POSTCOLONIAL READING OF IDENTITY IN THE THOUGHT OF MOHAMMAD MOSSADEGH; Emphasizing the method of deconstruction

Mohammad Mossadegh is known as a nationalist and anti-colonialist leader in the dominant narrative of Iran's contemporary history. To what extent is this narrative reflected in Mossadegh's intellectual structure? Is Mossadegh's thought a reflection of colonial discourse or a reflection of anti-colonial resistance? What is the idea of self and other in Mohammad Mossadegh's thought? To answer this question, Deconstructive analysis is used to segregate the text structure of Mossadegh's letters and post-colonial theories are used to interpret the information obtained from the deconstruction method. The collection of Mossadegh's letters is divided and analyzed in the form of two historical stages before and after the coup of August 19, 1953. The findings of the present research show that Mossadegh does not have a unified and coherent image of self and other. The West as "other" has both colonialism and democratic institutions. The colonized "Iranian society" as "self" needs to get the positive strain of the West in order to free itself from the shackles of colonialism and create efficient political and social organizations. In this way, imitating the positive parts of the West becomes a constructive action through which the Iranian colonized society can rewrite the colonial discourse of the West and make its contradictions available to the Iranian natives. Therefore, in Mossadegh's narrative, a "self" who is not contaminated by selfishness and self-interest is the factor of resistance against the dominant colonial discourse.