The history of Pahlavi Iran has traditionally been written as prologue to the 1979 Revolution. Instead, The Age of Aryamehr, a new collection of essays edited by Roham Alvandi, locates Iran in the global history of the 1960s and 1970s, so as to understand the transnational connections that in many ways formed modern Iran. Professor Cyrus Schayegh has contributed a chapter, “Iran’s Global Long 1970s: An Empire Project, Civilisational Developmentalism, and the Crisis of the Global North”, which he recently discussed with us.
In his book chapter, Professor Cyrus Schayegh contextualises Iran’s position in the context of a two-fold empire-related reality that was shaping global politics. These realities were reflected in the “end” of European Empires by the late 1960s, which was concomitant to the twin process of attempted ascendancy of so called “Third World” countries that began to leverage political openings facilitated by the Cold War. The dusk of European imperialism was coupled with the dawn of attempts and projects by a few Third World nations to step in to play a major role at least regionally, of which Iran in this case was a prime example.
The chapter focuses on the attempts of the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, to orchestrate ways in the late 1960s to fill Britain’s shoes in the Gulf region for instance, as well as establish Iran as a dominant power in its Indian Ocean neighbourhood by steady military-economic build-ups, which was supported by world powers like the United States and former empires. Central to the author’s argument is the “cultural coating” given to these new imperial projects under the rhetoric of civilisation or tamaddon. This notion of tamaddon-e bozorg (the “Great Civilisation”) was the combination of a “mixed market-state economy, an industrious workforce, bourgeoning welfare, and some human rights, though not political democracy”, as is pointed out in the chapter.
Professor Schayegh highlights the fact that the term “civilisation” was being given new meaning in this international context, where the Shah and other adherents of this doctrine drew from the Persian imperial heritage and the geo-cultural location of Iran as a historical crossroads. This in turn was meant to posit Iran as a “trustworthy” imperial-like type of power, as a stabilising and ordering force in the world. The Shah’s global aspirations were framed as being legitimate under this universal-humanistic civilisational discourse, which has been a “time-honoured” means of legitimising empire along with ideas of development. Essentially, the author illustrates how “civilisational developmentalism” in this form provided a “cultural glove over a steely fist” of an empire-like Iran in a context where European empires were fading and the Cold War was weakening the regional footing of its participants. For instance, the United States welcomed Iran’s militarised incursions in the Gulf to replace the commitments of Britain, and it thus supplied arms for this purpose since the Americans were embroiled in the Vietnam War. And in the 1960s the Shah recovered ties with the Soviet Union after the deterioration of US–Iran relations.
The notion of tamaddon-e bozorg promised an economic and strategic future through a Pahlavi model of developmentalism to signal the end of other imperial “isms”. It proposed an Iranian syncretic template of the future for Third World countries and sought recognition of this cultural-civilisational claim, which had obvious military-strategic-diplomatic implications. While there was domestic support for these rhetoric and practices, it is the international projection of this idea that the book chapter focuses on.
We asked Professor Schayegh about the potential continuities of this rhetoric in the period after the Islamic Revolution (1979) – a subject outside the purview of his chapter. Professor Schayegh pointed out that there seem to be continuities along certain lines, such as the perceived role of Iran as an international player while the regime’s own cultural focus shifted to that of a religious “Islamic” one.
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Full citation of Professor Schayegh’s chapter:
Schayegh, Cyrus. “Iran’s Global Long 1970s: An Empire Project, Civilisational Developmentalism, and the Crisis of the Global North.” In The Age of Aryamehr: Late Pahlavi Iran and its Global Entanglements, edited by Roham Alvandi. London: Gingko, 2018.
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By Aditya Kiran Kakati, doctoral candidate in International History and Anthropology and Sociology.
Illustration: Fabienkhan [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.