Assault on Free Thought

While UNESCO only resolved at the last minute to cancel its sponsorship of the World Philosophy Day Congress in Tehran, international calls for a boycott have focused attention on the rapidly deteriorating situation for the humanities in Iran. By Alessandro Topa

While UNESCO only now, at the last minute, resolved to cancel its sponsorship of the main World Philosophy Day Congress in Tehran, international calls for a boycott have increasingly focused attention on the rapidly deteriorating situation for the humanities in Iran. By Alessandro Topa

Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi (left) shakes hands with Ahmadinejad (right) (photo: AP)
Compatible with an international philosophy congress? The "philosophy" of Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, Ahmadinejad's arch-conservative spiritual mentor, was presented during a preparation meeting as the "answer to doubts imported from abroad".

​​"Since wars begin in the minds of men," states the preamble to the 1945 UNESCO constitution, "it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed." This forward defence approach to peace and freedom has always accorded a special role to philosophy as an advocate of humanity's common interests.

In 2008, when UNESCO decided to approve the candidacy of the Islamic Republic of Iran to host the 2010 World Philosophy Day Congress, it was clear that the intention was not only to highlight Iran's rich philosophical heritage, which stretches from Avicenna to Mulla Sadra and beyond, but also to address the justified fears of intellectuals in the increasingly isolated country.

Last-minute U-turn

Soon afterwards, the Iranian Academy of Philosophy in Tehran, in cooperation with UNESCO, began preparations for a large-scale congress under the heading "Philosophy: Theory und Practice".

Preparations continued even after hundreds of students were arrested by the repressive state security apparatus in the wake of mass protests in the summer of 2009. Many were tortured and dozens lost their lives as a result.

UNESCO building in Paris (photo: dpa)
Last minute U-turn: it was only after leading international intellectuals called for a boycott of the World Philosophy Day Congress in Iran that the UNESCO decided to withdraw its sponsorship of the event it had previously championed

​​UNESCO did not even appear alarmed when President Ahmadinejad installed Gholam Ali Haddad-Adel to head the congress, although he is a firm supporter of the regime and belongs to the innermost circle of the country's power elite.

Only by late October did the Paris world culture authorities, who have organized annual events marking World Philosophy Day at various central locations since 2005, begin to change direction. At first, the congress, which was intended to be the main event and to take place from 22 to 24 November in Tehran, was declared to be just one congress among many.

On 9 November, UNESCO cancelled its sponsorship with the terse explanation that "the necessary conditions had not been fulfilled to guarantee the effective organization of an international UN conference."

Criticism and boycott

The Tübingen-based philosopher Otfried Höffe, who was to have delivered the keynote speech, had already announced in July his support for the boycott of the congress after the appointment of Haddad-Adel. He also expressed disappointment that his warnings had gone ignored for so long. In the meantime, there are very few in the West calling for participation in the congress.

Poster featuring a Heidegger book in Tehran (photo: Roshanak Zangeneh)
Posters advertising a debate at Tehran University about the Persian translation of Martin Heidegger's opus magnum Being and Time</i>: which foreign philosophers will be translated and taught in Iran after the "second cultural revolution"?

​​The boycott campaign began in January 2010 with an open letter to Irina Bokova, the Director General of UNESCO, from Ramin Jahanbegloo, an Iranian philosopher teaching in exile in Canada after having been arrested in 2006 and held in Tehran's Evin Prison.

The Tehran philosophy student Nima can attest to the situation denounced by the professor in his letter. "The situation at our universities, in particular in the humanities, in no way whatsoever exhibits anything compatible with free thought or a critical approach. We are confronted with a reign of terror, which has since wreaked havoc in the minds of both students and professors, making any kind of free exchange of opinion, even in a seminar, simply impossible."

Theology of torture

The philosopher and journalist Mohammad-Reza Nikfar lives and works in Germany. His essay entitled "The Theology of Torture" has provoked a great deal of discussion in Iran. In October, he was involved in an appeal that has since been signed by Iranian professors teaching abroad as well as students and lecturers in Iran.

"The World Philosophy Day is misused if it serves as propaganda for a regime that systematically prevents the free exchange of ideas and that has always oppressed intellectuals," says Nikfar in summing up the key arguments of the boycott appeal.

Mohsen Kadivar (photo: Diplomasi Iran/DW)
"They say that the clerics rule the country. Fact is that only a very tiny proportion of the clerics are ruling the country," said reform theologian Mohsen Kadivar in an interview with Qantara.de

​​Here, he is not only referring to prominent cases of oppression, like that of Mohsen Kadivar, forced to immigrate to the USA in 2007. "We are currently experiencing the fourth wave of 'cleansing' of the Iranian academic system," explains Nikfar.

In the early phase of the revolution, liberal and Marxist professors were the first to be removed from their posts. In the early 1990s, the regime then began to target proponents of a historical-hermeneutic interpretation of the Koran, such as Abdolkarim Soroush.

The third wave began with Ahmadinejad's rise to power. Dozens of liberal-minded professors were forced into early retirement. According to Nikfar, what we are now seeing goes far beyond such moves. It is nothing less than a "systematic attack on the humanities".

In late October, a spokesman for the Iranian Ministry of Culture confirmed that a revision of twelve "Western-influenced" disciplines in the humanities would be imminent. These include courses of study in cultural management, political science and sociology, which are to be brought into line with the teachings of the Koran.

Amir Sheikhzadegan, professor of sociology at the University of Fribourg, has been closely following these events in his homeland. "This new campaign is being conducted on two fronts. On the one hand, the introduction of these studies at universities is made dependent on government permission." This is an attempt to prevent the further expansion of such courses.

"On the other hand, there is the desire to remodel existing faculties so that they do not pose any danger to the regime either in terms of their content or the personnel involved." He considers it possible that students may in the near future be obliged to take an oath of allegiance upon matriculation.

The appropriation of philosophy

It became very clear during the preparations for the World Philosophy Congress that Iran intended philosophy to emerge changed from this "second cultural revolution".

Gholam Ali Haddad-Adel (photo: AP)
Gholam Ali Haddad-Adel, head of the World Philosophy Day Congress in Iran, is a member of the Cultural Revolutionary Headquarters, which would like to reform universities in such a way that they no longer pose a threat to the regime in terms of content or personnel

​​For example, the "philosophy" of Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, Ahmadinejad's arch-conservative spiritual mentor, was presented during a preparation meeting as the "answer to doubts imported from abroad".

The so-called General Assembly for Islamic Philosophy, headed by Yazdi and Javad Amoli, the former Friday Prayer Leader in Qom, two central figures from the extremist Haghani School, has assumed an ever-greater influence in the planning of the congress.

This is reflected not only in the numerous meetings between congress organizers and clerics from Qom, but also in the surprisingly large number of Iranian papers announced for the congress, which will only be assessed for approval shortly before the event begins.

In the final moments, political pressure and the suspicion that the real reason for the slow pace of assessing papers is to conceal an appropriation of the event by radical Islamic theologians finally moved UNESCO to withdraw from Tehran.

Alessandro Topa

© Qantara.de 2010

Dr. Alessandro Topa is currently Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the American University in Cairo.

Translated from the German by John Bergeron

Editor: Aingeal Flanagan/Qantara.de

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