The Iranian philosopher Ahmad Fardid introduced into the intellectual discourse of his country such an expression as “gharbzadegi”, which can be translated as “Westoxification ” or ” Weststruckness “. Jalal Al-e-Ahmad, a follower of Fardid, who also highly appreciated the works of Martin Heidegger and Ernst Junger, published a small book in 1962, which he titled Gharbzadegi. The book criticized Iran’s official policy of imitating Western civilization, borrowing a number of its technologies (under certain conditions) and, at the same time, actually abandoning the country’s own authentic development.
Gharbzadeg is “a series of complications that have occurred in the life, culture and way of thinking of people in a certain part of the world, without any tradition as a support, without any continuity in history, and without any evolutionary step, but only as a machine souvenir.”
Al-e-Ahmad clarified that “this is a feature of a certain stage of history…. buy and use machines due to the pressures of market, economy and the buying and selling of oil.”
It is significant that Al-e-Ahmad sees the merit of the West in this development in the decisive actions of the Christian states of Europe when they faced the danger of destruction from Islamic conquests. In this salutary counterattack, the West borrowed many technologies and ideas from the Muslim world, becoming a center of capital and science. The subsequent dynamics of historical development, including great geographical discoveries, pushed the Muslim world to the periphery.
This might have inspired many Westerners with confidence in their exclusivity, which they began to project onto other nations.
As in the later definitions of globalization about the Rich North and the Poor South, Jalal Al-e-Ahmad understood the West not as a geographical concept, but as an economic one. He classified as the West not only Europe and the US, but also the USSR and South Africa. Whereas the East included most of the Latin American countries. Gharbzadegi, on the other hand, is an epidemic that originated in the West and has affected other countries, not just Iran.
Advanced industrial countries that use technical means to shape raw materials into more complex shapes, and then sell them on the markets as goods — this is the West. And the raw materials are not limited to natural resources, but are also customs, views, music and religion. In other words, culture in various forms and manifestations. Not only oil from the Persian Gulf and spices from India, but sociology from Africa and anthropology from Oceania serve as raw materials for the West, which processes all this in accordance with its own interests and presents to the world as some kind of standards that everyone else should follow.
Yes, this is reminiscent of the “rules-based order” that Western politicians are now shouting about, and serves as an indication of the global role of Hollywood cinema and the US music industry, but also of the scientific think tanks of Britain, France and other Western countries, which have relatively recently shaped many scientific paradigms adopted around the world. as theories and methodologies that are not questioned (although in the Cartesian, that is, Western sense, it is necessary to question them!).
Al-e-Ahmad was partly right about the USSR, referring it to the camp of the West. Industrialization used borrowings from the West in some ways, from attracting manpower from overseas during the Great Depression to the establishment of Western essentially Marxist (and anti-religious) ideology and Khrushchev’s experiments in imitation of the United States (the slogan “Catch up and overtake America”). However, Al-e-Ahmad also justified his position by saying that the USSR and the United States had ceased to be opponents (the first edition of the book was published in 1962), but had established a mechanism for permanent negotiations and a certain balance of power, which used to be commonly called the bipolar world.
It is obvious that the collapse of the USSR pushed Russia into the abyss of gharbzadegi. The formula “The West will help us” became the guiding light of Russian politics in the era of Boris Yeltsin. And the first decade and a half in the Third Millennium also took place in line with active cooperation with the West.
Thee was The Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979, but Al-e-Ahmad died in 1969, when he was not even 50 years old, so he could not see how Gharbzadegi was rejected in his homeland (Ayatollah Khomeini proclaimed “Modernization without Westernization”). Although the roots of this pernicious disease have penetrated deep into Iranian society, and even at the level of philistine perception, there are still certain attempts to imitate and borrow from the West.
And how are things with us? The geopolitical gap (first triggered in 2014, and then in 2022 after the start of the Special Military Operation) has seriously affected the economic, scientific, and cultural ties between Russia and the West. In general, the use of the term collective West has become a kind of synonym for unfriendly countries. The pivot to the East has begun. However, to be objective, won’t the West-de-toxification lead to the East-intoxication? If we follow the precepts of the classic Eurasians, Russia, which is neither the West nor the East, must rely on its own strength and achieve complete autarky, both culturally and technically.
