A Zizekian Attempt to Find a Way into Iranian Progressive Reformism through a Comparative Analysis of the Figures of Ayatollah Khomeini and Qassem Soleimani

Ali Mehraein

A Zizekian Attempt to Find a Way into Iranian Progressive Reformism through a Comparative Analysis of the Figures of Ayatollah Khomeini and Qassem Soleimani

Ali Mehraein

Abstract

The problem which is both created and tackled by this article is that although it advocates the Iranian progressive reformism as the most preferable political force in Iran, it simply does not find reformists’ own formulation of their “competitive advantage” convincing enough. Thus, to provide an argument for Iranian progressive reformism this article not only strives to explain one of the latest Iranian reformists’ mistakes (their stance on the assassination of Qassem Soleimani) through the Lacanian concept of imaginary identification as elaborated upon by Slavoj Zizek, but also to illuminate precisely at formulation of what that mistake was an attempt. In doing so, it conducts a comparative analysis of the funeral processions for General Qassem Soleimani in 2020 and for Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989, and then proceeds to draw some perhaps neglected points from the moment of the Islamic revolution of 1979 as well as from the period of Khomeini’s leadership. However, far from being just a more elaborated explanation of Iranian reformism, an attempted reformulation like this of Iranian progressive reformism hopes to pave the way for creating new spaces for political act in Iran.

Key Words: Iranian progressive reformism, Slavoj Zizek, Ayatollah Khomeini, Qassem Soleimani, imaginary identification, political act.

Keywords

ranian progressive reformism, Slavoj Zizek, Ayatollah Khomeini, Qassem Soleimani, imaginary identification, political act

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