Patriotism as Oppositional Discourse: A Qasida by Mehdi Akhavan-Saless

Extract

The Qasida that follows provides an easy and obvious example of how topical literature can assume a specific political relevance within a specific social context. Written and first published in 1983, the poem was immediately seized upon as containing the poet's opposition to the ruling revolutionary state. This node between patriotism and political dissent was made possible only in the context of certain pronouncements by the leaders of Iran's revolution interpreted largely as their disregard for the country of Iran in an overzealous pursuit of the Islamic component in Iranian identity. Ever since his response to a question put to him on the plane that brought him back to Iran, the Ayatollah Khomeini was widely believed to feel no great affection for the country he was about to rule. Asked what he was feeling as he was returning to his homeland after fourteen years of exile, the Ayatollah had dismissed the question by saying, “Nothing!”