Gharbzadegi: The Condition of Coloniality

Abstract

The study of Jalal Al-e Ahmad’s arguably most seminal text Gharbzadegi (Westoxication) has historically suffered from a mode of bizarre nativism that has in turn projected the nativism of the Iranian or Iranist scholar onto the presumed nativism of the subject of their studies, Al-e Ahmad himself. Al-e Ahmad, contrary to their common assumption, was not a nativist. Quite to the contrary: he had a wide global perspective in his prose and politics. They are nativist – these scholars who have historically, systematically and consistently abused, misread and sought to discredit him as ‘a nativist’. This chapter revist Al-e Ahmad’s classic text --