Musa Iqbal
“O you who believe, be upright for God, and be bearers of witness with justice!” [Quran, 5:8]
The anti-imperialist struggle was raging throughout the 70’s. At the forefront of the Cold War, national liberation movements were swelling – Algeria, Kenya, Angola, and Mozambique, just to name a few, were successful in overthrowing their colonial rulers while others were just getting started with their own national liberation. The centuries-old practice of bare fisted colonial rule was crashing down, threatening the very existence of the reactionary, comprador capitalist class of each colonial power. Direct military subjugation was itself becoming a frowned upon practice in a world that was becoming more integrated via new mechanisms like the UN.
Neocolonialism – a concept coined by Kwame Nkrumah – quickly became the preferred flavor of rule for the United States and others when it could not impose itself militarily. The doctrine of neocolonialism – where colonial powers ruled their subjects indirectly through comprador puppet governments – allowed the United States and other once “great” colonial powers to create the illusion of “free states” while in reality keeping them under heavy subjugation by political and economic means. For example, this meant trade deals that would ensnare the developing country into debt traps designed to be inescapable, while the colonial power reaped all of the benefits of cheap raw resources and labor. The United States and former colonial superpowers hand-picked leaders and governments that could easily be rewarded or deposed, depending on their effectiveness in filling the bellies of the subjugating capitalist class.
Neocolonial societies were forced to live in police states that sought to ensure a low-wage workforce to deliver raw resources and materials to United States capitalists for extremely cheap. Though the people suffered, the elite circles of the neocolonial country lived in decadence as they were rewarded handsomely for selling their country out to American corporations. Frantz Fanon, in his book “The Wretched of the Earth,” explored the relationship between the colonized and the colonizer (and his puppet representatives), in pristine detail, outlining the sociological and economic detriment this relationship had on the colonized.
Such is the story of Iran – where the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi ruled with an iron fist, equipped of course by the United States of America. With the Americans’ blessing, the Shah’s brutal police force (including the notorious SAVAK secret police) repressed millions of Iranians who were eager to steer their own national destiny for the sake of Iran and Iranians – not for the United States.
At the time, the United States and the United Kingdom both considered the Shah not only a crucial ally, but an ideal one – one who would allow foreign penetration into Iran’s lucrative oil resources, sign development contracts with American corporations to “modernize” Iran (rather, build it in the West’s image), and train and arm the Shah’s brutal SAVAK agents to keep dissent to a minimum.
Conditions of oppression and tyranny always create the grounds for revolt and revolution – as the saying goes, “repression breeds resistance.” The 1953 coup in Iran – the first CIA recorded operation “Ajax,” opened the eyes of millions as the US and UK brazenly toppled a popular leader – Mohammad Mosaddegh – in favor of the puppet Shah Pahlavi who would surrender the country’s oil and other resources for cheap. Popular revolts soon followed – including the Fifteen of Khordad Uprising, the 1978 Black Friday Protests, and Islamic uprisings led by Imam Khomeini (RA) and the Husseini resistance – revolutionary masses that were inspired by the sacrifice of Imam Hussein in the battle of Karbala (680 – culminating in the triumph of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The period between the ‘53 US coup and the ‘79 Islamic revolution saw different political tendencies, however none were more dominant than the Islamic current. Shia Islam had been entwined in the fabric of Iranian society since the 1500’s, which marked the start of the Safavid dynasty.
“The silence of every Muslim is a betrayal of the Quran!” was one of the many slogans used within the final months of the Shah’s regime. Contrasted with other national liberation movements, which were indeed based in revolutionary nationalism – liberation of the people, the culture, and the land from foreign control (as opposed to reactionary nationalism, which is a doctrine of supremacy that seeks to invade dominate other nations – for example, the belligerents of the first World War) – the revolution in ‘79 was primarily Islamic in character, deep at its core – but also carried a fundamentally explicit anti-imperialist message. Ayatollah Khomeini’s (ra) Islamic message did not separate Islam from anti-imperialism but rather saw its anti-imperialist orientation as the Islamic message carried forward under the present day’s conditions.
The popularity of Islam was tied to the very identity of Iranians themselves – and the Shah, who attacked the Ulema and repressed notable figures like Ayatollah Khomeini – only isolated himself from Iranian society, and further cemented himself as a puppet of American interests.
