God, Sultan Mahmud is the same God as today.

Last year, the leader of the Islamic Republic agreed to change the name of “NAJA” to “FARAJA” and in May of this year, “The Law Enforcement Force of the Islamic Republic” was promoted to “The Command of the Law Enforcement of the Islamic Republic”. Following this structural change, the National Security Commission of the Parliament also reintroduced a bill to amend the law on the use of weapons by all those who carry weapons. Regardless of the consequences of approving such a bill, it has been some time since the violent behavior of the police and government officials has been reflected in various media outlets. This text attempts to question the situation of the Islamic Republic by considering examples of violent behavior by the government.

Ruler of the soul.

Novel

The hellish life of Mr. Iyaz

The story begins with the phrase “Bring the saw up!” by Raza Brahani. Is Iyaz supposed to bring the saw up for Sultan Mahmud Ghaznavi to cut a man in half? The story is about a man who is not known, sometimes it is Iyaz, sometimes one of his brothers, and sometimes the Sultan himself; but the man is seen by everyone being cut in half by the hands of the Sultan and thrown down. The reader, who is initially shocked and bewildered, can feel the violence of the Sultan little by little and can put himself in the place of Iyaz and all the killed in history. This story is a tale of historical violence and death that is carried out by the ruler and the condemned; the one who kills and gains power and rules, and the one who is killed to establish a land, a nomos, or a law and remain.

Although

The hellish life of Mr. Iyaz

“Repression and violence have been a part of life in the past, where the ruler personally would resort to killing and torturing people. However, it is still present today in a different form. The current ruler no longer uses swords and hot oil to execute and torture us in the main square of the city, but instead, he multiplies his oppressive forces, from the police to his personal guards, and threatens our lives with weapons at any moment. He can take our lives whenever he wants, but where does this ruler derive his power and violence from? Where are the limits to his power and violence, and how is this power considered legitimate and authorized?”

Walter Benjamin, in his article “Critique of Violence” (1), examines the meaning and existence of violence and relates it to the law, answering questions posed in the text. On the other hand, Georgio Agamben, in his article “Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life” (2), investigates the extent of power and violence of the ruling authority, drawing from Benjamin’s ideas. This article attempts to understand the extent and nature of violence in the Islamic Republic system and its relationship with the law, taking into consideration these two articles.

The law of child abuse.

The massacre of the 1990s, especially during the years when people were involved in war, is one of the instances in which the government was able to solidify its desired system. But how did the Islamic Republic government commit such a massacre and at the same time take advantage of the war to fully establish itself and gain power?

Life, or what is known as existence, is a matter that, according to Foucault, has taken the form of biopolitics; meaning that today, human life is the central target of political threats and domination. The thing that the ruling power gains control through is the ultimate violence against this life. If in the past, this rule over human life had a mythical interpretation and life was seen as in the hands of gods and nature, for centuries the ruling power has also been involved in it. Now, not only nature and god, but also the ruling power, can at any moment, unleash this ultimate violence. Therefore, wherever such violence occurs, the ruling power is representing its own power and violence.

The extrajudicial executions of the 1990s were also for the purpose of establishing the system. The ruler had to represent his ultimate violence in order to establish new powers. Killing without any reason was a matter of power representation and creating a new rule that the Islamic Republic needed after the 1979 revolution; although an event like war could also nullify all pre-determined rules and could pave the way for the establishment of the system, it seemed insufficient for sovereignty. The widespread killing of humans in war and the extrajudicial executions of the 1990s were a representation of a kind of violence that Benjamin called mythical and law-making violence.

According to him, mythical violence reigns with its bloody power and for its own benefit over life. This mythical violence sets the boundaries and at the same time becomes a kind of retribution and threatens and destroys life, but it also has the quality of law-making. Mythical violence exists before the emergence of any new rule and the law is based on its own existence. That is why Carl Schmitt considers the establishment of any kind of system and government to require widespread use of violence in order to establish its own rule. The law requires mythical violence before it becomes law; that is, a violence that is above the law and outside of the rules, which has the power to legislate.

“Now, more than thirty years have passed since the massacre of the 1960s, the established system has made its laws, but why have they not stopped killing? Why is the God of the Islamic Republic still the God of the 1960s? Why just recently did they change the name of the “Police Force” to “Police Command” and want to create a new law for the use of weapons by armed forces?”

