Academic Book Review: Iran Reframed: Anxieties of Power in the Islamic Republic

The very recent events taking place in Iran demonstrated how rare are the adequate interpretations of this complex society and political regime. How can someone from outside understand in the same narrative the massive street manifestations mourning Qasem Soleimani and the student protests against the regime following the unintentional shooting of an Ukrainian passager plane killing 176 people on board, most of them brilliant young people?

At a certain extent, democracy makes us lazy. In dictatorships, people learn the hard way of fencing with the restrictions and building their oasis of relatively free thinking. Dictatorships, regardless their breed are not made of homogenous chunks but of individuals that despite the high political pressure, they have their own interests and ideas, including sometimes contrary to the accepted school of thought.

Narges Bajoghli's Iran Reframed: Anxieties of Power in the Islamic Republic studies the ways in which authorities are trying to reach the younger generation though media - particularly film - productions. The main question those productions should answer is 'How to transmit the commitment to the revolutionary project from one generation to another?' 

It mainly explores the 'media world' of the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij, an important paramilitary force active in schools, universities and other institutions. The messages are spread through a plethora of foundations, schools and institutions, as well as formats (tv series, documentaries, films). 

However, it does not mean that the success is overwhelming. Sometimes, people involved in producing the narrative do have unique perspectives, some of them - especially veterans of the Iran/Iraq war - may have their own disappointments. Sometimes, the distribution channels of such messages doesn't go smoothly. Often, the target of those messages does not react as expected. 

There are also specific differences between defending the regime (nezam) and criticism of the government (dowlat), between the insider (khodi) and the outsider (gheyr-e khodi). Identifying and understanding those differences are very important in having a better view of different angles and ideological movements within the Islamic Republic.

The author, Iranian-American, based the book on interviews with representatives of the ideological production, plus an extensive knowledge of those productions. Besides offering a different way for interpretation of the Iranian realities, it shares interesting information about the Iranian movie industry, whose development is at least partially due to the massive state interest in ideological production.

My biggest regret though is that the book is too short, as for me it ended in the middle of a very interesting discussion that I was expected to continue at least for more than 200 pages.