Reflections on Cultural Imperialism: Iran’s Discourse of Misery (badbaxti)

This article examines the theme of cultural imperialism through a case-study of change in nineteenth-century intellectual discourse. It analyzes an Iranian intellectual discourse, which is known, according to the Persian nomenclature, as the discourse of “misery” (badbaxti). The article shows that throughout the nineteenth-century, the perception of Iranian intellectuals changed, rather drastically, from self-confidence to self-immiseration. This argument is grounded in a close textual contrast between two representative texts. iii Mirza Saleh Shirazi’s Safar-nāme (۱۸۱۵), representing confidence, is contrasted with Siyāḥat-nāme-ye Ebrāhim Beyk or “The Travel Diary of Ibrahim Beg” (۱۸۹۵), which articulated the idea of an incomparable Iranian misery. The author of  Siyāḥat-nāme-ye Ebrāhim Beyk captured this discursive transformation when he wrote: “there is no country on the face of the planet today more miserable than Iran.” The discourse of misery had profound consequences well into the present. Self-immiseration entered popular culture in the Pahlavi period (۱۹۲۵-۱۹۷۹) and intensified in the Islamic Republican period (۱۹۷۹-present). The discourse of misery has captivated modern Iranian consciousness, without necessarily corresponding to social reality.