preferred one Joseph‐faced to thousands of Zulaykhas and Laylis and Shirins” (Rustam al‐Hukama 1974, 147), or famous court painter Bihzad “could not live a moment without ruby‐red wine and ruby‐red lips of a wine‐bearer” (Soudavar 1999, 51), as opposed to Shah Sultan Husayn Safavi (r.1722‐32) who was “fully inclined to women” (Qazvini 1988, 79).10 Yet, same‐sex desires and practices outside of the prescribed boundaries were heavily stigmatized and in some cases criminalized. Relationships with pre‐adolescent youth was one such instance, which carried sentences that included the use of bastinado. Relationship in which force 8 The distinction between private (andarooni , referring to ‘inside the home’) and public sphere exists in pre‐ modern Iran and refers to a similar division of the social as the Western liberal concept. 9 Within which they found much scope for homoerotic sociability. We mention this here to signal, but we cannot explore it fully in this work. 10 Examples and quotes found in Najmabadi 2005, 20. 215 Korycki & Nasirzadeh was used and which resulted in injury or murder were heavily criminalized, up to and including death (Najmabadi 2005, 22). Moreover, relationships between older men who had white beards and youth were stigmatized for the great age differential and the perceived undignified nature of an older man seeking sexual pleasure. In addition, as alluded above, those who showed excessive displays of love, exclusive lust for amrads, or those who never married were also socially looked down upon (Najmabadi 2005, 23). The memory of this fluid and complicated past in which same sex desire and practice were common and accommodated will be all but wiped out in the next 150 years. Homoerotic poetry will be reinterpreted as devotional; conceptions of beauty will become entirely feminized, and homoerotic desire, once entrenched in Persian culture will become reinscribed in the social imagination as Western and modern import. Modernization from below: Iran grafts anti­homosocial stance from the West By the beginning of the 19th century, Iran came into full contact with European colonialism and, as a result, by 1828 it lost close to half of its territory to Tsarist Russia.11 In addition, the British Empire bribed and coerced its way to influence the Iranian royal court. To give just one example, Baron Julius de Reuter was granted a monopoly of railway construction, access to Iran’s mineral and forestry resources as well as its banking. These concessions were seen as a “complete and extraordinary surrender of the entire industrial resources of a kingdom into foreign hands”. (Lord Curzon, quoted in Gelvin 2005, 85). The loss of the territory and the growing influence of foreign powers created a sense of crisis and loss of confidence. Many European‐educated Iranian intellectuals, such as Mirza Jahangir Khan, argued that the traditions of the Iranian society no longer provided a suitable guide for 11 The Russian armies annexed what is the modern day Daghestan and Georgia under the Treaty of Gulistan in 1813; and in 1928, under Treaty of Turkmenchay Iran ceded control of what are now Armenia and Azerbaijan. 216 Korycki & Nasirzadeh navigating the world. Other thinkers, like Fath‐Ali Akhoundzadeh and Abd al‐Rahim Talebof, identified a nation‐state as the cornerstone of any attempts to modernize Iran; and they began to reconceptualize the public sphere by imagining new categories of its inhabitants, shortly to be made into citizens. The profound sense of shame over the loss of prestige and territory precipitated a certain degree of mimicry and imitation of European models, although the process ought to be seen as “grafting” in which attractive ideas are adopted, but localized (Najmabadi 2005, 100). This grafting was facilitated by frequent two‐way contacts between the modernizing West and soul‐searching Iran (see Blasius, this volume). By the turn of the 19th century, the reciprocal gaze of the elites produced a consensus that women’s segregation was the main marker of Iran’s backwardness; that religion, sustained by the veil and polygamy was its origin; that the veil, in turn, led men to engage in homosexual practices; by then refashioned to be unnatural (Najmabadi 2005, 162). This remarkable transformation of gender and sexuality, and creation of a heteronormative public sphere, involved three interconnected intellectual paths, described below. From the earliest encounters between Iranian and European travelers it became clear that male love was the most visible marker of difference and that Westerners considered it a vice. Iranian intellectuals responded, first by denying the pervasiveness of male love (and pointing out its presence in the West); later by equating the love of an amrad as frustrated desire for a female; and ultimately by predicating Iranian modernity on the repudiation of male love (Najmabadi 2005, 39). Furthermore as Iranian men travelled in Europe, they encountered women who conversed, engaged, and even courted them. This public encounter was profoundly new and transformative. It permitted Iranian intellectuals to