A self-fetishized nationalism: Iranian androcentrism and the making of far-right discourse in Iran

The death of Jina Amini in 2022 catalysed the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ (WLF) uprising – a feminist and intersectional revolt that challenged the patriarchal, Persianized and androcentric logics embedded in both the Islamic Republic and Iran’s broader political sphere. In parallel, a far-right monarchist discourse emerged that sought to appropriate and reframe WLF through the slogan ‘Man, Homeland, Prosperity’ (MHP). This paper traces the historical roots of gendered and racial discourse shaping Iranian far-right nationalism, situating it within both global far-right formations and Iran’s own longue durée from the Constitutional Revolution to the Pahlavi era. Embarked on a review of scholarship on WLF and Iranian nationalism, I analyse MHP as a watershed moment and discursive condensation of an ethnocentric (Persian-centred), androcentric and self-Orientalist imaginary shaping current Iranian far-right politics. Finally drawing upon a critical genealogical analysis of Iranian androcentric nationalism, I argue that this logic is not episodic but embedded in the historical trajectory of Iranian modern nationalism and its ambivalent relation to Western Orientalism, especially during the Pahlavi era. I conceptualize this logic as ‘self-fetishized nationalism’, the ideological core of contemporary Iranian far-right androcentric discourse.