Benjamin, alongside the law enforcement violence that exists beyond the law, refers to another form of violence called the violence of law enforcement; a violence that is often exercised by the police and the government. When violence creates a new rule for the law, the police and the government emerge as the guardians of that new rule. “The legal system cannot guarantee the realization of the government’s experimental goals, so the government needs the police; therefore, for security reasons, the police intervene in countless situations where there is no clear legal situation, while in other times, they accompany citizens in a ruthless manner as intruders or deterrents in the structured text of life with regulations and orders, or simply monitor their actions.”

Furthermore, violence cannot determine new goals for itself and can only be the protector of the established regulations. However, where the police are placed as the guardian of the rules, it is the same place as above the law; meaning that the police are not only the protector of the law, but it seems they are the lawmakers themselves. The police are a ghost, they exist and do not exist, they do not come to hand anywhere, but they are always present everywhere.

This ghost-like police takes its origin from the same ruling spirit of the lawgiver; a ruler who can allow ultimate and boundless violence in order to establish a rule. The police itself maintains such violence, or better to say, a power, and in one place it is an observer and guardian, and in another it is a lawgiver using its weapon. Benjamin says: “Police violence is the violence that creates law, because its main function is not to spread laws, but to confirm the legality of any order, and at the same time it is the violence that guards the law, because it is in service of these goals and under their authority.” The police can give warnings for veiling, but it can also shoot wherever it wants. Perhaps in Western societies, the role of the police is more focused on being a law enforcer and less on being a lawgiver, but in a place like Iran where human life is constantly threatened, the police is more of a law

Therefore, it is here that the law takes its existence from violence and its connection to violence becomes apparent. No matter how much the law claims to achieve justice and resolve human conflicts, its connection to violence causes it to lose its connection to ethical issues. On the other hand, the police is equivalent to the law and appears as its protector, but by internalizing both types of violence, it stands above the law.

Where death reigns.

Now, with a look at the definition of violence and its relationship with the law, we must reconstruct previous questions. Why does the Islamic Republic still use mythical violence? Why does the government want to use those who have weapons for this type of violence?

Acts of violence are a legendary or legislating necessity that can create the conditions for this type of violence. Let us remember the events of November 98; what situation prevailed during those few days? The first day of the November protests, when the streets were closed and taken over by the people, those hours when even school children were on the streets, those moments when people whispered, “it’s all over”, what situation were the government and people in? It must be said that it was a chaotic situation; November 98 was one of those events where for at least a few days, no predetermined rules or laws were being followed. The people had taken over public spaces and it was unclear whose power was in control, but what happened? The government regained its power through a large massacre and widespread violence; the previous rules were all abolished and a new rule of government was established. Perhaps November 98 can be considered a turning point in the change of the Islamic Republic; as the government shifted towards

If we want to name a name for the situation of November 2019, we must seek help from Agamben. Agamben calls such a lawless and unclean situation an exceptional situation; a situation in which the ground is prepared for the emergence of mythical violence to establish a new rule; but why do they call such a situation exceptional? What characteristics do these conditions have and why can violence be exerted to its highest extent in such a situation?

Agamben removes the word “homo sacer” from the ancient Roman laws to explain its exceptional status. In ancient Rome, “homo sacer” was someone who had no citizenship rights; someone who could no longer be sacrificed by the gods, but could still be killed by others. “Homo sacer” was an excluded human from the realm of law; someone who, due to their ability to be killed, was removed from the legal system. However, this removal did not mean non-existence, but rather it was precisely an integration into the same legal system; a matter that Agamben calls “inclusive exclusion”. In this way, “human life was solely integrated into its exclusion (ability to be killed) in the legal system.”

This summons means “homosacer” is to put emphasis on the same concept of bare life, or as Foucault and Agamben put it, naked life. Bare life, like “homosacer,” is an exceptional element; something that is removed from human life in order for humans to continue as a “political animal”; a removal that distinguishes humans from other living beings; but this exceptional element, through its removal, does not cease to exist, rather it is integrated into the legal and political realm. The issue of exception is a subject both inside and outside the law. The exceptional matter exists outside the law; therefore the exceptional matter is always in relation to the rule, and the rule is based on it and embodies it.

But Agamben goes beyond describing the exceptional situation and allows the exception to exceed the drawing of the line. His concern is when the exception becomes the rule everywhere. In his view, today the realm of life has been stripped of its political realm and has been reduced to a zone of indistinguishability, where exclusion and inclusion have been blurred. It is this indistinguishability and lack of differentiation that creates the state of exception; a state in which only the ruler has a place.

