نشریه مطالعات ملی
سال ششم شماره 1 (پیاپی 21، بهار 1384)

The controversy over the nature and identity of man has remained a subject of inquiry for ever so long. Notwithstanding that, the modern period has some advantages and distinctions. The individual and collective identity crisis and some fundamental questions that the modern man has encountered in dealing with the above concepts are unequaled. One of the aspects of this phenomenon is the diversity of definitions and approaches to this issue which is a deliberation on meanings and theories given on an individual or collective level.

In comparison to other developing countries, the Islamic countries have had more serious predicaments in the process of social, cultural, economic and political modernity and modernization. The considerable speed seen in South East Asian countries and East European countries is an indication of these regions modernistic capacities. In such a framework, culture, cultural background and beliefs on the one hand and the nature of centers of power on the other are the two determining variables in transferring from pre-modernism to the period and process of modernity. In this paper, these two variables are applied to Arab as well as non-Arab countries of the Middle East. The nature of cultural beliefs related to modernistic processes will be compared to such countries as Hungry, Poland, Malaysia and South Korea. The nature of the centers of power and their viewpoints are more important than cultural beliefs which can act as facilitators or barriers in the process of modernization. This demonstrates the extent that the centers of power in a country can comprehend the realities of global processes, and the extent that they find their profits in line with national benefits of their country. The paper will eventually conclude that the cultural barriers within a society and the culture and nature of centers of power are the two determining factors in the backwardness of Islamic countries on the threshold of the 21st century.

The attempts at defining identity and recognizing the true Iranian identity have remained disorderly during the last one hundred years. But the fact of the matter is that the Iranian intellectuals were able to reveal the different underlying layers of Iranian identity. Moreover, if we regard them from a cognitive look and consider them from the three chief ways of examining identity, i.e. dialogic, dialectic, and evolutionary, the only method which can prove most useful is the evolutionary one. In the evolutionary method, the attempts made by the intellectuals were mostly complementary rather than contradictory. From this perspective, an understanding of the process of change in Iranian intellectualism can help us find better ways for the future.

This work attempts to determine the criterion that can be used to measure an individuals identity in society from the viewpoint of such communitarians as Mack Ilntyre, Michael Sandal, and Charles Taylor and to some extent Michael Wallers. The present work will eventually try to demonstrate that in this school of thought the criterion used to determine an individual s identity in society lies in communitarian identities. According to John Rawls, this criterion stands against the antecedently liberal individual identity. And as a result, communitarianism, by using contextual methodology and through emphasizing the especial qualities of political new-virtualism, tries to show that prioritizing the communitarian identities is the most appropriate and the fairest adjustment in public policymaking. Firstly, the current work will delineate that communitarians contextual methodology stands against the liberals universal and foundational methodology. Secondly, communitarianism in the political and philosophical virtualism has its roots in ancient Greece. Thirdly, it will demonstrate that political new-virtualism about the identity of man emphasizes the communitarian identities. And last, prioritizing group and communitarian identities is not necessarily an imposing approach in regard to public policymaking. In other words, communities do not deny our liberty and our individuality.

In general, the Iranian intellectualis can be divided into two periods; in the first period, the Iranian intellectuals were either infatuated by the European social democracy or desired a special form of Western liberal democracy which favored a separation of executive, judiciary, and legislative forces within the government. And the second period started with the end of the First World War and continued into the ascension of Reza Shah to the throne; the intellectuals of this period advocated ancient Iran and Aryanism. This period also witnessed the fancy that some Iranian intellectuals had taken to the establishment of a government tinged with benevolent dictatorship. This period started with Kaveh newspaper which was run by Seyed Hassan Taghizadeh in Berlin, Germany. The current work will also make a partial attempt in delineating the political stances of this newspaper.

The central Alborz Mountains, a region which overspreads from Sefidrood Valley to Estarchai River, are one of the oldest habitations of different Iranian ethnic groups. The northern region which is known as Guilan is noteworthy from an ethnic and cultural perspective. The east of the province is populated by the Guil people and the mountainous areas by the Talesh, Tat, and Kurd ethnic groups. The farther we move away from the Caspian Sea shore the denser becomes the Guil population and the number of Taleshi people, on the other hand, starts to increase. The Tat-speaking people live in the elevated parts of the Alborz Mountains. In some mountainous parts of the country, there are groups of people with Kurdish descent whose population becomes denser in the Amarloo region. This paper attempts to examine the ethnic distribution in the province of Guilan.