The revolutionary space has its own necessities; its own applications, requirements, and theoretical and practical considerations. In this space, everything can have a multifaceted and sometimes contradictory nature. One of the challenges of the current revolutionary space in Iran is the need for reassessment and rethinking of the possibilities and essence of the various theoretical and practical “fields” in its most radical form. This current revolutionary space, which is the most progressive movement we have seen in Iran in the years after the 1957 revolution, has inevitably pushed the boundaries of questioning and collective reevaluation of social and intellectual institutions in society. Universities and students were not exempt from this. In the past few months, the university space has always been one of the centers that kept the flames of the revolution alive and depicted one of the liveliest periods of its history in modern Iran. This vitality was initially the result of the struggles of students and then the “accompaniment” of professors with this space; an accompaniment

What the writer intends to highlight in this short note is not a simple description or praise of the widespread companionship between university professors, students, and protesters, but rather a critique of the official space of the university in this revolutionary situation.

The division between academic and intellectual spaces in Iran is a well-known and longstanding issue. The intellectual space, especially in the fields of literature and humanities, has had little connection with the academic space for decades. The intellectual space in Iran has always found its best representatives outside the narrow and limited environment of academia. This was evident before the 1979 revolution with the dominance of conservative and “anti-left” views within universities, and in the years after the revolution with the suppression of secular intellectuals from the religious-ideological sphere of universities. However, there have always been exceptions to this division, such as figures like Amir Hossein Aryanpour before the revolution and Hossein Bashiriye in the years after the revolution, who were later marginalized. Overall, the general rule has been to exclude and distance independent intellectual and progressive movements from the academic space. For example, the best translators and advocates of Western philosophy, from Ehsanollah Foudlavan to Khashayar Dihimi and

The “anti-intellectualism” movement that has been dominant in Iran after the revolution has also left the university neglected, and we have always witnessed the government’s efforts to prevent any dynamic and progressive intellectual movement in Iran. In such an environment, it is natural that what has been referred to as “accompaniment” of university professors with current protests does not go beyond the level of “sympathy” and “warmth”, and that too in the most general and conservative form. The marginalized and weak intellectualism in Iran during these years has also not had a significant role in the revolution. This is due to both censorship and security pressures, and also because of the dominance of the so-called “neoliberal” intellectualism in Iran, which is in alliance with the religious right. Throughout these years, a large part of the support of the conservative-religious neo-system in Iran has been devoted to a movement in Iran that is referred to as “intellectualism”, which not only

From a university, such a dominant ruling class that even for expressing its solidarity with the current revolution in Iran, it remains in need of obtaining permission and its support ultimately amounts to nothing more than superficial expressions and collective letter-writing. In a country where independent thinking has been more than ever suppressed and isolated, it is natural to not expect any critical and insightful analysis of the situation. We, more than just solidarity and conservative and formal declarations of support for the revolution from the intellectual and university community, which in its highest form has also fallen into the furnace of collective wounded emotions and can be seen in any celebrity, are in need of the community of intellectuals and universities to take a stand and mark the date of this movement in history, warn of the dangers ahead, present the hidden opportunities to the activists, and demonstrate how it can lead to a fundamental change in the future of Iranian politics.

It is obvious that the actors in this important matter must not only risk their lives from the pressure and threats of the system, but also endure the cost of their rational and future-oriented analyses in a revolutionary atmosphere that is solely driven by intense emotions and slogans. A true intellectual knows that standing in the “right position” in the midst of a blind revolution can result in being rejected and suppressed by both the passionate revolutionaries on one side and an extremely oppressive system on the other. This true intellectual, if truly seeking to fulfill their mission in guiding and formulating a way out of the cycle of blind violence and political obstruction, must accept that it is impossible to do so through emotionalism or a utopian theory that has no connection to the reality of society. Standing in this “middle ground” that is closely related to both thought and action requires a certain insight that gives our intellectual actions their true nature: the possibility of distinguishing between the revolutionary chaos and the thought that leads to fundamental change, which is