imagine a social space not exclusively populated by men. In time, the absence of women in public came to be seen as a cause of men turning to one another for love and friendship. As Najmabadi suggests, this indicates a different path to heteronormalization than the one proposed by Foucault in Europe. Iranian intellectuals believed that once women entered 217 Korycki & Nasirzadeh the public sphere, the ensuing heterosociability, hereto unknown in Iran, would remove the need for homosexual practice (Najmabadi 2005, 57). If men were backward owing to the public absence of women, and if heterosociability was to become normal, then new categories of actors were needed. Women had to remove their veils and renounce their own backward segregation. This new space had little room for those “still” stubbornly engaged in male love – they were first marginalized through “temporal boxing” – backward and not yet enlightened. As the modernizing project progressed other marginalizing moves were needed, and they included the now familiar ‘othering’ through medical and psychiatric discourses, and in most recent times through “Westoxification” (Najmabadi 2005, 34). On this subject, Mirza Agha Khan Kermani, one of the 19th century intellectuals writes: Men are naturally inclined toward socializing with and enjoying the companionship of women ... If a people is forbidden from this great blessing and is deprived of this great deliverance, then inevitably the problem of sexual acts with boys and young male slaves is created, because boys without facial hair resemble women ... and it is for this reason that in the Iranian people/nation this grave condition has reached saturation. And the ground for this situation is the veiling of women that has become established in Iran… Sa’adi of Shiraz and the obscene and shameful Qa’ani and other Iranian poets have big collections of poetry that prove my word and relieve me of further explication.12 The creation of heteronormative social space did not proceed without friction, voiced, not by increasingly marginalized homosocial men, but by women. The newly formed Iranian feminist movement supported the modernizing zeal of the male intellectuals. The feminists agreed with the 12 Quoted in Najmabadi 2005, 56. Emphasis added. 218 Korycki & Nasirzadeh unveiling of women, ending of segregation, and increasing women’s education. Despite the general agreement, however, Astarabadi and other feminists claimed that men did not go far enough, and in doing so, they were protecting patriarchal institutions.13 Thus they pushed for the redefinition of the institution of marriage. They wanted to change it from a contract for procreation to a contract based on love. It was to be monogamous and containing tough divorce rules protecting women. To achieve this new marriage contract, women demanded that men forgo their homoerotic friendships (Najmabadi 2005, 156). As we have shown, the feminists allied with the broader modernizing movement began arguing that traditional manifestation of same sex love and sexuality were signs of backwardness causing Iran to succumb to the pressures of the colonial powers. As such, the Iranian modernizers came to associate heterosexuality with normalcy. This push for modernization among the Western oriented upper middle classes in Iran during the late 19th century, effectively relegated the manifestations of same‐sex sexuality to the lower class and “backward” individuals who supposedly “lacked the capacity” to become modern. Modernization from above: The Ataturk’s model of state consolidation The overall rate of change and modernization in Iran remained fairly gradual. The efforts of the 19th century modernizers led to the 1906 transformation of Iran into a constitutional monarchy. The parliament proved weak, however, and the Shah bypassed it on many issues. Mohammad Ali Shah even went so far as to bombard the parliament in 1908. Also, the Imperial British and the Russians expanded their influence over Iran. Inspired by Ataturk’s policies in the neighbouring Turkey, the discontented intellectuals, such as Hasan Taqizadeh, argued that unless every single traditional social norm was done away with completely, Iran was doomed to struggle in the modern world (Keddie 2003, 181). The only way to achieve that was to pursue Ataturk style 13 For extensive quotes see Najmabadi 2005, 174. 