A Study On Ideological Trend Of Nationalism In Iran

Nationalism is an important political thought in modern Iran's history. According to the theory of civilizations commerce, we could understand the nature and law, which behind Iranian historical representations, by using the path of the evolution of Iranian nationalism.Iranian nationalism is the product that resulted from Iranian civilization commerce with external civilization and Iranian civilization elements commerce with each other. Around the subject of the era of different themes, Iranian nationalism has experienced four stages:nation awareness, nation independence, nation self-improvement and nation reshape.Progressive intellectuals have began to think about dealing with the difficulties that they met since the second half of the 19th century, Iran's national consciousness began to awaken. Western intellectuals advocated that learned from the west, promoted social reforms, generated the modern reform ideas. Islamic intellectuals advocated that realized national rejuvenation through revival religion, generated Islamic revival ideas. The representative figure of the former is Malkum khan. The representative figure of the later is Afghani.After Constitution Revolution, the most important political demand is nation independence and society stability as to Iranian people, kingship nationalism gradually became the dominant political thought. Under the lead of Reza khan, Pahlavi dynasty was established, the nation-state building and modernization reform were promoted. However, Allied forces occupation resulted in this process were suspended during World War ?.The subject of the era was that promoted modernization, realized nation self-improve when Allied forces evacuated after the end of World War ?. Liberal nationalism and kingship nationalism became the dominant political thought one after another with debate and competition. The representative figure of the former is Mossadegh. The representative figure of the later is Pahlavi Shah.The subject of 1970s was that rethinked the disadvantages of foreign models, reshaped national spirit, choosed suitable development path. Islamic nationalism was emerged, and provided an Islamic road of nation rejuvenation. Khomeini is the representative figure of this kind of nationalism.There are three important variables in the developing process of Iranian nationalism:Iranian (Persian) character, Islamic character and modern character. These variables formed of three types of nationalism thoughts through different combination:kingship nationalism, Islamic nationalism and liberal nationalism.In order to awaken the Iranians national consciousness and inspire them make great effort to nation independent and strong, Iranian (Persian) character, with Iran's traditional history and culture, imagined a great and powerful nation. Iranian (Persian) character corresponds to kingship nationalism.Islamic character emphasizes that obtain the power from Islam, realizes nation rejuvenation through religious revival, opposes westernization and secularization, advocates return to Islamic tradition, deals with the challenges in Islamic ways. Islamic character corresponds to Islamic nationalism.In order to make country rebirth and national revival, modern character argues introduce western liberal democracy ideas, implements the western modernization reform that guided by political reform. Modern character corresponds to liberal nationalism.Iranian (Persian) character, Islamic character and modern character not only contradiction and conflict, but also harmony and unity. As Iranian history shows, Iran will have powerful creativity if three characters be in health interaction. On the contrary, Iran would get into trouble. After Islamic Revolution, to a certain extent, excessive emphasized on Islamic character lead to three characters be in bad inyeraction. Therefore, the direction of efforts of Iranian nationalists is that keep three characters be in health interaction condition in the present and future.