Iran: Demographics and Democracy
Click to Listen to the Show (24 MB MP3)
A quickly changing Iran? [Niosha Farshad /Flickr]
Just a quick placeholder here for an upcoming show.
We’re following up on our show To Iran, Like Nixon to China with a look at Iran’s democracy. And its demographics. Seventy percent of Iran’s population is under 30; Persian now ties French for the second most-used language in the blogosphere. So they’re young and they’re part of the Internet; how can we understand Iran’s limited and theocratic democracy?
We’re hoping to pick up where last week’s show left off, and to get deeper inside Iran’s situation tonight. The definition of victory, to use our internal O.S. language, is to move past straight politics and toward a better understanding of Iran’s cultural cross-currents. Some of the strands of the discussion: what can be learned about Iran from its technologically savvy youth; the emerging power and politics of the blogosphere; and — whether it’s in films or blogs or underground newspapers or coffee shop discussions — how the coded language of dissent actually works.
The underlying question for all of this is the tension between the secular and the religious in a country that was listed by George Bush as one third of the axis of evil, and has been high on Western radar — for its nuclear ambitions, or Ahmadinejad’s denunciations of Israel, or the earthquake, or reading Lolita — ever since.
To answer these questions — and, perhaps more importantly, to ask some new ones — we’re turning to a young, diverse (Iranian/French/American, American, Iranian/British, and Iranian/Canadian) female-heavy group of writers and thinkers:
Lila Azam Zanganeh
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Editor, the forthcoming anthology My Sister, Guard Your Veil; My Brother, Guard Your Eyes
Contributor, Le Monde
Nasrin Alavi
- Author, We Are Iran
Laura Secor
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Staff editor of the Op-Ed page, New York Times
Author, “Fugitives” in the 11/21/05 New Yorker
Hossein Derakhshan
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Blogger (in English), Editor: Myself
Blogger (in Persian), سردبير: خودم
December 6th, 2005 at 9:19 pm
We Are Iran: The Persian Blogs. Nasrin Alavi.
Check out these links:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8049628/site/newsweek/
“Iranian bloggers have harnessed the subversive power of the Web to express themselves politically–and also to find dates in a society that curtails public courting…”
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/dd7792e4-4da0-11da-ba44-0000779e2340,ft_acl=,s01=1.html
http://www.newstatesman.com/200511280034
http://www.opendemocracy.net/democracy-irandemocracy/ahmadinejad_2981.jsp
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/critique.cfm?id=2184942005
http://www.the-week.com/25nov06/lifestyle_article4.htm
http://forums.wordswithoutborders.org/?q=pluscachange
Blogging against the mullahs
Also, Hossein Derakhshan is the pre-eminent Iranian blogger, basically the grandfather of Iranian blogging, but I think he’s travelling a good deal in Euope right now…
December 7th, 2005 at 12:32 am
AIPAC Not Happy With Rice’s New Approach To Iran
AIPAC, an Israeli interest and spy agency operating in the United States. They’ve been very cozy with the Bush Administration and ultimately led an aid to Doug Feith, Cheney’s man> at the Pentagon, Franklin and his two buddies at AIPAC being indicted…
December 7th, 2005 at 12:46 pm
Shining Light in Dark Corners Says:
“AIPAC, an Israeli interest and spy agency operating in the United States.”
It seems like you are turning off the lights and spreading darkness with you anti-Semitic canards about Jewish spy agencies.
Amazing how these jew haters never use their own names.
Brandon your blog is becoming another Jew hating web site.
December 7th, 2005 at 1:16 pm
Given the alleged conduct of Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman during their tenure at AIPAC, Shining Light’s categorization of AIPAC may not be so far off the mark. I’m withholding judgment until the results of their trial, but it certainly casts an ugly shadow on the organization. The court should throw the book at them if they’re found guilty.
December 7th, 2005 at 1:49 pm
>Given the alleged conduct of Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman during their tenure at AIPAC, Shining Light’s categorization of AIPAC may not be so far off the mark. I’m withholding judgment until the results of their trial, but it certainly casts an ugly shadow on the organization. The court should throw the book at them if they’re found guilty.
First, these individuals are no longer with AIPAC and the comment above was about AIPAC. Second, withholding judgment is what fair minded individuals should do. Third, why do you think their guilt i(if they are found guilty) deserves more severe punishment than other persons found guilty?
From my perspective, the whole affair is overblown and the fact that the same people who are accusing the Bush people of acting unfairly towards other people being prosecuted now turn around and think that the prosecution of two Jews is both fair and reasonable tells me that there is more than a little bias involved here.
This may not be the Dreyfus affair but the sentiment is pretty much the same: “they are Jews ergo they are guilty of treason.”
December 7th, 2005 at 2:00 pm
Also, speaking of Hossein Derakhshan, I recorded a podcast of him speaking at the WSIS summit in Tunisia last month:
http://www.andycarvin.com/archives/2005/11/hoder_on_the_ir.html
ac
December 7th, 2005 at 4:28 pm
RicahrdNash- we got a press copy of Nasrin’s book a few weeks ago and that was one inspiration for this show. I’m interviewing her soon, and excited about that. Thanks for all those links!
December 7th, 2005 at 7:00 pm
I’m disappointed at the way the thread from last night’s program disintegrated. He’s something to hopefully push this forward. Are any of you familiar with Thomas Barnett’s work? He wrote “The Pentagon’s New Map” last year and has a new book out recently.
Barnett suggested in an Esquire article a while back (and in his book) that a pillar of US policy should be to co-opt Iran by cutting a deal with them acknowledging them as a regional power and blessing their having the bomb in exchange for opening up their markets/connecting them to the world more. He’s pointed out recently that Rafsanjani, who’s been a proponent of engaging with the west, was appointed to the head of a body that mediates between the elected branch at the Guardian council. An interesting result, and one that could explain Ahmadinejad’s apparent need to flex his rhetorical muscles in the recent past.
Anyway, I think Barnett would make a great guest for a program along these lines in the future.
December 8th, 2005 at 12:22 pm
To all of you in love with the Iranian dictator:
Iran’s Ahmadinejad casts doubt on Holocaust
Thu Dec 8, 2005 10:34 AM ET
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyid=2005-12-08T153435Z_01_RID850121_RTRUKOC_0_US-MIDEAST-IRAN-AHMADINEJAD.xml&rpc=22
December 8th, 2005 at 2:34 pm
Did you catch this story on Day to Day about the American basketball player in Iran?
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5044110
December 13th, 2005 at 8:29 pm
Read how the UK helped the Shah start his nuclear program 30 years ago.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1653668,00.html
December 13th, 2005 at 8:34 pm
There’s nothing too surprising about the weeds of repressed desire, for ALL kinds of freedom, poking up through the pavement of excessive regimentation, religious or otherwise. Young Iran also won’t stand by silently while the axis of Bush, Inc. furhters its imperial agenda.
December 13th, 2005 at 8:51 pm
Also, I’d lay good odds that the common Iranian citizen doesn’t really want war in general, or wiping Israel off the map, specifically, and especially young Iranians. It is customary, historically, for older men to start trouble in the world and argue for abstractions like Homeland and honor rather than real things like life and all it encompasses, like natural sensuality. GO EROS! BEAT THANATOS!!
December 14th, 2005 at 9:24 pm
[…] possibility of a thawing diplomatic dialogue between Iran and the United States. Part Two (Iran: Demographics and Democracy) explores the burgeoning youth of Iran and the h […]
January 23rd, 2006 at 8:43 am
Vote for Shrillary, vote for Bush’s wars: http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=8428
February 2nd, 2006 at 7:46 am
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