219 Korycki & Nasirzadeh government policies of aggressive and authoritarian westernization and to break free from what was deemed traditional dogma and superstitions (Keddie 2003, 181). Advocates of radical modernization had their political opportunity open up (Tarrow 1998) when Reza Shah overthrew the Qajar and established the Pahlavi dynasty in 1925. Many of the intellectuals articulating the visions of social and political modernization found themselves in government.14 Reza Shah undertook radical wide‐ranging social and economic reforms that aimed at consolidation of his power and accelerated modernization. What had been mused upon in intellectual salons, Reza Shah now turned into state polices. He began by eliminating autonomous networks of feudal power through concerted and successful military pacification (Migdal 1988). His second, much more challenging target was Ulama –Shiite clerics – whom he attempted to emasculate through a series of gradual reforms (Sedghi 2007, 67). He sought to eradicate their authority, which although diffuse and decentralized15 had much local legitimacy. The Ulama had an independent source of income as they collected religious tax. More importantly, they were responsible for spiritual guidance, service provision, regulation of marriage, administration of justice, and education. Reza Shah implemented policies that challenged all these sources of legitimacy. To this end, he made marriage a civil institution as opposed to a religious one (Sedghi 2007, 73). Women were allowed to seek divorce when their husbands proved unfit (Mahdi 2004, 430). Minimum age of marriage was set at 15 for girls and 18 for boys (Mahdi 2004, 430). Reza Shah also aggressively expanded girls’ education: in 1929, there were over 11,000 girls in schools, 14 For example, intellectuals such as Hasan Taqizadeh became a parliamentarian and later on, minister of finance during Reza Shah’s rule while Mohammad Ali Foroghi became the Prime Minister. 15 Shiite branch of Islam is more hierarchical than the Sunni one, with four subordinate ranks of clergy under the Grand Ayatollah, the highest religious authority. Unlike the Papal system, however, multiple Grand Ayatollahs coexist, each with his own interpretation of religion and his own set of followers. In this way, Shiites’ system is both hierarchical and decentralized. 220 Korycki & Nasirzadeh compared to 167 in 1910. This number grew to 50,000 by 1933 (Sedghi 2007, 71). The peak of such measures came in 1936 with kashfe hejab – a policy that banned women’s veil and mandated Western dress (Mahdi 2004, 430)16. The Ataturk‐inspired authoritarian policies of Reza Shah advanced the heterosexualization of the public space as gender and sexuality came under the purview of government, rather than religious, regulation. Reza Shah’s reforms diffused the norms of anti‐same‐sex love and sexuality among the lower classes, which had been previously entrenched in the upper echelons in the late 19th century. The memories of 18th century gender roles and homoeroticism that had been prevalent in public spaces now became a distant memory.17 Upon succeeding his father, Muhammad Reza Shah,18 undertook his own reforms aimed at further Westernization of Iranian society. As part of his White Revolution of 1961, women were given the right to vote, and literacy corps, modeled on those in the United States, pushed universal education around the country (Sedghi 2007, 133). Family planning, free contraceptives and abortion became legal and available (Sedghi 2007, 133). More prominently, in 1975, Muhammad Reza Shah introduced the Family Protection Act. This law gave women the right to divorce, made 16 As noted by Millett (1979), Iranian feminists did not see these reforms as beneficial. The ban of the veil was just as patriarchal an act as its re‐imposition after the Revolution. What Iranian women sought was equality and freedom over their bodies – neither Reza Shah, nor Mohammad Reza Shah were interested in taking these demands seriously. 17 The only overtly anti‐homosexual policy of this period was the removal of references to same‐sex love in school textbooks (Afary 2009, 175). 18 The consolidation of power under Mohammad Reza Shah took time. His power, immediately upon his father’s abdication in 1941, was undermined by a popularly elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. Mosaddegh attempted to nationalize Iranian oil, but this was deemed to be a threat by the US and the UK. The two powers undertook Operation Ajax, removed the Prime Minster from office in 1953 and backed the Western friendly Shah. 221 Korycki & Nasirzadeh polygamy contingent on the first wife’s permission, transferred parental custody decisions from religious authorities to family courts, and raised the legal marriage age to 18 for women and 20 for men (with exceptions for rural areas – Sedghi 2007, 136). These concrete moves transformed gender relations throughout society (Sedghi 2007). Even though the reforms had no homophobic bent in themselves, they were part of a newly reconceptualized public and private sociability. This new heteronormative space was predicated on the total erasure of the homoerotic past, but not eradication of homoerotic love and practice. Indeed, an American residing in Tehran in the late 1970s describes his time there as a “sexual paradise” (Zarit 1992, 55). He tells of his multiple sexual encounters with Iranian males. Furthermore, despite all Shah’s policies, and in line with the growing visibility of homosexuals in the West, there were increasingly open displays of homosexuality in places such as cinemas, bars and discos in Tehran (Afary 2009, 160). Modernization from above continued: Khomeini’s national Islamic model of state consolidation The 1979 overthrow of the Shah was the result of confluence of multiple factors. Contrary to prevailing scholarship