media, the education system, art and film production into vessels for promoting Islamic and revolutionary values (see Benard and Khalilzad 1984: 117). The IRIB became an ideological apparatus for legitimating the clergy. The content gradually became dominated by religious seminars. Programs such as Akhlaq dar khanevadeh (Ethics in the Family) or Mr. Gherra‘ti’s lectures on Islamic ethics and rules supported and reinforced Islamic values and lifestyles. Through its numerous soap operas, TV serials, programs on martyrs and their families, documentaries or feature films on the war, and mythologizations of clerics and personalities of the Revolution, IRIB attempts to (re)produce images of the ideal Muslim revolutionary man and woman. Soap operas of historical personalities are usual, such as Emam Ali (biography of Imam Ali), Maryam-e Moghadas (life story of Saint Mary), Amir Kabir (biography of a reformist prime minister in the mid-nineteenth century), and Bu-Ali Sina (biography of the tenth-century philosopher called Avicenna in the West). Programs about the “cultural invasion” and its “domestic agents” also occupy a large part of IRIB’s broadcasting. Hoviat (Identity) and Sarab (Mirage) were two controversial programs that attempted to defame Westernized Iranians.18
IRIB usually puts youths into two categories, either as zealous revolutionaries and faithful Muslims who, through heroic efforts, will save the country and build a decent future, or as deceived and bidard hedonists. It creates an image of an army of young people ready to execute their leaders’ directives (ummat-e hamishe dar sahneh). They forge the ideal image of an “Iranian Muslim youth,” a conscious (agah) warrior (mobarez), ready for self-sacrifice (isargar) and a “guardian of values.” For instance, the soap opera Khaneyi Misazim (We Build Our House) is a melodrama that attempts to offer “proper models” for building a life based on “correct social and economic relationships.” Work, endeavor, humanity, correct relationships, and economic discipline are central themes. The stereotype of bidard youth is also a recurrent theme in soap operas. For instance, Khat-e Ghermez (The Red Line) is about the “identity-lessness” (bihoviyati) of two young men. Free from “family ties and norms” (gheyd va bandhay-e khanevadegi), the two embark on an aimless journey.19 Anti-bidard youth propaganda is also a central theme in state-run youth magazines, such as Iran-e Javan, Omid-e Javan (Hope of Youth), Javanan-e Roosta (Village Youth), Javan-e Khanvadeh (Family Youth), Donya-ye Javanan (World of Youth), Roshd-e Javan (Youth’s Growth), Javanan-e Emrooz (Today’s Youth), Fazilat-e Javanan (Youth’s Virtue), and Mo’oud-e Javan (The Promise of the Young).
The “principle of mutual discipline” is a central component of the strategy of engineering goodness. In post-revolutionary Iran, the practice of mutual discipline, amr-e be m‘arouf va nahi az monkar (the promotion of virtue and the rejection of vice) became a guiding principle of domestic politics. The expression stands for an obligation on the part of every Muslim to guide others toward goodness and save them from evil, a duty that operates both at the interpersonal level and in relation to hierarchical governance and subjection. In accordance with the Qur’anic verse (9: 71), the Iranian Constitution declares:
In the Islamic Republic of Iran, amr-e be m‘arouf va nahi az monkar is a universal and reciprocal duty that must be fulfilled by the people with respect to one another, by the government with respect to the people, and by the people with respect to the government. The conditions, limits, and nature of this duty will be specified by law.20
However, in post-revolutionary Iran, “the principle of mutual discipline” has been used by Islamists to justify the violent oppression of young people.
Hierarchical relations in Iran, whether teacher/pupil, father/child, or master/disciple, are often based on a common paradigm, in which the role of the senior partner is to encourage, exercise, and inculcate appropriate practices in order to stimulate reason and to constrain the space for passion, the two contradictory forces. The youth have to be led toward aql by tutelage and discipline (Rosen 1989: 12). The mutual discipline of amr-e be m‘arouf va nahi az monkar is a crucial feature in the process of learning:
The individual’s acquisition of appropriate agency and its exercise are articulated by responsibility, a responsibility not merely of the agent but of the entire community of Muslims severally and collectively. In this tradition, the body-and-its-capacities is not owned solely by the individual but is subject to a variety of rights and duties held by others. (Asad 2000: 50)
To understand the context in which notions of “cultural crime” are mobilized, we have to look at the genealogy of the “principle of mutual discipline” and its roots in the history of political Islam. As a “collective duty,” a Muslim who lives under an Islamic regime should struggle for the survival of the regime. One who lives under a regime hostile to Islam should struggle for its overthrow (Enayat 1982: 2). Thus the principle of mutual discipline is not only an ethical issue but a political one as well. Ali Shariati, one of the ideologues behind the Islamic Revolution, interpreted “prevention of vice” (nahi az monkar) as a revolutionary act directed against social injustice and against “cultural imperialism,” “Weststruckness,” and dictatorship (Rahnema 1998: 307). Morteza Motahari, another key figure in the formation of the Islamic revolutionary movement in Iran, delivered a series of lectures in 1969 in Tehran under the title “Amr-e be ma´rouf va nahi az monkar in Imam Hossein’s movement.” In these lectures he declared that “the prevention of vice” was the principal aim in Imam Hossein’s battle against the despot Yazid and his injustice. Thereby he linked “the prevention of vice” to the contemporary social issues in Iran and made a political agenda of it (see Motahari 1379/2000).
The essence of the “principle of mutual discipline” is not to preach to individuals, but to apply moral order in society in order to achieve a state of equilibrium. Neglect of such order is seen as a vice that harms not just the individual sinner alone, but also the entire community (ummat), which is why the sinner is also a criminal in post-revolutionary Iran. To assert the significance of the principle and to promote it in society, a squad (Setad-e Ehya-ye Amr-e be m‘arouf va nahi az monkar) has been established, devoted particularly to this purpose. Furthermore, the first week of the holy month of Ramadan is assigned as the “Week of the principle of mutual discipline.”21 The motto amr-e be m‘arouf va nahi az monkar combines two different techniques of power: oppressive surveillance and Foucaudian salvation-oriented “pastoral power.” The former is wielded by the moral police through the constant checking of bodies and spaces. Pastoral power, in its original sense, is a form of power whose ultimate aim is to assure individual salvation in the next life and which takes the shape of paternalistic care.
Father’s Shadow
A child who does not grow up under the protective “shadow of parents” (zir-e say-ye pedar va madar) is supposedly heading for delinquency. Only the shadow of an elder (say-ye yek bozorgtar) can guarantee one’s well-being. Tarbiyat kardan in Persian is used for both educating and punishing. Iranian schools are not very different from military bases imposing harsh discipline and punishment. Disobedient children are called nakhalaf (deviant). Young people are thus exposed to torment and discipline by teachers, masters, and fathers who “want the best for them” (khobeshan ra khastan). Delsozi (empathy) is a term frequently heard in political discourses. The severe ways teachers or officials treat youth are legitimated by claiming that they are delsoz, they care. In public debates the authorities defend their violent guidance by claiming they are expressing care and concern (delsozi kardan). The art of government is characterized by the continuity of the individual’s self-government and its connection with morality, from the father’s government of the family to the science of ruling the state. There is continuity and transmission running from the family to the state. The art of government is thus the extension of the “pastoral power” of the father over his household and wealth into the organizing technicalities of the state (Foucault 2000).
Iranian law legitimates the father’s
