I prefer the edge: the place where countries, communities, allegiances, affinities, and roots bump uncomfortably up against one another – where cosmopolitanism is not so much an identity as the normal condition of life. To be sure, there is something self-indulgent in the assertion that one is always at the edge, on the margin. Such a claim is only open to a certain kind of person exercising very particular privileges. Most people, most of the time, would rather not stand out: it is not safe.

The pro-democracy movement in Iran needs to combine the ‘war of maneuver’ characterized by rapid attacks with ‘the war of position’, in which the movement digs itself deeper into society, fortifies its positions and strengthens its counter-power.

As long as the constitution remains in force in Iran, the tension between the ‘republican’ and the ‘Islamic’ will continue. The crisis, therefore in Iran is basically over how political agency and political sphere are defined in the country.

The political discourse of the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran has always been full of bluff, threats and provocative language. Without any real diplomacy and effective and active relations, this kind of language ادامه مطلب…

Iran’s Green Movement’s politics of hope goes against Hirsi Ali’s defeatism and her mantra of clash between the West and the world of islam. Neda Agha Soltan, Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Zahra Rahnavard are bad news for Hirsi Ali, and that is why she keeps ignoring them when commenting on Islam and the West.

By suppressing acts of festive rituals and fun, ideological regimes tend inevitably to politicize the practices of everyday life, thus contributing to the instability of these very states.

If the US truly stands for freedom in the world, Obama’s critics say, then the President should surely have made his outrage clear. Perhaps he should have. But what would that have achieved, besides making Americans feel more righteous? The US government, with all its military might, has no authority in Iran, and can do little to influence the politics there.

A specter is haunting Iran. Is this specter the promise of a somewhat democratic and free political system and a more tolerant social order, or is it a descent into a lasting and enduring totalitarian one?

What is Hezbollah? What is its organic connection to Iran? What role has it played in the recent events? What is the kind of bond it has with the Iranian regime? Answering such questions might give a better understanding of the nature of this organization and its relation to Iran.

There are some people who think the protesters are going to succeed and set everything right. The extremists in the government say that they have actually dealt with the problem, and it is over now. At this point, no one can predict a definite future.

Iran undoubtedly has one of the most dynamic civil societies and women’s rights movements in the Middle East. From the 1990s onward, the Iranian civil society has been marked by the vitality of debates on social, civil, cultural, economic and political dimensions of women’s citizenship

In an interview Dr. Hamid-Reza Jalayipour (sociologist & university professor, Tehran) has made an analysis of the behavior of the Iranian Regime and the opposing ‘Green Movement’

To cut a long story short: it was Hafez who brought me to where I am today. I was madly in love, and that is a feeling no poet has described more compellingly than Shams ادامه مطلب…

Which other 20th century regimes can Tehran be (partially) compared with, and what are the historical precedents that Iranian insurgents should keep in mind today