at the time, however, it was the revolution that ‘was made’ and sustained from below (Skocpol 1979 and 1994). Iranian population, mobilized by multiple grievances against the Shah, found a powerful vanguard in the Ulama who had access to valuable political resources (Skocpol 1979 and 1994; Tarrow 1998). The clerics controlled the cohesive and well organized networks of the urban poor, delivering a resonant ideological frame that mobilized Iranians to a prolonged and bloody fight against the regime. The grievances that united various disparate parts of the revolutionary movement were threefold. First, the Shah’s oil‐wealthy rentier regime mediated its relationship with society through state expenditures. It facilitated consumption, but failed to diversify the economy and develop many of its people. Flowing state expenditures, coterminous with chronic inflation and 222 Korycki & Nasirzadeh unemployment, led to a gap “between aspirations and expectations” (Huntington 1968, 54) and constant percolating dissatisfaction (Ansari 2003, 174).19 Second, the Shah’s was almost universally despised for his servile relationship with the West, especially the United States. He was seen as more responsive to the interest of foreign business than Iranians. The issue that powerfully catalyzed public imagination was the total immunity from Iranian law offered to the American personnel stationed in Iran.20 Third, the Shah, through his much‐feared secret police, SAVAK, engaged in extensive repression of dissidents, often involving torture and extrajudicial murders (Ansari 2003, 203). In Skocpol’s words “suspended above its own people, the Iranian state bought them off, rearranged their lives, and repressed them” (1994, 244). Capitalizing on the political and ideological resources of the Islamic Republican Party (IRP), the Ulama, under the leadership of Ayatollah Khomeini, turned itself into the vanguard of the anti‐ Shah revolutionary force and mobilized sustained mass support (Skocpol 1994, 252). Their political resources took two forms: The institution of the bazaar, infiltrated by clerics, proved a powerful substitute for well‐organized peasant communities of the previous successful revolutions (Skocpol 1994, 245‐247), as it was a site of sociability and community building for the ever growing number 19 Oil revenues averaged around $15 billion per year, which allowed Mohammad Reza Shah to expand state development projects. This resulted in great social dislocations and increasing widening of gap between haves and have‐nots (Abrahamian 2008, 140). The expectations of living standards had risen due to increases in education, but so did the gaps in consumption between the upper classes and lower classes. This led to widespread resentment especially amongst the urban poor (Abrahamian 2008, 140). Moreover, towards the end of Mohammad Reza Shah’s regime, escalating military expenditure left little money for social programs – in 1977 half of the oil revenue was spent on military equipment from the West alone (Abrahamian 2008, 132). 20 Examples of aggravating double standards abound. For instance, foreign skilled workers generally received substantially higher salaries than Iranian skilled workers of the same level of education. Moreover, their presence and spending habits led to a growing inflation and scarcity of housing (Keddie 2003, 160). 223 Korycki & Nasirzadeh of urban workers and merchants. During the revolution it supplied support and mobilization able to resist well‐organized army and SAVAK forces. The second political resource, derived from the assertive interpretation of Islam, assigned the clerics a role of true interpreters of Quran, which resonated with the disaffected and left‐behind masses (Skocpol 1994, 252). Post revolution, the victorious IRP moved aggressively on four closely related fronts, each equipped with its own discursive frame. First and foremost, the Mullahs wanted to consolidate power over opponents, in which attacking homosexuals, as well as many undesirable others, proved useful in demonstrating revolutionary resolve. Second they were creating a national post‐ colonial narrative by simultaneous othering of the West, the homosexual, and the Pahlavi regime. Third, they wished to undo selected policies implemented by the Pahlavi dynasty, especially as they related to women, in the name of creatively reinterpreted national tradition. Fourth, they wanted to extend the reach of the state in the aggressive move to control private morality – this they accomplished by criminalizing homosexuality and regulating women. We explore all four, in turn. While consolidating power after the revolution, IRP, buoyed by success, continued to command impressive political and cultural resources now deployed against weak and divided opponents. Backed by an assertive ideology and mass support, Khomeini proved willing and able to establish a centralized and coercive state.21 He demonstrated his resolve to marginalize the liberals and social democrats, his anti‐Shah allies (Skocpol 1994, 250), as well as feminist and ethnic 21 Despite the initial turmoil, the new Islamic Republic government rapidly moved to broaden and deepen central agencies of administration and coercion. To that end, they expanded the government bureaucracy rapidly, which grew from 304,000 civil servants in 1979 to 850,000 civil servants in 1982 (Abrahamian, 2008, 169). The coercive apparatus of the new state included the Revolutionary Guards, an armed force that existed in parallel to the regular army, and was charged with ensuring regime’s survival in the face of coups, domestic uprising, and external threats. The new Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance was charged with ideological and propaganda dissemination amongst the populace. 