One of the earliest people to understand and champion the Islamic identity – and pair it with the global anti-colonial movement – was one Dr. Ali Shariati. Emerging from progressive, radical student movements of the Mossadegh days, Dr. Shariati is considered one of the primary ideologues of the Islamic Revolution of Iran – embracing Iran’s rich, cultural identity – tied to the revolutionary essence of Shia Islam – as well as the radical, anti-colonial movement sweeping success across the global periphery.
Shariati looked to a fellow Muslim majority country – Algeria – as a shining example for decolonial struggle – particularly through the works of the revolutionary Frantz Fanon. Shariati was so inspired and influenced by Fanon’s work that he even translated Fanon’s most essential book – “The Wretched of the Earth” – into Persian, and reportedly took credit for much of Fanon’s ideas being made popular within revolutionary currents in Iran.
Shariati and Fanon even exchanged words and ideas – contrasting each other on the issue of religion. In a letter exchange, the two discuss the role of religion on a people struggling against colonial occupation. Fanon asserts the danger of the role of religion, fearing it can ignite sectarian violence, but did concede that Islam in particular has an “anti-colonialist capacity and anti-western character.”
But the conditions that Fanon and the Algerian Liberation Front contended with in their successful overthrow of the French colonist were not the same conditions – or remotely close – as to the puppet rule of the Shah in Iran. For centuries, Shia Islam played the leading role in public and private life – with Husayniyas packed wall to wall across the country for Muhharum, Arbaeen, Eid e Ghadeer, and other events associated with Shia Islam. Shariati understood this – but also understood there are two currents within Islam (and perhaps religion in general). Shariati touched on these themes in some of his notable works, including his concept of the “Return to Self,” and essays such as “Religion vs Religion,” and “Red Shi’ism vs. Black Shi’ism.”
“Return to Self” calls for Iranians to embrace their religious and cultural identity, created in contrast to a steady cultural westernization campaign (the “White Revolution”) imposed by the Shah. In “Religion Vs Religion” Shariati draws a line between religion that is revolutionary, a call to action, and a guide in the fight against injustice and evil – and a religion that is reactionary, meant to rule and distort, a religion that is meant to dull down the masses rather than animate them.
“Red Shi’ism vs Black Shi’ism” – considered one of Shariati’s most popular works – draws a line between faith through ceremonial means alone and faith through action.
Here, Shariati argued that “Black Shi’ism” was the current of Shia practice that focused on the past identity of Shi’ism – the struggle of Imam Ali (as) within the Rashidun Caliphate, the political plight of Imam Hasan (as), the tragedy that Imam Hussain (as) and his companions faced in Karbala and the repression of the Ahlul Bayt (as). Shariati argued that “Black Shi’ism’ though noble for its piousness and remembrance of the Imamate – was not the true essence of the Shia.
Shariati believed that the true essence lay in “Red Shi’ism” – a Shi’ism of revolutionary action, taking the lessons and struggles of Karbala and applying them to the modern day, and throughout all time. Red Shi’ism maintains the importance of remembering the sacrifices of the Ahlul Bayt and their companions but takes it a step further: it promotes an ongoing, unceasing call to action. Throughout the essay, Shariati urges a return to a revolutionary path of Shi’ism, which was forged in rebellion against the unjust, which stood for the masses of the oppressed in a society ruled by the rich and wealthy.
“Shi’ites find their slogans in the embodiment of the tribulations and the hopes of the masses of the oppressed. Aware of the rulers and in rebellion against them, they cry out:
Seek the leadership of Ali and flee from the leadership of cruelty.
Choose imamate and stamp ‘cancelled,’ ‘disbelief’ and ‘usurpation ‘ upon the forehead of the caliphate.
Choose justice and overthrow the system of paradox and discrimination in ownership. Choose the principle of awaiting to protest against the existing conditions, where the ruling government, religious leaders and aristocracy try to show everything to be in accordance with the Will of God, the Divine Law and the satisfaction of God and creatures.”
Where Fanon feared the involvement of religion in the rebellion against the unjust, Shariati understood the conditions in Iran were quite different – the US installed ruler was waging a campaign erasing Iranian identity, heavily entwined with Islam, in favor of a transformation into a Western, Americanized one. It was not necessarily the removal of Islam that the Shah wanted, but the absorption of Islam into an American-friendly vassal state. The preferred neocolonial puppet saw revolutionary Islam as a threat to his rule, and thus the rule of foreign capital penetrating the Iranian nation.
