Tag Archives: Iran

Sahar Delijani: “Watching From a Distance As Women Fight for Freedom in Iran”

Posted on January 27, 2023 by

“There is a revolution in the making, and you must rush to make impressions of its traces, its familiar faces. You must learn to listen to its heartbeat, memorize it, keep it safe. For, this is for you too. This struggle. It encompasses your life, your freedom, your beliefs, your dreams of a better world. There is nothing abstract about it, nothing apart.”

Posted in freedom, gender, justice, Nota Bene, revolution, rights

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Janet Afary & Kevin B. Anderson: “Woman, Life, Freedom: The Origins Of The Uprising In Iran”

Posted on December 5, 2022 by

“Many issues besides women’s rights are bound up in the protests: authoritarianism, economic stagnation and severe unemployment, climate disaster, and various religious-fundamentalist impositions. The current uprising also represents the public’s response to the regime’s colossal cronyism and corruption, and to its confrontational foreign policy and regional expansionism, which have isolated Iran and contributed to extremely high inflation in the country.”

Posted in disobedience, freedom, gender, justice, Nota Bene, power, revolt, rights

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Amir Ahmadi Arian: “Without them: In Iran, a revolution of the mind has already taken place”

Posted on November 1, 2022 by

“How can you tell if a society is in a revolutionary state? I wonder if you ever can. Everyone who remembers the 1979 revolution will tell you that up to the very last day, most people were living their lives as if nothing was happening. Iran today is not different. Intense, bloody clashes between protestors and the police are interspersed with days of calm. Everyday life goes on at the same time as massive protests. If you go out on the street, you can collect evidence for both an imminent revolution and total peace.”

Posted in crisis, gender, justice, Nota Bene, revolution, rights, tyranny, violence

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A statement: “Leftists worldwide, stand by the protesters in Iran!”

Posted on November 27, 2019 by

“The following is a statement by the Iranian leftist diaspora in the United Kingdom, France and Germany who have formed a loose coalition of academics and militants to express their support for the ongoing popular uprising in Iran.”

Posted in emergency, In The News, revolt, the Left

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“Is Revolution Brewing in Iran?”

Posted on May 22, 2018 by

“While women and youth have been at the helm of the everyday form of resistance, it is their collective efforts with the labor movement, the teacher’s union, the farmers, the impoverished, the environmentalists, the families of the victims of the 1988 massacre, and many other oppressed sectors of the society that have now created a clear path to real and popular revolution in Iran.”

Posted in gender, In The News, justice, resistance, revolution

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Haleh Esfandiari: “Reform or Revolution? Iran’s Path to Democracy”

Posted on February 2, 2018 by

“Iran has often seemed to be on the brink of democracy. During the twentieth century, the country experienced three major political upheavals: … [They] all constituted a reaction to corruption, misrule, and autocracy. They all reflected the spread of literacy, the rising expectations of a growing middle class, and the impatience of a wealthy business community with official mismanagement. They were all characterized by an aspiration for some form of democratic government. Yet each time, that aspiration was disappointed. … In Democracy in Iran, Misagh Parsa examines why the forces of repression have always gained the upper hand over Iran’s democratic impulses and how democracy might eventually emerge in Iran. “

Posted in defeat, democracy, governance, In The News, revolution, tragic politics

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Neda Semnani: “Not a Revolution”

Posted on January 12, 2018 by

On Iranian protests:  “The start [of revolution] is lofty, chaotic, and idealistic, while the aftermath is often a painful and difficult disappointment. Nonetheless, people do revolt. And, I believe, there are times they should. But arriving at revolution is never a victory. It is a deep and violent trauma and people choose it because they feel the old system was so broken and had failed them profoundly that they have no choice. Revolution is the primal scream of a dissatisfied collective. You did us wrong, the people shout in unison, so we are wresting power from you and placing our faith in a new, untested future.”

Posted in justice, law, Nota Bene, revolt, revolution

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Kaveh Ehsani & Arang Keshavarzian: “The Moral Economy of the Iranian Protests”

Posted on January 12, 2018 by

“The Iranian demonstrators share the familiar anxieties produced by global capitalism’s rampant inequalities and environmental destruction. … What makes the demonstrations against malfeasance and the calls for political change and social justice powerful is the fact that the protesters are accusing Iran’s rulers of violating the revolution’s commitment to a moral economy.”

Posted in ethics, justice, law, Nota Bene, revolt, revolution, tragic politics

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Karim Sadjadpour: “The Battle for Iran”

Posted on January 2, 2018 by

“Two-thousand-five-hundred years of Persian civilization and a century-long quest for democracy offer hope about the irrepressible Iranian will for change. But the Islamic Republic’s four-decade history of brutality suggests that change will not come easily, or peacefully, or soon.”

Posted in In The News, power, resistance, tyranny

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