reflections on cultural imperialism: iran’s discourse of misery (badbaxti)

This article examines the theme of cultural imperialism through a case-study of change in nineteenth-century intellectual discourse. it analyzes an iranian intellectual discourse, which is known, according to the persian nomenclature, as the discourse of “misery” (badbaxti). the article shows that throughout the nineteenth-century, the perception of iranian intellectuals changed, rather drastically, from self-confidence to self-immiseration. this argument is grounded in a close textual contrast between two representative texts. mirza saleh shirazi’s safar-nāme (1815), representing confidence, is contrasted with siyāḥat-nāme-ye ebrāhim beyk or “the travel diary of ibrahim beg” (1895), which articulated the idea of an incomparable iranian misery. the author of  siyāḥat-nāme-ye ebrāhim beyk captured this discursive transformation when he wrote: “there is no country on the face of the planet today more miserable than iran.” the discourse of misery had profound consequences well into the present. self-immiseration entered popular culture in the pahlavi period (1925-1979) and intensified in the islamic republican period (1979-present). the discourse of misery has captivated modern iranian consciousness, without necessarily corresponding to social reality.