December 2009
7 posts
“This is the most vibrant and imaginative civil disobedience campaign in the...”
– Robin Wright, Middle East Analyst, in an op-ed published today, Is this Iran’s Berlin Wall moment? - Times Online
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“History to have meaning has to repeat itself twice.”
– Ervand Abrahamian, Iran Scholar, quoting Georg Hegel in light of Iran’s show trials and forced confessions of dissident actors and regime opponents this summer. In the 1980s, post-Revolutionary Iranian dissidents faced similar fates.
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Live @ Columbia Conference: Shahla Talebi on...
Speaking right now is Shahla Talebi on the role of women and mothers in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Talebi thinks that much of today’s violence in Iran against women, is a reaction against “strong men, who have strong mothers.” As Talbei stated, “the masculine might can never do without mothers.” Therefore, the need to crush women, who stand in the way of masculine...
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Live @ Columbia Conference: Asef Bayat on Freedom...
Asef Bayat is currently speaking and has made some very interesting points regarding generational shifts in the idea of what constitutes azadi, Persian for “Freedom.”
For the generation leading the protests of 1979 Bayat argues that azadi was more about liberation from Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and therefore instituting political reforms that included voting rights among others.
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Live Blog: Hamid Dabashi on Iran and America
Hamid Dabashi just finished the opening remarks of the of the first panel at the Columbia conference on Iran.
He began with a jab at Columbia President Lee Bollinger who, according to Dabashi, was somewhat responsible for two of his graduate students packing up and fleeing Iran this past summer. As Dabashi noted, the Iranian tabloids had accused Columbia as being the American home of the...
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Live at Columbia: Iran after the Election
Good morning everyone. We are live blogging from the “Iran after the Election” conference at Columbia University that is happening all day today. Check out the schedule here. Hamid Dabashi is speaking right now on a panel with Ervand Abrahamian, Shahla Talebi, and Asef Bayat (one of our favorites here at QB).
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“Hate is a dangerous force, and it is an injurious force, because it injures the...”
– Martin Luther King, in an interview with Studs Terkel that was recently rebroadcast on Democracy Now. Terkel later went on to ask King about “the revolutionary aspects of love.”