224 Korycki & Nasirzadeh minorities (Afary 2005, 163), by staging mass public executions – over 4000 people were killed (Bakhash 1984, 221‐222).22 Public violence,23 served a dual purpose: directly, it sped up the elimination of opponents, justified by the readily available tropes of ‘corruption’, ‘evil’, ‘foreignness’ and ‘unnaturalness’ (Skocpol 1994, 252); indirectly, and more importantly, it signaled resolve that silenced opposing factions and established Khomeini in a position of ultimate authority over his allies, the opposition and society. 24 We thus see the post‐revolutionary killings of homosexuals – 200 were executed in the 1981‐2 purges (Kafi 1992, 67)25 – as primarily strategic. The deaths are only secondarily anti‐homosexual in essence. The view that the killing of homosexual men was strategic rather than essentialist is supported by Khomeini’s own writing, in which he does not paint same sex acts as more repulsive than other sex. In his 1947 ethics manual, article 347 states ‘if a person has sex and [his organ] enters [the other person’s body] to the point where it is circumcised or more, whether he enters a woman or a man, from behind or the front, an adult, or pre‐adult youngster, and even if no semen is secreted, both persons will become ritually polluted.” this is followed by instructions as to how such impurity may be cleansed (quoted in Afary 2005, 159). 22 The actual number of executions is uncertain given the way many killings took place after a hasty trial without much documentation. Bakhash (1984) bases his numbers on evidence gathered by Amnesty International. 23 This interpretation may also apply to the taking over of the American embassy and its staff in 1979 (Harmon 2005, 62). 24 For exploration of terror as an expedient signaling device see Barrington Moore Jr. (1966, 101) and Huntington (1968, 271) as well as Fearon (1994). 25 Feminist author Kate Millet who was in Iran at the time writes “as for the homosexuals, they were shot right in the road, judgment took seconds” (1979, 109). 225 Korycki & Nasirzadeh Lest we create an impression that Khomeini was in any way sympathetic to same sex desire, we introduce his second move – the creation of a post‐colonial national narrative. Like other postcolonial movements that rose to prominence during the 1960s and 1970s, Khomeini applies “us” versus “them” logic, to draw the boundaries of his community. A ‘creator’26 of Islamic nation, he connected same‐sex‐love to western decadence, and to the Pahlavi regime, constituting all three as foreign and deviant. This narrative resonated, as Iranians of all classes no longer held any memory of the long history of same‐sex‐love and sociability; furthermore, they despised the Shah and saw the presence of same‐sex practice as a result of his Western induced permissiveness. The creative forgetting was maintained by casting the homoeroticism present in Persian poetry as godly love between human kind and Allah, rather than worldly and physical sex (Moallem 2005, 116). The third move of the new regime involved selective redrawing of gender relations. Thus, in the name of tradition, undermined hereto by ‘West‐mimicking‐Shah’, women were assigned a separate but equal status (Afary 2009, 265). This translated into a strict segregation of public spaces (such as public transportation, schools, Mosques, and beaches); banning women’s presence altogether (such as in sports arenas); tightening of laws relating to divorce and custody of children (Sedghi 2007, 201); and limiting access to work.27 The final and most dramatic change imposed a mandatory veil. The ‘separate but equal’ doctrine, harkened rhetorically to the pre‐modern Iran, but had little in common with its reality. What had previously been a rural society, in which the majority of women, with uncovered heads, worked on the fields side‐by‐side men, has been reinscribed on the urban and educated population of the centralized modern state (Sedghi 2007). 26 Ayatollah Khomeini is referred to as Bonyangozare Jomhoriye Islami in Farsi, which translates into the creator of Islamic Republic. 27 While prior to 1979 about 12.9% of Iranian labour force was constituted by women, in the first months of post‐revolutionary regime this percentage dropped to 8.2, only to climb slowly towards full participation now (Sedghi 2007, 233). 