Critical Analysis of the New Left Discourse in Dealing with the Issue of Iranian Identity

The Iranian New Left, which emerged in the 1990s, has been influenced by the works of Frankfurt School thinkers and other Western neo-Marxist thinking. One of the most prominent challenges for the New Left in studying Iranian history and culture has been the issue of Iranian identity. This article critically analyzes the Iranian New Left discourse on Iranian identity using Fairclough's critical discourse analysis method. The analysis reveals that by ignoring the context of Iranian history and culture, the New Left portrays elements of Iranian identity in a translational and imitative way, often using labels such as fascism, chauvinism, and racism to promote their ideology at the global level from the Western New Left and at the national level, to recruit hostile forces toward Iranian identity. However, the infinite set of contradictions and theoretical conflicts has made the entire discourse face a crisis, making it ineffective in the social context.