AFTeRWORD: SOCIAL JUSTICe IN IRAN: FURTHeR ReSeARCH This book offers possibly the first collection dedicated to social justice studies in Iran. It is hoped that the multi- and interdisciplinary contribu- tions in this book, written by scholars and activists from wide-ranging aca- demic and nonacademic backgrounds, set the stage for the much-needed, future research on the subject. Understandably, this volume cannot possi- bly address the complexities of the multiple issues pertaining to social jus- tice, including gender justice, justice for workers, vulnerable, the socially and economically disenfranchised, ethnic, religious, and sexual minorities, as well as ecological justice. This project therefore invites further research on the topic of the Iranians’ struggles for social justice since Iran’s entry into political modernity around the turn of the nineteenth to the twen- tieth century. As such, future research can be accommodated within four tentative and nonexclusive thematic–conceptual categories. POLITICAL ECONOMY AND ECONOMIC JUSTICe Understanding the economic, policy, and legal factors that enable or deny social and economic justice is key to understanding this phenomenon. It is through the implementation of state policies that ideology and power are exercised, negotiated, or forced, causing measurable impact on the peo- ple’s lives. Iran’s reliance on oil revenue is of particular interest in that such a national resource tends to yield an unresponsive state and ties a country to the world market. The resource revenue can either be monopolized by the ruling class or be distributed in the form of social programs among the © The Author(s) 2017 307 P. Vahabzadeh (ed.), Iran’s Struggles for Social Justice, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-44227-3 308 AFTERWORD: SOCIAL JUSTICE IN IRAN: FURTHER RESEARCH population, just as it can be utilized for either the ­developmental projects that benefit a capitalist class or a development that increases the human development index and collective growth of a nation. HISTORY AND POLITICS Struggles for social justice have been constant in modern Iranian history, despite serious, often belligerent, setbacks and repressions imposed on Iranians. For over a century, social justice and social democracy have been integral components of political modernity and the process of democ- ratization. Notwithstanding its errors, failures, and dogmas, the Iranian Left—in its diverse shades, tendencies, organizational shapes, and ideolog- ical inclinations (Marxist-oriented, social democratic, or Shi‘i)—has cham- pioned the cause of the working class, the poor, the vulnerable, and ethnic minorities. Both history and politics of social justice and social democracy constitute key research areas, in particular because such research reveals the present and anticipates the future tendencies in the people’s struggles for a better future. The connection between democratic struggles and social justice rests with these unfolding tendencies and in relation to the repressive policies of the Iranian state. SUBjeCTIVITY, AGeNCY, JUSTICe The construction of subjectivity lies at the heart of any struggle. In our context, subjectivity is always split between hegemonic and counter-­ hegemonic constructs. Social justice agency arises from subjectivity and stands between the culturally, socially, and politically constructed sub- jectivities, on the one hand, and the issues, exigencies, and movements that challenge the status quo and thus contest such constructed subjec- tivities, on the other. The multiplicity of subject positions allows for the emergence of new agents: women, workers, students, religious, ethnic, sexual, or linguistic minorities, as well as the advocates for the poor, dis- abled, ecology, and animals. These movements are deployed by shared, and changing, concept(s) of justice. Individual and collective initiatives and creative responses bring together subjectivity, agency, and justice. It is the shared and growing concept of justice—advocated by agents and propagated through collective action and advocacy literature—that turns commonly shared and received social, cultural, or political practices into sites of antagonism and contestation. AFTERWORD: SOCIAL JUSTICE IN IRAN: FURTHER RESEARCH 309 SOCIAL MOVeMeNTS AND COLLeCTIVe ACTION The arch manifestation of struggles for social justice and participatory democracy is collective actions of those who emerge in the public sphere as agents of change and justice. Collective action represents the embodied notions of justice posed against the perceived injustices as these are articu- lated by agents of a cause and social movement activists. The study of social movements is therefore important in that social movements reveal the sites of present and future antagonisms, changing values