226 Korycki & Nasirzadeh The changes to woman status are significant for the argument in this work, in that they demonstrate the extent to which the regime was willing to use law to regulate previously customary conventions, and the degree to which it was using an imaginary past to justify it. The fourth move of Khomeini’s regime blurs the boundary between public acts, which hereto were the subject of Sharia law, and private morality, which was left alone so long as it did not manifest itself in public. Thus criminalization of homosexuality and the advent of police units, the Nirooye mobareze ba mafasede ejtemayi, popularly known as Komiteh, or morality police, which target “immoral” behaviour are both manifestations of the state’s increasing attempt to penetrate the previously unregulated domestic sphere. Thus, in the new Islamic laws, lavat, a penetrative or non‐penetrative sexual activity between two males is considered a capital crime, for which both partners are executed. Other homosexual acts including tafkhiz, which is the rubbing of the penis against thighs, draw the punishment of 100 lashes for each partner (Islamic Penal Code Article 121).28 Other activity such as lascivious kissing and being found naked under the same cover with no reason also draw 60 and 99 lashes respectively (Islamic Penal Code Article 123‐124). Legalizing and criminalizing what had previously been private demonstrates a truly modern approach of this ostensibly traditional regime. The four strategies and their tropes intersect. Using law to mandate the veil and criminalize some aspects of sex, othering the West and the homosexual, relegating women to private sphere and then policing that sphere with special surveillance techniques – all in the name of tradition – reveal that the reinvention of the past and strategic deployment of anti‐same sex rhetoric are useful tools of statecraft. It also reveals the ingenious selective borrowing of modernizers’ propositions, all in the name of tradition that modernizers wanted to erase. Overall, the post‐revolutionary Islamist government, in its attempts to “revive” the religious “traditions” has effectively invented a whole new system of governance, utterly modern in nature (Moallem 2005, 13). 28 The Islamic Penal Code of Iran is available at: http://mehr.org/Islamic_Penal_Code_of_Iran.pdf 227 Korycki & Nasirzadeh Modern Gays and Modern State Homophobia: 2000s Between 1997 and 2005 Iran experienced a brief moment of liberalization (O’Donnell and Schmitter 1986). Popular dissatisfaction with corruption (Abdi 2001) and regime repression (Poulson 2005, 254); as well as dramatically changing demographics of the country brought a crisis of legitimacy (Huntington 1993) and led to the presidential election of Muhammad Khatami in 1997. The newly elected president reached out to the burgeoning constituency of young and not‐ western‐unfriendly population with ideals of rights, lawfulness and civil society.29 This constituency, by the 2000s, is mostly urban, highly educated and under 30.30 It has little memory of the revolutionary struggle against Western domination and the Shah’s rule. On the contrary, since it relies on satellite TV and the Internet, it follows Western consumerist values (Afary 2009, 327). For instance, young people arrange dates and matchmaking on the Internet (Afary 2009, 333). Those of the middle classes increasingly hold favourable views on sex, even premarital sex (Afary, 2009, 336); moreover, the rapid expansion of the Iranian economy has led to more people marrying later in life and prioritizing their careers (Afary 2009, 340). Despite legitimate grievances of the population and Khatami’s popular appeal, the regime “hardliners” (Huntington 1993, O’Donnell and Schmitter 1986, Przeworski 1991) moved to block most of his reforms, such that his legacy is felt mostly at the level of society rather than the state itself. His presidency, which ended in 2005, opened a political space for discourse of rights and 29 Khatami used slogans of Ghanoonmandi (lawfulness), Jameye Madani (civil society), Goftegooye Tamadonha (dialogue among civilizations) to reform the Islamic Republic’s system. He implemented laws designed to ensure greater freedom of the press, expand ethnic rights, and increase gender equality. He sought to improve relations with the West. In each of these he was ultimately thwarted. For further exploration, see Abrahamian 2008, 182. 30 According to CIA’s World Factbook, close to two thirds of the Iranian population is under the age of 30, 71% of the population lives in urban centres, and 77% of the population is literate. 