Who is afraid of Ali Shariati

Ashis Nandy mentions Ali Shariati, Desmond Tutu and Dalai Lama in his TOI article Gujarat: Blame the middle class. Since this was the first time I came across the name Ali Shariati I googled it. It appears that Ali Shariati was an Iranian sociologist who translated Frantz Fanon’s wretched of the earth into Farsi. Back in Iran after training in Paris, Ali Shariati became a rallying point for young revolutionaries and was hounded by the Shah of Iran. He left the country in 1977 but was assassinated in England by the savak – the secret police of the Shah within three weeks. It is pertinent to note that Ali Shariati was becoming a counterpoint to Khomeini and the role of Khomeini supporters in shrouding Ali Shariati’s death seems to be a bit of mystery even today.It seems that Ali Shariati continues to have a following and it seems that there are different interpretations of Ali Shariati too. There is a fair amount of material on Ali Shariati online. Here is the wiki entry to get started. And here is a secular Iranian’s criticism of what he sees as shariati’s theological “blame it on the west” propositions. And here is an anti shariati rant and here an essay by shariati titled “our expectation of muslim woman“.

Footnote: It is worth remembering that Frantz Fanon wrote on what he called the historical dynamism of the veil in a 1959 essay titled “Algeria unveiled.” Frantz Fanon’s understanding of gender was subsequently criticised by feminists who were nevertheless sympathetic to his perspective on race and colonialism.

And here is an online english translation of a book by Shariati — Fatima is Fatima. I have not read the book — I have been curious about the figure of Fatima ever since I heard a speech writer for Benazir Bhutto said during a talk that in the early days of her first election campaign, the struggle was to find a theological/historical basis for woman leadership in an Islamic society. And the figure of Fatima was central to that effort. And then AM my friend told me once that Rahi Masoom Reza, the script writer for BR Chopra’s hugely popular Mahabharat TV serial may have drawn on memories of Karbala to shaping the female characaters and dialogue.

Now that I have given three hours of my morning to Ali Shariati in the vain hope that everything else i have to do will disappear, I am signing off for the next couple of days.
p.s. I am not advocating Ali Shariatism as an answer to the homegrown SS and to the Khomeinis. But I do think we should ask ourselves what we can learn from it. Because and here is a huge leap: one of the commentators on Nandy’s article posted on Countercurrents says the following.

IN my heart I know and in the hearts of those near to me knows that I am not a grain of fanatic – religious, racial, regional, etc. But I am for sure a Gujarati with pride. Have travelled and weathered all those abuse given to me a “Gujju” or “Bania” in all around India and in USA, I know what it means to be looked down.

This 2002 riots, which should not have happen, does not define the psyche of Gujarat or Gujarati. Yes they fight back when pushed to the corner but at heart they are very simple, very generous and very forgiving community.

By keeping the “flames” of hatred alive by brandishing them as some kind of fanatics and reminding those who suffered in 2002 about their sufferage, I don’t think you are doing any good to any one but yourself, for you would be able to congratulate yourself for your version of Secularism.

To me no religion, no region, no linguistic group, no political party should be above The Nation. Look at USA. Do we see that? And the BJP’s those nationalistic values are attracting Gujaratis and not its Hinuistic values, which BJP can have or can give that up.

There is no rational secular answer to this expression of “we fought back” sentiment that is being expressed. This guy is not fighting the Muslims. He is fighting the whole world from that Gujarati and Hindu identity.

PS1. I have just learnt that Ali Shariati was buried behind the Zainab shrine in Damascus. Here is a note on it by Brian Anthony. (This blog has not been active since Feb 2007, as Brian a teacher returned to the US after 7 years in Syria.)

Why would an Iranian who was killed in London be buried behind the Zainab Shrine in Damascus? I am not sure of the story; I can only speculate. Zainab was the sister of the martyred Imam Hussein. She was brought back to Damascus by the Caliph Yazid who had her brother killed. But far from shrinking back in feminine meekness or speechless grief, she boldly lambasted the Caliph before his own court. She spent the rest of her life condemning the tyrrany of the Umayyads and telling the tragic story of Hussein’s killing. Shariati loved Zainab and what she represents. He said of this famous saint, “Zainab bears witness to all of the defenseless prisoners in the system of executioners, and is the messenger left after martyrdom. She is the manifestation of the message of revolution.”

PS2 Okay, so just as there is one line of argument that the radical content of Ali Shariati’s work has been expurgated from it by the Khomeini regime, there is another line of argument exemplified by Ali Eteraz a New York based writer who accuses Ali Shariati of misanthropy and argues quite forcefully that nobody has done more to render death acceptable in the Muslim world than Ali Shariati. And he suggests that it has to do with the template of Hussein that was so readily available to him.