Shariati’s lectures and essays animated an emerging rebellious youth and student class. It was not simply an anti-colonial thought swimming through the minds of those who experienced Shariati’s teachings – it was an embrace of an Islamic call to action, their very identities reforged in a revolutionary fire, and with that a fierce need to fight injustice and oppression.
The popularity of his initial works led him to establish Husayniya-yi Irshad in Tehran in 1969, where Shariati would hold lectures, studies, and other gatherings meant to refine a growing Islamic, revolutionary spirit in Tehran. Shariati was laying the groundwork for the eventual success of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, supporting Ayatollah Khomeini’s movement early on. Shariati, with his works, combatted the Shah’s overt American-influenced rule while also challenging a potential non-revolutionary Islamic one that would dull the edge of a young new Islamic revolutionary movement.
It is unsurprising that Shariati was repressed and arrested many times by the Shah’s forces. Dr. Shariati faced political persecution for his criticism of the Shah in Iran and abroad, lectures and essays on Marxism and Islam, and activities deemed “unlawful” by the state. Shariati also spent months in house arrest before leaving for England in 1977, passing away shortly after. The years of stress caused by the Shah’s forces had taken a toll on his health, though many theorize that the Shah’s agents followed him and martyred him.
The teachings of Shariati obviously were crucial to the success of the Islamic revolution, particularly in the student movements But what could we learn from Dr. Shariati today?
Today, Islam is growing in popularity once again. In fact, according to the Pew Research Center, Islam is the world’s fastest growing religion, estimating that the world Muslim population will grow by 70% by 2060. But where are the revolutionaries? Where are the ones who challenge the oppressive orders rather than deal and normalize with them? Of course, there is the growing resistance in Palestine and its surrounding territories against Israel in the US – but there are over a billion other Muslims to account for!
One must recall the lessons from “Religion vs Religion” and “Red Shi’ism vs Black Shi’ism” yet again. In the West, particularly in the United States, the imperialist state, with all of its corruption and vices, seeks to accommodate and refine its own version Islam – absorbing it within its entertainment industries to the state itself in order to dull the explicit call to action against oppression from Islam.
Muslim celebrities, sports stars, and grifting, online personalities (reactionary and opportunist streamers like Sneako or Zionist normalizers like Faris Al Hammadi) – are paraded about as products of the West in order to demonstrate to the Muslim world that they too, can become part of the machine of global oppression. Compare and contrast this with the Muslims that dared to speak on behalf of Palestine – who were immediately written off as enemies of the west, terrorists, terrorist sympathizers, and so on, as the only way to be a Muslim in the west is to fall in line with the imperialist order, and relinquish yourself of any true Islamic principles.
There is an active spiritual war against the Muslim world that dates back to the very inception of modernity. The imperialists of the world recognized the anti-colonial, anti-imperialist nature of Islam centuries ago – the same spirit acknowledged by Frantz Fanon. Islam is a revolutionary religion to begin with – it is meant to combat structures of oppression, usurpation, thievery, and slavery. It is only when Islam is wielded by dulled hands where this call to action loses its animation, absolves itself of all true principles, and takes a backseat to the world’s affairs.
Decades ago, Dr. Shariati did not reform Islam. He did not dull it, or twist it. He simply gave the people of Iran a wake up call: Islam is your religion, and it is already revolutionary – it is naturally against the oppressors and tyrants – from the Pharaoh thousands of years ago to the global imperialist capitalist class today.
A global, revolutionary Islamic movement is possible. In fact, it is needed – the enemies of truth and justice are far and widespread today, propped and installed by the declining hegemonic power of the United States capitalist class. In order to maintain their control, much like the Shah, they will appeal to muslims to accept normalizations with their rule, accept normalization of their own slavery, accept normalization of neocolonial rulers and puppets.
It is up to the Ummah itself to raise its head and break the chains of this global order.
“O you who believe, be upright for God, and be bearers of witness with justice!” [Quran, 5:8]
Musa Iqbal is the Political Director and Editor at Vox Ummah.