228 Korycki & Nasirzadeh rights‐based activism to flourish. The rise of this new discourse has manifested itself in the emergence of various non‐governmental rights groups including feminist groups31, ethnic groups, and literary groups. At the same time, newspaper circulation, which had divergent political leanings, increased from 1.2 million to 3.2 million and the number of journals jumped from 778 to 1375 by early 2000s (Abrahamian 2008, 191). Most prominently, the rights‐based discourse was evident during the post‐election protests of 2009, with the main slogan of the demonstrators being “where is my vote?”32 It is in this context that we observe the emergence of gay Iranians. Although both the modernizing and revolutionary movements of the 19th and 20th century succeeded in casting same‐sex‐love and sexuality as unnatural, foreign, and criminal, by the end of the 1990s, there was a growing homosexual community in Iran, mostly in larger metropolitan centres such as Tehran and Isfahan. The members of these communities identified themselves by the English word “gay” (Afary 2009) and used the Internet to communicate with each other, to access material on gay rights, and arrange sexual encounters. Some of these individuals eventually fled to the West as refugees and established diaspora‐based politicized gay rights movements. Indeed, a group called the Iranian Queer Organization (IRQO), based in Toronto, Canada with branches in Iran and around the world was established by Iranian gay refugees in 2004. The group, through its publication of an Internet e‐zine by the name of Maha, has attempted to change the Persian language surrounding sexuality to include the concept of sexual orientation, record the experiences of gay Iranians and 31 Feminist groups have held many demonstrations and they initiated a campaign of gathering one million signatures for the repeal of discriminatory laws against women. For more, see the Independent’s coverage of the campaign: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle‐east/lipstick‐revolution‐irans‐women‐ are‐taking‐on‐the‐mullahs‐1632257.html 32 Based on author’s personal experience in Tehran in 2009/10. 229 Korycki & Nasirzadeh the problems they face, and provide advice on coming out and health issues including safe sex practices (Afary 2009, 352).33 While in the first decade and half after the revolution, state homophobia was a tool deployed to signal revolutionary resolve, create national narratives, and extend state’s reach into private morality, the nature of anti‐gay policy is changing (Afary 2009). The new approach is designed to suppress the diffusion of the newly emerging gay identity amongst the Iranian youth, or to put it in more general terms, it is part of a wider campaign to close the space opened by liberalizing tendencies of Muhammad Khatami. This liberalized space is demonized using the familiar ‘Western invasion’ tropes34 and it is actively constricted by periodic crackdowns on improper hejabs of women, tight clothing and hairstyles deemed to be offensive. It also includes a ban on satellite dishes and raids to confiscate them, as well as the closing of newspapers that are seen to have offended Islamic sensibilities. Moreover, women groups have come under severe scrutiny with multiple feminist activists such as Parvin Ardalan, Noushin Ahmadi Khorasani, and Delaram Ali being sentenced to imprisonment in recent years.35 Other human rights activists such as the Iranian Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi are regularly harassed. And human rights lawyers such 33 The publication has been discontinued and new e‐zine by the name of Cheraq. Cheraq was replaced by Neda in November 2008. 34 The Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, often decries Tahajome Farhangi (Cultural invasion of Iran by the West) and warns of the dangers this poses to the Iranian youth. 35 For more, see the Human Rights First's coverage of this issue: http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/our‐ work/human‐rights‐defenders/iran/one‐million‐signature‐campaign‐timeline/ 230 Korycki & Nasirzadeh as Mohammad Ali Dadkhah, Abdolfattah Soltani, and Mohammad Mostafaei have been detained or forced into exile for raising the profile of their clients.36 To arrest the spread of homosexuals specifically, the regime denies their existence and continues to cast them as the western other; to suppress the discourse of human rights, generally (used by many in Iran), it increases the reach of its surveillance and control technologies. Homophobia as a tool of conservative backlash is proving useful, yet again, as means of reasserting the coercive power of the state, in the wake of liberalization. Thus, Iranian officials have become more vocal in rejecting the existence of gay individuals in Iran, calling the phenomenon something that only exists in the Western world. For example, on April 29, 2000, a prominent Iranian Ayatollah, Ali Meshkini, “criticized the German Green Party for being pro‐homosexual”. Another prominent Ayatollah, Ebrahim Amini, on July 13, 2002, charged that “gay and lesbian marriages reflect a weakness of Western culture”.37 Echoing such anti‐ Western sentiments, the Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei during a speech on November 18, 2007 stated, “Currently, homosexuality has become a huge issue in the West. They try to pretend it is not a big issue. In reality, however, homosexuality now poses a painful and unsolvable problem for Western intellectuals” (Author’s translation).38 Most prominently, the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, proclaimed that gays do not exist in Iran during his speech at the Columbia University in 2007: “In Iran, we don’t have homosexuals, like in your 36 For more, see the Iranian Human Rights Documentation Center: http://www.iranhrdc.org/english/news/press‐statements/3142‐iran‐human‐rights‐documentation‐center‐ calls‐for‐release‐of‐nasrin‐sotoudeh‐and‐houtan‐kian.html 37 Quoted in Aman and Samii 2005. 