Iran's leaders reach back to pre-Islamic times to stoke nationalism

Washington Post

5 days ago

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has often expressed disdain for its pre-Islamic past when the land was ruled by kings, calling that a time of 'illusions, not a source of pride' that was afflicted by corruption and dictatorship.
So it was a stark shift in tone when, in a speech just days after the Israeli onslaught against Iran last month, Khamenei repeatedly praised the country's 'ancient civilization' and boasted that Iran has 'cultural and civilizational wealth' far greater than that of America.
By stressing Iran's cultural rather than religious identity, he sought to rally a population that was not only rattled by the 12 days of Israeli strikes but that also has, in large measure, soured on the clerics who rule the Islamic republic and the religious ideology that defines how society is governed. Khamenei's remarks — watched closely as a signal to the thousands of bureaucrats, law enforcement officials and clerics who make the government run — represented the highest possible deployment of nationalism.
This effort to tap into Iran's millennia-old civilization was not a one-off. A billboard newly installed in Tehran praises an ancient Persian king, while another in the capital depicts the mythical figure of Arash the Archer accompanied by a volley of missiles. Yet another billboard in the city of Shiraz — an adaptation of a rock carving near the ruins of the ancient city Persepolis — depicts Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the role of the Roman emperor Valerian kneeling before the victorious Persians, whose empire predated the arrival of Islam in the 7th century A.D.
The Islamic republic has always tended to put much more emphasis on religious legitimacy than on patriotism or nationalism. But at a religious ceremony earlier this month, Khamenei asked a performer to sing a rendition of a secular patriotic song — an especially unusual choice for such an event.
'To adopt all this stuff is to admit the ideology of Islamic revolution has failed,' said Ali Ansari, a historian at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. And though the government had used nationalist themes before, it was 'never quite on this scale, never quite on this intensity and never quite when they've been in this much trouble.'
In recent years, Iran's standing in the region has suffered as several key allies, including Hezbollah and Hamas, have faced dramatic setbacks, and much of the population has struggled with dire economic conditions and government rule considered by many Iranians to be corrupt and repressive.
It is unsurprising that Iran's leaders would frame their fight against Israel and the United States in nationalist terms to garner popular support, said Hosein Ghazian, a sociologist and pollster who worked in Iran and now lives in the U.S. Iran's government is willing to adapt its ideology, including by de-emphasizing religion, when it needs to, he said.
'When the government offers this new product to the market — a blend of nationalism, statism and Islamism — there are buyers for it,' Ghazian said. 'This choice is a rational and deliberate one, in order to be able to sell this product to the people for the sake of maintaining its own power.'
This messaging is an uncomfortable fit with the dominant ideology of the Islamic republic — which calls for a break with Iran's monarchic past and the shaping of society in accordance with a specific Islamic vision — and reflects concessions to popular sentiment, which has moved away from religion in recent years. A confidential government poll conducted in 2023 and obtained by BBC Persian showed that the vast majority of respondents favored the separation of religion and politics.
The use of elements drawn from Iran's pre-Islamic history is not completely new for the Islamic republic or its supporters. Populist President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad frequently referenced the Persian emperor Cyrus the Great. And some of the recent messaging has been cautious, rather than a full-throated endorsement of an Iranian secular identity. Patriotic songs recited at religious mourning ceremonies featured adapted lyrics that referenced Iran's Shiite Muslim faith.
This new nationalist tone comes at a time when top officials have repeatedly cited what they say is a 'national cohesion' and 'unity' emerging in Iran in response to the Israeli and U.S. strikes last month.
During the bombardment, there were reports of Iranians banding together to help each other and little evidence of demonstrations against the government. But it's difficult to know whether it enjoys more popular support now, as officials claim, given the lack of independent opinion polling in Iran.
Ghazian said that while officials' efforts may be effective in the short term, any heightened nationalism among the Iranian people is more likely to be a response to a foreign enemy rather than positive support for the government. 'National solidarity and cohesion occurs when the people see the government to a large extent as their representative against a foreign country,' he said.
Some dissidents have criticized the government for using national symbols even as it acts repressively. Iranian film director Jafar Panahi, who has criticized the government openly and been jailed as a result, posted audio and images on his Instagram page this week that he described as political prisoners singing a patriotic song, and he harshly condemned a wave of executions by the government.
'This action is not only a reaction to the death machine of the Islamic republic in the prisons, but also a direct and unrestrained blow to a government that wants to rewrite history and eradicate the identity of the nation through violence,' Panahi wrote of the prisoners' singing.
Mohammad Javad Zarif, a former Iranian foreign minister who recently resigned from his post as a vice president amid political pressure and is despised by Iranian hard-liners, said in an interview with a state outlet published this month that Iranian national identity was bound up with both its pre-Islamic and Shiite Muslim roots. He urged respect for both. 'It's this identity of Iran that gives strength,' he said.
He also acknowledged tension between the people and the government. 'We government officials … have not done [the people] much of a service,' Zarif said. 'They deserve far better than this.'