Rituals of Faith and Politics: Mobilizations during the Iranian Revolution and the Spanish Civil War through the Commemorations of Muharram and Semana Santa

Abstract

ABSTRACT Large masses adhered to coup-affiliated generals in Spain and revolutionary leaders in Iran as a result of a combination of ideology and religion that skillfully used religious rituals and imagery to cement and unify an entire social bloc and articulate its grievances against the ruling government. The celebrations of Semana Santa and Ashura became not just a vehicle to unify different competing factions in Civil War Spain and Revolutionary Iran; they were also reinterpreted through the lenses of nationalism and socialism and weaponized against their enemies. The appropriation and reinterpretation of Christ’s Passion and Hussein’s martyrdom at Karbala helped indoctrinate the population with the idea of a new National Catholicism and Islamic Socialism, and thus achieve the Gramscian objective of constructing a new moral order and a new type of society.