If we take into account the definition of Al-e-Ahmad, what needs to be done to achieve this? He gives three fundamental characteristics of the West and the East. The peoples of the first group are characterized by high salaries, low mortality and low birth rate, developed social services, plentiful food and some form of democracy — the legacy of the French Revolution. The second group is distinguished by low wages, high mortality and an even higher birth rate, a meager diet, the absence or nominal presence of social services, and a lack of ideas about democracy.
In both cases, there are criteria that are acceptable and unacceptable for Russia. Obviously, a low mortality rate would be welcome, while a high birth rate is an urgent imperative for Russia. Salaries are a relative thing, as is the issue of social services. Providing everything necessary and community solidarity can be much more effective and practical than a large salary with an abundance of consumer goods of questionable quality, which draw into a vicious circle of exploitation and egocentrism. Of course, hunger is a bad companion for any society, but plentiful food also decomposes collective health, as can be seen in the example of many representatives of Western countries who have lost their human appearance. The golden mean is a moderate and balanced diet. And at the national level, it is necessary to exclude from production and sale those products that do more harm than good.
As for democracy, it will be enough to appeal to the classics – Plato said that this is one of the worst forms of government after the oligarchy. Although parliamentary democracy in Russia differs from that of the West, a lot still needs to be done to return to an authentic format that meets the spirit of the times.
Al-e-Ahmad also called international organizations such as the United Nations, which have become an instrument of the West for worldwide colonization, the basis of gharbzadegi for all non-Western countries. As he wrote, “with the help of these organizations, Western scammers who appeared in new clothes in South America, Asia, and Africa are colonizing the second world.”
There is also something to think about and work on removing “international“ toxins.
Although Al-e-Ahmad described the Iranian society of the late 1950s and early 1960s, some of the problems mentioned in his book can be attributed to modern Russia.
If, in general, he said that we are “becoming like a people with an unfamiliar tradition, with a culture that is not rooted in our land and has no way of flourishing,” then this fits the description of those borrowing trends that continue even now – from the slang of English words (a new presidential decree aimed at banning the use of such words in public space is the right step), to the rapid adaptation of all kinds of “fashionable” topics that the West throws at us with enviable frequency.
Al-e-Ahmad’s remark about this kind of imposed habits is quite interesting. “The West-stricken dude. He’s feminine. He takes great care of his appearance.” Look at how modern Russian youth behave (and not only), and we will see that a critical remark about appearance is quite suitable for a whole segment of our society. In addition to his appearance, Al-e-Ahmad talked about clothes, furniture and houses – to be self-critical, we still have a lot of Western things, in a bad sense of the word.
He also spoke about the problem of “uprooting people from villages.” But Russia has historically been an agrarian country, and the current desolation of villages, settlements and small towns serves to emasculate our deep identity.
“Schools create conditions for the spread of gharbzadegi in society,” Al-e-Ahmad noted. The education reforms that have begun in Russia inspire hope and optimism, although objectively they need to be made more drastic. What foreign languages are studied in secondary schools? The languages of the East (South) are only a small exception in specialized schools and, most likely, the bias in favor of the Romano-Germanic group will persist. And even then, not all of its languages (and given the real spread of languages and the foreign policy situation, it is high time to expand the study of Spanish, which is spoken in almost all Latin American countries).
Finally, serious changes, if not a fundamental revolution, are also needed in academic science.
Al-e-Ahmad wrote about his compatriots that “he cognizes even himself through terms of Oriental studies.”… To consider oneself nothing, not to think independently, to give up all support, one’s own eyes and ears, to give the right to dispose of one’s feelings to the last Western charlatan…” Oriental studies as such is an invention of the West, and since the 19th century this Eurocentric tool for creating concepts and theories has penetrated and taken root in Russia. Although a number of Russian scientists, such as Nikolai Miklukho-Maklay, have made an important contribution to countering the Western racist approach, the deconstruction and exposure of Western scientific schools must continue.
In other words, you need to “put the genie of technology in a bottle,” as Al-e-Ahmad said. “You should produce a machine yourself, own it, but not become dependent on it, because a machine is a means, not a goal.” Russia and its peoples have all the necessary capabilities and political will for this.
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