The Conspiracy of Revolution: Popular Silence and Voice in Revolutionary Iran

• In Event: Reworking Paranoia

Abstract

This paper analyzes the emergence of the conspiracy of revolution, how it endures and how it is sustained and animated until conspiratorial fantasies became social and political realities. It does so through focus on pre-revolutionary Iran. It begins with the 1956 formation of the Organization of Intelligence and Security or the SAVAK and concludes in 1971, when a clandestine organization attacked a SAVAK gendarmerie post in the province of Siahkal. In this context, the chapter examines the circulation of conspiratorial fantasies on radio and cassette. When paranoia about conspiracy becomes pervasive, how do social and political actors adapt? In such circumstances, is paranoia the only feeling that motivates conspiracy and conspiracy theories? Do conspiracy theories defer agency to others? Can they be the ferment of collective action? I argue that conspiracy theories can play a crucial role for collective action; likewise, I show that conspiracy theories are not reducible to paranoid conjecture by showcasing a context when isolated political actors voiced hope in mass conspiracy. Overall, I argue that fear and hope about conspiracy are fear and hope about political order. In the above terms, I urge a re-evaluation of conspiracies and conspiracy theories in political life, especially for contexts where the state apparatus is plausibly conspiring against its own subjects.

Author

• Naveed Mansoori, Princeton University