“Let’s remember the events of Aban again. What was our situation? What was the state of each of “us” who were living inside or outside of Iran? Most likely, many of us, depending on the place we were in for those few days, experienced a common feeling: suspension. This suspension was a sign of the same chaotic situation that led to the massacre of Aban and the subsequent massacre of Niazar Mahshahr. We said that today’s ruler does not personally kill us, but rather it is reproduced in the police and suppressive forces. But where is the ruler? What is the situation of the ruler that he can take lives whenever he wants?”

Karl Schmidt defines political power as “the decision of the ruler in exceptional situations.” This connection between the ruler and the exceptional situation can to a large extent determine his position. Where is the ruler whose ruling power is legitimate in exceptional situations? Which element does the exceptional situation encompass? The exception or bare life? Therefore, the power of decision-making by the ruler in exceptional situations means the power of the ruler over life and death; thus, this power of decision-making over the life and death of humans is what also makes the ruler an exception. The place of the ruler is in that indistinguishable exceptional situation; a place beyond and outside the law, but as Agamben says, the ruler has a great distinction; the ruler does not merge, but rather incorporates something outside of himself. The ruler is the lawmaker and his decision determines the boundary between law and lawlessness, and outside and inside.

“Now, with the identification of the exceptional element, we can understand the position and rule of that person over life and death. How the exceptional situation, which is not subject to any rule, becomes a mythical source of violence to create a new law. The exceptional situation is a state of non-place that is emptied of legal regulations and ultimately takes shape with the decree of the ruler and the establishment of a new rule, but the issue of the Islamic Republic in relation to the exceptional situation, has not ended with the reproduction of it and showing the ultimate limit of violence by establishing this system. It is better to rephrase the first question in a different way: Is the Islamic Republic seeking to reproduce the exceptional situation in order to always use the ultimate limit of violence against the people?”

The principle of governance in Iran.

We said that Benjamin divides violence into two types: mythical violence or law-making violence and law-preserving violence. Mythical violence is the violence of law-making that is used to open up land and establish new rules. Mythical violence or law-making violence threatens the life and naked existence of man, so there is something higher than the law and before it. Agamben also explains the element of exception with regard to mythical violence and beyond the law, and ultimately describes the exceptional situation: where the ruler is located, to determine the boundary between law and lawlessness, to make a decision in that exceptional moment when the rule is suspended.

But about the situation of the Islamic Republic, we also asked about the reproduction of exceptional circumstances and mythical violence in relation to this government. We said that the Islamic Republic, in the war-torn situation of the 1990s, which was itself a form of exceptional circumstances, resorted to massacres and extrajudicial executions to solidify its regime, but in the 1970s, why did they kill students or why did they kill people in 1989? Or in 1998 and 2009? Why does the police still shoot at people under the pretext of hijab or music? Why has the Islamic Republic abolished the previous law on the use of weapons and wants to give everyone who carries a weapon an extrajudicial authority to take someone’s life at any moment? Are all of these examples not indicative of exceptional circumstances?

If we see the structure of governance in Iran as a totalitarian structure similar to Stalinist Soviet or Nazi Germany, we find that living in a state of exception and constant threat to human life is what dehumanizes humanity. In a totalitarian regime, a human is not seen as a moral and conscious being, but rather as a type of human; something similar to “homo sacer” who has no rights and is constantly at risk of death. This is why Agamben locates the state of exception in places like forced labor camps. The issue of dehumanization and reducing humans to a type of being that can be ruled over is a living thing that can be judged. “The ruling class and the ruler in totalitarian governments cannot be completely inside or outside the system.”

It seems that the Islamic Republic also wants this state of suspension to continue indefinitely so that it can establish a new rule at any moment; so that it remains in that indeterminate and unclean point, so that it remains indistinguishable. As stated in the text of Agamben: “The ruling power takes its own existence as the natural state and divides itself into productive power and constituted power, and by occupying an ambiguous and unclean point, it keeps both of these powers standing in relation to each other.” This state of suspension and uncertainty and lack of rules is the same exceptional state.

Notes:

1- Benjamin, Walter, Critique of Violence, in the selected articles book “Law and Violence”, translated by Morad Farhadpour, Omid Mehragan and Saleh Najafi, Sabah Culture, third edition: 1393.

2- Agamben, Giorgio, Sovereign Power and Bare Life, in the book Selected Articles “Law and Violence”, translated by Morad Farhadpour, Omid Mehragan and Saleh Najafi, Farhang Saba, 3rd edition: 1393.

Author’s note: Due to the fact that the original title of the article is “Homosucker; The Power of Dominance and Naked Life”, it was preferred to use the same name in the text as well.