38 The speech in its entirety is available in Farsi on Ayatollah Khamenei’s website: http://www.khamenei.ir/FA/Speech/detail.jsp?id=860413A 231 Korycki & Nasirzadeh country. We don’t have that in our country. In Iran, we do not have this phenomenon. I don’t know who’s told you that we have it.” (Pink News 2007). In an apparent contradiction to the above denials, the state is moving to increase its surveillance of gay activities. This proceeds in two ways. With the growing use of the internet, especially for arranging sexual encounters amongst people with same sex desires, the security apparatus including Basiji militia and the morality police move to control the Internet (HRW 2010, 58). As such, the Iranian government developed one of the most expansive Internet censorship regimes in the world, which could only be compared to China’s (OpenNet Initiative 2009). Websites containing information on homosexuality are often blocked and filtered. Moreover, the morality police use the Internet for entrapment (Human Rights Watch 2010, 54). Furthermore, enforcement of morality proceeds through raids on suspected gay parties with participants often rounded up and forced to become informants (HRW 2010, 52). Modern medical science has also made the 39 Iranian state able to police sexual conduct in the most intimate ways possible. Forensic rectal examinations or threats of such examinations are generally used to establish if the person has engaged in penetrative sexual activity or coerce the defendant into confessing to having had sexual contact with the members of the same sex (HRW 2010, 53).40 Disavowal, othering, and increased surveillance achieve two objectives at once. First, they reaffirm the regime as a protector of “sexual sovereignty” of the nation against the neo‐imperialism of the West. Second, as an element of a broader strategy to suppress the discourse of human rights, they serve to strengthen regime’s grip on power in the face of changing society. The new approach 39 See also Lind (this volume) on a somewhat similar development in Ecuador where there has been a shift in how homosexuality is treated, from a criminal offence to a medical disease. 40 In one telling exchange, an Iranian judge demanded a confession of penetrative sex. When the defendant conceded that he had only lustfully kissed and hugged other men, the judge threatened to send him for a forensic rectal examination. (HRW 2010, 57). 232 Korycki & Nasirzadeh is less decisive than Pahlavi Shahs’ and less resolute, or violent, than Ayatollah Khomeini’s. It may also prove less effective – it is unclear why referring to sexual sovereignty would appeal to a young population seeking sexual liberation. On the other hand, the repressive and aggressive appropriation of the Internet may protect the regime, for some time to come. Conclusion As this paper has shown, in theorizing homophobia the West should not be taken as the sole agent creating and disseminating anti‐same‐sex norms to passive non‐Westerners. ‘Incitement to discourse’ by the ‘gay international’ should not be seen as leaving no room for governments in the non‐Western world but to act in homophobic manner. Rather, as in the case of Iran, the West should be seen as a referent in a ‘conversation’, in which both parties create images of each other and produce anti‐ and pro‐ homosexual stances that vary across time (see Keating, this volume). By suggesting the mutually constitutive conversation, between the West and Iran, we do not mean to suggest the absence of power. On the contrary, we take exploitative military, economic and cultural incursions of the West as a leitmotif of our account and wish, by way of conclusion, to raise a question of what follows from the inequality of positions for the questions of justice here and now. We propose that the normative thrust of much of the post‐colonial resistance literature loses some of its critical edge if it looks only to the West, and does not address itself to ideational changes that have taken place in the Iranian society (Massad 2002, 2007). Such unidirectional stance essentializes and idealizes the past, and effectively erases 200 years of interaction. Most importantly, it forces its proponents into a normative corner, from which they argue away anti‐gay violence and repression as excusable because it is anti‐western – or better yet – as caused by the West (Massad 2002, 384). Our account means to re‐direct the spotlight onto the creative borrowing and grafting in Iranian society and to highlight the new modes of self‐understanding and identification. This, we believe is the only footing from which one can begin to articulate the claims 233 Korycki & Nasirzadeh of just treatment of gay people, in Middle East and elsewhere. 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