and sensibili- ties, and common conception of the good. These four categories are by no means exclusive. They are meant to provide guidelines for future study. As Iran rapidly moves toward neolib- eral economic policies that impede socialized human growth for the pur- pose of privatized production of goods and capital; as the country imperils its working people, abandons its vulnerable, and pushes its ecology into irrecoverable destruction; and as state policies undermine the dignity of women, workers, minorities, and defenders of social justice and human rights, attending to the issues of social justice and opening a new scholarly and public discourse to study it prove to be imperative. INDEX NUMBERS & SYMBOLS Abrandi, Mohammad-Ali, 229, 232 16 Azar (Iranian National Student Achaemenidan dynasty, 111, 114 Day), 246, 250 activists, 2, 3, 5, 6, 10, 20–2, 24, 25, 18 Tir (student uprising), 248 40, 41, 56, 67, 76, 93, 147, 154, 1953 coup d’état, 240 160, 166, 167, 177, 178n5, 1980s, 5, 10, 19, 30, 36, 60, 65, 72, 181–6, 191–3, 200, 219, 220, 75, 76, 77n1, 92, 111, 146, 147, 222–30, 232, 242, 247, 251, 152–5, 159, 165–167, 169, 256, 276, 292, 296, 297, 299, 178n4, 204, 246, 256, 265, 296, 300, 307, 309. See also social 297 movements 1988, 4, 9, 20, 48, 86, 97n2, 147–55, victims, 5, 230, 232 159, 165, 167, 169, 171, 172, adalat-e ejtema’i (social justice), 257 215, 295. See also Iran-Iraq war; ‘adl (justice), 14, 128 political prisoners agency, 3, 5, 6, 16, 18, 22, 35, 37, 68, 117, 152, 153, 155–7, 187–9, 199–216, 243, 308 A women, 200–2, 210, 213, 215, 216 Abadan, 6, 52, 56, 57, 219–34, 242 Ahmadinejad, Mahmoud, 15, 32, 73, Abadan Oil Refinery Company, 52, 56 74, 233, 250–2, 290 Abbasid Caliphate, 109 Ahmadzadeh, Massoud, 243 Abi and Rabi (film), viii Alamolhoda, Seyed Hossein, 245, 246 Abkashak, Mustafa, 226, 228, 229, 232 Alexander the Great, 117 Abrahamian, Ervand, 70, 71, 128, Alinejad, Masih, 183, 186–91 151, 178n5, 178n6, 222–4, Amuzegar, Jahangir, 13–15, 36, 73 226, 227, 239, 240, 243, 262, Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), 263, 292 222, 223, 227 © The Author(s) 2017 311 P. Vahabzadeh (ed.), Iran’s Struggles for Social Justice, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-44227-3 312 INDEX Angus, Ian, 10, 17, 20 Baku, 220, 259 anjomans (grassroots councils), Ballantyne, Tony, 115 292–4, 302 Banisadr, Abolhassan, 244 anti-hegemonic, 100, 122 barbarism, 101, 116 anti-imperialism, 5, 99–122, 267, 279 Bayat, Asef, 71, 72, 89, 225, 272, 274 Anzali, 221, 222, 293 Bazargan, Mehdi, 239, 240, 242 Arab, 20, 30, 106–12, 116–21, 229, Behdad, Sohrab, 13–15, 18, 54, 72, 230, 232 73, 134, 137, 140, 141 Arendt, Hannah, 146, 147, 160, 161, Beheshti, Seyyed Mohammad, 71, 90 292, 301 believer/non-believer (ba-iman/ Armenians, 259, 294 bi-iman), 101 Article 44 of Iranian Constitution, 13, Beyramvand, Akram, 158 14, 36 blue-collar workers, 49, 50 articulation, 24, 145, 148, 166, 167, body politic, 24, 212, 292, 295 178n4, 182, 190, 299, 300 bonyads (foundations), 14, 38, 72, 76 articulatory practices, 298–300 Bozorgnia, Mostafa, 341 Aryan Burke, Edmund, 122 Aryan migration, 101, 105, 106, business, 67, 82–5, 93, 206 116, 119 Aryan thesis, 105, 111, 113, 115 Aryo Barzan, 111, 117 C ‘ashayir (nomadic tribes), 101 Carter, Jimmy, 224 Asia, 113–15, 118, 121, 220, 258, 293 Caruth, Cathy, 173, 178n7 Asians, 113, 115 Center for Cooperation of Seminaries Aspirations of the Oppressed and Universities, 245 (Arman-e Mostaz’afin), 70–1 Central Cooperative Organization Atabaki, Touraj, 220 (CCO), 88 authoritarian, 2–4, 13, 24, 29–33, 35, Central Council of Federated Unions of 37, 38, 42, 43, 76, 120, 128, Iranian Workers and Toilers, 263 131, 133, 142, 220, 260–2, 272, Central Council of United Trade 282, 284, 297 Unions (CCUTU; Showra-ye authoritarianism, 2, 13, 24, 29–33, Mottahedeh-ye Markazi-ye 42, 43, 76, 282 Ettehadieh-ye Kargaran authoritative, 41, 127, 142, 156 Zahmatkeshan-e Iran), 223 auto/biographical, 166, 168, 178n4 Central Council of Workers Unions of Azali Babis, 294 Iran (CCWUI; Showra-ye Azerbaijan, 20, 223, 263, 266, 278 Markazi-ye Ettehadieh-ye Kargaran-e Iran), 223 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), B 224, 227 Babis. See Azali Babis Central Rural Cooperative Badi’zadegan, Ali-Asqar, 243 Organization (CRCO), 88 Baha’i, 109, 116, 120, 294 Chahar-Mahali, Ali, 232 INDEX 313 Chaqueri, Cosroe, 292–4, 296 Council of Guardians, 73 charity, 5, 14, 16, 65–77 Council of Muslim Socialists children (Showra-ye Mosalmanan-e in education, 141 Sosiyalist), 71 of political prisoners, 166, 167, Council of Nationalist-Religious 177n3 Activists (Showra-ye Fa’alan-e Children of the Jacaranda Tree (novel), Melli Mazhabi), 76 5, 165–79 councils, 20, 39, 51, 52, 54, 57–60, Christianity, 11, 113–15, 258 65, 71–3, 76, 77, 128, 134–6, Cinema Rex (Abadan),