Between Cultural Conflict and Cultural Dialogue: On Foreign Cultural Policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the West – or on Iran’s Image since ۱۹۷۹

The subject of the present article is the foreign cultural policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran towards the Western world consisting of commonwealth countries with equal value bases. Although the author’s main focus in selecting instances to study Iran’s cultural interaction and confrontation with the West is not on a specific Western country, in all instances he has a glimpse of the Federal Republic of Germany due to the extent and antiquity of the country’s relations with Iran before and after the Islamic Revolution. The aim of this article is to examine the political events that have not only been of historical importance, but also, from the viewpoint of cultural policy, played a significant role in shaping the more or less negative image of contemporary Iran in the Western world and its media empire. The author has attempted to neutrally portray Iran’s official attitudes and stances toward controversial political-cultural events with the West to a Western and specifically German-speaking audience. The analytical framework of this article is formed by the events after the Islamic Revolution of Iran as the most historic moment in the contemporary history of Iran under the influence of the colonial powers and the turning point of the return to Islamic identity of this country.

کلیدواژه ها:

Auswärtige Kulturpolitik ، kultureller Konflikt ، interkultureller Dialog ، Länderbild ، Islamische Republik Iran ، Bundesrepublik Deutschland ، westliche Welt