3 - Revolutionary Citizens

Summary

This chapter shows that during the 1980–1988 period, interlocutors in warfronts, prisons, seminaries and hospitals undermined the state’s gender limitations and discrimination by deploying what I refer to as spiritual acts of citizenship – acts of citizenship geared toward preserving one’s status as a revolutionary citizen. Spiritual acts of citizenship were constituted through the broader ethical framework that political spirituality offered during the early days of the revolution (Ghamari-Tabrizi, 2016). I address the underlying historical contingencies and real-time creativity that enabled Islamic and leftist women to individually challenge national and transnational structures of power. Additionally, I show the different forms that spiritual acts of citizenship took during the 1980–1988 period. What follows offers a dynamic view of revolutionary citizenship as one interspersed with familial love, erudite poetry, and literature, significantly dependent on different avenues to self-care and contrasting approaches to self-preservation.