Islamic Revolution, Imam Khomeini from the Viewpoint of International Relations Theories | ||
Islamic Revolution, Imam Khomeini from the Viewpoint of International Relations Theories Dr. Muhammad Mahdi Mazaheri
Since victory of the Islamic Revolution in 1978, numerous books and articles have been written about causes and consequences of this revolution. However, a great deal of these studies has looked the Islamic Revolution from the viewpoint of internal and external roots and/or has compared it with other revolutions in the globe. In fact these studies mostly focus on politics, comparatives studies, historical sociology and international relations. Finding a literature about Islamic Revolution which has looked this phenomenon from perspective of international relations theories is very rare. However, it cannot be denied that there are traces of international relations theories at the heart of these analyses; particularly those analyses about regional and international reflections of the Islamic Revolution included some aspects of international relations theories, especially systematic theories. “Economic theories” and those that are so called “deconstructive theories” and play an important role in explaining the impact of the Islamic Revolution on the international system structure have not been considered properly. Speaking about international system structure refers to distribution of power and influence across the world, exactly the concept that recalls bipolar, multi-polar, uni-polar, etc. Critical theories refer to those theories which undermine the basis of the current system and equalize it with law of the jungle. These theories try to criticize the status quo, to release from it and to depict an ideal future in which the structural violence is replaced with peace. In fact the nature of the Islamic Revolution was a critical nature against the status quo. For reflecting that time, we need to differentiate four aspects of a single phenomenon and/or structural violence: The first one points to the structural violence inside the Iran society which it had various sub-collections. Iran during Pahlavi era, despite that fact that was a developed country in terms of economic considerations in comparison to other third world states, it was among countries in which the sovereignty of King (SHAH) has been imposed on people during consecutive decades. Except a short time in Pahlavi history, i.e. 1961-193, everything was under the control of king. Although prime ministers were at the top of executive power, all of them were controlled by king completely. The cabinet played a very pale role in decision making process. Army with its non-political nature always played a key role in decision making in order to realize the authoritative goals of the king. The parliament, which according to the Constitution was very important in making decisions, only succeeded to play important roles within 1961-1963 period. 1953 Iranian coup d'état declined the status of Parliament as a marginal entity. In conclusion, it can be said that before Islamic Revolution era, most decisions were made without contribution of the legal entities and formal and informal social groups. The King’s own will was preferred to all effective factors, even the whole political system and the Constitution. Shah was the constitution and loyalty to the Constitution was equal to loyalty to the royalty. This trend is interpreted as the “domestic structural violence”. It means that substantially the nature of relationship between the government and the society, without presence of civil society entities, was a tyrannical relation. The second aspect of this structural violence is manifested in the relation between Iran and the Western bloc; as we know, the power has been divided between two aggressive camps, i.e. west bloc, led by the United States, and the east bloc, led by the Soviet Union, during 1941-1978. Because of it strategic position, Iran has found a special position in calculations of both blocs. However, Iran’s preference towards the western bloc developed a submissive relation between it and the western bloc, especially the United States. In other words, since the Pahlavi regime had not social basis among ordinary people, it tried to buy legibility for itself through accompanying the United States, as one of the major powers of the time. In fact, the inflexible and elite-based structure of the governing board as well as the lack of legal participation entities provided a big gap between people and Pahlavi Regime; thus the regime had to resort the international system to guarantee its survival and extend its relations with the western bloc in various dimensions, especially in political and military dimensions. The result of this trend was formation of a hegemonic relationship or structural violence between Iran and the international system. In other words, the western bloc used to impose its wills and decisions on the Pahlavi regime and the regime had no choice but following because it needed to guarantee its survival. The third aspect of the violence circles around the international system, as a whole. Form this point of view, the whole international system has been divided into two blocs, each one has been consisted of three components: Superpowers (or central powers), semi-peripheral powers, which mostly located in Europe and peripheral states which mostly included Third World states. In this division system, power fundamentally was upside-down and the final decisions were made by superpowers. In fact, there was a direct relationship between making decisions and distance from center of power. While the rules of the game were determined by superpowers of west bloc and east bloc, the peripheral states were the main victims of contradicted interests of Moscow and Washington. The fourth aspect of this structural violence deals with the relationship between north and south, this aspect of the structural violence mostly is based on economic considerations. In this regard, a small group of states (north) exploit and enfeeble a great number of other countries. It still is one of outstanding features of the international system. The nature of north-south relationship is so that makes the south underdeveloped and the north developed. The unbalanced commercial and economic relation is the key feature of this relationship and always the Third World or south states ask for economic balance in the framework of formation of the new economic discipline. Anyways, the Islamic Revolution of Iran was created regarding this type of environmental (domestic and foreign) condition. The main target of Imam Khomeini was to clear these environments from the structural violence. In other words, the main objective of the Islamic Revolution was to change and this change which must be realized through changing people’s mindsets. Never Imam Khomeini intended to materialize this change through the coercive power and occupying lands. He always sought for changing ad developing mindsets and developing a mental condition through enhancing public awareness. After victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, the structural violence was finished in Iran. The structural violence experienced fundamental trembles, especially in its regional sub-systems, however the bipolar system succeeded to maintain its trembling structures for another decade, but it was condemned to collapse. After collapse of former Soviet Union, the bipolar system was undermined, but the structural violence continued in another way. Imam Khomeini developed a new model of governing whose main features were freedom, independence and self-reliance. The smallest influence that Imam Khomeini made on public thoughts and orientations was that they became aware of the nature of structural violence inside countries and in respect to superpowers. In various countries this awareness was converted from potential to practical mode. Today, the main effect of Imam Khomeini is that it has jeopardized interests of the superpowers through intellectual developments. These powers have always, after victory of Islamic Revolution, tried to block the current of releasing thoughts from Iran to outside. Imposing various forms of political, economic pressures and even war was amongst these measures. In fact, despite all interpretations, today the world is divided into dominant and dominated states. The dominated states intend to use intellectual and spiritual milestone the Islamic Revolution has prepared for them to fight against the dominant powers. | ||
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