Reading Alatas in Iran and the Myth of Exceptionalism

How should one read Syed Hussein Alata's’ The Myth of the Lazy Native in Iran? What are its possible contributions towards theorizing an ideological concept that has kept Iranian dynamics of progress in suspense for a long time? This article attempts to expand on the idea of Iranian exceptionalism, observe and explain the discourse around it. The author employs Alatas’s writings, particularly those from his book The Myth of the Lazy Native, in order to argue that Iranian exceptionalism is a mentality created and empowered by internal despotism as well as external semi-colonialism in modern Iran. Borrowing ideas from Alates's analysis of postcolonial Malaysia, the author suggests that Iranian exceptionalism locates at the intersection of gender, religious, and national ideologies - it refers to a being and condition of contradiction. It is what makes the nation’s image of itself both inferior and superior towards the other at the same time. It is indeed what makes imagining future change impossible – and therefore ideological.