Clash of civilizations and/or clash of political discourses? The case of Iran and the US
Farzad Sharifian, Monash University
Some politicians (most recently the Russian Foreign Ministry) have speculated that the escalating tensions between the US and Iran over the latter's nuclear program is likely to lead to a "clash of civilizations". This formulation calls for a close and immediate scrutiny of the nature of the tensions between these two countries. Based on a close analysis of the representation of Iranian political discourse in international media, this talk presents the argument that the conflict between these two counties is at least partly a construct of political discourse. Moreover, the current political situation should be understood as part of a long history of volatile relations that have characterized the relationship between the two nations since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. The conflicts that resulted from the rise to power of the Islamic Government seem to have created a context that allows most position statements made by government officials of these two countries to be interpreted as "threats" and reported to the public as such. For example, the use of the Persian expression "the US needs a punch in the mouth" on the part of the spiritual leader of Iran has been reported by Western media outlets as a "nuclear warning". However, in reality this Persian expression, which has been a common figure of speech in Iranian political as well as ordinary discourse for some time, is used to convey a very different set of meanings, namely, it refers to resistance and failure to co-operate. When used against the US, it is primarily a means of expressing Iran's lack of interest in resuming close ties with the US. Such misrepresentations of political discourse reveal how language can be mobilized as a discursive "weapon" in international relations. The extent to which this mobilization is intentional or inadvertent will be addressed in this talk.