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Good Boys of the Revolution: Creating the New Man in Post-Revolutionary Iran
Abstract
Despite a wide range of political tendencies from capitalists to anti-capitalists, socialists, nationalists, and Islamists participating in the 1979 Iranian Revolution, it soon became apparent that the revolution was an ideological revolution to transform not just political institutions and social relations, but the subjectivities, lifestyles, and values of all citizens. The dominant voice of the revolutionary elites not only had a moral and religious undertone but also sought to recraft Iranians as new subjects. This research is the study of the efforts and struggles of the Islamic Republic of Iran in reconfiguring Iranians as new citizens. It addresses how the revolutionary state that emerged from the 1979 Revolution developed an ambitious ideological project to craft new subjects as “ideal” Muslim citizens. Since the ideal person of the revolutionary state was mainly characterized as male, it will focus on creating the “ideal” boys of the revolution. In this paper, I will attempt to understand who this “ideal” boy was and what his main characteristics were that the revolutionary state was in search of. Through analyzing stories and images of the popular children’s magazine of the 1980s, Keyhan for Kids (Keyhan Bacheha), I will picture the image of “good boys of the revolution.” I argue that Keyhan for Kids, the state-sponsored magazine, served as the vehicle of the revolutionary state’s project to produce “children of the revolution,” by delivering the ideology of the revolution and the official values of the Islamic Republic to children. I argue that Keyhan for Kids’ highly politicized content should be understood as a part of the comprehensive and ambitious project of the revolutionary state, that is, creating the new citizen.
Discipline
Sociology
Geographic Area
Iran
Sub Area
19th-21st Centuries